Books about nomadic life

[Volya]

Hello, could anyone recommend any good books on nomadic life/life without a home, etc?

I am looking for both fictional and non-fictional stories, however if it is non-fiction it would be preferable if it were written in the form of a story rather than an educational book.

I ask because I have recently become interested in this way of living, and I am looking for experiences that people past + present have had with such a life.

Volya

[PeterL]

I have read some such, but I can't remember what they were. I would suggest that you start looking for books about nomadic people, and there have been many, many books about nomads. In addition to anthropologists, travellers, soldiers, and others have done so. The ways of life of nomads vary with their location, climate, vegetation, their sources of food and so on. There are also differences that depend on the level of their technology, and the time in which they lived.

[Alexander III]

The Razors Edge - don't have time to get into the details, but the protagonist of the book abandons his high-society life after his experience in wwI to live the life of a penniless vagrant.

[kev67]

Down and Out in Paris and London by your friend and mine perhaps? Come to think of it, I think George Orwell's A Clergyman's Daughter touches on homelessness. Neither of those books make the condition seem very appealing. Otherwise, the only other non-fiction book is How to Live Off-Grid by Nick Rosen. That's quite an interesting book.

[Volya]

Already read Down and Out, I'll take a look at the other two you mentioned.

Thank you Alexander, Peter, and kev for the help :)

[Charles Darnay]

I ask because I have recently become interested in this way of living, and I am looking for experiences that people past + present have had with such a life.



I don't think you will find a 21st century example of this and, like backpacking through Europe, the world has changed since Orwell's day.

[ChicagoReader]

The Savage Detectives features young poets and artists in Mexico that are always moving around--pretty good novel.

[Silas Thorne]

'You Can't Win' by Jack Black

'Autobiography of a Super-Tramp' by W.H. Davies

The latter of these is here: http://www.greenfolder.co.nz/WHD/home.html

[qimissung]

Oh, do I have a book for you. It's called "The Gypsies," by Jan Yoors.


As a boy of twelve, Jan Yoors fulfilled many an adventurous youth's fantasy when he left his comfortable Belgian home to live and travel with a tribe, or kumpania, of Gypsies. Adopted into the extended family of Pulika, Yoors passed his days with the patriarch's sons and nephews, learning the traditions and participating in the rituals of the Gypsies, or Romani.

This is one of my favorite books! It's a memoir, and very well written. Although it is not a novel, it is supremely interesting. Really, it's one of the most fascinating books that I have ever read.


http://www.amazon.com/The-Gypsies-Jan-Yoors/dp/0881333050/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350447324&sr=8-1&keywords=the+gypsies+jan+yoors

[TheFifthElement]

Not sure if they're exactly what you're thinking of but:
Lost Paradise by Cees Nooteboom. The first part of the story is about a girl who spends some time with an aboriginal man in Australia.
In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut - is about a traveller. It's a beautiful book and is 'nomadic' in the sense that the traveller's directions and encounters have no specific purpose. Probably a great contemporary example of the backpacker book which Charles D doesn't think exists ;)
Housekeeping by Marilynn Robinson - this touches on the itinerant life and is another beauty.
Hunger by Knut Hamsun - this book made me crazy, but it is excellent. I think it's on the edge of what you're looking for but might be worth a look?

[Kafka's Crow]

Desert by Le Clezio:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Desert-J-M-G-Clezio/dp/1848873816/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350466291&sr=8-1

[Emil Miller]

And if you're prepared to take beatniks seriously, there's also On the Road.

[Charles Darnay]

In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut - is about a traveller. It's a beautiful book and is 'nomadic' in the sense that the traveller's directions and encounters have no specific purpose. Probably a great contemporary example of the backpacker book which Charles D doesn't think exists ;)


An oversight. That being said, what year(s) do the stories take place?

My point was not to attack or dismiss travel lit - or nomadic lit (for aside from the Beatniks, there is a fine line) - but to war against the nostalgia factor that literature creates that life cannot live up.

Example: when I first visited London I was very disappointed the the world I had built up while reading through Dickens' works did not match up to what I was seeing.
Saying that you want to read a type of work to serve a model for future plans is a dangerous game.

And my point about contemporary nomadic lit is that the vagrant wandering life is generally not compatible with the security measures in most countries in the past ten years.

[Emil Miller]

An oversight. That being said, what year(s) do the stories take place?

My point was not to attack or dismiss travel lit - or nomadic lit (for aside from the Beatniks, there is a fine line) - but to war against the nostalgia factor that literature creates that life cannot live up.

Example: when I first visited London I was very disappointed the the world I had built up while reading through Dickens' works did not match up to what I was seeing.
Saying that you want to read a type of work to serve a model for future plans is a dangerous game.

And my point about contemporary nomadic lit is that the vagrant wandering life is generally not compatible with the security measures in most countries in the past ten years.

I see your point about London, but it suffered fairly extensive damage during WWII and was redeveloped during the 1960s. However,there are still large areas where the modern day equivalent of Dickens's characters live and congregate to get drunk on cheap beer. Some of the customers at Wetherspoons' pubs make Bill Sykes look positively respectable.

[Volya]

Not to worry, I'm not planning on making what I read a model for my life xD
But if one can't live their dreams, the next best thing is reading novels about them :p

[Captain Blake]

Volya,
First time posting for me, so am hesitant about the rules. In my adventures in the S. China Sea over several decades I have enjoyed a close relationship with a small band of Sea Gypsies, "Orang Laut" (Men of the Sea, in Malay), Sea Nomads to the anthropologists, and have watched sadly while their exquisite knowledge of the creatures of the sea disappears as the older ones die out and their youth disappear into the urban slums of Indonesia...and are quite forgotten.
I have several short stories about adventures with them. Are you interested in the more anthropological side of Nomads? If so, is it etiquette to post one's own writing...and how to post a .pdf file with pics?
Logos, et alii, please inform. Captain Blake.

[A_Woman_Scorned]

I would highly recommend to you the Earth's Children series by Jean Auel as it is one of my favorites. It is prehistoric fiction, and as such all the people are nomads, but the story centers around a girl named Ayla and her mate Jondalar who travel around what is now Europe, experiencing the most amazing things and each other. It is really a fantastic tale about the way things might have been and about humaness before it became what we know of it today.

[bluosean]

The Return of the Native comes to my mind. An important character in the book leads such a life, but the book is not about that. In many of Hardy's works you find characters that border on the nomadic. Perhaps this springs from his belief that humans were helpless in the world, and at the mercies of forces greater than them. There is a lack of a solid bottom as a result. Well, besides the book I mentioned, few of his books that I read cover this at all, but it does come up sometimes. At any rate, his books are interesting, so even if only part of The Return of the Native focuses on your theme, you may find the rest enjoyable as well.