The late Bourdain (1956–2018) was a celebrity chef and world-traveling TV star, whose personality is reflected in this charming book, cowritten by Woolever, his assistant.

Woolever paints a vivid picture of eventually brainstorming the book on a single day...in March 2018, sitting in a cloud of smoke at Bourdain’s dining room table.

This is an odd, bittersweet mash-up of a travel guide.

[A] refreshingly unique travel guide that thoughtfully fleshes out Bourdain’s desired intentions with supplementary essays from his peers and loved ones.

Readers are fortunate to have Woolever organizing the strategic battle to create what has become Bourdain’s final word on travel.

Woolever, longtime cowriter with the late Bourdain (1956–2018), knits together an impressive food-obsessed travel guide based on her conversations with Bourdain.

Posthumous selection of Bourdain’s thoughts on places exotic and well known, blended into a kind of Baedeker for the hipster set. There’s Frankensteining at work here, with Woolever, who worked with Bourdain for nearly 10 years, surrounding his pithy excerpts with the kind of dryly useful information of a standard guidebook.