Paul Theroux's writing is, at it's best, a long, dreamy meditation on a place, it's people, and the time he spent among them. His latest piece, an op-ed in the New York Times about America in 2007, is no exception.
posted by nevercalm on Jan 3, 2007 - 99 comments

Remember Dong Resin's book? (discussion here), well another long term Mefite Johnny Novak has just had his first novel published by Random House in the UK, Sea Otters Gambolling in the Wild, Wild Surf. Watch the trailer (flash, sound) or find out more (link to Vintage site). (via Projects)
posted by the cuban on Feb 9, 2006 - 37 comments

How to write about Africa. Always use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in your title. Most travel books about Africa open with the author alone, carried along by some vehicle, looking down over some landscape and feeling anxious. Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.
posted by gottabefunky on Jan 6, 2006 - 17 comments

Heldencrow catalogues the far-flung adventures of an Irish barrister who nipped out of the Dublin law library on a coffee break one afternoon and never went back. Written between 2001 and 2004, his world reports run the gamut, from London to Colorado to the Himalaya. Don't miss his meditations on opera and his hand-drawn cartoon, The Hat and Spoon.
posted by nyterrant on Aug 10, 2005 - 6 comments

What Was True. From the mid 1950s through the early 1980s, William Gedney (1932-1989) photographed throughout the United States, in India, and in Europe, and filling notebook after notebook with his observations. From the commerce of the street outside his Brooklyn apartment to the daily chores of unemployed coal miners, from the lifestyle of hippies in Haight-Ashbury to the sacred rituals of Hindu worshippers, Gedney was able to record the lives of others with clarity and poignancy. Gedney's America is a nation of averted eyes, and broken automobiles, and restlessness, a place Edward Hopper would recognize, but so, also, Walt Whitman.
posted by matteo on Apr 27, 2005 - 11 comments

For the adventurous reader Dispatches From The Vanishing World a collection of environment themed travel articles by Alex Shoumatoff. Observe the "skeed row" behaviour of The Alcoholic Monkeys of St.Kitts, or travel to the worlds largest swap almost twice the size of England in the Amazon, this site presents magazine articles by Alex over the last 30 years as seen in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Rolling Stone.
posted by stbalbach on Feb 20, 2004 - 6 comments