Travel Books

Follow the Journey

Advantages: Real emotion behind the words
Disadvantages: Not for those not interested in bike trips or the two men

Long Way Down – An African Adventure by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman is the companion book to the TV series of the same name, which saw Charley and Ewan travel from John O Groats to Cape Town on motorbikes. I got my dad the book for Christmas after spotting it for a bargain price and he really enjoyed reading it. This combined with how I had enjoyed watching the television series I decided to give it a go myself and I am really pleased that ...
...The book itself is written as a day-by-day account of events on the journey. That doesn’t mean however that the book is written in diary form as this just wouldn’t have suited it. The book actually flows like a complete set of prose yet is broken up into sizeable chapters which are again broken down into different sections written by Charley and Ewan alternatively. This alternation of author means you often get to see both sides of the picture, both ...

MI9to5 11.04.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Long Way Down - Ewan McGregor

A book that's second to naan

Advantages: Full of useful info for the curry lover
Disadvantages: Flimsy, info not always 100% accurate

...sponsored by Cobra beer, the Good Curry Guide was first published in 1984; the 2007 Guide that I am reviewing here confusingly claims to be both the eighth (stated on page 13) and the ninth (stated on page 18) editions. I am unable to give a definitive answer, suffice to say the book is re-published every three years or so and is eagerly awaited in our house. Quite simply, the book is a guide to the best restaurants serving curry in the British Isles ...
...way for a fix of good curry. The guide does not use professional paid critics but encourages readers to send in reports and even provides a template for reviews at the back of the book. It does not matter if the restaurant you wish to review is already listed, in fact it's probably better because multiple reports will better help the editorial team give the best representation of the restaurant in the book. The editors send an annual questionnaire ...

fizzytom 09.06.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Good Curry Guide - Pat Chapman

Never been to the States but Bill makes me feel like I have

Advantages: Bill's style of writing even makes "boring" subjects interesting
Disadvantages: none

I've been as far north as the Isle of Skye, as far west as Dublin, as far east as Durban and as far south as Cape Town, but I've never been to America. Yet, reading this book, Bill Bryson's descriptions of his return to his homeland after twenty years or so in Britain, I feel as though I could have been there with him. This book, so I read at the start, was a compilation of the first eighteen months of a weekly column Bill wrote for the Night and ...
...I don't think I ever read the original columns but I could read this book over and over again. In each chapter Bill tackles, in his own inimitable fashion, the complexities and problems, dilemmas, frustrations and emotional bits about going "home again". In fact his first column discusses precisely this - he has come back to his homeland after doing every adult thing he ever did (buying a house, getting a mortgage, acquiring DIY items etc) in Britain ...

KateHurst 19.05.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Notes from a Big Country - Bill Bryson

Roger Federer has nothing to fear, but do the Moldovans?

Advantages: Witty writing, interesting to find out more about Moldova
Disadvantages: Over the top at times

INTRODUCTION Having read all of Danny Wallace's books and been amused if slightly appalled at his childish challenges, I was recommended the works of Tony Hawks by Ms Larsbaby. It seems that Mr Hawks is also famed for his silly challenges and could be seen as something of an inspiration for people like Wallace & Dave Gorman who also like to indulge their egos in ostensibly pointless bets. Moldova was a part of the Soviet Union and has been ...
...Eastern Europe located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south. With little previous experience to go on I was keen to find out more about the country and the author. ROLL OVER MOLDOVA I was always intrigued by the title of this book, having no idea at all what it was about until I read it. It turns out that our protagonist ends up trying to play tennis (one at a time of course) with the entire Moldovan football ...

larsbaby 06.11.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Playing the Moldovans at Tennis - Tony Hawks

Death of a Supertramp

Advantages: A fascinating read
Disadvantages: Writer gave too much of his own life in my opinion

INTO THE WILD 1996 JON KRAKAUER 'Into the Wild' tells the true story of Christopher McCandless, a young man from a well-to-do American East Coast family who, after he graduated from college, donated all of the money in his bank account ($24,000) to Oxfam renamed himself "Alexander Supertramp," and began a journey in the American West. Nearly two years later, McCandless was found dead in the Alaska wilderness. This is not ...
...his account of the 1996 Everest disaster in the book publication of 'Into Thin Air', and was strongly criticised for presenting a one-sided version of the event. In 'Into the Wild', Jon Krakauer rebuilds the final two years of McCandless's young life in his contentious book, that in many ways parallels the author's own dreams. Jon Krakauer became involved in this story after writing an article for Outside Magazine. The magazine's editor asked Krakauer ...

oldchem 14.10.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer