Product Description

Some of the best adventure stories come from misadventures - the pratfalls, faux pas, and cringing embarrassments that accompany life on the road. These tales share those moments when the best of plans fall by the wayside - replaced by the unforeseen, leavened by the saving grace of a sense of humor. Tim Cahill is joined by such beloved authors as Dave Barry, Anne Lamott, David Sedaris, and Adair Lara.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1061914 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From Booklist
J. P. Donleavy, Nicholas Delbanco, and Dave Barry are among the 36 writers represented in this collection of droll travel tales. A baboon joins one travel writer in Zimbabwe for breakfast and refuses to leave. A French language class in Paris redefines the foundation of Christianity with a discussion of the Easter bunny. Another writer, warned not to tell the Vietnamese that he is divorced, invents intricate stories to explain his ex-wife's "accidental death." A fourth writer reflects on the subject of bad haircuts around the world, and another one tells of getting to the airport an hour early and then almost missing the plane. These stories are humorous, indeed. In a few cases the reader may have gone through a similar agonizing experience--one that was not the least bit funny at the time, but comical to look back on. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

not particularly funny now, either
Mostly lame and unfunny anecdotes are contained and presented in this book. There were only a couple good laughs and they occurred in the last couple of selections.

Some selections didn't even seem particularly travel oriented, such as the one about infiltrating a fundamentalist Christian sect. And the one about the fox hunt was, I suppose, fairly representative of it's well-known author, J.P. Donleavy. But it was still very dense, overwritten and straining for humorousness. And it also didn't seem to have much of anything to do with travel.

Apart from just been dull, uninteresting and unfunny, the worst thing about this book were the little inserts, or sidebars, that were included on every other page. A number of them were, in fact, quotes from the TV show "Saturday Night Live"?!?!?! They were the little phony "thought for the day" things by "Jack Handey". For example: "I hope if dogs ever take over the world and they choose a king, they don't just go by size, because I bet there are some Chihauhuas with some good ideas"?!?! What is this only marginally clever re-cycled TV crud doing in a travel book?

Good thing I got this out of a library and didn't actually have to pay real money for it, or I would have really been unhappy.

funny travel writing
This wasn't quite as funny as it sounded, but it was still worth reading.

Very Funny Now
There are some hilarious, absurd, and painfully funny stories in this collection, including a couple of disgusting ones...I would worry about someone's mental health if they didn't find something to laugh out loud about in this book.