For the record, the non-fiction I'm considering putting on the list includes the following works. The problem will be keeping the list under 30, so anything here you that you think is really amazing, or not quite worth the time, would be good to know.
Almost definitely these, since they have an average rating of 4 or above on Goodreads:
Arabian Sands
(Wilfred Thesiger)
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning
(Laurie Lee)
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
(Rebecca West)
Confederates in the Attic
(Tony Horwitz)
Danube
(Claudio Magris)
In a Sunburned Country
(Bill Bryson)
Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft
(Thor Hyerdahl)
Labels
(Evelyn Waugh)
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
(Eric Newby)
The Snow Leopard
(Peter Matthiessen)
A Time of Gifts
(Patrick Leigh Fermor)
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
(John Steinbeck)
Venice
(Jan Morris)
These were all in the 3.5-4.0 range on Goodreads and many were on “best of” lists:
Among the Russians
(Colin Thubron)
Finding George Orwell in Burma
(Emma Larkin)
The Great Railway Bazaar
(Paul Theroux)
In Patagonia
(Bruce Chatwin)
Into the Wild
(Jon Krakauer)
The Journals of Captain Cook
(James Cook)
The Road to Oxiana
(Robert Byron)
The Valleys of the Assassins: And Other Persian Travels
(Freya Stark)
The Sex Life of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific
(J. Maarten Troost)
Video Night in Katmandu
(Pico Iyer)
A Yank Back to England
(Denis Lipman)
I would recommend The Songlines over In Patagonia, myself. But Chatwin's very good nonetheless.
My favorite Krakauer is probably Eiger Dreams, but I'm a climber after all.
And a non-fiction list without any John McPhee just makes me sad. Try Coming Into the Country or The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed or The Control of Nature (which is certainly relevant these days--the New Yorker just re-posted one of the essays from that collection on its website).
For fun, I can highly recommend one of Tim Cahill's collections: he tells marvelous stories about his travels all over the world. Like Pecked to Death by Ducks or Pass the Butterworms.
Playing the Moldovans in Tennis
by Tony Hawk is pretty hilarious. He also wrote
Round Ireland with a Fridge.
(yes, those are non-fiction)
I would recommend The Songlines over In Patagonia, myself. But Chatwin's very good nonetheless.
Ooh, that does look more appropriate.
Pecked to Death by Ducks
I may have to include this for the title alone.
It's going to be hard to limit the non-fiction to 15.
I think I'm set on fiction though. I'm going to add
The Accidental Tourist, The Balkan Trilogy, The Portrait of a Lady, A Room with a View,
and
State of Wonder.
Thanks for the suggestions!
For non-fic, Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell, about all of her trips to various presidential assassination sites.
That's funny, since I just saw
Assassins.
I love that musical, but always seem to miss seeing it when it's being performed locally--I hear about it the weekend that it's closing, invariably.
Playing the Moldovans in Tennis by Tony Hawk is pretty hilarious.
I read this while in Chisinau, which only helped the humor.
Oh, yeah, Raq. It made the rounds of just about every PCV there. Tony Hawk came to town to do a fundraiser for a children's hospital, and wisely focused on his Irish material.
