[Johnny Brown]

Deep South - Paul Theroux. The best travel book on the American south I have read

That's interesting. I read a few Theroux books in my teens and enjoyed them, but recently picked up a couple and found them pretty dull. Have read a couple of Jonathan Raban's on the US though too - Old Glory and Hunting Mr Heartbreak - which I'd thoroughly recommend.

[andy popp]

Deep South - Paul Theroux. The best travel book on the American south I have read

That's interesting. I read a few Theroux books in my teens and enjoyed them, but recently picked up a couple and found them pretty dull. Have read a couple of Jonathan Raban's on the US though too - Old Glory and Hunting Mr Heartbreak - which I'd thoroughly recommend.

There's also a new book by Joan Didion on the American south (it was actually written in 1970 but has just been published for the first time). I have her 1968 classic Slouching Towards Bethlehem cued up and ready to go on the 'to read' pile. In a similar vein I've just started Arlie Russell Hochschild's Strangers in their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, which is centred on Louisiana. I've been looking forward to reading this in ages. Will report back later.

[Johnny Brown]

If you enjoy Jonathan Raban's style I recommend Passage to Juneau, which is (loosely) built around a solo trip up the BC and southern Alaska coast

Funnily enough I reread it last week. It's my least favourite book of his, mired as it is in his divorce and father's death. Plus he's at his best exploring landscape through the people and history, both of which are thin on the ground here. Old Glory is probably the one I'd recommend most.

Going back to Theroux, I think the problem is his jobbing approach. He makes a journey and divides the words equally against the miles. Like Raban, he's best on exploring cultures but struggles with nature or landscape. In his book on walking the British coast by far the best chapter is on Northern Ireland and the troubles.

[DaveC]

I like the writings of both Raban and Theroux for quite different reasons.  The latter is I think,  a better writer on people and events and Deep South was a very fine example of this.  Raban is more at home writing about people and place, about landscape and how people exist within it.  I loved his Bad Land, which looked at the bleak high plains of eastern Montana and the few people who still carve out an existence there.  I agree with Habrich about Passage to Juneau, it resonates more if you are an Ex-pat as I was when I first read it.  I must look up that Joan Didion book,  I generally like her take on things.

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[DaveC]

I like the writings of both Raban and Theroux for quite different reasons.  The latter is I think,  a better writer on people and events and Deep South was a very fine example of this.  Raban is more at home writing about people and place, about landscape and how people exist within it.  I loved his Bad Land, which looked at the bleak high plains of eastern Montana and the few people who still carve out an existence there.  I agree with Habrich about Passage to Juneau, it resonates more if you are an Ex-pat as I was when I first read it.  I must look up that Joan Didion book,  I generally like her take on things.

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[chris05]

I'll be ordering some Raban to try. I am currently reading The Return of the King by William Dalrymple. It's not my favourite of his books but has some highly resonant passages concerning the British invasion of Afghanistan (the first time). This one is less of a travel account and more historically focused. I'd recommend Dalrymple particularly to those who enjoyed Patrick Leigh Femor.

Also read Robert Fisk's Pity The Nation which whilst not a comfortable read in many places provides an excellent insight into the Lebanese civil war.

I think I have reached an age where I have realised how little history I know! Does anyone have any recommendations for books on the Spanish Civil War?

[moose]

I found Beevor's account of the Spanish Civil War very readable.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jun/24/featuresreviews.guardianreview4

[chris05]

I found Beevor's account of the Spanish Civil War very readable.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jun/24/featuresreviews.guardianreview4

Great, looks like a good starting point. Thanks moose.

[duncan]

Hugh Thomas' The Spanish Civil War is the classic account. Beevor does his usual clear and engaging job.

There are also the accounts of writers and journalists there at the time: Orwell's Homage To Catalonia of course and a more qualified recommendation for Hemmingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn's The Face of War starts with some astonishing reporting from the war in Spain and continues all the way to Central America in the 90s.   

I like taking a book about the country I'm visiting on climbing trips.

[Falling Down]

On the subject of travel writing.  I quite enjoyed reading this piece on Bruce Chatwin in the Obs. the other weekend.

I've mostly had my head down in books for my training and studies working through Jung, Freud, Klein, Winnicot, Hillman, Rowan, Rogers, Rowan and lots of others.  Really fascinating and enjoyable.

For a bit of light reading on hols I enjoyed the first three of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels.  Great fun.  The only problem is that you want to finish them once you've started so I ended up reading late into the night as they're a bit addictive.

Last week I enjoyed Rebecca Solnit's "Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities".  Written first in the mid 00's after Bush's second election and then updated in 2016 (prior to Trump) it's a lovely little book and a bit of manifesto on how to turn away from despair toward hope for humanity and the small actions that can make such a difference.  Solnit's a novelist and all-round activist.   It's good.

