Saw this book and thought it’d be worth a read before the trip…
The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Don’t really know what I was expecting, maybe it was some insightful ways to get more from my travel experiences. What I got was a book of two halves. The first half can be summarised – don’t get your hopes up it might be shit. I persevered. The second half was better – it ain’t where you go, it’s the attitude you travel with.
The author is obviously very well read (he even includes a bedroom photo complete with bookshelf as evidence), and the book is littered with quotes and tales from various historical figures. But for me there were few highlights, the chapter on Van Gogh the only real exception. So let me conclude with a quote of my own, from Twain. No not Mark. Shania – “that [book] don’t impress me much.”
Ben Rook 