Thanks for that recommendation. I love travel essays, esp from someone as interesting as Teran (I wouldn't say strange tho. Just different from the norm. Tho I might change that once I read the book)

>"I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station."

I like this author already.

Two other authors who I thought very interesting: Paul Bowles who wrote about his life in North Africa in "Their heads are green their hands are blue". Clara and Andre Malraux traveled throughout south east asia in the 20s. Very interesting couple; their bio Silk Roads is b Axel Radsen

Definitely Paul Bowles' "The Sheltering Sky" is most unusual, IMO, with a surprising twist at the end.

I found two of Ann Dillard's books to be mind-stretching, in an unusual sense: "Teaching a Stone to Talk" and "A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek."

Then there is "Love Among the Butterflies", about a proper Victorian Lady who travels to Sicily cataloging butterflies and ends up in some surprising situations with some unusual men....

Speaking of British lasses who have done rather odd, maybe even "kooky," things, such as answering an advert from a codger who's looking for a wife to spend a year with him on a desolate island: how about Lucy Irvine? Vee, you might have already read Irvine's Castaway and her follow-ups. Runaway is actually a prequel but was written later, recounting Irvine's adolescence as a school runaway -- what we Americans would call a J.D., a juvenile delinquent. Faraway relates how Lucy agreed to live for a year on a Pacific island with 80-year-old Diana Hepworth -- another most unusual female, I would say -- and the older woman doesn't object to Irvine bringing along her three sons, whom Irvine had acquired somehow or another between her Castaway year and her Pigeon Island year. I think Irvine would qualify; wouldn't you?

The Hacienda: Before I read it, I was rather annoyed by the use of the English article the in the title, instead of the Spanish feminine article. But I came to realize that it signified the "marriage" of two cultures. It's a weird tale that has stuck with me (I've only read it once), but I can't say I really liked it while reading it. As you probably know, because I've reiterated it so often, I don't have a natural affinity for magical realism and the autobiographical story St. Aubin de Teran tells is a bit too much in that realm for my taste -- but, then, it's probably the reason I found it memorable; go figure.

Frieda, I haven't read Irvine's book but have seen the film with Oliver Reed (and I couldn't spend half-an-hour on a island with him the c*cky b*gger) and she has been interviewed on radio and TV a number of times, And yes, we have juvenile delinquents over here aplenty, and I would agree she is/was certainly an odd character.

It had never occured to me that de Teran might have been living as it where in the land of the fairies. I took what she wrote at face value; simple soul that I am. Do you have reason to believe she made up most/some of her time in S America, her spooky husband etc? I certainly didn't find it a 'likeable' book, even her daughter who she annoyingly always refers to as 'the child Iseult' seems rather fay.

Another S American book In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin has something very 'otherwordly' about it. I first 'heard' it as a Book at Bedtime reading on the BBC radio very late at night when trying to stay awake to feed number 2 child. I will always associate that book and time with South American 'Nose Flute' music!
BC mentions 'Jemmy Button' which reminds me I have a copy of Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle which I have never read.

Eight Feet in the Andes by Dervla Murphy I also felt slightly uneasy about. Although I am sure Murphy is comparatively sane I wonder at the sense in taking an eight year old child on this adventure. My idea of fun would not be spent on top of a wind-swept mountain with a donkey, a small child, a can of sardines and an orange!
I wonder if the daughter has grown up to be a suburban housewife?

Speaking of travel writers and unusual authors: Anything you can find by Freya Stark is well worth the read. In particular, The Valleys of the Assassins and Other Persian Travels, written in 1934, is an amazing look at this lone woman travler going through sections of the Middle East when such things were just not done. She traveled throughout the area from 1927, and was a contemporary of Gertrude Bell, another middle east traveler who worked with Laurence of Arabia after WWI in creating the modern middle east.

Both women have bios: Desert Queen by Janet Wallach about Bell, and Passionate Nomad by Jane Fletcher Geniesse about Stark. I am not big on bios, but these both are quite well researched and written.

Veer, I think more and more authors are going to be questioned about their accuracy becuase of the scandle over Million Little Pieces. Hopefully this will blow over soon. I think the majority of non fiction writers are striving for accuracy, at least how they see it. I'm still eager to read it.

And I don't get that taking a kid on a trip like that. Makes no sense for the trekkers or the child.

