Our beloved book columnist Don George is back this month and celebrating the release of Paul Theroux's newest book, The Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. This is his "best book since The Great Railway Bazaar, the masterwork that launched his travel writing career," says George...
For Theroux, train travel is "probably the best way of getting a glimpse of how people actually live—the back yards, the barns, the hovels, the side roads and slums, the telling facts of village life, the misery that airplanes fly over." His method is to hop a train from one place to another, and then to pause and wander the markets, museums, and back alleys for a few days, meeting random people, sometimes touring with local experts. While this kind of drop-in journalism presents obvious limitations, Theroux is such a honed observer and expert at extricating the telling detail or anecdote that his observations and analyses ring true.
Read the full review, along with a bevvy of Venice-inspired tomes, and a collection of other new and noteworthy titles at Traveler's website.
Photo: Paul Souders/WorldFoto/drr.net
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