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2,785 bytes removed ,  12:11, 30 April 2010
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==Travel==
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{{newreview
|author=Sara Wheeler
|title=The Magnetic North: Travels in the Arctic
|rating=4.5
|genre=Travel
|summary=The title of this book suggests another travel book about adventure in the frozen north, but Sara Wheeler mixes her tales of her own travels with some history of polar exploration and a serious examination of the impact of visitors and of those who wish to exploit the Arctic’s natural resources on the region and its people. Rather than setting off on another expedition to reach the North Pole, she travels around bits of the Arctic divided between different countries and governments, including Chukotka (Russia), Alaska (USA), Canada, