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World Travel: An Irreverent Guide by [Anthony Bourdain, Laurie Woolever]

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Anthony Bourdain

Laurie Woolever

World Travel: An Irreverent Guide Kindle Edition

by Anthony Bourdain (Author), Laurie Woolever (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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A guide to some of the world’s most fascinating places, as seen and experienced by writer, television host, and relentlessly curious traveler Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain saw more of the world than nearly anyone. His travels took him from the hidden pockets of his hometown of New York to a tribal longhouse in Borneo, from cosmopolitan Buenos Aires, Paris, and Shanghai to Tanzania’s utter beauty and the stunning desert solitude of Oman’s Empty Quarter—and many places beyond.

In World Travel, a life of experience is collected into an entertaining, practical, fun and frank travel guide that gives readers an introduction to some of his favorite places—in his own words. Featuring essential advice on how to get there, what to eat, where to stay and, in some cases, what to avoid, World Travel provides essential context that will help readers further appreciate the reasons why Bourdain found a place enchanting and memorable.

Supplementing Bourdain’s words are a handful of essays by friends, colleagues, and family that tell even deeper stories about a place, including sardonic accounts of traveling with Bourdain by his brother, Christopher; a guide to Chicago’s best cheap eats by legendary music producer Steve Albini, and more. Additionally, each chapter includes illustrations by Wesley Allsbrook.

For veteran travelers, armchair enthusiasts, and those in between, World Travel offers a chance to experience the world like Anthony Bourdain.

Print length

478 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Ecco
Publication date

April 20, 2021
File size

46878 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Editors' pick: World Travel showcases not just great recipes, but also great food writing—the kind that transports us wherever the author may choose."—Seira Wilson, Amazon Editor --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

"Bourdain's thoughts on places exotic and well known, blended into a kind of Baedeker for the hipster set...It makes for an exhilarating whirlwind tour."

-- "Kirkus Reviews"

"Gordon's casual, friendly tone, reminiscent of Bourdain's own personal style, makes it easy for listeners to imagine traveling the world with him. Interspersed throughout are essays by some of those who knew him, each narrated by its author. The affection expressed for the late travel show host and writer is one of the most memorable features of this listening experience."

-- "AudioFile"

"It's the 'World according to Tony'--a browsable compendium of his matchless commentary on worthy destinations in forty-three countries."

-- "People"

"An impressive food-obsessed travel guide...This gloriously messy miscellany of off-kilter observations and lightning-in-a-bottle insights will make one want to read, eat, and experience the world the way Bourdain did."

-- "Publishers Weekly"

"There will never be anyone quite like Anthony Bourdain. But World Travel offers readers the potential to travel the world as he did."

-- "Fortune"

Charming...Irresistible...An exhilarating and worthwhile choice for those planning an actual trip and for stay-at-home travelers."

-- "Library Journal (starred review)" --This text refers to the audioCD edition.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B083SN8RF7
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ecco; Illustrated edition (April 20, 2021)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 20, 2021
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 46878 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 478 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #51,436 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1 in Rome Travel
- #1 in Bosnia, Croatia & Herzegovina Travel (Kindle Store)
- #2 in Vietnam Travel

Customer Reviews:
3,306 ratings

About the authors

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Anthony Bourdain
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Chef, author, and raconteur Anthony Bourdain is best known for traveling the globe on his TV show Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. Somewhat notoriously, he has established himself as a professional gadfly, bête noir, advocate, social critic, and pork enthusiast, recognized for his caustic sense of humor worldwide. He is as unsparing of those things he hates, as he is evangelical about his passions.

Bourdain is the author of the New York Times bestselling Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw; A Cook’s Tour; the collection The Nasty Bits; the novels Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo; the biography Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical; two graphic novels, Get Jiro! and Get Jiro!: Blood and Sushi and his latest New York Times bestselling cookbook Appetites. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Times of London, Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Vanity Fair, Lucky Peach and many other publications. In 2013, Bourdain launched his own publishing line with Ecco, Anthony Bourdain Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. He is the host of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning docuseries Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown on CNN, and before that hosted Emmy award-winning No Reservations and The Layover on Travel Channel, and The Taste on ABC.
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Laurie Woolever
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I’m a writer and editor, and for nearly a decade, worked as the lieutenant to the late Anthony Bourdain. I’ve written for the New York Times, Vogue, GQ, Food & Wine, Lucky Peach (RIP), Saveur, Dissent, Roads & Kingdoms, and more.
I’ve been a private cook, nanny, caterer, writer, busgirl, recipe tester, farm hand, public speaker, video store clerk, and an editor at Art Culinaire and Wine Spectator. In 2016, HarperCollins published Appetites: A Cookbook, which I co-authored with Anthony Bourdain; our second collaboration, World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, published in April 2021. Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography, will publish in October 2021.
I co-host a food-focused podcast, Carbface for Radio, with Chris Thornton. I live and work in New York City.
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Customer reviews

