Top Ten Tuesday

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt, hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl, is about travel.  Here are my ten and I have read and recommend each of these books:

Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon - I read this book when I was in my twenties and loved it.  Blue Highways for me set the bar for travel memoirs.

Nomadland by Jessica Bruder- such an important book about the high cost of housing in America and how many people are living in their vans.  I fear Nomadland will be even more relevant ten years from now

 

Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer - A powerful book about a young man who decides to head to Alaska and live in the wilds with tragic results.  Very well written and thought provoking.

Kerouac by Ann Charters - Jack Kerouac was the consumate writer and traveler and this biography is excellent. 

Midnight In The Garden of Good And Evil  by John Berendt -  in the 1990's the author travelled to  Savannah GA to write a magazine story and stumbled upon a story bigger than he could have ever dreamed.   216 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and if you haven't read the book you should.  The movie does not do the book justice.

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St James - A really fine novel about a young woman who moves to an out of the way town in upstate New York.  She takes a job at a run down motel in the hope of finding out what happened to her aunt who worked at that same motel and disappeared over 30 years ago.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - Read this in my twenties and as I recall it was a struggle. But it's an important novel about a poor farming family, the Joads, who move from Oklahoma to Calfornia during the Great Depression.  It's possible I read it when I was too young and I definitely want to give this novel another chance.

Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden - A novel about a group of Anglican nuns who travel to the Himalaya mountains to open up a school and a medical clinic.   The sisters are not really prepared for the beauty and remoteness of the area and the culture shock.  Thus novel is very good with a haunting atmospheric quality. 

Life And Other Near-Death Experiences by Camille Pagan - The plot centers around a young woman who gets a very bad cancer diagnosis.  She decides if they can't cure her  why bother with treatment.  And so she moves to an island in the Caribean that her mother, who passed away when she was a teen, loved.  It sounds like a depressing read but I found it inspiring and hopeful.

Confederates In The Attic by Tony Horwitz - Tony Horwitz was such a great writer of history and travel and he combined his talent for both in Confederattes In The Attic. 

Hope everyone has a great summer.  Stay cool and Happy Reading!