Intermittently interesting and humorous travelogue from Mark Twain’s 1867 trip through Europe and the Middle East, published as a book (his first) in 1869. It’s uneven, as Twain’s nonfiction sometimes is, but when it’s good it’s really good. I enjoyed the contemporaneous descriptions of places and people. I might have enjoyed his descriptions of the Holy Land if I were better acquainted with the Holy Book whose stories, people, and places he frequently referenced. I did not enjoy Twain’s mocking and sometimes disdainful (and  often racist) characterizations of the people he met. I’m not sure he was kind and respectful to any individual or group he came across. I guess the readers back home were expecting yucks at the expense of the foreigners. Ironic that one of his final observations was that “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrowmindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on this account. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating on one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” One of my favorite parts of the book, and where Twain casts the local citizens above his fellow Americans, is in Chapter 19 where he compares the balanced and carefree lives of people in Milan to workaholic Americans who are constantly striving and scheming, never relaxing to enjoy the moment. Still true today.