05/27/2024
TV producer Janetti (Start Without Me) takes a delightful and sharp-witted tour through a lifetime’s worth of travel exploits and misadventures. In essays that range from the family cruises he took as a kid (his father worked in sales for a ship line) to the present day, Janetti good-naturedly bemoans the discomforts of staying in friends’ spare rooms (“The cost of being a perfect guest is your sanity”), juxtaposes the petty annoyances (including a foghorn’s nonstop blaring) of a cruise taken with extended family with the moments of connection it afforded, and wistfully recalls meeting and falling in love with his husband Brad during a trip to Mykonos. Janetti’s irresistible blend of deadpan humor (“Whether you were scammed by a ticket broker or your husband was knifed in Hell’s Kitchen, a shrug and a ‘This is New York’ would fit the bill,” he writes of how he’d deal with dissatisfied guests while working at a Manhattan hotel in his 20s) and earnest reflections on how travel has shaped his life mostly makes up for the book’s more flatly diaristic descriptions of meals and disappointing cruise ship performances. Readers are bound to catch the travel bug. (July)