My best friend, Lauren McCool, gave this to me last night. Book Lust for travelers!!! It may be the most perfect gift, ever. I’ve perused it a bit, and here are the books I most want to read from Nancy Pearl’s recommendations (so far):

- Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China by Fuchsia Dunlop (China)

- The Greatest Adventure Stories Ever Told by Lamar Underwood

- The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham (Hong Kong)

- The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna (Finland)

- The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee (South Korea)

- Once the Shore: Stories by Paul Yoon (South Korea)

- The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux (There’s a whole damn chapter in this about books written about trains…this is one of them. Unf. So awesome.)

- Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset (Norway)

- Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple (India)

- Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra (India)

- Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap (Thailand)

And there’s a lot more. She even touches on some really good fantasy about travel, which is rad. Lauren, that girl knows me too well.