Maureen and Tony Wheeler – Publishers Lonely Planet
Fiction
Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
“The first of the riotous hitchhiker series takes the hapless Arthur Dent on a whirlwind tour around the universe, assisted by writer/researcher Ford Prefect and a guidebook with that essential and basic piece of advice: 'Don't Panic.'“
Murray Bail Eucalyptus
“A neat little gem, half fairy tale, half natural history text and all of it in an absolutely spot-on Australian context.”
Alan Brown Audrey Hepburn's Neck
“Set mainly in Tokyo this story sets out to explore the culture clash between East and West but becomes so much more of a meditation on modern Japan, its recent past and the often tragic impact on individuals caught up in momentous change.”
Jared Diamond Guns, Germs & Steel
“So why did the west come out on top? Nature, environment, geography and some lucky breaks according to this intriguing book with its absorbing forays into topics like how languages developed or why domesticated animals are so important to the development of civilisation. Papua New Guinea provides the backdrop to much of this study.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky Crime & Punishment
“A classic of literature but also hugely evocative of St Petersburg. The city is almost a character in this book, you feel you could find your way around without a map.”
Geoff Dyer Paris Trance
“A modern tale of youth, disaffection, alienation, relationships and lassitude set in the city of light. If you have ever been there you will recognise streets and bars, if you haven't been you will want to go.”
John Fowles The Magus
“Rereading it recently, this book didn't cut it at all, but the first read was perfect - only a litre of retsina would do a better job of transporting you to the Greek islands in this curious blend of WWII and young love in the '60s.”
William Gibson Mona Lisa Overdrive
“The man who invented the word 'cyberpunk' creates a science fiction alternative world at its very best, so marginally displaced from corners of the world today (backpacker enclaves in Singapore, capsule hotels in Japan) you could swear you'd already been there.”
Graham Greene The Quiet American
“Set in Saigon in the build up to the American involvement in Vietnam, this book portrays exactly the American incomprehension of Vietnamese aspirations for freedom, juxtaposed against the cynicism of the 'old world' represented by the world weary British journalist who narrates the story. It is fascinating to go to Saigon today and find it pretty much as described, right down to the Hotel Continental which was the centre of action.”
Arthur Grimble A Pattern of Islands
“This book was assigned to my class in grade five and I remember devouring it avidly and deciding there and then I would be a missionary in the Pacific. I particularly memorised how to kill a giant octopus - just in case the need ever arose!”
Mrs Aeneas Gunn We of the Never Never
“A must read for anyone newly arrived in Australia. It brings alive the early days of settlement and the immense courage of the pioneers whose journeys into outback Australia were the equivalent then of space exploration. Mrs Gunn speaks of the hardships, the people and the landscape with warmth and affection.”
Christopher Koch The Year of Living Dangerously
“It's the twilight of the Sukarno era, chaos is about to roll across the Indonesian archipelago and Suharto is about to take over as we follow a bunch of journalists around Jakarta. Even today it's one of the best scene setters for steamy tropical intrigue.”
James A Michener The Drifters
“Superior trash, but for all those who want to know what it was really like being young and free in the '60s, and those who were there but can't remember, this is the book.”
Walter Miller A Canticle for Leibowitz
“A science fiction classic which evocatively creates an entire alternative world. This tale of a post-apocalypse earth kicks off with a monk painstakingly creating an illuminated engineering blueprint as history emerges from a new/old dark age.”
David Mitchell Ghostwritten
“A great sprawl of a book which begins with a heart attack on the Peak in Hong Kong, and proceeds to roam through Asia and Mongolia bringing in stories and characters from all over the world. Fascinating and weird but hugely enjoyable.”
Timothy Mo The Redundancy of Courage
“An analysis of how political expediency can always be presented as pragmatism, but in human terms is more often a betrayal and abandonment. Although the state is fictional it's clearly East Timor (half of an island just north of Australia) and it's a must for anyone who wants to understand Timor outside of the headlines.”
D’Arcy Niland The Shiralee
“A flawless little heartbreaker which perfectly captures outback Australia with its tale of a back-of-Bourke roustabout and his 'burden and handicap -' his four year old daughter.”
Charles Nordhoff Mutiny on the Bounty
“The first book in the 'Bounty Trilogy' not only set the scene for all those fever pitch Bounty movies (the Mel Gibson one is, curiously, probably the best) but also inspired me to wander the Pacific looking for Bounty reminders. I even managed to make it to Pitcairn Island (on a Russian icebreaker) in 1998.”
Arthur Ransome Swallows & Amazon
“When I was 10 years old this children's book was the last my parents ever read out loud to me and, 30 years later, the last book I read to my daughter. Same copy too. Remarkably it's still in print and its a tale of kids, sailboats and adventures on Wildcat Island (without a parent in sight), and is as popular as ever. Apart from writing children's books Ransome also managed to get sued by Lord Alfred Douglas (Oscar Wilde's odious lover) and married Leon Trotsky's personal secretary! I think the maps in this book kicked off my life long love affair with cartography as well, perhaps it's the reason there are so many maps in Lonely Planet guidebooks.”
