The Art of Travel (Vintage)

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Summary: The Poetry of Airports and Travels Through the Self
Review: This is a truly wonderful book which will help thoughtful travlers unravel the many inexplicable sensations form excitemnt to boredom and nostalgia that accompany them on their journeys.The title hints that the book also discusses how artists, from painters to poets, have used travel to explore their own passions reflecting them through their workform the exotic tatstes of Gustave Flaubert to the quiet loneliness of the paintings of Edward Hopper. In this sense the book could well be described as an art history text; however, it speaks in a personal and warm tone that engages readers and stimualting them to thinsk about the genuine meaning of travel, well beyond the cliché expressions, we so often use to boast about places we've seen to friends and family. The book makes you think about why we travel and what is it that we learn about ourselves in the process. On a more personal basis, I finally found in de Botton an author that shares my love of airports. They have become those places where so much of the best qualities of humanity become evident. People exchanging genuine affection, love and friendship as joyously embrace a firend,, lover or reltaive at the arrivals floor or more poignantly - and perhaps more poetically - as they say goodbye, sometimes for a brief period, sometimes permanently, at the departures gate. The tears on both sides of the customs gate, speak for the hundreds and thousands of miles that will separate them. I could not recommend this bokk more, as it provokes you to think with your brain and perhaps even more with your soul.