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Summary: "Themes designed to deepen the joy of traveling"
Review: A truly remarkable book, loaned to me by a traveler friend. De Botton goes right to the heart of the matter, asking why we travel as opposed to offering more of the same tired and often untrue where to travel advice. He takes a selection of distinguished writers, artists and thinkers and parallels their experiences while traveling with his own in a novel fashion, organizing each chapter around themes designed to help us appreciate travel-and to help deepen the joy of traveling. It is the kind of book that you'll find yourself underlining apt passages and clever sections that capture ideas about the art of traveling you may have held-yet never expressed so well.
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Summary: Deliciously Readable philosophy
Review: Alain de Botton's book furthers his exploration of philosophical issues in our every day lives. Travelling for the author becomes a way to discuss our pursuit of happiness as well as they way our expectations affect how we live. While the questions that he raises are sophisticated and he draws on his background as an exquisitely trained philosopher for this book, the narrative is incredibly readable:his anecdotes are witty, the prose flows well, and seemingly a high school freshman could comprehend and digest much of what he is saying.By no means however does this mean that it is not a challenging and enlightening read. de Botton relates a series of his journeys from comical moments of deciding to travel thousands of miles across the globe from the inspiration of a picture of palm trees to the anxiety we experience when we discover that not only does our destination have palm trees but also dirty streets, traffic, and bureacracy. His personal experiences are sprinkled with insight from other famous travellers from european colonial painters to influential french novelists. The end result is a witty, personal, and thorough exploration of travel and what it tells us about the way we live our lives. As a side note seeing Alain de Botton read and discuss his work in Oxford displayed his depth of knowledge and comfort in his field. He is truly a philosopher who cares about communicating and discussing ideas about how we can better live our lives in an intelligent and coherent manner for any willing reader which is an admirable task. Do not pass this book up!
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Summary: Armchair Travelers Unite -- the world is your oyster!
Review: Alain De Botton, the author of How Proust Can Change Your Life delights in examining travel and the art of the vacation/holiday like no one else. A veteran traveler he shares tales of travel from his life and from those of great authors and personalities of now and past. Charming! Engaging! Fascinating! and more. You'll never look at vacation time as just 'time off' again. He hits that sweet spot for any of us who yearn to live their life like they are on vacation forever. The magic, the challenge, the opportunity....where's my airplane ticket and when does the next ship leave?
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Summary: An "examined life" continues...
Review: De Botton seems to have given his new book, like two of his previous volumes (HOW PROUST CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE and THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY), a self-satirizing title. But like those earlier works, THE ART OF TRAVEL exhibits a strong belief in the ability of art, observation, and thinking about art to make a difference on how one experiences one's own life and place in the world. His interest in "stay-at-home" artists, first evidenced in his study of Proust, continues. THE ART OF TRAVEL is comprised of nine chapters. The first ("On Anticipation") uses the disappointment of the decadent aesthete "hero" of J.K. Huysmans's novel A REBOURS as the basis of an exploration of why the experience of travel never seems to match our expectations (at least for those of us who are well-read). Huysmans's Parisian hero had a hankering to see London after reading a Dickens novel, made preparations for his trip, but got no further than an English tavern in Paris when he "was abruptly overcome by lassitude." In the final chapter ("On Habit") de Botton identifies an author who takes Huysmans's and Proust's approach to travel to the extreme--Xavier de Maistre. The work is JOURNEY AROUND MY BEDROOM. (The man and the book exist; I checked the Internet.) De Botton, in his humorously endearing way tries to follow de Maistre's example...but his bedroom is too small (and too crowded with books, I might add...He gives us a photograph.) Instead, he uses his immediate neighborhood as a basis for seeing what there is to see when one makes up one's mind to notice the details one would notice (without prompting) in more exotic locales. Sandwiched between these two chapters are excellent essays based on an examination of the works and world views of Charles Baudelaire & Edward Hopper ("On Traveling Places"); Gustave Flaubert ("On the Exotic"); the detail obsessed Alexander von Humboldt ("On Curiosity"); the ever-peripatetic William Wordsworth ("On the Country and the City"); Edmund Burke and the anonymous author of JOB ("On the Sublime"); the late-blooming but revolutionary artist Vincent van Gogh ("On Eye-Opening Art"); and the highly articulate artist John Ruskin ("On Possessing Beauty"). As with de Botton's earlier books, there will be those who feel he has been too superficial in his examination of his sources and too quick to see their application for our lives today. But I disagree. I find that he gives the reader plenty to think about without burdening us with too much analysis. He gives us the box and opens the lid. It's the reader's job to make the connections and explore the contents. If nothing else, this book left me with the desire to read van Gogh's letters (which I own) and anything by Ruskin (which I don't own but will certainly start looking for on Amazon.com; I found Ruskin's observation about the twin purposes of art to be as true today as when he noted them: to make sense of pain and to fathom the sources of beauty, p. 233.)
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Summary: The Perfect Companion for Thinking Travelers
Review: Desperate for something new and written in English to read after several months subsisting on one guidebook as I traveled through Europe, I found "The Art of Travel" at an English-language bookstore in Vienna. Alain de Botton's book turned out to be a perfect travel companion: funny, thought-provoking, and able to stay quiet when I needed him to.