Kim Stanley Robinson Escape from Kathmandu
“Renowned for his high class science fiction this collection of short stories blends a touch of Science Fiction and fantasy with often knife sharp accuracy on the Kathmandu travel scene. The chance encounter between a yeti and ex-US president Jimmy Carter (who did indeed go trekking in Nepal) is a classic.”
Salman Rushdie Midnight's Children
“A great novel which unfortunately convinced many lesser Indian authors that they too should try their hand at a mytho-magical-surrealist style. Rushdie invented the genre for the subcontinent and did it brilliantly, combining effortlessly all the elements - political, historical and human - which make up India.”
Kurban Said Ali & Nino
“A story with a mysterious author, set in Azerbaijan around 1920, a beautifully told love story and with real insights into Islam and this fascinating region. Although the attitudes may be markedly different from those we hold today, the simplicity and commonality of human experience transcends the differences and underscores - those things that do not change between cultures, religions or time.”
Vikram Seth A Suitable Boy
“A wonderful story of an Indian family which involves the reader in Indian history, politics, religions and culture in a rambling, beautifully written saga. When you finally finish it you feel like you have just left home - ie bereft!”
Mario Vargas Llosa Aunt Julia & the Scriptwriter
“As with all his books there is so much life and vibrancy in the characters and their stories that you want to pack up and go straight to South America.”
Non-fiction
Peter Ackroyd London: the Biography
“As usual Ackroyd brings his own unique blend of scholarship, emotion and storytelling in uncovering and exploring the personality of London.”
Yann Arthus-Bertrand Earth from the Air
“An amazing collection of large format aerial photographs. With many of the images the thought process is 'what on earth is that?' quickly followed by 'where on earth is that?' and then 'I want to go there.'”
Fawn M Brodie The Devil Drives: a Life of Sir Richard Burton
“This Richard Burton, not the serial husband to Liz Taylor, went in search of the source of the Nile, sneaked in to Mecca, spoke a whole dictionary of languages and translated the Kama Sutra from Sanskrit. If it wasn't the devil then something else pretty powerful certainly did drive him. It's even suggested he deliberately contracted malaria on the basis that if the fevers didn't kill him they might cure his syphilis. His wife, outraged by much of his life, burnt most of his papers after his death. Perhaps there was another Kama Sutra in there.”
Bill Bryson Neither Here nor There
“All Bryson's books are hilarious but for me this one, trying to recreate his college days Let's Go Europe trip 20 years later, is knock out. His account of how Italians park cars is a classic.”
Robert Byron The Road to Oxiana
“Regularly cited as the 'best travel book' from between the wars (often with the additional note that 'between the wars' was a golden era for travel writing), it covers an area (eastern Turkey, Iran, northern Afghanistan) very much in the news 70 years later. It's hilarious but also frighteningly perceptive about a lot of things that would happen in Central Asia a half century later. Byron was spot on when he wrote why Afghanistan needed to be careful about Russia and why the Shah of Iran needed to be careful full stop.”
Tim & Pauline Carr Antarctic Oasis: under the Spell of South Georgia
“This beautiful photographic book recounts five years of sailing and living around the most amazing of the sub-Antarctic islands, home to hundreds of thousands of penguins and site for Shackleton's amazing adventure in 1916. This book played a major part in inspiring my own fascination with South Georgia and when I managed to get there in 2002 I was lucky enough to meet the Carrs.”
Jason Elliott An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan
“Visit one is in the late '70s, during the terrifying Soviet occupation, when 19 year old Elliot is smuggled in by the mujahideen. Ten years later he returns to a country destroying itself as the Northern Alliance fall back before the advance of the Taliban. Harrowing, heartbreaking and yet beautifully written this is a classic tale about a country which seems to inspire wonderful writing.”
U Toke Gale Burmese Timber Elephant
“The first time we visited Burma I stumbled upon this remarkable book about the care, training and use of timber elephants. It covers absolutely everything you'd ever need to know about looking after your own elephant. There's even a diagram showing the 82 important 'nerve centres' but for God's sake don't press on points 13, 25, 60, 61 or 63 because 'the animal will be infuriated.' Perhaps partly as a result of my rave about this book in the first Lonely Planet guide to Burma 'Burmese Timber Elephant' has remained in print ever since.”
Pico Iyer Video Night in Kathmandu
“A collection of travel stories on the '80s collision between backpackers and Asia.”
Jack Kerouac On the Road
“Another travel classic but it vividly illustrates a particular time in America and a uniquely American mind set while giving an authentic 'on the road' sense of restlessness.”
Murray Laurence High Times in the Middle of Nowhere
“A collection of short stories about travel in Australia and Asia in the 1970s, which are absolutely the funniest traveller's tales I have ever read. I swear we were on the same Air Lao DC-3 he describes in 'This is Your Last Airplane.'”
