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Aug 19, 2009

Ben rated it:

In The Art of Travel, Alaine de Botton succeeds in the difficult task of opening the readers eyes to the many perceptual enhancements that travel can provide. It is not a travelogue of wild times in exotic countries, nor an informative list of places one can go. The Art of Travel is abstract, and focuses on concepts relating to the inner-self and individual psychology; the internal elements that affect, and are affected by, travel. Through avenues such as poetry, writings from some of histori More...

21 comments like (20 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

David rated it:

There's a certain self-effacing charm about Alain de Botton's writing that creeps up on you and which eventually becomes irresistible. Not one to shy away from big topics (love, philosophy, status, travel, Proust) he manages to bring you to fresh insights on each theme in a completely charming, highly readable fashion.

I've also seen him a few times on a BBC series about different philosophers, and the same charm is evident in person. He just seems like an altogether smart, together, More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Eszter rated it:

in this lovely philosophical scrapbook, alain de botton tackles the question of why people travel. partly an eclectic collection of essays, partly a memoir, and partly a collection of historical tidbits, philosophies, works of art and found objects that de botton found cool; most people will probably find this book either pretentiously irritating or delightful. my vote goes to the latter. to qualify, i read this for the first time in the midst of a wonderful journey, so perhaps rereading it just More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Apr 12, 2009

Gordon rated it:

As with all of De Botton’s books, this one is really a series of tightly crafted essays, each of which could stand on its own.

I think the key messages of the book are well captured in the very first chapter of the book:
• Upon travelling to Barbados, de Botton wakes up the next morning and heads for the beach, then observes: “A momentous but until then overlooked fact was making itself apparent: I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island.” As my wife occasionally r More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Jul 09, 2008

Craig rated it:

My favorite read of late is Alain de Botton's “The Art of Travel.” I found this book enthralling. I couldn't put it down. Its insightful and erudite in a way that I haven't experienced since reading somewhat obscure texts for a rhetoric course in college. The book uses authors and poets and painters that we all know and love to help us think about how to fully experience our world. The book isn't really a travel tome; and I'm not sure that I learned all that much about particular destinations. I More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Soo-Ryun rated it:

i couldn't put my finger on why i didn't think this book was as great as de botton's other books. but then i realized it's because of 2 reasons.

1) the focus is very euro- and christian-centric. obvo, de botton is writing about what he knows (euro intelligentsia), but perhaps a book about travelling should be about things outside your sphere of knowledge. e.g., why is it so exotic for french-speaking de botton to go to the south of france? why go to a postcolonial barbados resor More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2012

Carrie rated it:

This was a funny book. The Art of Travel is a collection of essays with a common theme. De Botton examines why we humans feel the need to travel, and what it does to satisfy (or dissatisfy) us. In each essay, he also looks at travel through the eyes of historical figures and other authors. [return][return]I had to laugh because De Botton comes off as such a churl, though I think he intends to at times. He talks about being in Spain and wanting nothing but to lie on his bed in his hotel room More...

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Nov 27, 2011

Ajk rated it:

I booked a flight that didn't exist.

It ended with me spending a night with my old best friend from high school days and a sit-down in a train station bar with a guy coming from Montana. So I guess I can't complain too much.

In fact, I won't complain at all. I got to meet interesting people, go to one of my favorite restaurants, and meet up with one of the better people I know. So it was fantastic. And a couple of weeks earlier, my uncle gave me a book and told me to read it. W More...

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Jul 06, 2011

Jon rated it:

A very interesting little book that opened my eyes in a number of ways, and helped me to understand part of why I'm not a very good traveler. The first chapters were the least interesting for me, mostly stressing what I already knew--that "wherever you go, there you are." Don't go all over the globe looking for happiness (as Horace wrote)--changing your sky doesn't change yourself. But later on, in discussing the Lake District in England and Wordsworth (its first and most ardent admire More...

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May 18, 2011

Anna rated it:

The book had some really nice thoughts in it, one of which hit me - I never thought Gustave Flaubert had anything interesting, but his feeling strange in the country he was born just had it.

