Donald W. George

Mongolians don't believe in wasting any of their beloved sheep. Everything was in the bowl, floating in a sort of primeval ooze: lungs, stomach, bladder, brain, intestines, eyeballs, teeth, genitals. It was a lucky sheep dip; you were never sure what you were going to pull out. I fished carefully, not too keen on finding myself with the testicles. My first go produced an object that resembled an old purse dredged up from the bottom of a stagnant canal. I think it might have been an ear. I show more had better luck with the intestines, which were delicious, and once brought to the surface, went on for quite a while.

That's why we read books like this, which is sub-titled Life-changing Food Adventures Around the World, isn't it? For the startling meals we would never have thought of as edible, let alone the company-best casserole, written about by people with a willingness to do anything as well as a good sense of humor. This anthology put out by Lonely Planet is, as with every anthology, a mixed bag of the fantastic, the heart-warming, the pretentious and the slightly boring. The count is loaded towards the fantastic, with the best story of all by Tim Cahill, The Rooster's Head in the Soup, which manages to be instructional, touching and very, very funny. Other stand-outs included a story about Kansas City barbeque by Doug Mack and a short bit by Andrew McCarthy (yes, that Andrew McCarthy) set in Thailand, about how a meal among friendly strangers can ease loneliness. show less

The game ended as sunset approached and church bells struck seven. I'm pretty sure we didn't play for a regulation 90 minutes. The thin air at seven-thousand-feet-plus was rough on us boys from the low plains. And we lost decisively – Mexico City 5 (I think), Omaha 2 – but we scored, twice, playing their national pastime on their street. We were breathless, sweaty, filthy, bloody, bruised and totally, deeply, existentially gratified.

I obtained this book as a downloadable freebie from a show more card I picked up in Starbucks freebie, and then it stayed in iBooks on my iPad for a long time, as I prefer to read ebooks on my Kindle. Finally, however, I was challenged to read and review for the Go Review That Book! group, and I decide to read it on holiday this summer.

Lonely Planet's decision to ask fiction writers to contribute non-fiction travel tales to a book has worked out really well, and I found this book so much better than I had expected! I was hooked from the very first story, a wonderfully nostalgic tale of a road trip to Mexico with a group of friends the summer between school and college, during which they made an unexpected connection with the locals after giving a boy a lift.

There are stories that take place in all corners of the world, ranging across every continent, including Antarctica, and even one place that has never existed. There are encounters with witches and beggars, with criminals in and outside prison, and memories of trips taken long ago with former friends and lovers.

There may have been the odd story that didn't resonate with me, but the vast majority did, and I will end with another of my favourites, a story of a day spent exploring an old mine in Ireland, easily accessible then but long ago blocked off by barbed wire.

I saw light ahead and went towards it. It was falling from up high onto a rock wall, a bright triangular patch of sunlight that threw the jags of rock into high relief. I turned off the flashlight and approached with awe. A green cave landscape was illuminated, a copper lake of turquoise water that glinted in the sunshine, a small shaly beach, a far-flung outcrop of rock, almost white in the glare. You could get to the outcrop by going round the side and crouching low where the rock hung out over the water, but the ground there was scree-like and sloping and the water looked deep.
I was underneath one of the big open shafts. The walls glittered. The water flowed out of the lake, round the rock and away down a channel about three feet across, meandering towards a grand arched darkness in the distance. I'm bad at judging distances, but you could have swum in the lake, rowed a boat. show less

I read An Innocent Abroad the week I was home sick and couldn’t digest anything more taxing than a few short stories at a time; it was just what the doctor ordered, and by the time I finished reading this book I was back on my feet, refreshed in my mind and wanting to travel. These 35 stories that changed each author, brought back memories of when I was an innocent broad, okay I know that’s not the title couldn’t resist the joke. Still the memory of my own life changing journey, at 22, show more with a man I’d only known for 3 days before flying to Mexico with him, only later to discover that his name was an alias and he smuggled drugs to finance his travels: took my innocence and would fit comfortably between these pages. Now, as for this book, it contains many gems that will appeal to a wide variety of readers: some stories will make you laugh, some will give you that ah ha moment, some will make you cringe and say no way, but each will leave you wanting more—more travel, more adventure and a little more insight into the places you may think you know. Buy this for yourself or pass this on to a fellow traveler it’s a 5 star gift from some gifted writers. show less

This anthology includes some fantastic pieces of writing that tell stories of travel and life. The stories are as varied as the people and take the reader to many different destinations. There is an ongoing theme of how travel or a journey changed someone's life. The most notable of these for me was Jeff Greenwald's The Fool and how meeting a woman in a gallery in Greece took him away from his intended path of sculpting on a Greek island and instead to Nepal. This is a witty and moving piece show more of writing. However, it is unfair to pick any one piece out as many of them are outstanding and this comes from someone not generally a lover of short stories but in this collection there is joy in the variety of style and places. show less