"The Art of Travel" ponders why we travel, what we may gain from it, and what we may learn as we go. At times humorous, at times philosophical, de Botton holds up the act of traveling to gentle scrutiny and invites us to share each facet of the view.
This book is not for people who need to know whether to visit Florence in August (don't!) or what train is the best one to take from Paris to Prague (there isn't one that will allow an uninterrupted night's sleep, trust me). It is a wise and witty companion for thinking travelers.
If you know that travel at its best can be a personal and spiritual journey as well as a physical one, and you want the astute company of a like mind, you will enjoy this book.
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Summary: Inspiring.
Review: Even if you have already went on a long visit to another, distant part of the world, this book is worth reading. I would assume that it is even better if you read it before... the author is inspiring. Upon finishing, the world is experienced differently, particuraly so if you have a speck of creativity/artistic soul within you.
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Summary: The Philosopher As Poet
Review: I came to this book, reluctantly, through recommendation. A few strikes against it: the 'fancy' binding, the author's 'continental' name, the fact that his earlier Proust title sounded 'cutesy'. What I discovered, however, very early into the reading, was not only that Mr. de Botton is a skilled and perspicacious philosopher of actual living, but that he is a prose stylist. Would that contemporary novelists -- popular or 'intellectual' -- had his skill and depth! I admit with chagrin that my first prejudices led me astray. Mea maxima culpa. This is a 'must read' for anyone with a sense of fineness or a desire to experience it in words. By that, don't think I undercut the substance of what he writes to honor merely his style. The philosophy goes beyond 'intellectual category' and pulls into itself the routine experiences each of us undergoes at one time or another. A lasting work.
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Summary: Not "Where" to travel "Why" to travel...
Review: I love de Botton's works, I've read and thoroughly enjoyed "How Proust can change your life" and "The Consolations of Philosophy". I was schooled as a philosopher (did three years of PhD-level grad school), and I envy the use to which de Botton has put his education.
This book continues de Botton's success in the "self-help through Art and Literature" tradition. A must for anyone who loves to travel and/or to ponder.
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Summary: A great travel book
Review: I was traveling for business when I read this book. The book inspired me to be aware of people, culture, food and re-evaluate my expectations of moving into unknown territory and getting away from my safety zone. It is a beautiful book of philosophy integrated with art and psychology for understanding oneself and human nature through traveling and living without predetermined notions. As De Botton suggests, wherever you go, you always have yourself to travel with, happy or sad. I strongly recommend it to all Alain De Botton and travel lovers.
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Summary: An author's philosophical approach to travel.
Review: In today's travel literature market it is not often that we have an opportunity to read a book that is devoid of telling us where and how to go, but rather the philosophical aspects of travel. Alain de Botton's collection of charming reflections entitled THE ART OF TRAVEL opens up a window to a variety of hidden thoughts that we often ponder but seem to ignore.
How often is the anticipation of a voyage more gratifying than its actual fulfillment, when we can muse, as does the author, when he states, "there were times when I felt there might be no finer journeys than those provoked in the imagination by staying home slowly turning the Bible-paper pages of the British Airways Worldwide Timetable." In our age of persuasive marketing, glossy photos of far off idyllic places often seduce us to travel to destinations that unfortunately do not seem to resemble our preconceptions. De Botton's poetic essays explore various ingredients of the travel experience, such as, airports, holiday romance, uncomfortable hotels and distasteful scenery. These induce us to question why we travel and what benefits we derive from the adventure. Particularly in today's travel climate with the threat of terrorism, travelling does not seem to have the same sparkle as it once enjoyed. There certainly is no fun attached to standing in line at an airport for three hours waiting to be questioned, searched and eventually admitted to a stale smelling airplane containing seats that are so narrow that even a child would have difficulty in finding comfort. However, even with all of its shortcomings, De Botton reminds us that travel is a learning experience and by effectively employing our senses we will be handsomely rewarded. We are reminded that we travel not only to lose ourselves but also to discover ourselves. To observe and to appreciate surroundings that ordinarily may not be meaningful. De Botton accomplishes this feat by skilfully blending his own images with the aesthetic endeavours and travel experiences of some of the most renowned authors and painters such as, William Wordsworth, Gustave Flaubert, Edward Hopper, Vincent van Gough, John Ruskin, Charles Baudelaire, and Alexander von Humboldt. It is the teachings of these individuals that show us how to appreciate nature, to fall in love again, and to recognize the beauty and poetry of such simple scenes as a motel, service station, or an airport. As the author philosophizes, "it is perhaps because, in spite of their architectural compromises and discomforts, in spite of their garish colours and harsh lighting, we implicitly feel that these isolated places offer us a material setting for an alternative to the selfish ease, the habits and confinement of the ordinary, rooted world." Many of the truisms expounded upon in THE ART OF TRAVEL are far from novel, however, it is the manner in which they are expressed that I found enlightening. Very often I found myself rereading passages and uttering "right on," as they reaffirmed many of my own perceptions of travel. An interview with the author appeared on the reviewer's own site
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