Customer Rating:  
Summary: It would be far better if it was 100 pages shorter
Comment: I think a stronger editor would have made this 322 page book into a 150 page winner. Lots of chaff: who cares about Alaska drug use and the author's idiot teenage drug mistakes - many of us have the same dumb stories of our own - stories which have a "you had to be there" quality.
There is good material in the book - and funny stories.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Intelligent and acerbic
Comment: I picked up Smile When You're Lying with a bit of trepidation - the last few books I picked up that purported to give you the "real deal" on travel in other countries had a preening smugness to them, self-depreciating authors who weren't as humble or as witty as they thought they were. I didn't want to be sour on the idea of authentic travelogues in general but I found myself bracing for the worst.
I was pleasantly surprised: Chuck Thompson's writing is honest without being self-congratulatory, clever and wry without being condescending, and provides an interesting look at the travel industry and how its writers are paid for almost anything but honesty when they report on far-off vacation spots.
If I take off a star, it's because there is a certain something lacking, and something is whether the author actually has fun in the countries he travels to in the first place. We get sad stories and funny stories and stories of peril, but despite the fact that the book is half-memoir never any real stories about any joy Thompson gets out of visiting other countries. There are some positive encounters here and there, but by and large it seems glossed over.
Despite this omission, Smile When You're Lying is a very entertaining book and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for some travel literature that's critical of the industry and tries to inform the readers of some of the tougher realities behind it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Overcast In Thompson-Land
Comment: How can you pass up a book that promises ". . . a hilarious behind-the-brochures tour of picture-perfect locales, dangerous destinations, and overrated hellholes from a guy who knows the truth about travel?" After reading the cover, and some of the quick reviews on the back of the book, I decided that it was time to read some stories that travel editors refused to run from a prolific travel writer.
Contents: Introduction: You Deserve Better; "Welcome to Thailand, Ulysses S. Grant!"; Baked Alaska: How Drugs, Tourism, and Petroleum Tamed the Last Frontier; Canned Hams, Kendo Beatdowns, and the Penis Olympics: The Education of an Accidental Ambassador in Japan; Lost Among Expats: The Shiftless, Debauched, Tedious, and Necessary Existence of Americans Abroad; Why Latin America Isn't the World's Number One Tourist Destination and Probably Never Will Be; Am I the Only One Who Can't Stand the Caribbean?; What Lazy Writers, Lonely Planet, and Your Favorite Travel Magazine Don't Want You to Know; The Curse of Chinatown: And Other Updated Wisdom for the Modern Traveler; Boys Gone WIld: How the Philippines Became the Friendliest Country in the World Despite/Because of the U.S. Military; Is It OK to Miss the Cold War? The Philosophical Dilemma of Eastern Europe; Not-So-Ugly Americans and the Road of Good Intentions; Acknowledgements
Chuck Thompson, author of Smile When You're Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer, has found a place for the stories and anecdotes that his editors refused to run. And we all benefit. Starting with a story about being broke and alone (after beginning the adventure with four Thai college girls) on a small Thai island and ending with a look at American stereotypes abroad, Thompson provides the reader with an inside look at travel writing, tells you why travel reviews all seem to be the same, and a complete skewering of Lonely Planet. It is the latter, and those that worship those books, that take the brunt of his criticism. And provide quite a few laughs. Whether he is smuggling Russian flags, flashing back to his school days in Alaska, or providing his unvarnished view of the Caribbean, he uses his uncensored travel-writer opinion to provide you with a perspective that you rarely see. For example, when you get to the chapter on the Caribbean, he writes:
". . . I find myself wondering why anyone-much less the 35 million people who go to the Caribbean each year-would blow presumably limited vacation days and budgets on a place where the definition of "paradise" is fluid enough to include sullen service, neglected hotels, and restaurants where waiting forty-five minutes for a small mango juice is considered an immense honor."
Thought provoking comments like that are found throughout the book.
For the most part, Thompson delivers on the promise of ". . . a fierce and frank skewering of the travel business and media." Throughout the book, he lays waste to most of the business of travel writing. He provides a unblinking eye at many popular travel destinations and how editors, in bed with resort and hotel operators, manufacture the reviews that you read. Further, he adds frank anecdotes, some extremely embarrassing, to provide the reader with "color" not found anywhere else. But I was expecting more. Especially after reading the mini-reviews on the front and back covers. Don't get me wrong, this is a good book when he turns his focus on the business of travel and the travel media, but it was lacking . . . any sort of pleasant reviews (whether that is a destination or anecdote). For the most part, this is a dark book. As a travel veteran, I would have guessed that he would have found a couple of good destinations, but, other than the Philippines, I don't think that they exist for him. Either that or he is so jaded, he is unable to recognize them.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Former Travel Agent - this book made me laugh out loud!
Comment: I grew up in the same town Chuck did, so I thought his stories about Juneau were priceless and hysterical. As a former travel agent (8 years in the racket) I've been on many of the same kinds of schmooze fests he has. Anyone who's ever thought after too many daquiris that checking out a time share for the free **fill in the blank here** was a good idea, and let's face it we've all done it once, will relate! I still travel a lot, and find his observations to be spot on, at least in the destinations we've both been to. I found his writing style funny, irreverent, and interesting to read. I read this book in 2 days, and will definitely recommend it to all my traveling friends.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Painful Disappointment
Comment: I had been looking forward to reading about this book since I first read about it in the NY Times. 300 words are not enough to describe how horrid this book actually was. Negativity, an inability to relate to people from other cultures, egomaniacal, and lacking any semblance of a sense of humor. And after all that, the best part was criticized Paul Theroux...
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