October 25, 2010
With the holidays just around the corner, Nancy Pearl's little gem will please many a traveler (or dreamer) who loves to read about faraway places but doesn't know where to start. With fanciful alliteration, Pearl lists titles under topics arranged from "A is for Adventure" to "Zipping through Zimbabwe." Recommendations are accompanied by brief critiques and insights. In an entry for "Las Vegas," for example, Pearl recommends Chris Ewan's novel, The Good Thief's Guide to Vegas, for fans of Hiaassen and Westlake, capers that use various cities of the world for their settings. Pearl classifies her recommendations well enough so that readers can take or leave her advice. In "Africa," for instance, she includes the classic Cry the Beloved Country as well as contemporary mysteries such as Wife of the Gods. It might have been easy to stick with the country structure for a book like this, but Pearl mixed it up, to good effect, with chapters like "So We/I Bought (or Built) A House In…" which includes books about homes in Morocco, Mexico, France, Brazil, and Ireland. Pearl has produced a winner and the perfect bedside companion.