A compendium of travel writing from a master traveller. Part philosophical guide, part miscellany, part reminiscence, it celebrates fifty years of wandering the globe by collecting the best writing on travel from the books that shaped the author, as a reader and a traveller.

Paul Theroux has written many works of fiction and travel writing, including the modern classics The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, My Secret History and The Mosquito Coast. Paul Theroux divides his time between Cape Cod and the Hawaiian islands.