In the past week, I've come across two different thumbs up for a collection of travel essays by Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom. I've now added Nomad's Hotel: Travels in Time and Space to my 2008 "really-must-read" list and wanted to give all of you list-loving readers a chance to do the same. Here's what I've gathered:

First, in the latest issue of Geist, Michael Kozlowski describes the pieces in Nomad's Hotel as "meditations" and calls it "...less a book of travel stories than a collection of Nooteboom's musings on travel and impressions of places." My interest was piqued. Then I found it listed among Rory Maclean's 2007 recommended reads, where he praises it as, "...a jewel of a travel book, free of pretension, full of easy adventure, fresh with childlike wonder for the world." Rory wrote a much longer review of the book for the Guardian earlier this year. These two positive reviews were enough for me to take notice of Nooteboom, but if you need more, check out this in-depth look at the fascinating "traveling writer."

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Stories, Books, One for the Road