"I've gone around the world in installments," comments the author of La Bella Figura, a fanatical train aficionado. "Every trip has been a revelation." Filled with memorable characters and perceptive observations, Beppe Severgnini's homage to rail travel recounts some of his favorite trips across Europe, Australia, Asia, and the United States, from his honeymoon on the Trans-Siberian Express (in a four-person compartment!), to a winding journey from Russia to Turkey during the last summer of communism, to a recent coast-to-coast trip with his son from Washington, D.C., to Washington State.