Good Travel Books Are Novels

Travel. It Was An Intransitive Verb. It Didn't Involve Any Destinations. It Was Going To The Going's Sake, To Be Anywhere But Where You Were, With Motion Itself As The Only Object.

Heartbreak Comes In Different Sizes, And The Departure Of An 18-year-old Child For A Far College Has To Be Treated As A Very Benign Form Of The Disease.

Inaugurals Conventionally Start With A History Lesson And Finish With A Prayer.

In The City One Clings To Nostalgic And Unreal Signs Of Community, Takes Forced Refuge In Codes, Badges And Coteries; The City's Life, Of Surfaces And Locomotion, Usually Seems Too Dangerous And Demanding To Live Through With Any Confidence.

It's Been So Long Since A Talented Writer Last Occupied The White House; No Wonder, Then, That American Writers Have Been Among The Most Prominent Of All The Demographic Groups Claiming A Piece Of Barack Obama For Themselves.