John Krich

John Krich’s Music in Every Room depicts the disappointments and corruptions of modern travel. “This quirky, querulous and oddly appealing travelogue” (The Boston Globe) charts Krich’s journey across Asia with his irascible, courageous girlfriend, Iris, an ex-cheerleader turned mystic from Liberty, Texas. These two abandon Berkeley for uneasy locales where the first and third worlds rarely butt heads, thus abandoning air conditioning and all the other assumptions and comforts of show more home. They acquire blisters in the Himalayas and dengue fever in Bali, smoke opium with a suspected CIA agent and fend off the supplications of lost hippies and Gandhian holy men alike. They discover that the Pomp and Joy Lodge in Taramarang harbors bedbugs, and the famed shadow puppets of Indonesia take second billing to reruns of “I Dream of Jeannie.” What they don’t find is nirvana, satori, or freedom from the crassness of the West show less

This is travel writing that delivers because it blends grit with laughter! When truth *is* funnier than fiction. And it's fascinating too!

A really dreadful work, in terms of journalism. Krich has a bouncy writing style that can be both entertaining and annoying. But the main problem is that the book is filled with factual errors, Krich is not very conversant with Brazil's music or its history, and he takes a lot of cheap shots at Brazilian artists he doesn't know much about.

Interesting book I found in a small private bookstore in Chicago.