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A review by mattycakesbooks
The Best American Travel Writing 2012 by William T. Vollmann, Jason Wilson
4.0
Overall, a very good collection. I'm surprised, actually, because I'm ranking this as highly as I ranked the 2008 edition, which I also just read and was edited by a favorite of mine, Anthony Bourdain. Vollman doesn't have QUITE the same taste as me, and there are a few in here I was not a fan of - I'm not much into Thomas Swick in this or in any of the other editions, and Aaron Dactyl's piece struck me as a bit misanthropic - but a few of them were absolutely incredible. Specifically:
-J. Malcolm Garcia's piece on Northern Ireland
-Paul Theroux's bit on Maine
-Peter Gwin's bit on Timbuktu
-Kenan Trebincevic's bit on going back home to the Balkans.
I've seen a number of complaints on Goodreads that the stories aren't generally speaking "travel writing," but are more pieces with a strong emphasis on the location of the piece, but I don't understand how this is a bad thing. Providing a historical or journalistic context for a location always makes traveling to it much more rewarding for me. And travelogues are often superficial and boring. Overall, a worthy addition to the series.
-J. Malcolm Garcia's piece on Northern Ireland
-Paul Theroux's bit on Maine
-Peter Gwin's bit on Timbuktu
-Kenan Trebincevic's bit on going back home to the Balkans.
I've seen a number of complaints on Goodreads that the stories aren't generally speaking "travel writing," but are more pieces with a strong emphasis on the location of the piece, but I don't understand how this is a bad thing. Providing a historical or journalistic context for a location always makes traveling to it much more rewarding for me. And travelogues are often superficial and boring. Overall, a worthy addition to the series.