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."

The photo on the cover of this travelogue cookbook has my mouth watering! And from what I can tell, the pages in between offer up much more eye candy for hungry travelers who like to cook. Where Flavor Was Born: Recipes and Culinary Travels Along the Indian Ocean Spice Route is a delicious journey that explores the origins of spices from Bali to Zanzibar.

The colorful book is loaded with glossy photos and almost 100 recipes, like this one for Indian Pepper Chicken. Need more tempting? Here are three more freebies that use curry from India, tamarind sauce from Thailand and cloves from Zanzibar. Food writer and TV chef Andreas Viestad (known for his New Scandinavian Cooking show), is the tour guide for this adventure of taste. The book is organized by spice, and includes a glossary for easy reference, which should be helpful when you're up to your eyeballs in cardamom and coriander in the kitchen!

Funny man Chris Elliott has taken his comedy to new heights in his third book, a comic spoof on a classic travel adventure that was released last month. Into Hot Air: Mounting Mount Everest is a novel that pokes fun at, well, just about everything, including the author himself. Elliott's narrator, also named Elliott, wonders if it really was Sir Edmund Hillary who was the first to scale Everest. The discovery of a diary written by a crazy great uncle begins the questioning, and readers are dragged along on a mysterious and laugh-out-loud journey that includes a cast of all-star celebrities.

Elliott depicts epic adventure at its funniest, and " ...also takes aim at disaster movies, celebrity activism, and reality TV shows like Survivor and The Amazing Race." As Chris explains in this recent Gothamist interview, CNN and the titles of other folks books did inspire some aspects of his own story: "It's more or less using Everest and the action-adventure genre as a backdrop for my goofiness."

I'm always on the lookout for creative travel titles geared to kids. Here's one I came across that can serve as a niche geography lesson, with a review of the alphabet thrown in for good measure. All this and beautiful illustrations too: A Caribbean Journey from A to Y should peak young readers interest with this mysterious subtitle: Read and Discover What Happened to the Z.

Published by editorial Campana (publisher of literature by Latin Americans in both English and Spanish), this educational guide takes young folks on a journey that stretches from Aruba to Trinidad, introducing country names and fun facts about each place along the way. Read an excerpt from letters B and C to get an idea, and be sure to take note of Native American artist Earleen Griswold's colorful illustrations, drawn during her years s a resident of the Virgin Islands.

The BBC's much-praised Planet Earth series was shown in the US on the Discovery Channel earlier this year. It was accompanied by the publication of a companion book, Planet Earth: As You've Never Seen It Before, which jumped up some notches on the New York Times bestseller list this week, partially due to an encore presentation of the show.

As another year of traveling comes to a close, the book offers wanderers an opportunity to sit back and truly look at the bigger picture: this astounding planet that we all move upon, and all the amazing creatures we share it with! Over 400 color illustrations create a "visual odyssey" of landscapes, packaged beautifully in 300-pages! The spectacular collection of photos takes readers along to remote and far ranging locations - mountains, forests, deserts and rivers, showcasing natural wonders and wildlife from around the world. Nomads from all walks of life will appreciate this hardbound tribute to our shared home.

Like yesterday's selection, today's book pick comes via a San Francisco book store. Local Girl Makes History: Exploring Northern California's Kitsch Monuments is a unique title that grabbed my eye while browsing the City Lights website. The famous SF bookseller is also the publisher of this niche kitsch guide to Northern Cali's special structures. Author Dana Frank is a Bay area historian who takes a series of local daytrips to places she has visited since her youth, uncovering secrets and exploring urban myths of popular spots like the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk's Cave Train Ride and the Puglas Water Temple.

The result is a smart and funny memoir mixed with historical research and reflections on politics and culture too. From the publisher:

Full of surprises and plot twists along the way, her adventures are quirky, fun and informative. The tension between private memory and public history draws us deeper and deeper into each investigation, and small places in California come to symbolize larger political questions in the United States.

Frank's collection of essays is accompanied by photos, maps, and driving directions, producing a nice combo of memoir complete with practical guidebook details to boot! She'll be appearing at City Lights in early January to talk about the book.

