The Great Railway Bazaar

What Hacker News says

1. karaterobotApr 2023
   Theroux is my favorite travel writer. Easy to recommend all the books mentioned in this article, though The Great Railway Bazaar was my introduction to his way of writing about travel, and I think it's a good place to start.

   All his train travel books are pretty similar in format (that's a good thing). He skips any discussion of famous landmarks and tourist destinations: he may or may not visit them, but he certainly won't be telling you about them. He spends a lot more time discussing the people on the train, the color of the city, the landscape going by, things like that. You would not read his books to plan a vacation, in other words. He gives (what I feel is) a very good representation of the character of the places he travels to, at least as he sees it. He's also very grumpy, or comes off that way, and his quick sketches of people (and hotels) are pretty funny sometimes.

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2. jmclnxApr 2023
   Interesting little article and not what I expected. Seems to be a bit of a plug for book "The Great Railway Bazaar', which to me would be an interesting read of a bygone era.

   Will need to see if I can find it in one of the local libraries.

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3. oh_sighApr 2023
   I think it is actually a plug for The Old Patagonian Express, which the folio society just reissued, if you'd like to buy a nicely bound book for $100. I suppose he talked about The Great Railway Bazaar because it is more seminal in his mind than the Old Patagonian Express.

   I also never realized Paul is the father of Louis. I often wondered if Justin was related to Louis, but never Paul for some reason.

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4. waterlesscloudMar 2010
   Writer Paul Theroux has made essentially this trip twice now, decades apart.

   Chronicled in his books THE GREAT RAILWAY BAZAAR and GHOST TRAIN TO THE EASTERN STAR.

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5. nirSep 2009
   The funny bit is that rather than arranging this over the phone/email with a customer rep, they apparently need to discuss it over coffee with JetBlue's CEO. This is where the idea moves from Paul Theroux ("Great Railway Bazaar" etc) territory into Julia Allison land.
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