2006 books read plus TBR's

Here's my 2006 travel books read list; My Library contains a lot of my planned reading. I'm curious if others' reading overlaps much?

Aithie, Patricia: The Burning Ashes of Time (Yemen)
Barich, Bill: Traveling Light (California/London/Italy)
Bennett, Joe: A Land of Two Halves (New Zealand)
Bird, Isabella: The Yangtze Valley and Beyond (China)
Booth, Alan: The Roads to Sata (Japan)
Brown, Rachel Manija: All The Fishes Come Home To Roost (India)
DeWoskin, Rachel: Foreign Babes in Beijing (China)
Halliday, Ayun: A Sarong in My Backpack* (various)
*note: recently re-rereleased as "No Touch Monkey"
Javins, Marie: Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik (Africa)
Kendall, Gillian: Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet (China/trans-Pacific)
Kropf, John: Unknown Sands (Turkumenistan)
Laube, Lydia: Temples & Tuk-Tuks (Cambodia)
Milton, Giles: The Riddle and the Knight (near east)
Morris, Jan: Fifty Years of Europe (Europe)
Morris, Jan: Journeys (various)
Morris, Jan: O Canada (Canada)
Osborne, Lawrence: The Naked Tourist (various)
Paine, Sheila: The Afghan Amulet (various)
Raban, Jonathan: Coasting (U.K.)
Raban, Jonathan: Old Glory (USA)
Stark, Freya: Letters From Syria (middle east)
Stark, Freya: The Southern Gates of Arabia (Arabia)
Stark, Freya: The Zodiac Arch (middle east)
Stone, Nathaniel: On The Water (USA)
Sullivan, Robert: Cross Country (USA)
Sullivan, Robert: The Meadowlands (USA)
Weiss, Rachael: Are We There Yet? (Australia)

Seajack,
I read several of the books you have listed...it was several years since I read Coasting but Jonathan Raban but recall it was set around Britain wasn't it, and not the USA.

What would your top five picks be?

What are you looking at reading in 2007?

I guess I'm more into the exploration. Three of the best I read in 2006 were The Unknown Shore, Fatal Passage, and Disaster at the Pole: The Crash of the Airship Italia.

Guess I've been on an Arctic kick. Would you believe that I hate cold? :-)

Thanks for the correction on "Coasting", Argonut; I must have been confusing that one with "On the Water". For top five I'd pick ... "On the Water"; "The Meadowlands"; "Riddle and the Knight"; "Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet"; "Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik".

My upcoming travel lit are catalogued here (the ones without reviews). I'd say I'm most looking forward to "Attention All Shipping" from that lot.

I was on more of a fiction kick over the last year, but here are a few of the travel books I read in the last year.

- Aldous Huxley's "Beyond the Mexique Bay" (Latin America)
- Simon Mayle's "The Burial Brothers: From New York to Rio in a '73 Cadillac Hearse" (US/Latin America)
- Jeremy Mercer's "Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare & Co." (France)
- J.M. Synge's "Aran Islands" (Ireland)
- Mark Twain's "The Innocents Abroad" (Europe and the Middle East)

Just got a new shipment of titles through a remainder outlet, so I'll have a full reading list for the foreseeable future.

Seajack: I've never heard of the Kropf title. Am I correct in assuming that it is a contemporary travel writing account of Turkmenistan? It would be very interesting to get an alternative perspective of life under the Turkmenbashi regime; even if just in passing through.

I read Twain's "Innocents Abroad" and "A Tramp Abroad" last year as well, but neglected to include them on my list above. The former was a much better read for me.
Kropf's wife was a U. S. State Dept. employee assigned to the embassy in Turkumenistan. He and their child came along as dependents; he finagled some sort of consulting job during their time there, which straddled 9/11 (I believe). So, he was a quasi-resident there (diplomatic status), rather than just passing through - making friends with locals, he gets to visit their families in the countryside to see how regular folks live.
I've been tempted by the Burial Brothers - how was it?

My favorite, which I just read this year, was Paul theroux's Dark Star Safari, overland from Cairo to Capetown. Others I liked were Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea, and Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard