As you may have noticed, I rarely read anything but literary fiction, w/ occasional forays into poetry, but I have started reading the first (of 3) volumes from Patrick Leigh Fermor, which he wrote in 1977,  about his travels from about 1933-37, when he was about 18-22 years old, through Europe en route to Constantinople; the first volume, A Time for Gifts (not a great title, btw). Reading it because it was a recommendation and gift from great friend and great read DB, and also because it's from New York Review Books, and I will read (almost) anything in the NYRB series. And it's well worth reading! A beautiful account, with an amazing amount of recalled detail, of his early life and his intrepid travels - powerful not only for the way in which he brings you right along w/ him on his wanderings and and adventures, as the great travel writers must do (e.g., Jan Morris, who wrote the intro, Chawin, Theroux, to name 3) but also for a snapshot in time of a scary time in European history and of a way of travel long gone (at least in Europe and N. America). PLF was, as he recounts, an impatient and rambunctious child in youth, always in trouble and booted from many fine schools, who at 18 got it in his head to make the journey across Europe to the Ottoman (Contstantinople at that time). He sets out on a drizzly, miserable day in December - would have made much more sense to wait till the spring, but that give you an idea of his personality - and the first part recounts his voyage out, his trek through Holland, and his first days crossing  Germany. This part is particularly scary and odd, as it was in the time of Kristalnacht, and PLF sees lots of Nazi propaganda and gatherings (and meets a few brave souls who in private mock Hitler and his henchmen) - so we see that there were some good Germans, completely overwhelmed by events. Nobody could travel today as he did, hitching rides of various barges, falling asleep in a pub until taken in, sleeping sometimes in the local lockup, traveling without a plan and without a guidebook - they'd be picked up as a vagrant or worse - and even in winter there would, today, be tourists and other travelers everywhere. His journey took place almost a century ago, and so it reads - closer in feeling to the 19th century than the 21st. I doubt I'll follow his journey through 3 volumes, but the start of volume 1 is full of promise.