Journey by the Book is a tool enabling the pathfinder-whether tenderfoot or veteran scout-to explore uncharted seas and territories in the kingdom of travel.

Author Van Tassel discusses a vast sampling of travel narratives. If the story uses a voyage, pilgrimage, or journey as pivotal for its meaning and structure, it will figure prominently in the array of tales he tallies.

The book defines categories of travel literature and discusses the gamut of impulses prompting travel, travel writing, and travel reading.

The tales of travel summoned, explored, and scrutinized for the armchair traveler extend from imaginary journeys to very real ones, including:

The Odyssey
Gulliver's Travels
Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Road trips and tramps by Twain, Steinbeck, Kerouac, Pirsig, Bill Bryson, and others
Exotic adventures recounted by Polo and Newby
Epic voyages logged by discoverers Captain Cook, Conrad, Dana, and Heyerdahl
Marathon journeys by Theroux, Naipaul, Davidson, Simon, and Hoffman
And assorted other tales varying by mode and direction of travel

Multifaceted travel accounts, ranging from novels and guidebooks to travelogues and travel-oriented magazines and sketches, are all testaments to what the travel story can do: stoke and satisfy a reader's wanderlust. It's your turn.

Autorentext

Daniel E. Van Tassel is the author of Back to Barron, a chronicle of growing up in small-town-and-rural mid-century America. He graduated from St. Olaf College and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in literature from the University of Iowa.He taught at Pacific Lutheran University, California State University San Marcos, and, for over two decades, Muskingum College, where he served as academic dean and professor of English. His scholarly publications include articles on Shakespeare, Hardy, Lawrence, and Beckett and numerous book reviews in Modern Fiction Studies.Retired and living in Northfield, Minnesota with his wife Rhoda, he now teaches courses in the Cannon Valley Elder Collegium program. Subjects in his syllabi these days range from Humor, Poetry, Thomas Hardy, Chaucer, and Shakespeare to American Nature Writers, particularly Thoreau, Leopold, and Carson.For recreation, he takes to trails daily on his mountain bike (replacing a '58 Harley Heritage Softail he rode while in California). In addition to reading, he enjoys participating in local theater, swimming, home restoration, and decorating. Current interests remain centered on travel literature, architecture, and ecology, especially as manifested in climate change and endangered species.The past ten years he spent writing and revising a manuscript now published as Journey by the Book: A Guide to Tales of Travel.