Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts puts you in an 18-year-old's hobnailed boots as he hikes across Europe in 1933 and takes scrupulous, even luscious, notes of his trip. I'm hard-pressed to pick better travel writing than this: Well documented, personal and enthusiastic, it reveals a strong ear for voices and an eye for national characteristics (in people, in architecture, in music), Fermor's story is dazzingly convincing. (On a side note, here's yet another clap on the back for the New York Review of Books imprint.)