A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World in Around the World in 80 Books

Oct 05, 2008 Ken rated it it was amazing

After I read Tony Horwitz' previous book, Blue Latitudes, I loved it so much I read every Horwitz book I could get my hands on. Now, "A Voyage Long and Strange" is here, and it's one of his strongest books yet.

Horwitz is an author who writes in what I think of as a subgenre, the travel narrative combined with researched background information. (Bill Bryson is another author famous for this kind of writing). Here, Horwitz travels to locations in Canada, the US and Central America, and traces the ...more

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Jul 03, 2008 Jen rated it really liked it

Shelves: z-2011-read, true-crime, history-travels, lives-of-people, non-fiction, history, maritime, new-england, native-american

I love Tony Horowitz and this genre that I term "history travels", where he writes about a historical subject and travels the present-day locales in search of its legacy. Here he looks at the exploration and settlement of the US by Europeans, prior to the Pilgrims' 1620 arrival at Plymouth. As with Horowitz's other works, I enjoy his recounting of the history, how he fills in my sketchy knowledge of our continent's early explorers in a highly readable fashion. I also enjoy his accounts of his cu ...more

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Jul 24, 2009 Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance rated it really liked it

Shelves: travel, nonfiction, on-the-road, adventure

I bought this on pure impulse after hearing Cokie Roberts speak and visiting the bookstore that sponsored her talk. It was the best impulse buy I’ve made. Why, oh why, can’t textbooks read like Tony Horwitz? Lots of information, yes, but info interspersed with cool stories. Everything you always wanted to know about American explorers. Some I wish I hadn’t learned (DeSoto wasn’t a nice guy, for example.)

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