[chris05]

Hugh Thomas' The Spanish Civil War is the classic account. Beevor does his usual clear and engaging job.

There are also the accounts of writers and journalists there at the time: Orwell's Homage To Catalonia of course and a more qualified recommendation for Hemmingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn's The Face of War starts with some astonishing reporting from the war in Spain and continues all the way to Central America in the 90s.   

I like taking a book about the country I'm visiting on climbing trips.

Thanks. I was a bit put off the Hugh Thomas version by some reviews suggesting it was dated and biased but will take a look. I love Hemingway so For Whom The Bell Tolls was devoured a while ago. Homage to Catalonia is also on the list.

[Will Hunt]

Hugh Thomas' The Spanish Civil War is the classic account. Beevor does his usual clear and engaging job.

There are also the accounts of writers and journalists there at the time: Orwell's Homage To Catalonia of course and a more qualified recommendation for Hemmingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn's The Face of War starts with some astonishing reporting from the war in Spain and continues all the way to Central America in the 90s.   

I like taking a book about the country I'm visiting on climbing trips.

Thanks. I was a bit put off the Hugh Thomas version by some reviews suggesting it was dated and biased but will take a look. I love Hemingway so For Whom The Bell Tolls was devoured a while ago. Homage to Catalonia is also on the list.

I really enjoyed Homage to Catalonia and For Whom The Bell Tolls, but they're very different books by very different writers. FWTBT reads (to me) as a glorification of death in the gallant struggle against Franco - and I've heard Hemingway variously described as a warmonger and a fascist. Homage is far more honest in it's documentation of the chaotic management of the Republican forces and the futility of their resistance in the face of their own brutal in-fighting.

Bear in mind that Orwell fought with the POUM when in Spain; this is what Hemingway has to say about them:
"The POUM was never serious. It was a heresy of crackpots and wild men and it was really just an infantilism. There were some honest misguided people. There was one fairly good brain and there was a little fascist money. Not much. The poor POUM. They were very silly people."

What I'm trying to say is, don't just read Hemingway without reading something else.


Before you read any of this you should probably read Laurie Lee's As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, which is just one of the most mind-blowing books I've ever read. Lee travelled to Spain, without knowing any Spanish, and walked from north to south, earning money along the way by playing his fiddle on street corners. He was naively oblivious, as he travelled, to the mobilisation of Franco's rebellion and was eventually plucked out of Malaga by the British Navy when war broke out. He wrote of his return to Spain to fight in A Moment of War, though many claim that his account is a fiction and that he never returned. Again, his naivety comes through strongly - it's a similar account to Orwell's in it's description of barely organised chaos, but Orwell feels like a more significant actor in the conflict, while Lee is merely someone being swept along (and very nearly killed) by events that he can neither comprehend or control.

[chris05]

Thanks Will. I have read As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (and A Moment of War) and agree it's awesome.

[duncan]

I really enjoyed Homage to Catalonia and For Whom The Bell Tolls, but they're very different books by very different writers. FWTBT reads (to me) as a glorification of death in the gallant struggle against Franco - and I've heard Hemingway variously described as a warmonger and a fascist. Homage is far more honest in it's documentation of the chaotic management of the Republican forces and the futility of their resistance in the face of their own brutal in-fighting.

Bear in mind that Orwell fought with the POUM when in Spain; this is what Hemingway has to say about them:
"The POUM was never serious. It was a heresy of crackpots and wild men and it was really just an infantilism. There were some honest misguided people. There was one fairly good brain and there was a little fascist money. Not much. The poor POUM. They were very silly people."

What I'm trying to say is, don't just read Hemingway without reading something else.


Before you read any of this you should probably read Laurie Lee's As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, which is just one of the most mind-blowing books I've ever read. Lee travelled to Spain, without knowing any Spanish, and walked from north to south, earning money along the way by playing his fiddle on street corners. He was naively oblivious, as he travelled, to the mobilisation of Franco's rebellion and was eventually plucked out of Malaga by the British Navy when war broke out. He wrote of his return to Spain to fight in A Moment of War, though many claim that his account is a fiction and that he never returned. Again, his naivety comes through strongly - it's a similar account to Orwell's in it's description of barely organised chaos, but Orwell feels like a more significant actor in the conflict, while Lee is merely someone being swept along (and very nearly killed) by events that he can neither comprehend or control.

I can't believe I missed out Laurie Lee! Loved this, along with Patrick Leigh Fermor inspired youthful wanderings. I have the same misgivings about Hemmingway.

I recommend this BBC World Service programme about The Valle de los Caidos, Franco's memorial to the Falange dead from the civil war. The continuing controversy about the fate of the site reflects the remaining divisions over the civil war, to a degree playing themselves out right now in Catalonia.   

[Johnny Brown]

On the subject of travel writing.  I quite enjoyed reading this piece on Bruce Chatwin in the Obs. the other weekend.

