“A book to be plundered and raided.” — New York Times Book Review “A portal into a world of timeless travel literature curated by one of the greatest travel writers of our day.” — USA Today Paul Theroux celebrates fifty years of wandering the globe in this collection of the best writing from the books that have shaped him as a reader and a traveler. Part philosophical guide, part miscellany, part reminiscence, The Tao of Travel contains excerpts from the best of Theroux’s own work interspersed with selections from travelers both familiar and unexpected: Vladimir Nabokov         Eudora Welty Evelyn Waugh          James Baldwin Charles Dickens         Pico Iyer Henry David Thoreau         Anton Chekhov Mark Twain         John McPhee Freya Stark         Ernest Hemingway Graham Greene         and many others “Dazzling . . . Like someone panning for gold, Theroux reread hundreds of travel classics and modern works, shaking out the nuggets.” — San Francisco Chronicle A "determinedly personal collection of travel appreciation." - Kirkus Reviews A "diverting meditation on passages from his own and other writers' works. [T]he strongest pieces descry a tangible place through a discerning eye and pungent sensibility..." - Publishers Weekly Paul Theroux celebrates fifty years of wandering the globe in this collection of the best writing from the books that shaped him as a reader and traveler. Part philosophical guide, part miscellany, part reminiscence, The Tao of Travel contains excerpts from the best of Theroux’s own work interspersed with selections from travelers both familiar and unexpected: Vladimir Nabokov Eudora Welty Evelyn Waugh James Baldwin Charles Dickens Pico Iyer Henry David Thoreau Anton Chekhov Mark Twain John McPhee Freya Stark Ernest Hemingway Graham Greene and many others PAUL THEROUX is the author of many highly acclaimed books, including Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and Dark Star Safari. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod. Paul Theroux  is the author of many highly acclaimed books. His novels include  Burma Sahib, The Bad Angel Brothers, The Lower River, Jungle Lovers,  and  The Mosquito Coast , and his renowned travel books include  Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, On the Plain of Snakes,  and  Dark Star Safari . He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod. Preface: The Importance of Elsewhere As a child, yearning to leave home and go far away, the image in my mind was of flight — my little self hurrying off alone. The word “travel” did not occur to me, nor did the word “transformation,” which was my unspoken but enduring wish. I wanted to find a new self in a distant place, and new things to care about. The importance of elsewhere was something I took on faith. Elsewhere was the place I wanted to be. Too young to go, I read about elsewheres, fantasizing about my freedom. Books were my road. And then, when I was old enough to go, the roads I traveled became the obsessive subject in my own books. Eventually I saw that the most passionate travelers have always also been passionate readers and writers. And that is how this book came about.  The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown, to bear witness to the consequences, tragic or comic, of people possessed by the narcissism of minor differences. Chekhov said, “If you’re afraid of loneliness, don’t marry.” I would say, if you’re afraid of loneliness, don’t travel. The literature of travel shows the effects of solitude, sometimes mournful, more often enriching, now and then unexpectedly spiritual.  All my traveling life I have been asked the maddening and oversimplifying question “What is your favorite travel book?” How to answer it? I have been on the road for almost fifty years and writing about my travels for more than forty years. One of the first books my father read to me at bedtime when I was small was Donn Fendler: Lost on a Mountain in Maine. This 1930s as-told-to account described how a twelve-year-old boy survived eight days on Mount Katahdin. Donn suffered, but he made it out of the Maine woods. The book taught me lessons in wilderness survival, including the basic one: “Always follow a river or a creek in the direction the water is flowing.” I have read many travel books since, and I have made journeys on every continent except Antarctica, which I have recounted in eight books and hundreds of essays. I have felt renewed inspiration in the thought of little Donn making it safely down the high mountain.  The travel narrative is the oldest in the world, the story the wanderer tells to the folk gathered around the fire after his or her return from a journey. “This is what I saw” — news from the wider world; the odd, the strange, the shocking, tales of beasts or of other people. “They’re just like us!” or “They’re