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Better Than Fiction edited by Don George

This is a collection of original travel stories told by some of the world’s best contemporary novelists—including Isabel Allende, Peter Matthiessen, Alexander McCall Smith, Joyce Carol Oates, and Tea Obreht. What surprised me about the collection was its never-ending breadth, not just in destination (we visit the span of the world from San Quentin prison, to Rome, Antarctica, India, or the Sudan) but also the keenly observant voice and narrative that is immediate with each author. Some of these authors tell of journeys so quirky and hysterical, that it’s hard to believe that the stories are true, and not an imposition of their novelistic ways, but other essays our deeply affecting and observing, speaking to the seemingly polar emotions of kinship and also solitary inconsequentiality that can come with travel. This is guaranteed to please many on your gift-list and worth asking for on your wish list as well.