Books

December 2023. I've just returned from a four-month trip to Fiji, Polynesia, Australia and Indonesia... After three years without traveling, three summers spent diving in Brittany near my home, I took a long leave of absence to go bubbling in seas warmer than the English Channel...

I won't be at the dive show this weekend. But I had the pleasure to interview the godfather of this 2014 edition, the underwater photographer and naturalist Laurent Ballesta.

I love books that take you on a journey. I've just rediscovered an illustrated album that was one of my favorite books as a child: Paris-Peking on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

I love this book! It's a world tour of street food. It tickles the taste buds and makes you travel. The title is Take away. Ten years of travel, 500 photos and 120 recipes: a book to devour with your eyes, concocted by a photographer, Jean-François Mallet, who was also a chef...

I like the way he looks at the world. I love her photographic work. Marie-Ange Ostré is a globetrotter and diver, like me. She has just published her first book, and it's a pleasure to rediscover her images in this way.

I love this Anglo-Saxon expression. Overseas: literally "beyond the seas, overseas". Meaning: "elsewhere, abroad".

If, like me, you love islands, whether here or elsewhere, take a look at this book: Besoin d'îles, by geographer Louis Brigand. The man is a scientist, but it's as a passionate lover that he talks about the islands he visited in the course of his research.

Here is Learning Indonesian: podcasts to learn the basics of bahasa indonesia, the Indonesian language, close to bahasa melayu, spoken in Malaysia.

I often cut up my travel guides to keep only the chapters that interest me... I've found an alternative to the massacre: download them in PDF format from the Lonely Planet website.

A few days ago, I met sociologist Rodolphe Christin for an interview. He is the author of Manuel de l'antitourisme, published by Yago. It's an itchy little book, in which he invites us to give meaning back to our travels.

I've been coveting this book for days. Its title, in big letters on a blue background, caught my eye straight away: Toute l'Asie, pays par pays. Yesterday, on my way back from a report, as I was passing by the Librairie du Voyage in Rennes, I snapped it up. And I'm glad I did.

I'm inaugurating my new Books section with this book on Thailand, published last year. It provides a better understanding of the Thai way of life and way of thinking. Things not so easy to grasp for the farangs (foreigners) that we are.

The photos of the previous trip are not yet sorted, I'm thinking about the next ... And to think better, I've already returned to a little tour in my favorite bookstore in Rennes: Ariane, the travel bookstore.