THE BEST AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING 2000

Read by . . : Bill Bryson, Jessica Maxwell, Bill Buford, George Guidall
Editor  . . : Bill Bryson 
Publisher . : Houghton Mifflin
ISBN . . . .: 9780618093298
Format . . .: MP3. 11 tracks, 184 MB
Bitrate . . : ~100 kbps (iTunes 9, VBR (highest), Mono, 44.1 kHz)
Source . . .: 4 CDs (4.5 hrs)
Genre . . . : Short Stories, Fiction, Non-Fiction
Unabridged .: Unabridged

 Author:		 Title:			 	 Read by:
Bill Bryson-		Introduction- 			(the author)
Patrick Symmes- 	From The Wonderful People Who 
			Brought You The Killing Fields-	Bill Bryson
David Lansing- 		Confessions Of A Cheese Smuggler- Don Leslie
David Halberstam- 	Nantucket On My Mind-		George Guidall
Steve Rushin- 		Winter Rules-			Bill Bryson
Bill Buford- 		Lions And Tigers And Bears-	(the author)
Alden Jones- 		Lard Is Good For You-		(the author)
Dave Eggers- 		Hitchhikers Cuba-		Joe Barrett
Jessica Maxwell- 	Inside The Hidden Kingdom-	(the author)
Jeffery Tayler- 	Exiled Beyond Kilometer 101-	Bill Bryson
P.J. O'Rourke- 		Weird Karma-			Rick Adamson		
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Combined some CD tracks, nicely tagged and labeled, cover scans included.

Thanks for sharing & caring.
Cheers, FerraBit
August 2010


 Links: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_American_Travel_Writing 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_American_Series 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bryson

 Originally posted:                         
https://piratebayproxy.live/user/FerraBit (TPB), Demonoid, KickAssTorrents
Please present your FPL card, and comment me some loving.
______________________________________

  From Wiki:

The Best American Travel Writing is a yearly anthology of travel literature published in United States magazines. It was started in 2000 as part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin. Articles are chosen using the same procedure with other titles in the Best American series; the series editor chooses about 100 article candidates, from which the guest editor picks 25 or so for publication; the remaining runner-up articles listed in the appendix.
Jason Wilson has been the series editor since inception in 2000.

 - - -
Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind.

 - - -

Amazon.com Review:

The world may be getting smaller, but that doesn't mean it's any less varied, surprising, or exotic--as is made evident by the essays collected in the inaugural edition of the Best American Travel Writing series. In search of America's sharpest, most original, and often, most curious travel writers, editor Bill Bryson and series editor Jason Wilson sifted through hundreds of stories. What the resulting collection demonstrates is that, as Wilson writes, travel stories matter:

Having a travel writer report on particular things, small things, the specific ways in which people act and interact, is perhaps our best way of getting beyond the clichés that we tell each other about different places and cultures, and about ourselves.

And, as Bryson notes, many of the freshest voices are being drawn to foreign subjects far beyond the trampled paths of tourism. Within these pages, they chart the world from Nantucket to Zanzibar, the Atlas Mountains of Morocco to Australia's Cape York Peninsula with originality and keen observation. Some even go where none would follow: drawn by the allure of danger zones, Patrick Symmes rides a dirt bike to "perhaps the most forbidden city in the world" in search of the Khmer Rouge. Tim Cahill describes his own personal journey in hell--11 long days on a barge on the Ubangi River with 3,000 people packed so close together it's impossible to move without apologizing. (Fortunately, he's befriended by a man named God who is always in the know.)

Distance is not a prerequisite for travel writing, though humor is invaluable, as Bill Buford shows in his attempt to do what you just don't do--spend the night in Central Park. When Dave Eggers discovers hitchhiking is what makes Cuba move, it becomes the point of his trip to "pick up and move people, from here to there." Tongue in cheek, he declares, "So easy to change the quality, the very direction, of Cubans' lives!" Then again, sometimes humor is just not appropriate, particularly if you've been kidnapped by Ugandan rebels (as was Mark Ross) or you're trying to help the Dalai Lama choose the next Panchen Lama without jeopardizing lives (as did Isabel Hilton). In any case, it's all happening here--golf in Greenland, cheese smuggling from France, even a ride with the Toughest Truck Driver in the World. This collection proves that travel writing is a genre whose time has come.