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The History of Literature

157 Travel Books (with Mike Palindrome)

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

Arts, History, Books

4.61.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2018

⏱️ 70 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

"The world is a book," said Augustine, "and those who do not travel read only one page." But what about books ABOUT traveling? Do they double the pleasure? Transport us to a different place? Inspire and enchant? Or are they more like a forced march through someone else's interminable photo album? Mike Palindrome, President of the Literature Supporters Club, joins us for a look at his literary journey to London and Stockholm, summer reading, and a draft of the greatest travel books of all time. Works and authors discussed include As You Like It by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Festive Comedy by C.L. Barber, Virginia Woolf, My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard, The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, Bill Bryson, Herodotus, Rick Steves, Eat Pray Love, Under a Tuscan Sun, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, My Life in France by Julia Child, Invisible Cities and other works by Italo Calvino, The Travels of Marco Polo, Patricia Highsmith, James Joyce, Henry James, Martha Gellhorn, Ernest Hemingway, Another Day of Life by Kapuscinski, What Is the What by Dave Eggers, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood, Roots by Alex Haley, Under the Tuscan Sun, A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Stern, the Let's Go series, the Lonely Planet series, Across Asia on the Cheap, Into the Wild and other works by Jon Krakauer, the Odyssey, Mark Twain, India: A Million Mutinies Now by V.S. Naipaul, Paul Theroux, A Room with a View, Kingsley Amis, Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell, The Way of the White Clouds by Lama Anagarika Govinda. Blasphemous! Hear the original discussion of Shakespeare's comedies in Episode 83 - Overrated! Top 10 Books You Don't Need To Read. Nabokov's Lolita gets a day in the sun in Episode 112 - The Novelist and the Witch Doctor - Unpacking Nabokov's Case Against Freud (with Joshua Ferris). A trip through Tibet? Reading Madame Bovary? Yes indeed. Hear the whole story in Episode 79 - Music that Melts the Stars - Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.  Support the show at patreon.com/literature. Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson and @literatureSC. Or send an email to jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com.   *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.  Since you're listening to The History of Literature, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding literature, history, and storytelling like Storybound, Micheaux Mission, and The History of Standup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio.

0:07.0

So in America, when the sun goes, and I sit on the old broken down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey,

0:18.0

and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the west coast

0:24.1

all that road going

0:26.8

and all the people dreaming and the immensity of it

0:30.0

In an hour I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry

0:36.5

And tonight the stars will be out

0:38.5

Don't you know that goddess poobair?

0:41.1

The evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth,

0:50.0

darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks, and folds the final shore in.

0:57.0

Nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the fall on rags of growing old.

1:04.0

Think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of old Dean Moriarty,

1:07.0

the father we never found.

1:09.0

Think of Dean Moriarty.

1:10.0

I think of Dean of Voski.

1:13.0

That was author Jack Kerouac, reading from his classic travel book, on the road.

1:29.0

He was accompanied on the piano by the talk show host Steve Allen. It's not the kind of show you see much anymore

1:35.1

it seems. It's also not the kind of book you read or not the kind of moment for a

1:40.3

book like that. With its wild freedom the American Vista wide open and

1:46.3

waiting to be discovered the world of stealing cars and hitching rides and hopping

1:52.1

trains and the background of post-war America

1:56.1

with people everywhere returning to the stable lives of college and jobs and having

...

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