5 star		76%
4 star		11%
3 star		6%
2 star		3%
1 star		4%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Gabe Lemkin

Useless

Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2021

Verified Purchase

This is an entirely useless, already outdated travel guide that offers virtually no practical information. Random Bourdain quotes precede a scant paragraph or two spotlighting one or two restaurants in each featured city (many of them now closed) and it's telling that the most in-depth information focuses on how to get from the various airports into town! Even the short descriptions of each destination are marred by breezy cliches and a fleeting sense of place.

260 people found this helpful

Helpful

Not at all what I was hoping for or expecting.

Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2021

Verified Purchase

Reading this was a stark reminder that he is, in fact, no longer here. This is an AB book clearly written without AB. His voice just isn’t present in this work - it doesn’t read like him. The introduction talks about his significant cultural impact and the body of the book does nothing to show us why.

Most of the book is dry, expositional content - it contains information in a place you’d never actually turn to as a resource if you needed the information in the first place. AB was a storyteller and this book doesn’t tell a story - it contains information that a reasonable person would google interspersed with quotes from some of his TV shows. I don’t want to read about Argentinian bus lines, or how to get to and from the airport, or a reminder that crossing international boundaries requires proper paperwork and a pass through customs.

This book has no narrative value nor is it valuable as an actual travel guide - half the information is already outdated between the time the words were written and the time they were printed. It would be like hanging a dry erase board and trying to re-write the time every second instead of just buying a clock.

The idea for this book was clearly in its infancy when the author discussed it with Bourdain. I’m sure she did her best to try and extrapolate what he envisioned for the book, but this feels far off the mark. In the introduction she says that the basis for this book was an hour long conversation she had one night with Bourdain; if he were still alive, this would have been a very different book and that’s why it never should have been promoted as a collaboration with him. The feeling of reading this book is evocative of watching a cover band do a bad rendition of your favorite songs. His lack of input is evident. His absence is never felt more strongly than in these pages.

I was hoping for some of his unreleased writings, some more of his worldview, some more of his insight. If you’re considering buying this because you’re a fan of Bourdain’s work, I would pass because I didn’t feel him at all in this book. It doesn’t even feel like a tribute to his past work due to its eminently unreadable, textbook-like execution. This feels like exactly the type of thing that would have provoked his derision.

It is a major disappointment.

217 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

Rehash of

Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2021

Verified Purchase

Love AB. The reality here is that much of the book is transcribed from episodes about the various locations. You will get more, and learn more about the locations involved, by simply watching the actual tv shows. As mentioned, there's essentially little practical information (but that was never my expectation anyway). I was hoping for essays or other materials not otherwise readily available on Tony's thoughts about the locations included. The essays by Tony's friends and/or collaborators are the best part of the book, giving it some value, but there aren't enough, and the book unfortunately comes off as primarily filler material, leading to the frustration you are seeing in other reviews.

96 people found this helpful

Helpful

Remembering Anthony Bourdain

Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2021

Verified Purchase

Received the book on release day, April 20, 2021. Readers should note the book was created based off of a 1-hour planning conversation between Anthony Bourdain and his assistant writer, Laurie Woolever. Unfortunately, Bourdain died before the book could get underway so the contents are an amalgamation of quotes from his prior work (e.g., No Reservations, Parts Unknown) as well as input from family and friends who knew him. Therefore, much of the book feels like a re-tread rather than new/unreleased insights by Bourdain himself. Text is split between quotes from Bourdain (written in the blue font like on the dustcover) as well as black text to represent Woolever's contribution, which is a thoughtful touch on Woolever's part. The book also has a detailed list of quote sources so you can go find when and where Bourdain said something if you want to peruse his other work. If you want to relive some of Bourdain's greatest travel spots, then you should enjoy the book. I gave four stars as I really was hoping for more new/not formerly released info, but the book still is a nice nod to Bourdain's prolific career as a chef, traveler, and cultural icon.

64 people found this helpful

Helpful

A detailed travel guide with quotes from Bourdain's shows

Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2021

Verified Purchase

This book is a detailed travel guide, organized alphabetically by country, that gives suggestions for how to get around, what to do, and where to eat in various places around the world. It is structured as a general guide, not as a cohesive story, and not entirely in Bourdain's own words.

