The nineteen short stories in The Literary Traveler chronicle voyages and visits, trips and travails that test the resolve of characters and the bonds of relationships, leading to moments of triumph, tragedy, and transcendence. This is a book for those who love to go places and for those who like to stay at home and read - for anyone at all, in fact, who appreciates an exotic setting, a tale well told.

Readers of The Literary Traveler will experience wondrous sights distilled through the unique sensibilities of some of the greatest voices in contemporary fiction. Writers from Paul Bowles to Lorrie Moore, Sue Miller to John Updike explore such diverse locales as Australia's living Great Barrier Reef; a temple in Thailand filled with shimmering Buddhas; a bizarre street performance by a traveling circus - straight out of the Middle Ages - in Freiburg, Germany; a school of flying fish off the bow of an ocean liner; the ancient French abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel; Inca ruins in Peru; a beautifully contemplative courtyard in an Islamic theological seminary in Iran; a Yoruba village in Nigeria; Bulgaria's Black Sea coast; a train trip across the Italian Alps; Ireland's unspoiled countryside; a moody New England sea town; India's Ganges River, filled with throngs of pilgrims seeking its curative powers; a Scottish village; Paris; Rome; Berlin; Prague; and beyond.