Synopses & Reviews
The Best American Series®
First, Best, and Best-Selling
The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected — and most popular — of its kind.
The Best American Travel Writing 2012 includes
Bryan Curtis, Lynn Freed, J. Malcolm Garcia, Peter Gwin,
Pico Iyer, Mark Jenkins, Dimiter Kenarov, Robin Kirk,
Kimberly Meyer, Paul Theroux, and others
Review
Elizabeth Gilbert (
Eat, Pray, Love, 2006), guest editor of the latest volume in this always rich yearly anthology, boldly avers that she chose travel stories that “were told the most marvelously in 2012.” All the pieces included here are treasures of excellent writing, regardless of genre. -
Booklist The latest installment of the travel-writing series upholds the tradition of world-expanding excellence.The wonder continues in the fact that, regardless of subject, each story takes its place in the collection proudly and deservedly. - Kirkus
Review
"
Bold and questing writer and world traveler Vollmann is at the helm of the thirteenth edition of this superb travel annual, which has always been distinguished by its stellar guest editors. Guided by his unceasing curiosity about complex places and authentic voices, Vollmann has chosen 19
electrifying essays...
Vollmanns 'best' assemblage profoundly extends the reach of the ever-vital and enlightening art of travel writing."
-Booklist (starred)
"The latest intriguing batch of travel writing from the venerable series. [T]hese stories...undoubtedly bring a taste of adventure to readers...they open a window onto the strange, seedy and beautiful in the world, offering readers glimpses into places that many will never see or experience except through the eyes and words of these writers. Mostly engaging, diverse tales of offbeat travel adventures."
-Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
Since publishing the original edition of
A Womans World in 1995, Travelers Tales has been the recognized leader in womens travel literature, and with the launch of the annual series The Best Travel Writing in 2004, the obvious next step was an annual collection of the best womens travel writing of the year. This title is the seventh in an annual series
The Best Womens Travel Writingthat presents stimulating, inspiring, and uplifting adventures from women who have traveled to the ends of the earth to discover new places, peoples, and facets of themselves. The common threads connecting these stories are a womans perspective and fresh, compelling storytelling to make the reader laugh, weep, wish she were there, or be glad she wasnt. The points of view and perspectives are global, and themes are as eclectic as in all of our books, including stories that encompass spiritual growth, hilarity and misadventure, high adventure, romance, solo journeys, stories of service to humanity, family travel, and encounters with exotic cuisine.
In The Best Women's Travel Writing 2010 readers will:
Enter the lives of wild horses in the American Southwest
Ride the back roads of old China, solo, on a motorcycle
Walk the walk of Muslim women, behind the veil, in Egypt
Fight it out in a kung fu monastery in China
Discover the hidden magic of Flamenco in Spain
...and much more.
Synopsis
Since publishing
A Womans World in 1995, Travelers Tales has been the recognized leader in womens travel literature, and with the launch of the annual series The Best Travel Writing in 2004, the obvious next step was an annual collection of the best womens travel writing of the year. This title is the seventh in an annual series
The Best Womens Travel Writingthat presents inspiring and uplifting adventures from women who have traveled to the ends of the earth to discover new places, peoples, and facets of themselves. The common threads are a womans perspective and compelling storytelling to make the reader laugh, weep, wish she were there, or be glad she wasnt.
In The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011, readers
Have lunch with a mobster in Japan and drinks with an IRA member in Ireland
Learn the secrets of flamenco in Spain and the magic of samba in Brazil
Deliver a trophy for best testicles in a small town in rural Serbia
Fall in love while riding a camel through the Syrian Desert
Ski a first descent of over 5,000 feet in Northern India
Discover the joy of getting naked in South Korea
Leave it all behind to slop pigs on a farm in Ecuador...and much more.
Synopsis
A collection of the best travel writing pieces published in American periodicals during 2012.
Synopsis
Number-one New York Times best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed: A Love Story, Elizabeth Gilbert transports readers to far-flung locales with this collection of the years lushest and most inspiring travel writing.
About the Author
JASON WILSON, series editor, is the author of Boozehound: On the Trail of the Rare, the Obscure, and the Overrated in Spirits and the digital wine series Planet of the Grapes. He has written for the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Daily News, and many other publications. He is the founding editor of The Smart Set and Table Matters.
ELIZABETH GILBERT is the author of the story collection Pilgrims, a finalist for the 1998 PEN/Hemingway Award. It was a New York Times Notable Book and was listed as one of the Most Intriguing Books of 1997 by Glamour magazine. Pilgrims also won best first fiction awards from the Paris Review, the Southern Review, and Ploughshares. Her fiction has been published in Esquire, Story, GQ, Paris Review, Ploughshares, and the Mississippi Review. She is also a Pushcart Prize winner, and her nonfiction writing has earned her a 1999 National Magazine Award nomination. Annie Proulx called Gilbert a "young writer of incandescent talent." Currently a writer-at-large for GQ, Gilbert lives in New York's Hudson Valley.