THE SELF-ISOLATION RESIDENCY 26TH APRIL 2021: DAY 393

'The Constant Library',  Volume XXV:
"The Way of the World. Nicolas Bouvier"

'The Constant Library',  Volume XXV: "The Way of the world. Nicolas Bouvier"

"The idea for 'The Constant Library' follows on from a recent conversation considering which books had, and continue to have, the greatest affect my life in a variety of different ways. These are the books I can't live without and whenever possible I have a copy of with me wherever I travel in the world; my 'Constant Library."


Travel has become so important to me, it is a major part of my life. Of course so is reading. It therefore feels only natural that travel writing should have started to appeal to me so much ib the last few years. I have already added Jan Morris's amazing 'Venice' to The Constant Library, today it is joined by one of the truely great 'road novels': The Way of the World. I say novel, but that is perhaps the wrong term as this is really a genuine travelogue, there is no fiction here. Bouvier's prose are so poetic that the only imagination needed is the one of the reader to be fired by it:

"He opened it and offered each of us a packet of thin Ghorband cigarettes, with pale Persian letting near the tip - they had a delicate taste, with a touch of harshness and a small, distinct flavour of mourning, wear and tear, and forgetfulness, like Peria itself."