No, Vee, I don't have any reason to disbelieve de Teran's account. I figure the bones of it are true anyway. There's no way of knowing what she embellished, if anything; but it's all her perception of events and a memoir, by its nature, isn't the most reliable documentation around. Then there's the magical realism aspect. I can't pretend that I adequately understand this way of perceiving the world, but I've been informed that it isn't just a literary device in South American culture.

Cindy, recently I discussed the flap over A Million Little Pieces with a Latin American acquaintance. He asked me whether Frey had added and changed things to make his story more interesting. I replied, yes, that I supposed that was the main reason. My friend then shrugged his shoulders and dismissively said, "Well, there is nothing wrong with that." Ha! After all the anger, angst, argument, and hand-wringing in the U.S. over the Frey affair, I was taken aback -- though I should have known that truth in details is hardly a worldwide obsession.

Vee, Chatwin was certainly a strange duck, in many ways. Everything I've read of his, even the supposed nonfiction, has an off-kilter quality. He admitted sometimes that he made things up, and other times he was coy -- or so says Nicholas Shakespeare's bio of Chatwin and Susannah Clapp's reminiscences (she was Chatwin's main editor). Have you read Chatwin's The Viceroy of Ouidah?

> I can't pretend that I adequately understand this way of perceiving the world, but I've been informed that it isn't just a literary device in South American culture.

No its not, but the SA authors who use it are among my favorites: Garcia Marquez and Allende to name two. When its done well, it fits into the story like a hand in glove. When not, well - it bombs. I am not sure tho how I feel about magical realism in non fiction, esp a biography. Tho thinking about it, Allende uses that in her book about her daughter Paula. I'll have to get this book and see.

>The Hacienda

Hee, I love it when people make mistakes like this (sorta like a river in our state called the Rio River) But think your idea about mixing the cultures is apt.

RE the Frey comment: Thats interesting - I wonder, given that we all have different world views, if we view fact and accuracy in different ways as well. It certainly explains how two people can look at the same facts and have totally different interpretations (or as the old Jewish joke says, 3 Jews, 5 different opinions)..I wonder if his reading in SA included a great deal of magic realism, and if that is why he is ok with it in non-fiction

Has anyone read The Tale of the Rose : The Love Story Behind The Little Prince by Consuelo De Saint-Exupery? I wondered what it was like, and it strikes as possibly fitting this category (unusual author/persons). The Little Prince was one of my favorite books from childhood, but I knew nothing about Exupery or that the Rose of his book was based on his wife. I've avoided that book as an adult, because I didn't want my childhood memory of it ruined. However, I've been thinking about reading Consuelo's book about her life with her husband. Sounds like a dysfunctional relationship.

Thanks for the mention of Bowles' non-fictional account of his life. That is something I would be interested in reading. I read The Sheltering Sky years ago, but was not too enamored with it. I found the characters too emotionally anorexic to receive any sympathy on my end.

Cindy, I've heard that Allende's book about her daughter is a heartbreaking read. Be prepared to use lots of tissue.

It is - I read it for a book group and I don't think there was a dry eye in the place when we were discussing it, let alone reading it! I re-read it again after a friend died from a long illness, and was surprised how much it helped me.

The Little Prince was a favorite of mine as well. I can still see the illustrations in my head. I might just have to look at that book - from what I understand the author was definitely in the class of 'unusual author'

I haven't read Chatwin's Viceroy . . the only fiction I have read of his is On the Black Hills which has also been made into a film and describes the life of twin brothers growing up on a remote farm on the English/Welsh borders. Something people might enjoy, and not too 'strange'.
Cindy I have Passionate Nomads on my to order from the library list.
Another very strange 'traveller' was Lady Hester Stanhope early in the nineteenth century, there are several books about her life.
I suppose the big difference with 'exploration/travel' then and now is that in the past you had to be rich, or in the case of missionaries (think Livingstone) supported by a rich patron or some 'worthy cause'.
Today it is left to 'hippies' who come home and write garbled and drug-fumed accounts of what may have taken place on the beach in Goa, or the high-tec traveller who either has a TV crew in tow or a big book contract under his belt.
Some of ex-Python Michael Palin's work might fall into that slot. What sort of back-up team do you need to keep such a supply of neat blue shirts and white pressed chinos ready to wear each day?
I always think of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry as a 'flyer' and wish my French was good enough to read him in the original.