The Art of TravelA wise and utterly original book of travel essays from an international bestselling author that will “give one an expansive sense of wonder” (The Baltimore Sun). Any Baedeker will tell us where we ought to travel, but only Alain de Botton will tell us how and why. With the same intelligence and insouciant charm he brought to How Proust Can Save Your Life, de Botton considers the pleasures of anticipation; the allure of the exotic, and the value of noticing everything from a seascape in Barbados to the takeoffs at Heathrow. Even as de Botton takes the reader along on his own peregrinations, he also cites such distinguished fellow-travelers as Baudelaire, Wordsworth, Van Gogh, the biologist Alexander von Humboldt, and the 18th-century eccentric Xavier de Maistre, who catalogued the wonders of his bedroom. The Art of Travel is a “refreshing and profoundly readable" book (The Philadelphia Inquirer). Don’t leave home without it. |
Contents
On Travelling Places | |
On Curiosity | |
On the Country and the City | |
On the Sublime | |
On EyeOpening | |
On Possessing Beauty | |
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Common terms and phrases
admire aesthetic afternoon Aimé Bonpland airport ALAIN DE BOTTON Alexander von Humboldt Alpilles Alps Arles arrival artists attractive Baudelaire beauty bedroom blue Botton buildings café Cairo camels clouds colours curiosity cypresses desert drawing Edward Hopper Egypt Egyptian Esseintes Eugène Delacroix eyes feel feet felt Flaubert flowers giant Gogh’s grass green grey human Humboldt and Aimé idea imagine interest John Ruskin journey Lake District Landers Peak landscapes leaves light lives London look Madrid Maistre metres mind mountains Museum nature never night oil on canvas olive trees one’s orange painted painters Paris perhaps photographs pleasure poet Provence psychological rain Rouen scene seemed sense Sinai skies station street things thou thought Tintern Abbey tourist train valley Vincent van Gogh walk walls wind window word-painting Wordsworth wrote Xavier de Maistre yellow