Category Archives: Travel

Book Review: The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise by Pico Iyer

This book is well-written and takes us to fascinating places, but it is suffused with irony. Iyer tours locations that for one reason or another have been considered forms of paradise, but most of them are fraught with violence, and … Continue reading

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How Are the Mighty Fallen: Adventures on Airlines

I am not sure when I flew on an airplane for the first time, but it might have been when I went from Seattle, where I was born and raised, to San Francisco, California, to check out the University of … Continue reading

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Himalayan Trek: Part Two

I walked all day. The air was clear; the temperature was warm but not hot. I ascended the hills, one after another, and crossed more bridges over streams. Most of the time I was alone. Once a Nepali laborer with … Continue reading

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Himalayan Trek: Part One

As I was nearing completion of a rereading of Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, I was struck by his penchant to explore unfamiliar territory in the southwestern desert with a minimum of guidance and gear. He describes, for instance, venturing into … Continue reading

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On the Writing of World Without Pain: The Story of a Search

Writers are divided on the issue of writing with keyboards or by hand. Some swear that for the first draft they require the immediacy of pen and paper, while others consider that method too slow – or they like to … Continue reading

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Book Review: A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith by Timothy Egan

I decided to read this book not because of its religious content but because I enjoy good travel memoirs. Egan has sound secular credentials: he writes for The New York Times, has won a Pulitzer Prize, and has published several … Continue reading

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Another Look:  After the Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Memoir of Greece

Greece has always been regarded as the birthplace of western civilization and a Mediterranean paradise.  In The Iliad and The Odyssey Homer uses the magical epithet rosy-fingered dawn to describe the sunrise over a land of myth, fascination, and mystery.  … Continue reading

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Book Review:  A Savage Dreamland: Journeys in Burma by David Eimer

It is oddly appropriate that I am writing this during a rare power cut of several hours (and counting) in my apartment complex – appropriate because normally we here in Seattle can count on having electricity and other utilities twenty-four-seven, … Continue reading

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Book Review:  Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas by Harley Rustad – Part Three

(For the background to this article, see Part One and Part Two below.) Except for major classical works of literature, usually I only write one review per book. However, Lost in the Valley of Death evokes so many memories and … Continue reading

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Book Review:  Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas by Harley Rustad – Part Two

In my previous essay about Lost in the Valley of Death, I came down somewhat hard on the author’s negative attitude concerning spiritual quests that lead people to the Indian Subcontinent and other exotic locales. As I continued to read … Continue reading

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