Fresh Air Fiend
Travel Writings

From this book and 'Sir Vidia's Shadow,' which I also recently finished, I can say that I very much trust Theroux as a reliable guide and observer, an insightful writer about people and place. I've read little of his fiction so far (only a few stories here and there, never a novel) but I liked this......more

Sigh. Halfway through, I may need a Theroux break. Vinegar is not the only seasoning that makes food taste good. The man is an exquisite wordsmith and a sharp-eyed observer, but one of the things that means is that his lack of compassion, lack of empathy and big doses of judgmental superiority spark......more

Few books oscillate this wildly from the profound to the profoundly boring. Paul Theroux, I don't care about each and every one of your kayaking misadventures or the toast you made off Nantucket over a camp fire. I do like some of your other essays though.......more

For most of us; a hard read but so worth the time. I reread a lot of pages to really feel what he was feeling. The traveling he did is amazing and what most of us would be scared to do. A very interesting and informative read.......more

Paul Theroux says normal people don’t become writers. It is just not healthy to sit in a room for hours staring intently into your own mind. He counter-balances this basically inward condition by paddling thousand of miles in a kayak. In Fresh Air Fiend he explains why and how this type of therapy h......more