"I think I must have been transplanted by the winds to this land of mud, surely I was born elsewhere - I've always had what seem like memories or intuitions of perfumed shores and blue seas..."
On his return from Egypt: "My native country is for me the country that I love, that is More...

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Apr 12, 2011

Todd rated it:

I'm not good at traveling, but I'm very good at hanging out. So I figured maybe Mr. de Botton could help me with the philosophical underpinnings of my trip to Belize (where I am writing this). Turns out I am much closer in temperament to Des Esseintes (the protagonist of A Rebours) or de Maistre (who traveled all the way across his bedroom) than von Humboldt (who explored the South American continent).

Mr. de Botton takes us patiently and calmly through different reasons for travel: to More...

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Mar 02, 2011

Brynn rated it:

"If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination." (13)

"As I lay awake in bed on my first Caribbean night, thinking back over my journey (there were crickets and shufflings in the bushes outside), already the confusion of the present moment was receding, and certain events had begu More...

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Sep 01, 2010

David rated it:

The world I look at every day is a novel in the making, but full of peripheral rubbish. The novels on my shelves are more condensed and filtered and worthy of more attention as they have been transliterated through the brains of people who actually thought for themselves and had something to say worth more than the diluted rubbish I hear during the course of the day. This is why I read books, to short-circuit the rubbish. The daily grind is just rubbish in the main, dead pools of wasted time. Li More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 26, 2009

Bookshop rated it:

I can't find any fault with this book and it's rare. The author describes perfectly the feelings I go through when travelling. The chapter are split into Departure, Motives, Landscape, Art, and Return.

My favourite chapter is Departure. I often wonder about the same things as I sit in the departure lounge waiting to go into my plane. The plane I am about to enter has left a distant country the day before, flies across Asia to arrive in Europe in one piece. It is about to transport me More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 14, 2009

Rebecca rated it:

This book doesn't propose new ideas so much as rotate our view of common experiences when traveling to include the reflections of those who did once propose a new idea. At times its frustrating to read a book an opinion that points you towards the superior reference of another's opinion outside the book you're reading but when I had a previous interest in that referenced thinker, I enjoyed having two readings brought together to expand on these shared experiences. I enjoyed seeing someone bri More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 08, 2011

Jessica rated it:

The opening and certain parts in the middle of this book were dry and melancholic, not what I’d naturally expect from a book about travel. My previous experiences with travel books were that the journeys described help the mind’s eye take on a traveller’s spirit or wanting excitement, looking for joy, experiencing adventure in the new and exploring through the senses. However, after persisting, I really took to the author’s style of philosophical reflection on travel, which is what this book l More...

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Mar 05, 2010

Jessica rated it:

Like most books, The Art of Travel has its good parts and its not-so-good parts. I love that this book focuses on, ahem, the art of traveling, as in, the different little aspects that go into traveling and visiting new places. De Botton dedicates an entire chapter to the feeling of anticipation we all get when we are about to go somewhere new, and how when we arrive, without fail all our preconceived ideas about it are crushed. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as the author rushes to ex More...

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Aug 07, 2011

Maria added it

I think I've read this about 3 times and each time I find the ideas fresh, engaging, stimulating & worthy of deeper reflection. I enjoy most of Alain de Botton's books. His writing style has a literary quality, but is never clever for clever's sake. His meditations are interesting, just deep enough, but not so much so that reading his books becomes "work". This volume in particular is interesting because it's all about the "why" and "how" of travel, not the where. T More...

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Jan 23, 2011

Bo rated it:

True possession of a scene is a matter of making a conscious effort to notice elements and understand their construction. We can see beauty well enough just by opening our eyes, but how long this beauty will survive in memory depends on how internationally we have apprehended it. The camera blurs the distinction between looking and noticing, between seeing and possessing; it may give us the the option of true knowledge, but it may also unwitting make the effort of acquiring that knowledge seem More...

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May 18, 2011

Danielle rated it:

Honestly, this was a bit of a disappointment to me after reading such great reviews. I'm a traveler and while there were some ideas in this book that appealed to me, the majority of the philosophies and "ways of traveling" that were shared turned me off. Botton seems a bit arrogant and I felt he contradicted himself a number of times. Not all of us have wealthy friends in the French countryside or have the means of staying at an exclusive hotel in Barbados. In fact, I think Botton is m More...

