100 Books Like Looking For Transwonderland

This book is a ‘gold standard’ piece of investigative journalism, a travelogue about a people I will probably never meet, rolled into the intriguing history of a unique city.

The book interweaves the tale of the efforts local people made to save priceless manuscripts from al-Qaida in 2012 with the West’s fascination of fabled Timbuktu since the 18th century.

It is an un-put-downable example of creative non-fiction at its most interesting and easily readable.

This engrossing memoir drops us into the heart of Zambia as the author—another novice on a big adventure—evolves into an unflappable hut-dweller, dealing bravely and humorously with the absolute unfamiliarity of her Peace Corps assignment. 

Intrepid and disarming, Christine is the only muzungu (white person) in her village—tall, blonde, and frequently klutzy, her misadventures on full display to her curious neighbors. I fell in love with the author and her quest to overcome even the thorniest cultural challenges, all related in present tense so we’re right there with her.

My own African adventure unfolded many years earlier in the urban jungle of Lagos, so this is a captivating account of an entirely different African experience.

I discovered this book years ago on a discount table, and it quickly became one of my all-time favorites, a memoir I’ve reread several times and loaned to friends.

Gilman and her college friend—someone she knows, but not really—backpack through China in 1986, right after it’s been opened to travelers after the Cultural Revolution.

Two naive Americans, in way over their heads as things grow stranger and stranger. Described as “a modern heart of darkness filled with Communist operatives, backpackers, and pancakes,” her story is guaranteed to shock and surprise even the most seasoned traveler.

Great title, great writing, and an absolute page-turner.

Following a newbie on her first big adventure always thrills me, and Meaghan’s account of riding her bike from northern BC to Baja, Mexico, accompanied by her equally inexperienced sister, brought me back to my own bicycle travels, 30 years earlier.

What changed, and what remained the same? We shared many of the same struggles: fear of bears and bicycle breakdowns, for starters, and trusting the road to whip our bodies into shape.

Traveling with a cell phone and online access to couch surfing were luxuries I couldn’t have imagined in 1978, but clocking the miles still mightily tests body, spirit, and a tight budget.

Meaghan is funny and vulnerable, engaging the senses in every aspect of her learn-as-you-go odyssey along the Pacific Coast. 

Martha Gellhorn’s blend of reportage and imagination ensnared me when I was barely out of my teens, and her preferred form has come of age in my working life.

Not only do I think Gellhorn is a marvellous writer – at her best, one of the best – but I also identify with Gellhorn the woman. "The open road," she wrote, was "my first, oldest and strongest love." She lived from 1908 to 1998 and was writing the fighting for six decades, and although each conflict was different, her message remained the same: ‘There is neither victory nor defeat; there is only catastrophe." 

In many books, Freya Stark (1893 to 1993) covered mostly what we used to call the Middle and Near East – Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan.

In The Lycian Shore she sails in a small yacht along the coast of south-west Turkey. I love this book – it shows what women travel writers can do when they blend history and personal observation. I used to take her chapters apart when I started out to learn how she did it.

Dervla Murphy (1931-2022) was queen of the road when I started out. I learnt a lot from her.

Visiting Rwanda is probably my top pick among her many travelogues but her best book by far, in my opinion, is the autobiographical Wheels within Wheels. "I had been brought up to understand," Murphy writes, "that material possessions and physical comfort should never be confused with success, achievement and security."

I had been brought up to understand the opposite, and this book showed me, as I tackled a travel memoir of my own, that like Murphy I must take those crucial lessons as a starting point. 

I picked this because it showed me – and still does – that the most foreign journey is within, and that when the body stops travelling, the spirit takes over the trek.

Brennan is a fabulous writer – at her best, among the best – and in her head (she wore a beehive that according to a colleague at The New Yorker was taller than she was) she is travelling all the time.

She ought to be better known. 

I wish I’d read this book before visiting Lebanese friends there.

The story of a man who returns to his native Lebanon years after the civil war, it portrays the complexity of their society through the impact the war had on a group of university friends.

It gives a wonderfully accurate feel of the sights, sounds, and tastes of the country, and an astute description of the psyche of the Lebanese people from the point of view of a returnee.

This is a guidebook on Dutch culture written by a long-time American resident of the Netherlands.

It is a quirky, funny book that, unlike many books that attempt to describe another culture, makes explicit the personal bias of the author.

This is clearly Greg Shapiro’s take on the Dutch, and his keen eye and sense of humour make this a great read for short- and long-term visitors.

I’ve married into the Dutch culture and chuckled my way through the book.