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To the Ends of the Earth: The Selected Travels
by
Paul Theroux
"Travel writing at its best."
THE HOUSTON POST
Author and travel writer Paul Theroux does what no one else can: he travels to the isolated, unusual, and fascinating spots of the world, and creates an elegy to them that makes readers feel they are traveling with him. Evocative, breathtaking, intriguing, here is the armchair traveler's guide to the sites of the world he makes...more
THE HOUSTON POST
Author and travel writer Paul Theroux does what no one else can: he travels to the isolated, unusual, and fascinating spots of the world, and creates an elegy to them that makes readers feel they are traveling with him. Evocative, breathtaking, intriguing, here is the armchair traveler's guide to the sites of the world he makes...more
Paperback, 384 pages
Published
April 2nd 1994
by Ivy Books
(first published 1980)
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I had experienced Theroux the novelist, but I figured it's about time I stopped resisting Theroux the travel writer. This book contains large sections of 6 books of railway journeys around the globe. I concentrated on the parts from "The Great Railway Bazaar", "The Old Patagonian Express", and "Riding the Iron Rooster".
He doesn't spend any time oohing and ahing over artistic or geographical splendors or waste much effort on wonderful food and architecture. Nor does he really try to capture a co...more
He doesn't spend any time oohing and ahing over artistic or geographical splendors or waste much effort on wonderful food and architecture. Nor does he really try to capture a co...more
I picked this one up for fifty cents as I haven't read Paul Theroux for decades, since "Mosquito Coast" was required reading for one of my MSU English classes. His travel writing is wonderful but, as I confirmed by reading this, getting dated. Yeah, he "invented" travel writing, that is travel writing of one man's experiences in an uncomfortable country. Yeah, he writes interesting characters and details. Yeah, he doesn't let you down with going off on some stupid tangent like writers often do.
B...more
B...more
This book (some short stories from his other books) covers some India, some Latin America, some UK/Ireland, some China/Tibet, and bits and pieces of other places. I think he travels in pretty much the way I'd want to. Maybe he goes to a few extremes. But I quite liked his perspective: not much worrying about "am I a good traveler or just a tourist?", more just great stories. And not-so-great stories too, and seeing the interesting bits even in an odd English B&B or a terrible Tibetan trip.
The big effect of this book is to make me want to go out and buy the full versions of all of the books that are featured here. Mr. Theroux is my kind of travel writer- he focuses on the journey, the people that he meets along the way and the way different places make him feel at different times of his life. The second big effect of this book is to make me want even more to get on with my own great journey . . .
I believe the main problem with this book, for me of course, is that it is made of parts of previous books from the author. So it really has no continuity line, apart from being made from train travels. I am also not a big fan of train travelling, just for the sake of it. So for me overall the book was not very apealing.
Also, at some points I would profoundly disagree with the author's views. That is not always bad, but it was at a structural level. :)
So... not my cup of tea.
Also, at some points I would profoundly disagree with the author's views. That is not always bad, but it was at a structural level. :)
So... not my cup of tea.
This is a book I have had for several years and started a couple times but this time I plowed through it and reading 90% of it, some parts I missed. The chapters in this book are taken out of other travel books by Theroux. Many of the travels are on trains in various parts of the world. The one thing I do like about his writings is the emphasis he puts on the characters he meets in his travels rather than the places in and of themselves. He traveled to places I wouldn’t have had a desire to see,...more
I read this book several years ago, but remembered the essence of Theroux's thirst and delight with travel. It is a compilation of selections from other books covering a broad area of the world. As always, Theroux's books are not the usual travelogues, but combine history, humor and wonderful anecdotes.
2 likes · like · see review
I think Paul Theroux would be fun to travel with - he likes meeting people, exploring, traveling on a shoestring. You definitely get a sense of time and place in this book. It's obvious he has a great sense of humor. I just think that a lot of it was lost in turning his writing (take my opinion with a grain of salt as I haven't read his other books) into a set of vignettes.
This collection of short stories is supposed to be tied together by a diversity of places, but it's more the inherent sadness of the characters that is the thread that carries through. Each, of course, sad in their own way; some aren't sad in the truly unhappy sense but in the "reader looking at their life" sense.
As an introduction to Theroux this might discourage readers, but each story, on its own, is so well crafted (except perhaps "The Greenest Isle") that if readers take their time - perhap...more
As an introduction to Theroux this might discourage readers, but each story, on its own, is so well crafted (except perhaps "The Greenest Isle") that if readers take their time - perhap...more
just a taste of his wit and skill in travel writing.
Perfer the whole travel book to this collection of snippets. No continuity and the sories lose something in translation. but I do love this author.
Theroux is the genius author of The Mosquito Coast which was made into a movie directed by Peter Wier and starring Harrison Ford at his acting pinancle. The movie bombed at the box office but was loved by the critics.
Worls End is a collection of short stories which are eclectic to say the least. A strange unusual read. Not his best.
Worls End is a collection of short stories which are eclectic to say the least. A strange unusual read. Not his best.
O livro é uma seleção de trechos de outros seis livros de viagens do autor. Muitos desses ainda não têm edição em português. O apanhado acaba cobrindo relatos de boa parte do mundo. O mais interessante de ler Paul Theroux é que ele não se restringe ao que viu nas viagens que fez, mas ao que viveu.
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5...
Some good and some not so much. The ones I particulraly liked were World's End, Algebra, Yard Sale, and Acknowledgement. I found The English Adventure and Clapham Junction fairly incomprehensible and the novella The Greenest Island left me cold.
Some good and some not so much. The ones I particulraly liked were World's End, Algebra, Yard Sale, and Acknowledgement. I found The English Adventure and Clapham Junction fairly incomprehensible and the novella The Greenest Island left me cold.
Oct 30, 2010
Nancy
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
short-stories,
fiction
I read this long ago, but remember being disappointed. I was introduced to Theroux through his travel writing and really liked his novel “The Mosquito Coast”-- I know I have it stored away in a box somewhere??
When I think train of a train journey, I think Theroux. He writes in such a way that you defintely feel you are along for the ride.
This is the same text as Theroux's "Travelling the world," just without the pictures (which don't add anything in my opinion).
I haven't read anything by him before ~ he's known as a travel writer, so I'm hoping for some interesting tales...
read for the first time during my semester abroad at Cambridge University, England
May 21, 2013
Nicole
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Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), a travelogue about a trip he made by train from Great Britain through Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, through South Asia, then South-East Asia, up through East Asia, as far east as Japan, and then back across Russia to his point of origin. Although perhaps best know...more
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Outstanding! Haven't heard of a...more
Dec 19, 2012 01:40pm
Michael, I've done a lot of traveling, but oddly haven't read travel books, unless we can...more
Dec 19, 2012 03:39pm