The Best American Travel Writing 2016: Illuminating Essays on Why We Travel by Bill BrysonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I tend to enjoy the various series of "Best American" although I have read very few of them in full. A few of the early essays felt that categorizing as travel was slightly generous. One example is the essay "How Can We Find More People Like You?" by Sara Corbett, where she discusses how Airbnb is finding it hard to expand in Japan. Or the essay The Actual Hollister by Dave Eggers discussing the town of Hollister and the Hollister clothing business. They felt more orientated towards a business than the experience of travelling.
Further in the essays move more towards what I expected. And some essays were by people living in other countries, which I think are expatriates, not necessarily a traveler. Each essay in the collection had hook which made the essay worthwhile for me to read. None were very long, as they are taken from essays previously published in magazines or journals from the prior year.
One of the last essays, “Invisible and Insidious” by William Vollman, was about radiation in Japan after the disaster in Fukushima caused by the massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The author kept visiting the area and measuring the different types of radiation, as well as talking to residents in the affected area. This essay is one that will stick with me the most.
Book rating: 3.5 stars
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