Tales from Nowhere: Unexpected Stories from Unexpected Places

“We’ve all been to Nowhere. It might have been in the middle of Borneo or Beijing. It might have been in a Mayan mountain village, along a timeworn trail in Tuscany, on an isolated South Pacific island, or under a desert moon in Mali. Nowhere is a setting, a situation and a state of mind. It’s not on any map, but you know it when you’re there.” ~ Don George

Every year Lonely Planet produces a literary anthology of the highest quality, spotlighting some of the travel world’s most renowned authors as well as the rising stars of the new generation.

This year’s anthology takes that tradition into uncharted territory with Tales from Nowhere: Unexpected Stories from Unexpected Places. Full of surprise, passion, wonder, curiosity and revelation, the 31 real-life tales in this collection compose a kaleidoscopic portrait of the many Nowheres we visit – and the many roads we take to get there – in our lives.

In some of these stories, authors intentionally journey to Nowhere, but with unintended consequences: Simon Winchester brings home an unsought souvenir from Equatorial Guinea, while Pico Iyer finds nothingness in greater abundance than he’d hoped for on Easter Island; Angie Chuang pursues a pulse-pounding pilgrimage into the heart of Afghanistan, and Christopher Cox confronts lethal mines and memories en route to Pol Pot’s Cambodian hideout.

In other stories, the authors stumble upon Nowhere by accident, only to discover unexpected rewards: Rolf Potts gains a new worldly perspective in a backwater Kansas museum; Judy Tierney revels in the everyday riches of a dusty Malawi village; Danny Wallace is enchanted by a chance encounter in an anonymous airport lounge; and Pam Houston bounds into bliss among the kangaroos and characters of rural Australia.

And some of these tales track rare, rugged Nowheres to poignant epiphanies: Joshua Clark in hurricane-ravaged Louisiana; Karl Taro Greenfeld on the trail of a deadly disease in China; Jason Elliot in an eye-opening metropolis where East and West clash and coalesce; and Stanley Stewart upriver, beyond the last human settlement in Sarawak.

Widely varied in setting, tone, and situation, the tales in this extraordinary collection all illuminate one fundamental truth: If we embark on each adventure with an open heart and an open mind, trusting in the journey, travel will take us places we never planned to go, and enrich and enlighten us in ways we never otherwise would have known.

Here is our map to Nowhere: Enjoy the journey!

Tales from Nowhere: Unexpected Stories from Unexpected Places
Edited by Don George
ISBN 1-74104-519-3
$14.99, 288 pp
Published September 2006

Contact: To reprint an excerpt or request a review copy, please contact Rana Freedman at PressUSA@LonelyPlanet.com, or 510-893-8556 ext. 159