title: A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration (Travelers' Tales)
author:  Michael Shapiro 
description: Journalist Shapiro (Internet Travel Planner) says that he embarked on this collection of illuminating interviews with the desire to learn more about his favorite authors, about "their lives, their hopes, their aspirations, and their thoughts about the world." He set out to meet publishing veterans such as Bill Bryson (A Walk in the Woods), Jan Morris (Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere), Paul Theroux (The Great Railway Bazaar) and Peter Matthiessen (The Snow Leopard), writers whose insights do indeed make for fascinating reading. But Shapiros discussions with novelist Isabel Allende (The House of the Spirits) and guidebook gurus Rick Steves and Arthur Frommer prove equally enlightening. In the chapter "At Home with the Spirits," for example, Allende talks about the ways in which travel informs and influences her work. She likens the memories someone keeps from a trip to the significant details that get included in a particular story: "The person doesnt bring back the month; the person brings back the big strokes, the brilliant colors, the intense experiences, and in a week you have forgotten how uncomfortable you were and the mosquitoes. You only remember those things that eventually you might write about." Conversations such as these help Shapiros book live up to its ambitious title. By combining brief profiles with lengthy Q&As for each author, he provides a comprehensive look at the process these and other writers often go through, making the volume a good choice for both armchair travelers and aspiring writers.<BR>Copyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: Don George is the editor of four previous Lonely Planet literary
  anthologies: A House Somewhere (co-edited with Anthony Sattin), The
  Kindness of Strangers, By the Seat of My Pants and Tales from Nowhere.
  He is also the author of the Lonely Planet Guide to Travel Writing. Don
  is Contributing Editor and Book Review Columnist for National
  Geographic Traveler, and Special Features Editor and Columnist for the
  popular travel website Gadling.com. He is also the Editor in Chief of
  the online literary travel magazine Recce: Literary Journeys for the
  Discerning Traveler (www.geoex.com/recce) and the creator and host
  of 
  the 
  adventure 
  travel 
  site 
  Don’s 
  Place
  (www.adventurecollection.com/dons-blog). In thirty years as a travel
  writer and editor, Don has been Global Travel Editor for Lonely
  Planet and Travel Editor at the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle;
  he also founded and edited Salon.com’s groundbreaking travel site,
  Wanderlust. He has received dozens of awards for his writing and
  edi