A plea for (literary) help

[panik]

I've approached a new agent, a rather good one actually, and he wants to see a chapter of my book. This is good.

He also (and I've discovered, this has become par for the course when approaching agents now) wants to see:

'1 page with a few lines on the five most recent competing and comparable books giving author, title, publisher and date of publication together with a note on how the books relate to the author's own book.'

This is not so good. Urm... Urm... Heck! I don't read travel books, I write them! Does anyone else read road books of this type - comic travel stuff...? Can anyone on m'flist rec a comic-type book of travels for me to peruse and decide if it fits the bill? 'Cause I freely confess, I'm at a bit of a loss here.

Quick summary: I've written a road story; true story - how me and a friend crossed Cuba at the height of its troubles; the Berlin Wall is down, the USSR is gone; everything is rationed, most of Cuba is getting four hours of electricity and three buckets of water a day. 33,000 people just fled the country on a raft and Maria and I decide to hitch across Cuba on ten pesos (50c) a day. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes, it doesn't  (We are offered jobs in the porn industry, are almost killed by a well-meaning mercenary, kidnapped by a voodoo priest... ) It's mostly funny, but with a few sad interludes.


I've got a short-list of potentials:

In a Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson

The Almond Blossom  Appreciation Society, Chris Stewart.

Narrow Dog to Carcassonne, Terry Darlington

Snowball Oranges, Peter Kerr

I haven't read all of these books.  I have read one of these books. OK, I have read about two thirds of the Bill Bryson book. I think it's clear, I need some help, here. ::wibbles a bit:: Have any of you read a book (preferably published in the last 3 years) that sounds anything like mine? All suggestions would be received with grovelling gratitude. You will be mentioned in dispatches the acknowledgements when if in the very unlikely event that it's published.

::kisses you in advance::

Comments

[t-verano.livejournal.com]

Um, additional thought -- what about Amazon? Search on subject; often have blurbs and reviews and all that info? I think? (I don't use Amazon much since buying stuff isn't something I do right now, but I've looked for book excerpts there before. Haven't ever used a subject search, but I imagine they'd have a decent one.)

[gillyp.livejournal.com]

This is what I've been doing all afternoon. (o:

I have a short list of 19 now; I guess next stop = Chorley library, see if they have any of these then do a bit of dipping and speed reading! ::blush::

I used to think the actual writing was the hard part...