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AN INTERESTING debate at the Royal Society of Literature last week: two young British travel writers disagreed on the virtues of veracity in travel writing. Rory MacLean, who has written a number of travel books, including one that is self-confessedly partially fictionalised, thought it was perfectly acceptable for a writer to create composite figures (i.e. fictionalised characters) in pursuit of a “deeper truth”. Rory Stewart, author of a brilliant account of the failures of governance in post-“liberated” Iraq and another of a walk through Afghanistan, retorted:

I'm just worried that we're being pushed into a backwater of elegant but ultimately disengaged prose.

Personally, I am on the fence on this one. I can't stand the fact that some well known travel writers cheerily fabricate events. On the other hand, Norman Lewis, my candidate for the greatest contemporary travel writer, has obviously created atmospheric accounts of some experiences and used quotes of conversations that occurred half a century ago—without (in my opinion) being guilty of any literary crime.

LITTLE-known facts about France, from a review of Graham Robb's new book, "The Discovery of France", in the Daily Telegraph:

Until the 1930s, postmen in the area of the south known as les Landes
were still delivering letters on great stilts that gave them a speed
over land of 8mph.

Cheery messages [were] written on lavatory doors by 19th-century peasants
competing for fertiliser from tourists: "'Ici on est bien' ('It's nice
here'), 'Ici on est mieux' ('It's nicer here') or 'Ma questo è
necessario'."

Mme de Genlis's phrasebook for stagecoach travellers [included]
the lines "The wheels are on fire… I am suffering greatly. I am going
to vomit. Give me the vase".

ONE of those occasions when the word "incredible" is the really only one that fits: have a look at New Scientist's slide show of maps and satellite pictures capturing some of the biggest changes in global geography over the past 30 years. The star turns include the shrinking of the Aral Sea; the near-disappearance of Lake Chad; the burgeoning of Las Vegas ... and what have you guys in China being doing with the Yellow River delta? The piece is pegged to the appearance of the new Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, which has plenty more comparisons, most of them unfortunate, on its website.

FROM the Independent:

Just after midnight, 50 years ago, Jack Kerouac and his girlfriend Joyce went out to buy a first edition of The New York Times to read its review of On the Road, his second novel.

It has been called the most famous book review in the paper's history. With its publication, Kerouac, who arrived in town on a borrowed Greyhound bus fare, was catapulted to instant literary fame. He would never recover.

The Times' reviewer, Gilbert Millstein, wrote that "There are sections of 'On the Road' in which the writing is of a beauty almost breathtaking."

Mr Millstein's original review is available on the Times' website as an image file. But perhaps Sal Paradise himself deserves a word on this momentous anniversary:

I was standing on the hot road underneath an arc-lamp with the summer moths smashing into it when I heard the sound of footsteps from the darkness beyond, and lo, a tall old man with flowing white hair came clomping by with a pack on his back, and when he saw me as he passed, he said, "Go moan for man," and clomped on back to his dark. Did this mean that I should at last go on my pilgrimage on foot on the dark roads around America?

I'm going to say "Yes".

THE SILLY SEASON ( the period between the end of the Wimbledon and the Notting Hill Carnival) is pure ambergris for savvy publicists as most newspapers are run on skeleton staffs and are as desperate as a fading pop star to catch the reader’s attention. Hence the extraordinary currency for the story we noted a couple of days back about dumped books in hotel bathrooms. Can’t quite see it going head to head with a normal day’s events in the autumn. Now, another offering hits the screens: this time it is a survey by Abebooks to find the most bizarre travel book listed on its huge site.
This is a far more close run thing, with my personal favourite being "Up Shit Creek"—anecdotes about people caught short in the wilderness. Though I must say I was tempted to vote instead for "Other People’s Business", which is a definitive guide to the 87 company and industrial tours in and around Ohio.