Pre-numbered label used for registration.

I found this book in Birmingham city centre where it had presumably been wild released after the Unconvention. It had been thrown into a flower bed and the front cover was slightly damaged so I picked it up to wild release it somewhere safer.

Received by mail from purple-pixie from PokPok VBB.

Enjoyed Theroux writing style and many great stories.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Putting in thegoaliegirl's Travel Narrative Bookbox.

This book arrived home in my bookbox. Adding this to my TBR pile.

Thinning out my TBR shelf a little bit. Sadly, I am not fond of such short stories. Wish I'd peeked inside sooner, so I would have been able to move it sooner. Will be moving it along again.

This book is finally on the move again. I've had it far too long.

Off in the mail to mrsjones to continue traveling. Had enough to send a box of books her way to enjoy, as I'm taking a break from hosting a bookbox for a bit. (My TBR shelf is way too big)

Received this in a box of books from thegoaliegirl. I look forward to reading and releasing it sometime soon!

I am adding this to the Around the World bookbox. Enjoy!

I'm claiming this well-traveled softcover from the Around the World bookbox.

This book's certainly had some adventures! (Some of the pages are coming loose; I'll try to patch them up before I release the book, in hopes that it'll last for a few more readers.) I used it as my latest carrying-around book, as the short essays worked well for quick reads and frequent interruptions.

And I enjoyed it very much - though I did skip some of the essays here and there. (The author's introduction, which was intriguing in its own right, included an explanation for why he didn't include any of his book reviews in this collection - but he did include a lot of essays about authors and their works, so in fact there *are* some "book reviews" here and there.)

The essays are presented chronologically, from the 1960s through the mid '80s, and while most of them have something to do with traveling, there are biographical sketches and personal memoirs as well. (The earlier works tend to be very short - a page or two at most - while later ones are longer and more in-depth.)

Among my favorites: "Tarzan is an Expatriate" from 1967, analyzing the fictional character (via book and film presentations) in the light of colonial politics and racism.

"Lord of the Ring", which is about Ernest Hemingway and his work. (I'm not a huge fan of Hemingway, though I have enjoyed some of his shorter works, but I found the essay quite fascinating.)

"Stranger on a Train: The Pleasures of Railways" from 1976, which opens with Theroux defining "two sorts of people who like trains," adding "I am neither". But then he goes on to describe a number of train trips that he's enjoyed very much, suggesting either that there's a third type of train-fans - or that he was fibbing about the "neither". [Train travel isn't what it was, at least in the US, though there may still be some enjoyable options - other than the short-excursion tourist-type trains. I do enjoy train travel, fwiw, largely because I can read while on a moving train, but can't in a moving car. And unlike airplanes, trains give you a sense of where you are and where you're going...]

"Rudyard Kipling: The White Man's Burden", from 1979: I've loved Kipling's "Jungle Book" and "Just-so Stories" since I was a child, and have found many of his other poems and stories quite fascinating. (While his personal views and politics may have had their issues, he was more fair to his characters-of-color than many of his contemporaries.) I did know that he'd written some of his best-known books while living in Vermont, of all places (I drove by the location of his home just last weekend), so it wasn't a surprise to see that here, but I did find Theroux's revelations as to what may have driven Kipling out of Vermont intriguing.

Some of the entries are definitely dated: from 1979 there's one on John McEnroe Jr., the tennis star whose on-court outbursts made the front page all the time, infuriating tennis purists (and everyone who hates seeing adults throw temper tantrums). But I hadn't heard anything about him in decades, so this one was something of a blast from the past.

"Christmas Ghosts" is a very short entry, dealing with the tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas - and not only did Theroux mention some of my favorite classic ghost story authors but revealed that he wrote a couple of such stories himself at the behest of his children!

"Summertime on the Cape" from 1981 extols the virtues of Cape Cod (while not underestimating some of the challenges, especially during high tourist season). While things are a bit different now, much of what he describes is still true - and it made me want to make a trip to the Cape, though perhaps I should put that off until next summer...

I left this book in the Little Free Library on this grey day; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 2022 Tick Tock challenge. ***

** Released for the 2022 Spook-tacular challenge. ***

** Released for the 2022 Keep Them Moving challenge. **

Started going to a few of these book kiosks around Nashua, this one is very close to my house. Found more popular authors, not many of substance. Was walking away empty handed when my eye caught the faded spine of Paul Theroux. It had to be close to 10/1 when it was placed there. Ahh I have not heard or seen Paul Theroux since I stopped reading Outside Magazine. He was a founding author for that once great pub...Paul's travel adventure stories are some of the finest reading in that mag..
https://www.outsideonline.com/byline/paul-theroux/ Archive to his contributions

The book is in pretty rough shape, started to read, however the pages are separating from the spine. I have ordered a new one and will set that free once arrived.

Well written! Great stories Fun Read