A Delicious Romp Through Europe

FEEDING FRENZY: Across Europe in Search of the Perfect Meal by Stuart Stevens (Atlantic Monthly, $23).

I can imagine it now. On my next news assignment to somewhere awful, I’ll be at an immigration counter filling out the entry forms. When I get to “occupation,” there will be the usual checklist: professional, technical, etc. And then there will be a new category: travel writers going adventuring somewhere awful.

Which is to say, it’s a crowded field. One of the better writers in this niche--if your tastes tend to the rambunctious and zany--is Stuart Stevens. He wrote one of the zaniest romps of all in 1989--the story of driving a Land Rover of dubious ownership from the Central African Republic to Europe.

A good many competitors have moved into the field to emulate him now.

So rather than jostle with this crowd, Stevens leaves them all to suffer in places awful and sets upon a new adventure right into the heart of Western civilization, a romp through the good life: to England and Europe to eat in all 29 three-star restaurants. For companionship, he has a beautiful woman who is someone else’s girlfriend. They are driving a stylish but misbehaving Ford Mustang convertible. Oh, and there’s a dog along too.

A little contrived? Sure. Does he lay it on a bit thick? Often. Is the book a hoot? By all means.

Stevens has a sweet ear for pace, a heart for fun and zest as a writer. In his books, he is one of those travelers whose energy and enthusiasm is infectious. He can nudge you at just the right moment and make you see something interesting in the ordinary. For instance, watching a few Brits read the newspaper, or exploring the inside of a French gas station.

As for the restaurants? Well, Stevens likes his food but probably not enough to satisfy those gastronomes who regard the stars of Michelin as stops on a pilgrimage. This is, after all, still a romp.

JOE AND ME: An Education in Fishing and Friendship by James Prosek (Weisbach, $23, illustrated).

Yale undergraduate Prosek created a stir last year with his book “Trout,” a collection of his vivid Audubon-style paintings of our favorite fish. Now he shows his gift as a storyteller with this calm coming-of-age tale of a teenage fish poacher’s encounter with a warden, and their resulting friendship, along Connecticut stream banks and off.

This is a book without any writerly tricks. Held in your hand it begins to feel like something from another era: Gentle, solid, uplifting and just a little sentimental.

Something else. This book is a tribute to the binder’s art. It is finely crafted, with an inlay cover and no dust jacket, and illustrated with 20 of Prosek’s splendidly evocative paintings. The paper is heavy, thick, as if to acknowledge that fathers will be passing this along to their sons in tribute to a stylized America that always seems on the verge of disappearing.

Quick Trips

A TRAVELLER’S HISTORY OF FRANCE: Fourth Edition by Robert Cole (Interlink, $12.95, paperback, illustrated).

Written by an American historian, this volume strikes me as just about right for travelers with a sense of curiosity: dense but not overwhelming. If you’re headed for France and your European history has gone to rust, this is worth a read now. And the book is compact and organized to serve as a quick reference on the road.

TRAVELERS’ TALES PARIS: True Stories of Life on the Road edited by James O’Reilly, Larry Habegger and Sean O’Reilly (Travelers’ Tales, $17.95, paperback).

There is, at least in my mind, confusion about these kinds of supplemental travel books. Some are literary collections. Others, like this one from Travelers’ Tales, are anthologies of contemporary travel stories such as the kind you find in the Sunday newspaper.

To my mind, Paris deserves a little more homage to its literary influence. But you might prefer a survey of what others have done right and wrong on their holidays.

OPERA: The Rough Guide by Matthew Boyden (Penguin, $24.95, paperback, illustrated).

Here is a history of opera, organized like a regular travel guidebook and from a respected publisher: biographies of composers by era, the best of available CD recordings, an account of the world’s opera houses and a directory of modern opera singers.

FROMMER’S EUROPE’S GREATEST DRIVING TOURS by Michael Spring (Macmillan, $16.95, paperback, maps).

If you don’t get enough everyday time behind the wheel, here’s a sampler of some of the possibilities, from the U.K. to Spain. There’s probably not enough depth here about any single country, but plenty if you’re still shopping for a destination.

Balzar is a national correspondent for The Times. Books to Go appears twice monthly.