Rolf Potts' profile on Product Hunt

Rolf Potts

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Joined on July 21st, 2015

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Troost's 2004 memoir of his expat stint on the Pacific island nation of Kiribati is about as good as travel-humor writing can get. Though not as scholarly as Bill Bryson or adventurous as Tim Cahill, Troost nonetheless creates a light, self-deprecating narrative tone that joyfully captures that exasperations and idiosyncrasies of life on an isolated equatorial island. Travel books don't often make me laugh out loud, but this one did.

on The Sex Lives of Cannibals

5yr ago

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Set among backpack traveler cliques in Thailand, Garland's 1996 thriller was so gripping and cinematic that the 2000 movie adaptation (starring Leonard DiCaprio) seemed flat by comparison. And while The Beach is a tad too pulpy and pop-cultural to find a place in the literary pantheon, it is nonetheless a wicked satire that skewers the pretensions and self-delusions of "independent" travelers who mindlessly make themselves at home in cultures they scarcely understand.

on The Beach

5yr ago

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Iyer's 1988 literary debut is an answer to all those critics who claim that great travel writing died once the terra incognita was mapped. As this Asia-themed collection of essays shows, the final frontier of adventure isn't located on some distant mountain or impenetrable jungle, but in the intimate (and often comical) cross-cultural fascinations and discoveries that arise from an ever-shrinking world.

on Video Night in Kathmandu

5yr ago

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Rolf Potts's Literary Travel Book Recommendations

by Rolf Potts

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Vagabonding

Burmese Days

The Quiet American

On the Road

Desert Solitaire

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Video Night in Kathmandu

The Sex Lives of Cannibals