A Guide to Tales of Travel

Your compass is pointing at the magnetic field of travel.

Journey by the Book is a tool enabling the pathfinder—whether tenderfoot or veteran scout—to explore uncharted seas and territories in the kingdom of travel.

Author Van Tassel discusses a vast sampling of travel narratives. If the story uses a voyage, pilgrimage, or journey as pivotal for its meaning and structure, it will figure prominently in the array of tales he tallies.

The book defines categories of travel literature and discusses the gamut of impulses prompting travel, travel writing, and travel reading.

The tales of travel summoned, explored, and scrutinized for the armchair traveler extend from imaginary journeys to very real ones, including:

• The Odyssey
• Gulliver’s Travels
• Rime of the Ancient Mariner
• Road trips and tramps by Twain, Steinbeck, Kerouac, Pirsig, Bill Bryson, and others
• Exotic adventures recounted by Polo and Newby
• Epic voyages logged by discoverers Captain Cook, Conrad, Dana, and Heyerdahl
• Marathon journeys by Theroux, Naipaul, Davidson, Simon, and Hoffman
• And assorted other tales varying by mode and direction of travel

Multifaceted travel accounts, ranging from novels and guidebooks to travelogues and travel-oriented magazines and sketches, are all testaments to what the travel story can do: stoke and satisfy a reader’s wanderlust. It’s your turn.

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING:

“A wonderful read and a remarkable piece of creative scholarship, Journey by the Book offers profound insights into the works of selected authors who through the centuries have enlightened untold millions of readers with accounts of travels to real or imagined places. With uncanny wit, wisdom, and playful use of language, with curiosity and respect for the ‘kingdom of travel literature,’ the author wove his take on the travel tales of others into his own cohesive voyage.”—Richard Ezra Probert, author of Archie’s Way, That Good Night, and, most recently, Whereabouts Unknown. 

“Journey by the Book is wonderful. In lively, engaging prose it celebrates both kinds of travel—literal, physical travel undertaken to explore the world, and literary travel where stories and tales take us deeper into the interior world of the imagination, memory, and language. Dan Van Tassel is a highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic tour leader to classics of travel literature, from Homer’s Odyssey to modern excursions in the genre, offering brief, insightful, and very readable introductions to each. All aboard!”—Charles Bergman, author of numerous books including Every Penguin in the World, Wild Echoes, and Red Delta.