Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts at the Hay Festival on 28 May 2011.
Enumerates 'The Contents of Some Travellers' Bags' and exposes 'Writers Who Wrote About Places They Never Visited'; tracks extreme journeys in 'Travel As An Ordeal' and highlights some of 'Travellers' Favourite Places'.
"A book to be plundered and raided." — New York Times Book Review"A portal into a world of timeless travel literature curated by one of the greatest travel writers of our day." — USA TodayPaul Theroux celebrates fifty years of wandering the globe in this collection of the best writing from the books that have shaped him as a reader and a traveler. Part philosophical guide, part miscellany, part reminiscence, The Tao of Travel contains excerpts from the best of Theroux's own work interspersed with selections from travelers both familiar and unexpected:Vladimir Nabokov Eudora WeltyEvelyn Waugh James BaldwinCharles Dickens Pico IyerHenry David Thoreau Anton ChekhovMark Twain John McPheeFreya Stark Ernest HemingwayGraham Greene and many others"Dazzling . . . Like someone panning for gold, Theroux reread hundreds of travel classics and modern works, shaking out the nuggets." — San Francisco Chronicle.
Paul Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts in 1941 and published his first novel, Waldo, in 1967. His subsequent novels include The Family Arsenal, Picture Palace, The Mosquito Coast, O-Zone, Millroy the Magician, My Secret History, My Other Life, and, most recently, A Dead Hand. His highly acclaimed travel books include Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, Fresh Air Fiend, and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. He divides his time between Cape Cod and the Hawaiian Islands.