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Jul 24, 2011

Alicia rated it:

This book is fascinating and absolutely impossible to read straight through. It was highly recommended by several friends, and deserves high praise. It unfortunately was a major struggle for me to get through--I'm really not good at slowing down and enjoying good writing and deep thoughts. I started reading this book last July, and only now finished it. One line in particular, however, was worth reading the whole book for (and conveys exactly why I enjoyed writing my travel blog so much):
" More...

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Aug 07, 2010

Chin Hwa rated it:

This is such a jewel of a book. My life as I was reading it mirrored its content and message. I bought it in Greenwich VIllage, New York, and read it on buses, planes, trains, finishing it in a hotel lobby at the Toronto Pearson Airport.

There are so many books out there on where to travel, but this book is all about HOW to travel and WHY. It's got enough philosophical nuggets to make you think about travel in a new way.

One of my favourite bits was the chapter on 'P More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 28, 2008

Jen rated it:

I skimmed most of this book. I thought I would love it because I love to travel, but it didn't hold my interest. It was more about other people exploring and I thought it would be about exploring in general. I guess it just didn't meet my expectations.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 28, 2011

Dennis rated it:

This came as a recommendation from someone who really knows me. I was anything but disappointed. The author recounts his travels to such diverse destinations as Barbados, Holland, Egypt, England and France, and he intersperses relating his own experiences with each locale to those of historical literary, scientific and artistic figures. Travel for many can cause anxiety, but for others it provides an escape. Still others find themselves unhappy or bored no matter where they may be. By compa More...

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Jun 14, 2011

Sarah rated it:

It felt like I was reading something written in the 19th century, so much that I was shocked every time the author mentioned a modern technology. That was both good and bad. Good because it felt steeped in history and felt relevant for its time period (the 1860s). Bad because, well, it didn't feel modern or super relevant for THIS time period. I enjoyed some of his philosophical ramblings, and because it wasn't about de Botton's own existential-life journey to "find" himself throug More...

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Jul 15, 2009

Jana rated it:

This book has some brilliant ideas. I can't believe that he actually managed to collect all those little thoughts that you really have when you do decide that road ahead of you is the road of your travel. I am being too poetic.

This book is for everyone who has ever been everywhere. Or for those who prefer not to go anywhere.

De Botton is combining:
a. Philosophy
b. History travel facts from and about writers, artists, philosphers and explorers
c. Personal More...

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Jun 04, 2010

Gelare rated it:

ایده داشتن یک راهنما از بین بزرگان هنر و ادبیات برای هر سفری تا چیز ها رو جور دیگه ببینی مثلا به پروانس رفتن با ونگوگ .....

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 13, 2010

Judy rated it:

If you love to travel, you'll love this book. If you love good writing, you'll love this book. I want to own this book so I can read again... and again. How do you maintain that sense of looking at something for the first time that you get when you travel? He goes from huge ideas to very specific examples. Some really interesting quotes from VanGogh from his first days in Provence. A comparison of the 18th Century scientist Humbolt who wrote a 30 volume work of his six years spent traveling thro More...

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Aug 25, 2009

Jason added it

This book provides a contemplative look at a wide variety of psychological experiences associated with travel: motives, expectations, observations of places (or lack thereof, such as occurs when one is obsessed with possessing places via photography), the arrival home from travel, etc. I think the book is quite insightful and was delighted when I often found myself identifying with the emotions described by the author. I particularly appreciated the author's discussion of the benefits of viewing More...

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Sep 03, 2009

Kim rated it:

It's interesting to see the wide range of opinions regarding this book. I loved it! I couldn't put it down. For me, this slim book offered an incredible number of ideas and connections in 272 pages (a lot of which are black and white pictures). It consists of a series of rather short essays woven together by the theme of travel. De Botton is most interested in what we seek when we travel, and he offers insights from a variety of novelists, poets, explorers, and artists to suggest how one might e More...

1 comment like