From Get Lost Books list of suggested holiday gift-giving titles comes Street World: Urban Art from Five Continents, a collection of street scenes that stretches from Mumbai to Los Angeles. The colorful hardcover is divided into more than 50 topics and includes over 500 photographs of artistic public displays from around the world.

Street World celebrates subculture creativity in all its forms: graffiti, skateboarding and bike messengering, DJing, offbeat fashion, gang life, music, as well as design, photography, and other more traditional visual art. The 400-page book looks at the artistic expressions of fashionistas, biker gangs, guerrilla gardeners, urban knitters and more. It's the perfect gift for all your traveling culture vulture pals.

Gadling goddess Adrienne Wilson hasn't written here in awhile, because she's been super busy traveling the world and...making a book! As she explains in detail on her personal blog, Instant Gratification is a first volume of photographs from Adrienne's growing collection of global snapshots, many taken during her travels over the past seven years.

In her own words, Adrienne explains the project: In its simplest form, Instant Gratification: Photos for your Coffee Table in Exchange for Money in my Pocket, can be described as a travel catalog comprised of a spirited mixture of color, B&W, film, digital, and lomo shots from around the globe. Feel gratified at once for once!

But there's a hook! She then goes on to explain the super-cool generosity behind the creation of this book: Additionally, there won't be any money placed into my pocket from your purchase of this book. Since I don't bake cookies, I'm using this book as a fund raising tool. All the profit will be donated to a charitable organization that seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world, and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action.

Actually, all profit from book sales will go towards a Global Village build Adrienne is planning to lead next year with Habitat for Humanity. To raise funds for the service experience, she used her smarts to create a fundraising tool that puts a beautiful book in the hands of those who give. A creative masterpiece that benefits more than the buyer -- instant gratification for all, and a wonderful idea. Kudos and congrats to Adrienne on her do-good self-publishing venture. (By the way, she used Blurb, and has lots of great things to say about them too.)

Feel free to complain about today's pick -- a title from the archives -- but I just felt like following up a Head Trip with a collection of Bad Trips. Fact is, this semi-ancient anthology received lukewarm reviews, but we're going to feature it today anyway -- some of you may still fancy a go at it: Bad Trips, originally published in 1991, is followed by this rather long and not-so-good subtitle: a sometimes terrifying, sometimes hilarious collection of writing on the perils of the road.

I learned about the book over at one of my favorite new blogs, where the map on the cover was the focus of discussion. Looking closer at the content, we learn that it's a quirky collection of stories about disaster, danger and discomfort on the road. Authors are out of their element in many of these tales: Umberto Eco in a tacky hotel in Southern California, Jonathan Raban on a brief trip through the squalor of Louisiana, and Anita Desai on a frigid, midwinter sojourn to a Norwegian island.

Although it might not be the best travel anthology out there, with contributors like these, as well as other familiar names like Jan Morris, Redmond O'Hanlon and John Updike, I'm sure the tales are engaging and well done. Besides that, they are supposed to be bad anyway!

Here's a second creative travel-themed title from a Canadian writer featured here this week: Science journalist Jeff Warren takes readers on a tour of the mind in The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness. This "field-guide" to the mind explores lucid dreaming, Eastern meditative practices, hypnosis, neurofeedback and other brain awareness activities.

From the publisher: Part user's manual and part travel guide, The Head Trip is an instant classic, a brilliant summation of consciousness studies that is also a practical guide to enhancing creativity, mental health, and the experience of what it means to be human. Many books claim that they will change you. This one gives you the tools to change yourself.

Psychology and neuroscience are packaged with humor in this adventurous trip through our own heads. As mysterious as any journey embarked upon with no set route or agenda, this mind-mapping memoir travels through the twelve unique states of mind available to humans over a 24-hour day. Not your average travel book, of course, but quite a ride just the same. Warren provided his own witty illustrations for the book too. Oh, and not that it matters, but he has penned a more "traditional" guidebook as well.