Chronic Wanderlust

World Hum’s RSS

• Music Video: ‘Paul Theroux’s My Hero’
  Because there just aren’t enough songs about reading travel books. The things you stumble across when you’re waking up, randomly searching for a video of Paul Theroux talking about his new novel. It’s a nice little ditty. More of the uke-player’s ouvre, including a song about the first dog in space, can be found here.
• R.I.P. Paul Fussell, Scholar, Travel Writing Critic
• The Critics: ‘The Lower River’ by Paul Theroux
• Video: Lisa Napoli in Conversation with Eric Weiner
  World Hum contributors Lisa Napoli and Eric Weiner spoke in front of a live audience recently in Santa Monica. Napoli, of course, is the author of “Radio Shangri-La,” about her experience in Bhutan. Weiner wrote “The Geography of Bliss” and “Man Seeks God.” Their wide-ranging discussion touched on Bhutan, happiness, authen […]
• Walter Kirn: In Defense of Texting While Hiking
  The author of travel novel-turned-movie “Up in the Air” has a confession: He likes to text while hiking, and he also likes to bring his iPad to the beach. He’s torn down the barriers between technology and wilderness, and—as he writes for Outside—he thinks that more of us should do the same. Here’s Kirn on his moment of re […]
• Bali Belly and the Zombie Apocalypse
  When Linda Watanabe McFerrin fell ill, all the travel meds in the world couldn't keep the undead away
• Not Your Usual Spring-Break-in-Florida Story
  This essay from the NYT, about Alessandra Stanley’s mother-daughter vacation, is causing a stir—no huge surprise, I suppose, when it starts with a line like this: “One of the good things about divorce is that you get to see less of your children.” Stanley and her daughter spent a less-than-idyllic spring break at a super-luxury resort […]
• Paul Theroux on ‘Multilayered and Maddening’ Hawaii
• Video: Luis Alberto Urrea on the U.S.-Mexico Border
  Luis Alberto Urrea has written a number of great books—fiction and non-fiction such as “The Devil’s Highway”—about the U.S.-Mexico border and life in the two countries. He appeared on Moyers & Company recently, where he discussed migrant deaths, book-banning in Tucson, growing up in Tijuana and a San Diego suburb, and a rang […]
• River a Mile Deep
  Michael Shapiro rafts down the Colorado in the wake of Captain John Wesley Powell