For each location there is a section about how to get there and how to get around; and then some places to visit, and of course places to eat. Quotes and advice from Anthony Bourdain are written in bold print in each section, so that they stand out from the rest of the text which is more general information that has been compiled by other people. It seems like most, if not all of these quotes are directly from his TV shows.

Even though there was less previously unreleased content directly from Bourdain than I had expected, it still contains quite a bit of his own personal take on all of these interesting places. Anyone that watched his shows can probably imagine or remember him saying some of these things, and recall his distinct and charismatic personality.

I hope that most of these places are still open and will survive the lack of tourism during the pandemic, as this seems like a useful collection of information and tips about some great places I'd like to visit sometime in the future.

RIP to an incredible person, at least he lived an amazing life full of remarkable experiences.

58 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

bahahahahahaha

Tony would have hated this cynical cash grab.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 15, 2021

Verified Purchase

This is a shameless piece of crap that everything we know about Tony would have us believe he would hate. I loved the man. I loved him in a way that doubtless we would both find very uncomfortable had we ever met. When I saw this book was coming I was excited that it would be a collection of his travel writing, script copy from the shows or his last prose before his death. It is however total bull@#it. Quotes taken from his TV shows about various locations along with copy and pastes from the lonely planet. A nice piece by his brother but otherwise utterly devoid of content. To be fair, the author makes clear in the intro that the book is based on a 1 hour conversation they had about the possibility of writing a travel guide. But this? From someone who knew the man well and worked with him for years, this is insulting. It's worse than Gone Bamboo! Laurie Woolever should be marched through the streets and pelted with rancid foie gras for what has been done to the memory of an (albeit deeply flawed) anti-hero of the highest regard. Save your money and buy something nice from the deli instead. Eat it in the great man's name. Take your shoes off first.

14 people found this helpful

Barry Clince

Avoid!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 27, 2021

Verified Purchase

It's a cheap cash-in, purporting to be a travel guide by him, in reality a hack job by someone who took one planning interview with Anthony, grabbed a couple of quotes from his shows, got his brother and some others to write a couple of paragraphs, stuck in some very basic tourist info on each country, and shamefully published this.
Apparently the author worked for him for several years, but I can only imagine if she tried to publish this while he was still alive, he'd have sacked her on the spot, and kicked her ass from one end of Manhattan to the other.

8 people found this helpful

markr

The world according to Anthony Bourdain

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 26, 2021

Verified Purchase

This is a very enjoyable book, which contains ideas about lots of places to visit.

Countries on every populated continent are listed alphabetical with several countries, especially the United States, having several entries for separate places. The book is a mixture of Anthony Bourdain’s quotes from his various TV programmes, information about places he enjoyed eating in every entry, and in some cases recommended places to stay.

It also has information on which airports to use for each destination and helpful detail on taxis and public transport from each airport. The book could be used for reference - to find restaurant recommendations and ideas of places (nearly always luxury accommodation here) to stay, along with airport transport information.

Alternatively, it can be used and enjoyed as I did, by reading the book and enjoying the entries from cover to cover.

The book is illustrated throughout with some very enjoyable drawings and features a number of short articles by people who had experienced a destination with Bourdain.

The book is neither a travel guide, nor a food guide, nor a memoir - it is a little of all these things, and is unique in my experience of travel books as a result - but it is enjoyable to read, and I will return to it for ideas when we can travel again

One person found this helpful

John P McCourt

Disappointed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2021

Verified Purchase

Somewhat disappointed as it doesn’t expand upon the TV series. It has only the briefest descriptions of places and food which are just direct quotes from the TV show. It doesn’t even include any photographs. Also, adding ‘how to get to’ information is completely superfluous these days and just smacks of ‘filler’. I was and still am a big fan of Bourdain and I really wanted to like this book but sadly this adds nothing to my knowledge and understanding of the man and the places he loved to eat in. Not sure who this is pitched at…maybe people who don’t know him or who haven’t watched his shows? I’d avoid if you’re not one of these people.

3 people found this helpful

"adrianmonaghan"

Disappointing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 15, 2021

Verified Purchase

While it's a well presented book I was disappointed - it read like a combination of quotes from Parts Unknown (which I'm currently watching) and a Rough Guide. Don't let this stop you from buying the book - I would just suggest don't watch Parts Unknown at the same time as reading the book! I'll get hold of Kitchen Confidential as it was actually written by AB.

4 people found this helpful