Unlike my own book-writing, which, as you can see, is decidedly eclectic, this current shortlist consists of travel books and other writing that can be linked to travel without breaking too much of a sweat. Such as:

  “Journey Without Maps,’’ by Graham Greene, published by Vintage Classics.  When I’m on a plane or long-distance train, Graham Greene is my default author.  Greene’s books purr like well-oiled, beautiful machines.  The characters in his novels – think of “The Quiet American’’ or  “Our Man in Havana’’ -   always seem to be in over their heads, enmeshed in complexities they don’t understand.  In “Journey Without Maps,’’ Greene’s first non-fiction travel book (1936), Greene, himself, is in over his head.  In Liberia for a month-long walkabout in the backcountry, he is woefully unprepared.  In a sympathetic but clear-eyed preface, Paul Theroux observes that Greene was afraid of moths and birds, didn’t know how to drive a car and didn’t know how to read a compass.  He also, as the old journalism saw has it, didn’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.   Exaggerated or not, this darkly humorous account of rugged walks in the bush, drunken European expats, unfamiliar tribal customs and local despots is an addictive read.  Greene may not have known how to read a compass, but he could read people, and he is a lodestone for travelers.

“Beijing: From Imperial Capital to Olympic City,’’ by Lillian M. Li, Alison J. Dray and Haili Kong, published by Palgrave Macmillan. I bought my copy of this 320-page illustrated trade paperback in Singapore, so how easy it is to find elsewhere, I’m not sure (check www.palgrave.com), but it’s worth seeking out. Obviously great background for the 2008 summer Olympics, the book goes all the way back to when the city now known as Beijing was a dusty capital for early Han Chinese dynasties and Mongol warriors, traces the rise of the metropolis through the reigns of successive emperors, delves into detail about how things changed under Mao (think: austere) and after Mao (think: life on fast-forward). Grounded solidly in scholarship but accessibly written for a non-academic audience, the book is richly and vividly detailed.

“Japan: A Traveler’s Literary Companion,’’ edited by Jeffrey Angles and J. Thomas Rimer, published in trade paperback by Whereabouts Press, Berkeley, Calif. 232 pages long, this fine read retails for $14.95. It consists of English-language versions of Japanese literature with a strong sense of place – book excerpts and other short fiction set in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and other important places on the map of Japan. Like any anthology, you will like some pieces more than others, as I do, but there are plenty of worthy choices. I took this book with me on a recent visit to Japan, and was glad I did. The foreword is by Donald Richie, an American film critic and writer who has lived mostly in Japan since the late 1940s and is one of the most insightful Western interpreters of contemporary Japanese culture.

AND, lest we forget: TWO CLASSICS. These books belong on any traveler’s bookshelf:

“The Royal Road to Romance,’’ by Richard Halliburton. Originally published in 1925, this is one of the most influential travel books written in English – and deservedly so. I first read it after attending a social event, where three people at my table told me they decided to go into the travel business after reading this book, a beguiling memoir of an audacious life lived on the road. Just looking at the cover photo of Halliburton – young, fit, smiling, in turban and shorts before the Taj Mahal – you just know it’s going to be rapturous fun, and it is. Halliburton, an American adventurer, died young, on the storm-tossed open sea, but this book not only keeps his memory alive, it keeps the spirit of travel alive. It sells for $14.95 in a Traveler’s Tales Classic trade paperback edition.

“Unbeaten Tracks in Japan,’’ by Isabella L. Bird. Long before Tokyo’s Ginza was lit in neon and the world at large took a liking to sushi – back in 1873, to be exact – Bird, an upper-middle class Scotswoman, ventured on her own deep into Japan. At that time, Japan was extremely poor and few Japanese had seen a foreigner. With courage, keen curiosity and an adventurous spirit, Bird endured hardship to traverse the dirt tracks of rural Japan. Remarkably for a person of her background, there is very little haughtiness or condescension in her very readable writing, and as an account of a bygone Japan, Bird’s memoir is unsurpassed. This book, too, sells for $14.95 as a Traveler’s Tales Classic from the indomitable San Francisco publisher Traveler’s Tales.