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Armchair travel has a loftier precedent than one might imagine. Globe Pequot senior editor Mimi Egan describes the travel narrative as "a classic and heroic structure—narrator sets out from home, travels to remote shores, actual or metaphysical, discovers wondrous things, and arrives back home safely, changed and with wondrous tales to tell."
Those tales may be a tougher sell these days, says associate publisher Jeff Serena, but publishers still throw their weight behind an engaging voice and vibrant writing. A headline-making locale also helps: while plenty of books cover the perennial favorites, Italy and France, other spring titles explore political, historical and cultural issues in Asia and the Middle East, suggesting that the impulse to understand may be as strong as the impulse to escape. Following are some forthcoming titles of particular interest.
Title:Shadow of the Silk Road
Author: Colin Thubron
Publisher: HarperCollins (July, $25.95)
Locale: Across the breadth of Asia, from China to Afghanistan, Iran and Kurdish Turkey.
Opening lines: "In the dawn the land is empty. A causeway stretches across the lake on a bridge of silvery granite, and beyond it, pale on its reflection, a temple shines. The light falls pure and still."
Why go there: "Ever since 9/11 in particular, there's a real eagerness to hear about areas of the world whose history we don't study, we don't visit, and this is a way to find out," says executive editor Terry Karten. "It's a book about Asia today, with the richness and perspective provided by knowledge about its past."
Title:Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things: An Impossible Journey from Kabul to Chiapas
Author: Gary Geddes
Publisher: Sterling (Mar., $24.95)
Locale: Geddes followed the travels of a fifth-century Buddhist monk from Afghanistan to the Himalayas, China and on to Mexico.
Opening lines:"Shortly after the plane from London touched down in Islamabad, Pakistan, at 5:00 a.m. on August 9, 2001, I spotted in the terminal an employee of the Pearl Guest House B&B with a sign for Mr. Gali Guess, which was close enough to my name to inspire confidence."
Why go there: From pre-9/11 Kabul through rapidly transforming China and beyond, Geddes ponders Buddhist philosophy while juxtaposing the Old World and New World. "His use of language to transport you is really quite wonderful," says editorial director Patricia Gift. "I felt as if I have been to these places myself."
Title:On the Road to Kandahar: Travels Through Conflict in the Islamic World
Author: Jason Burke
Publisher: St. Martin's/Dunne (May, $24.95)
Locale: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, the Gaza Strip and Thailand.
Opening lines: "Just behind my apartment in Islamabad was a plot of land covered in mimosa trees, wild cannabis and scrubby, prickly bushes. It was a graveyard and though no one tended it or came to grieve at the dozen or so mounds of earth which lay among the rubbish under the trees, no one built on it either."
Why go there: "There is no book quite like Kandahar," says senior editor Mark LaFlaur. British reporter Burke interviews Taliban officials, a former torturer, a soccer-loving suicide bomber, an American sniper in Iraq and others, depicting "a ground-level view of the actual inhabitants of the places most directly affected by the war on terror."
Title:Lois on the Loose: One Woman, One Motorcycle, 20,000 Miles Across the Americas
Author: Lois Pryce
Publisher: St. Martin's/Dunne (Mar., $23.95)
Locale: From Alaska to Argentina, along the western edge of North and South America.
Opening lines:"There's a much quoted line from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that travelling by car is like watching a movie, but riding a motorcycle is like being in one. As I rode my bike onto a home-bound ferry after a fortnight's holiday in France, I pondered this idea and decided it was wrong."
Why go there: "Lois on the Looseturns the classic biker image of the Hell's Angel or Easy Rider on its head," says associate editor Peter Joseph. Pryce handles wildlife, rock slides, corrupt police, a serious crash and even a black-market Harry Potter dealer with quick-witted aplomb.
Title:A Day in Tuscany
Author: Dario Castagno with Robert Rodi
Publisher: Globe Pequot (June, $18.95)
Locale: The Chianti region of Tuscany, Italy.
Opening lines: "Maybe it's the jet lag, or maybe just the excitement of having returned to my beloved hills, but I awaken very early. I normally sleep with my shutters open because I like to rise with the first rays of the sun, but right now it's still invincibly dark."
Why go there:Castagno is no clueless American wandering Italy—he's a native Tuscan writing about "real people leading real lives," says senior editor Mimi Egan. "His intimate, charming, often funny vignettes about his life in Tuscany offer readers a fresh point of view."
Title:The Ripening Sun: One Woman and the Creation of a Vineyard
Author: Patricia Atkinson
Publisher: Century/Arrow, dist. by Trafalgar Square/IPG (Mar., $13.95)
Locale: The rural farming and vineyard region of Dordogne, in southwest France.
Opening lines:"'Delicious Rosé. God, I need this drink.' Laura has taken off her shoes and stretched herself out on the chair in the courtyard. It's the last day of May, a hot, balmy evening with the scent of the privet hedge overpowering."
Why go there: An illness and financial crisis force the author's hobby vineyard to become her livelihood. "Like the author, the writing is energetic, but with meditative, elegiac moments describing the beauties of the landscape," says Century editorial director Oliver Johnson.
Title:The Fragile Edge: Diving and Other Adventures in the South PacificAuthor: Julia Whitty
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (May, $25)
Locale: The South Pacific Ocean.
Opening lines:"All day we have been observing the surgeonfish, which the Tahitians call maroa and the French call chirurgien,streaming over the outer reef slopes in tightly knit single files. Now, in the final hour of daylight, scores of them coalesce into banners of yellow-and-blue fins, flowing gaudily... toward the edge of Tiputa Pass."
Why go there: Says executive editor Deanne Urmy, "The book literally goes below the surface of the usual tourist narrative. It's an underwater tour of the South Sea, which is just as exotic, fragile and beautiful as anything above the surface."
Title:Kiwis Might Fly: A New Zealand Adventure
Author: Polly Evans
Publisher: Delta (Mar., $13)
Locale: New Zealand.
Opening lines: "'So,' Siân, my neurologist friend, asked brightly, 'are you going to wear one of those motorcycle helmets that covers the back of your head up to your fourth cervical vertebra, so that if you crash you're left quadriplegic, or are you going to get one of those higher-cut ones so that you're killed outright instead?' "
Why go there: Quirky and irreverent, "solo adventurer" Evans never takes the easy route, says editor Caitlin Alexander. She motorcycles from beaches to hiking trails and gold mining towns, imparting tidbits on history, region, culture and food. "She doesn't hesitate to make fun of herself," Alexander says, "which gives her books a very personal feel."
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