The Oxford Book of Travel Stories
by Patricia Craig (Editor)
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Travel, associated as it is with strangeness, marvels, and excitement, has always proved an irresistible subject for writers. 'The Oxford Book of Travel Stories' brings together some of the best short fiction on this most exhilarating of subjects from writers as diverse as Anthony Trollope,Edith Wharton, Ring Larner, William Trevor, Sylvia Townsend Warner, John Cheever, Beryl Bainbridge, and V. S. Pritchett.Readers of this anthology will be able to revel in the atmosphere of show more nineteenth-century Palestine, the Riviera of the 1920s, or a botanical tour of Greece. There are stories set in far distant locations - China, Australia - and others closer to home, such as Benedict Kiely's entrancing 'A Journey tothe Seven Streams'. Most are high-spirited, in keeping with the theme, some are wonderfully funny and one or two productively unsettling, such as Flannery O'Connor's 'A Good Man is Hard to Find'. Some deal with the journey itself, and encounters on train or boat; others see travel as a literal riteof passage, an escape or a sudden growing-up. All of them illustrate, in various ways, how travel has to do with stimulus, enrichment, and a sense of achievement - 'Not fare well', as T. S. Eliot has it, 'but fare forward, voyagers'. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
As with any collection of short stories, there are some you like, some you want to skip over. There is a certain feeling of nostalgia with these stories, some of which are quite old.
Highlights of the bunch include Anthony Trollope's Ride across Palestine, a journey with a twist; Travelogue, about a seasoned traveller and her shy friend; Gliding Gulls and Going People is about a trip around the islands near Mallaig, where I used to holiday as a child; Deliverance, a tale of depression and spies; Siegfried on the Rhine, a two page episode showing the problems of stereotypes; and finally, Chinese Funeral, a trip into a recently opened up China.
The collection contains many big names, and some smaller ones, whose books I will be bumping up show more my TBR pile. This is not a book to read from A-Z, but to dip into, perfect for a short commute or on the bedside table. show less
Highlights of the bunch include Anthony Trollope's Ride across Palestine, a journey with a twist; Travelogue, about a seasoned traveller and her shy friend; Gliding Gulls and Going People is about a trip around the islands near Mallaig, where I used to holiday as a child; Deliverance, a tale of depression and spies; Siegfried on the Rhine, a two page episode showing the problems of stereotypes; and finally, Chinese Funeral, a trip into a recently opened up China.
The collection contains many big names, and some smaller ones, whose books I will be bumping up show more my TBR pile. This is not a book to read from A-Z, but to dip into, perfect for a short commute or on the bedside table. show less
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- English
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