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An Experience Definitely Worth Allegedly Having: Travel Stories from The Hairpin
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Start your review of An Experience Definitely Worth Allegedly Having: Travel Stories from The Hairpin
This book started off great and slid downhill. While much travel writing is expected to be indulgent -- it is after all, about an intensely personal experience -- the best writers will manage to relate it to the wider world...which many of these writers did. They made you realize it's ok to travel to get over a broken heart, or to prove something to yourself.
But then you get to the end, and the last few entries seem to be thrown together mishmash. I was especially disappointed with the final ...more
But then you get to the end, and the last few entries seem to be thrown together mishmash. I was especially disappointed with the final ...more
I was interested in this book because the essays promised to be "funny, weird, adventurous, and moving." Early in the book, all I felt was sorry for the people in the essays. They were dealing with depression, a feeling of being lost and unloved, uncertain about what they wanted in life. It may be normal to feel this way sometimes in your younger years, but this read like the depression and confusion was an all-encompassing thing. There is so much sadness in this book.
More than once, I thought ...more
More than once, I thought ...more
Mar 10, 2018
Ida Electra
rated it
liked it
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review of another edition
Shelves:
kindle-owned,
non-fiction
Some of these stories were good. I especially enjoyed the one about Paris. Some of these stories were less good. I did not understand the purpose of the last one, which seemed more like a collection of ideas that led nowhere. I enjoyed that there was a good variety here, but overall I was not very impressed.
A collection of fun essays
So, I actually subscribed to this back when it was first coming out, because I wanted to see what the Kindle Serials program was like and how it would be to read things as they came out on it and I was a big Hairpin fan. Ooops. That totally didn't work out, huh? The keeping up with a serial thing, not reading the Hairpin (that one is debatable. It did totally make miss a Hairpin led by Zimmerman, though.) I think I only read, like, the first one back then?
But years later, it makes for pretty ...more
But years later, it makes for pretty ...more
I loved this book. As someone who has traveled extensively this collection of stories captures something that is often missing in popular travel books. A sort of philosophical narcissism that dominates ones personal dialog when you are young and traveling for the purposes of self discovery.
I suppose that doesn't sound particularly appealing but I think lots of people would enjoy this book particularly those who have done their own travel but the slice of life, eclectic adventures covered in ...more
I suppose that doesn't sound particularly appealing but I think lots of people would enjoy this book particularly those who have done their own travel but the slice of life, eclectic adventures covered in ...more
Travel essays that were just okay.
I was hoping for a bit more, I like travel essays and with the 'Pin I thought it would be a collection I would find a lot to identify with (being an expat). There were moments but the best way I can describe why I didn't enjoy it overall as a collection is it felt very old. It's a bit ridiculous in that we're not dealing with the past is another country territory - at the furthest it's the 80s and these are universal experiences which aren't affected by time... ...more
I was hoping for a bit more, I like travel essays and with the 'Pin I thought it would be a collection I would find a lot to identify with (being an expat). There were moments but the best way I can describe why I didn't enjoy it overall as a collection is it felt very old. It's a bit ridiculous in that we're not dealing with the past is another country territory - at the furthest it's the 80s and these are universal experiences which aren't affected by time... ...more
This was a fun, light read. I enjoyed the essays, which (as you can guess from the title) focus on the writers' travels. Most of them wrote an essay about one particular trip, but there was one where someone threw together lots of prose snapshots of various trips. Anyway apparently I do not have much to say about this but if you like reading travel stories, and you like the tone of The Hairpin, I'd say to grab this form Amazon (it was a Kindle Serial).
Most good, some not so good stories
All of the stories were entertaining, I enjoyed being exposed to writers new to me and comparing the different writing styles. Some I clicked with, others not so much. Oddly the only story I didn't like was the last one and that turned out to be written by the editor! It came off as to most annoyingly flippant/childish piece in the whole collection.
All of the stories were entertaining, I enjoyed being exposed to writers new to me and comparing the different writing styles. Some I clicked with, others not so much. Oddly the only story I didn't like was the last one and that turned out to be written by the editor! It came off as to most annoyingly flippant/childish piece in the whole collection.
A new concept on my reading shelf,Kindle serials.They give you a few installments to start with and as the writer completes the next installment they automatically load it on your Kindle every two weeks or so at no additional charge.The initial cost is minimal so you really can't lose if the story sucks.This particular serial is actually interesting because I travel very little myself and I like to see what the travelers find memorable about their journeys.
Rich American kids (all with humongous first world problems :P) try to demonstrate why travelling is a worthwhile occupation. 8 essays, 3 of which were passably funny and decently written (the ones on Buenos Aires, Paris and London). Light read, nothing to learn from here unless you were born in a remote Himalayan village and remained there all your life. Move on, read something else already.
Unsurprisingly, I really liked this collection of short non-fiction travel stories. This was also my first Kindle Serial experience and I really liked having a new story to look forward to every other week.
Meandery, memoirish essays about travel that are mainly about not-entirely-positive experiences, but they still made me wish I'd backpacked more. My favourites were by Chiara Atik and Nicole Cliffe about being alone in Paris and a Let's Go editor in London, respectively.
there was only one of the essays on travel that I could really relate to and I found that one very funny and amusing.
This collection is fascinating and really great. I love that they're all not stories of AMAZING travel experiences - lots of love and loss and hard times too.
I love travel writing, and some of these stories are great. Some are not.
A good read--and I enjoyed the serial nature of delivery. Some poignant stories and I was reminded why I love traveling so much.
What, you're not going to read a collection of essays by Hairpin writers about travel adventures? Come onnnn. Even the crap ones are pretty good.
I read this as a break after GoT 1 and it made me nostalgic for my own travel experiences, in the best way possible.
Fans of The Hairpin will enjoy these stories. It's the first Kindle book I've bought that automatically upgrades, and I admit it feels like a gift each time I sync and find another chapter added.
Travel mémoires. I want more.
Perfectly enjoyable travel dispatch.
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