Back in the Lab

Back in the lab, Zoë and I often bemoan the lack of a single good book on how to write travel literature. Zoë has compiled and edited a collection of peer-reviewed research papers on the subject (Roberts 2016), you can find the book in Kindle format on Amazon. Of course, hidden away in collections and anthologies we have found a chapter by Tim Hannigan.  Spending a day writing with Tim is easily equal to reading a writing manual in itself.  And manuals do exist, Nomadic Matt offers a set of PDFs along with his travel blogging course.  But what we seek, I think, is an academic approach for use at university, I imagine it would have examples of travel writing, in clearly annotated extracts with a commentary on how each component can create place or communicate the emotions of the travel writer as she encounters the next step in her journey. 

French Lesson continued

Replying to the question from the end of the previous French lesson, may I photograph the book, please? She replies: 

No, but you may borrow it.  You could return it to me in Nantes.

Non, mais vous pouvez l'emprunter. Vous pourriez me le redonner à Nantes.

Redonner makes it clear that she expects me to hand the book back to her in person.   See how similar it looks to the verb, donner, to give?  But the real stars of these two sentences are the object pronouns, it, to me and it.  In French they come before the verb; can you spot them? The first one’s tricky, just an l’ apostrophe.  It = the book mentioned in the previous lesson. Then the two stacked up before the verb redonner – me = to me, and le, again = it (the book).

  

References

Hannigan, T. (2015) Travel writing, history writing [online] Available at http://timhannigan.com/blog/ [Accessed 4.7.2015].

 Roberts, Z. (ed) (2016) River Tourism: The Pedagogy and Practice of Place Writing, Plymouth, TKT.  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01CQY2Z8W