Nice one FD. Another great piece on Chatwin here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/t-magazine/bruce-chatwin.html

Songlines had probably had more influence on my philosophy of life than any other book. Read Nicholas Shakespeare's biography a couple of years back - incredibly thorough and full of fascinating insights into the man, but a bit of a wade at times and by the end I liked him rather less.

[Falling Down]

Thanks JB I'll have a read of that later.  I've never touched Songlines but will have a look for one.  In Patagonia made a big impression on me.  I think I read it in my first year at Sheff Poly having just turned eighteen and it seemed like it came from another world.

[Johnny Brown]

About a year ago I was down in the Cotswolds shooting a walking guide for Vertebrate. At the end of a very long first day I photographed the sunset over the western escarpments and then headed down into Stroud to find some food and a bed. But before I got there a sign loomed out of the darkness - Slad. I pulled in at The Woolpack, perched on the bank above Laurie Lee's childhood home, and enjoyed a burger and pint with the friendly locals. They hadn't read his books but remembered him and his sisters. In the end I dossed in the car up at Bull's cross, trying not to remember the gallows or ghost coach described in Cider with Rosie, then photographed the sunrise slowly burn off the mists in the valley. It wasn't hard to imagine the rural idyll of Lee's childhood, or the way the tight horizons and distant glimpse of the estuary might set a young man off on walkabout.

A couple of months later I was again working on the book a little further south. It was heavy going, lots of little lanes to drive down, tricky navigation and never anywhere to park the car. At the end of one deep valley I reached a dead end, wedged the car in a driveway and set off on foot. Although it was late morning the valley was still in shadow and thick with frost and pastel autumn colour; in twenty minutes I got more keepers than the rest of the day together. It was only when I got home I discovered the driveway had been Chatwin's.

Have you read On the black hill Ben? That's another of Chatwin's you'd love, total contrast to the travel books being a novel set in a tiny landscape and spanning three generations at one farm, all beautifully drawn.

[jwi]

I really rate Songlines. My favourite Chatwin is the collection of short stories and essays "What am I doing here?"

[Herbert]

I have a soft spot for On the Black Hill, set(ish) in the valley adjacent to where I grew up. This year I have been mostly reading epic sequences of novels about misbehaving posh people:

A dance to the music of time, Anthony Powell. Started after a reccomendation on the Big Wall Book club thread, and instantly hooked. Widmerpole is coffee snorted through the nose funny.
Alms for oblivion, Simon Raven: PG Wodehouse with lashings of sex, violence and lavatorial humour. What’s not to like?

And just finished Tremor of intent, Anthony Burgess. A very good spy romp, with the food bits of Fleming turned up to 11.

[Falling Down]

Great story JB... lovely. Yes I read On the Black Hill years ago not long after In Patagonia.  Bought it from the Pwhelli bookshop one Summertime whilst working as a gardener in Abersoch.  I should go back to it one day as I think I was a bit too young to really appreciate it.

[seankenny]

Read Nicholas Shakespeare's biography a couple of years back - incredibly thorough and full of fascinating insights into the man, but a bit of a wade at times and by the end I liked him rather less.

I loved the biography, at the time I got caught up in the rather old fashioned romanticism of his story but as I got a bit older I began to think I probably wouldn't have liked him all that much. Worth it for the many asides, which is what makes What Am I Doing Here? such a good read.

"Pink," said Chatwin, "is the navy blue of India." Isn't it just?

It certainly makes the 1960s and 1970s seem a strange and foreign place, at least if you were posh and connected.

[andy popp]

I've nothing to add to this specific conversation, having never read Theroux, Raban, or even Chatwiin. But I love it when this thread bursts back into life, as it does from time to time.

[duncan]

Another fan of Songlines here, though it is decades since I loooked it and I'm a bit worried I'd be disappointed if I was to do so again. It helped me justify my wandering to myself. I read it holed-up in a scruffy hotel (the Windsor ... or the anti-Windsor?) below Nemrut Dağı in central Turkey. I'd arranged to meet an almost ex-girlfriend there, for what we both knew would be the last time. After a day and a half waiting and reading - no internet or working phones of course - she turned up right on time just as I was finishing the last chapter.

[jwi]

Worth noting though, I've a good friend (and phd student in sociology) who grew up in a saami/laplander family with a semi-nomadic lifestyle (they still have plenty of rain-deers and quite a nomadic lifestyle), and she didn't much rate the stuff Chatwin wrote on saami nomads.

Brilliant book nevertheless.

[fried]

I've nothing to add to this specific conversation, having never read Theroux, Raban, or even Chatwiin. But I love it when this thread bursts back into life, as it does from time to time.

Me too (although I do love Chatwin). A good proportion of my reading comes from recommendations on this thread. Keep up the good work.