If You Go

If You Go is a short travel book by Joe Wise, 112 pages in all, about the places he likes best. The catalogue description says some are close by and some are a half a world away. A bookseller's blurb narrows the map to the American Southwest, Central America and Europe.

The promise is practical. Wise combines the historic and the romantic to give vivid descriptions, helpful hints and practical advice, so that your next trip goes without a hitch. The catalogue copy ends on a bet about the reader: after finishing the book, you probably will go. Open Library files it under description and travel, travel and guidebooks.

Travel writing was already part of Wise's working life. A reference entry lists travel first among his hobbies and says his first major break as a writer was a travel article in the New York Times. A 1999 author note adds Sunset, Travel Smart, New Mexico magazine and the Santa Fe New Mexican to the periodicals he had written for. If You Go puts that experience into a book of its own, published by Western Reflections in 2003.

If You Go is for armchair travelers and planners alike, especially readers who like a guide with a personal voice instead of a list of hotels. People with a trip to the Southwest, Central America or Europe in mind can use it for ideas and tips. At 112 pages it is quick to read, and it suits a glovebox or a bedside table. Readers of Wise's novels will find a lighter side of the same writer. It does not pretend to be a complete directory of any region.

Joe Wise is a physician who lists travel, gardening, fly fishing and photography among his hobbies. In this book he writes about his own favorite places instead of inventing characters, as he does in his novels. We have no fuller list of destinations than the one in the catalogue copy, and we will not guess at them. The author page covers the rest of his books.

More about Joe Wise, M.D. →

The writer behind If You Go built a travel record before he built a book list. An Encyclopedia.com author entry gives his birthplace as Fort Worth, Texas, and names travel among his hobbies. It says his first major break was a travel article in the New York Times, and that he also wrote for Journal of the West.

A fuller list comes from the author note on a retailer listing for his novel In the Moro. It says he was born in Texas, traveled extensively in the Rocky Mountain Southwest, and wrote for the Travel Section of the New York Times, the Santa Fe New Mexican, the Albuquerque Journal, Sunset, Travel Smart and New Mexico magazines. The same note says that in 1999 he lived with his wife in Santa Fe. That is the home ground from which the Southwest chapters of a book like this one would be written, though we have not read a table of contents to confirm which places it covers.

Source: Encyclopedia.com: Wise, Joe 1939-