SF Travel Book Club

November 2011 Pick: Weaving history with observations of people, places, and art, Pamuk shows Istanbul's transformation from the seat of faded imperial glory to the capital of a modern nation at the dizzying crossroads of East and West.

July 2011 Selection: A modern-day Odysseus, Herzog plunges into a solo cross-country search for insight. With middle age bearing down on him, he takes stock: How has he measured up to his own youthful aspirations? In contemporary America, what is a life well lived? What is a heroic life?

May 2011 Selection: In January 2002, Rory Stewart survived a walk across Afghanistan by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. In this memoir, he writes about heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers as he makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance. Show Less

March 2010 Selection: In 1933, the delightfully eccentric travel writer Robert Byron set out on a journey through the Middle East via Beirut to Oxiana, between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. This is his captivating record of his encounters, discoveries, and frequent misadventures along the way

October 2009 Selection: At the age of twenty-six, Maarten Troost--who had been pushing the snooze button on the alarm clock of life by racking up useless graduate degrees and muddling through a series of temp jobs--decided to pack up his flip-flops and move to Tarawa, a remote South Pacific island in the Republic of Kiribati. He was restless and lacked direction, and the idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the earth was irresistibly romantic. He should have known better. "The Sex Lives of Cannibals" tells the hilarious story of what happens when Troost discovers that Tarawa is not the island paradise he dreamed of. Falling into one amusing misadventure after another, Troost struggles through relentless, stifling heat, a variety of deadly bacteria, polluted seas, toxic fish--all in a country where the only music to be heard for miles around is "La Macarena." He and his stalwart girlfriend Sylvia spend the next two years battling incompetent government officials, alarmingly large critters, erratic electricity, and a paucity of food options (including the Great Beer Crisis); and contending with a bizarre cast of local characters, including "Half-Dead Fred" and the self-proclaimed Poet Laureate of Tarawa (a British drunkard who's never written a poem in his life). With "The Sex Lives of Cannibals," Maarten Troost has delivered one of the most original, rip-roaringly funny travelogues in years--one that will leave you thankful for staples of American civilization such as coffee, regular showers, and tabloid news, and that will provide the ultimate vicarious adventure.

August 2009 Selection: Have you ever made a drunken bet? Worse, still, have you ever tried to win one? In attempting to hitchhike round Ireland with a fridge, Tony Hawks did both, and his foolhardiness led him to one of the best experiences of his life. Joined by his trusty traveling companion-cum-domestic appliance, he found himself in the midst of a remarkable adventure, at times, emotional, at times inspirational, but more often than not, downright silly. Only in the magical land of Ireland could such a notion lead to such fruitful adventure. Here is his record of the unlikely pair's fortunes as they made their way from Dublin to Donegal, from Sligo through Mayo, Galway, Clare, Kerry, Cork, Wexford, Wicklow, and back again to Dublin. In their month of madness, Tony and his fridge met a real prince and a bogus one; they surfed together and entered a bachelor festival; the fridge was christened; and one of the pair had sex without the other knowing. And unexpectedly, the fridge itself became a momentary focus for the people of Ireland. As in the days rolled by, the fridge grew into a personality in its own right, developing its own identity and bringing people together wherever it went. "Round Ireland with a Fridge" is one of the most inspirational stories you will ever read. Join the fearless duo as they battle on relentlessly toward Dublin and a breathtaking finale that is at the same time moving, uplifting, and a fitting conclusion to the whole ridiculous affair. An international bestseller, "Round Ireland with a Fridge" is a hilarious travel adventure in the tradition of Bill Bryson with a dash of Dave Barry. Tony Hawks's ready sense of the absurd, his self-deprecatory charm, and his warmappreciation of the Irish and their traditionally immoderate characteristics combine to make this a resoundingly good read, offering a tantalizing glimpse of grassroots Ireland captured in a wonderful blend of perception and humor.

June 2009 Selection: Part foreign affairs discourse, part humor, and part twisted self-help guide, The Geography of Bliss takes the reader from America to Iceland to India in search of happiness, or, in the crabby author's case, moments of "un-unhappiness." The book uses a beguiling mixture of travel, psychology, science and humor to investigate not what happiness is, but where it is. Are people in Switzerland happier because it is the most democratic country in the world? Do citizens of Qatar, awash in petrodollars, find joy in all that cash? Is the King of Bhutan a visionary for his initiative to calculate Gross National Happiness? Why is Asheville, North Carolina so damn happy? With engaging wit and surprising insights, Eric Weiner answers those questions and many others, offering travelers of all moods some interesting new ideas for sunnier destinations and dispositions.