Steve McCurry Monsoon
The renowned photographer roams the monsoon regions of Australasia putting a human face on one of the world's most intriguing weather patterns.
Colin McPhee A House in Bali
“Clear proof that some of the best travel books are about staying in one place. In the 1930s a music student hears gamelan music in a film, moves to Bali, falls in love with the place and decides to build a house. This insightful and often hilarious account of Bali in its earliest tourist period is the clear favourite of all the 'live somewhere and build a house' books which have become such a recent trend. McPhee left Bali as WW II closed in and his house has long disappeared, it was along the Sayan Valley, just outside Ubud.”
Beryl Markham West with the Night
“Even more extraordinary than Beryl Markham's pioneering aviation adventures in East Africa is how extraordinarily well she wrote. 'I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer,' commented Ernest Hemingway, after reading this book.”
Peter Matthiessen The Snow Leopard
With George Schaller, himself an accomplished writer, Matthiessen treks around remote regions of Nepal, counting blue sheep (which aren't really sheep at all, but Schaller can tell you all about them), musing on Buddhism, sorrowing for his recently deceased wife and never really catching more than a glimpse of the almost mythical snow leopard. I have to admit my favourite comment about the book was from our long time Kathmandu-resident friend Stan Armington that the book, 'never gets out of base camp.'
Alan Moorehead Cooper's Creek: the Opening of Australia
“In 1991 we followed the tracks of Burke and Wills from their statue in central Melbourne all the way to the dig tree by Cooper's Creek in Queensland. I'd read Alan Moorehead's gripping story of the great misadventure years before but brought it along thinking there would be bits to read to our kids, 10 and 8 years old at the time, by the campfire. In fact, due to popular demand, I ended up reading it to them cover to cover as we discovered more and more Burke and Wills reminders along the way.”
Dervla Murphy Full Tilt: Dunkirk to Delhi by Bicycle
“Ireland to India by bicycle, a nutty first journey from a writer who would go on to establish herself in the fine British (even though she's very Irish) tradition of having a terrible time and liking it that way. She even pedals her way up to the Bamiyan Buddhas, north of Kabul in Afghanistan.”
Eric Newby A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
“It's the early '50s and Eric and his mate decide to go to Afghanistan and climb a few previously unconquered peaks. 'But we know nothing about mountain climbing,' says Newby's friend. 'Never mind,' replies Eric, 'we'll go to Wales for a weekend and learn how.' It's the starting point for a book which epitomises the 'just go' school of travel adventure which concludes with a wonderful chance encounter with Wilfred (Arabian Sands) Thesiger.”
PJ O'Rourke Holidays in Hell
“The right wing (so he claims) humorist heads to all the wrong places in this typically funny O'Rourke travelogue. If it works for you then Eat the Rich, his economics text book on what works and what doesn't, is equally good.”
Jonathan Raban Arabia through the Looking Glass
”Although it's already somewhat dated this is a fascinating modern introduction to a little understood region of the world and a long way from Thesiger's noble Arabs and trusty camels of Arabian Sands. For some reason ever since reading his description of crossing The Creek in Dubai I wanted to ride across it on an abra, the Dubai boat service that shuttles back and forth across the desert city's central waterway.”
Donald Richie The Inland Sea
“Richie, who went on to become the best known interpreter of post-war Japan and a renowned expert on Japanese cinema, wanders around the Inland Sea of Japan, bumping into strange characters and reinforcing the basic truth that the best travel books teach you as much about the writer as the place. Japan at the time, the early '60s, was on the cusp of launching onto its headlong period of economic growth.”
Vikram Seth From Heaven Lake
“Before he launched into fiction Seth wrote one perfect travel book. A student in China he decides to hitch-hike home to India via Tibet and Nepal and, naturally, is whisked through by the kindness of strangers.”
Paul Theroux The Great Railway Bazaar
“This classic early Theroux account of a protracted railway journey across Europe and Asia remains his most popular travel book. It's incisive, funny and he's not yet in his really grumpy mode. Although he does come up with his much quoted comment that whenever things were really bad he'd inevitably find himself in the company of Australians.”
David Tomory A Season in Heaven
“This terrific oral history of the 'road to the east', the Asian 'hippy trail' perfectly captures that whole awakening to the possibilities of exotic travel. It was exactly the period when Maureen and I travelled the same trail en route to Australia and the first Lonely Planet guidebook and reading it made me very nostalgic.”
Kurt Vonnegut Cat's Cradle
“The best science fiction creates an alternative world or takes you travelling to a place you'll never really get to. This classic Vonnegut title qualifies on that count alone with its wonderfully corrupt Caribbean nation, its greedy ruler and the invention of Ice 9, something the world would clearly do better without.”
Ronald Wright Cut Stones & Crossroads
“This Canadian author's fascinating look around Peru in the late '70s or early '80s, before the Sendero Luminoso chased everybody away, is another of those books which makes you want to pack your bag and depart immediately. Wright later on wrote a phrasebook to the Inca Indian language Quechua for Lonely Planet.”
