Reviews

In eight beautifully written essays, de Botton offers a Zen-like approach to travel-the motives, landscapes, perspectives, and internal changes affected by the experience of planning and embarking upon a journey. His considerations are inspired and guided by the works and travels of great artists, writers, and philosophers, such as Flaubert, Wordsworth, Picasso, and Alexander von Humboldt. While de Botton's ruminations are thoughtful and the language rich and evocative, the book, read by Steven Crossley, suffers in translation from print to audio. He meanders between his personal experiences and those of his guides, a device that often makes the transitions difficult to distinguish. Listening to the detailed descriptions, there is yet a sense of incompleteness, a missing piece that would render the work whole. The print version provides those pieces: works of art, photographs, and illustrations that orient the traveler to the world the author describes. Without these visual signs, the dense language becomes overwhelming, the references abstract, and the meditative nature of the essays obscure. This book should be held and contemplated in order to be fully appreciated; the audio version is not recommended.-Barbara Ferrer Kenney, Roger Williams Univ., Bristol, RI Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

"A jewel of civility, wit and insight; de Botton has produced wondrous essays. An invitation to hyperbole . . . a volume to give one an expansive sense of wonder."--"The Baltimore Sun
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"Illuminating. . .a lovely combination of enthusiasm, sensitivity, a care for the large and small, and the local and the foreign. . . reading de Botton's book will help a person discover something fabulous in everyday.-- "Chicago Tribune
""There is something Proustian in The Art of Travel, in the best sense, for Mr. de Botton is a kind of "flaneur," strolling through his subject thoughtfully and offering nuanced truths based on his reading, experience and philosophical temperament."--"The Wall Street Journal
""It would be difficult to name a writer as erudite and yet as reader friendly. . .With a wry, self-deprecating charm, he passes his enthusiasms along in such manner that you can't help being delighted by them." "- The Seattle Times"
"[R]efreshing and profoundly readable.c