The Best American Travel Writing

Author Winchester (The Professor and the Madman) and series editor Jason Wilson collect 25 travel essays, from publications including Outside, Slate, and National Geographic, covering everything from wrestling in Bolivia to Arctic distance swimming to the ski runs of James Bond to the problem of ""mysterious genital disappearance"" in Nigeria. Less exotic but no less entertaining are Calvin Trillin's search for the best Texas barbeque, Matthew Power drifting down the Mississippi on a handmade raft, and Brownen Dickey visiting North Georgia for a Deliverance-haunted trek in the backcountry. Kiran Desai, Roger Cohen and even Chuck Klosterman also make appearances. Fans of travel writing will not be disappointed in this latest series entry, which fully supports Winchester's claim that ""American travel writing... is better and more stimulating than anywhere else in the world.""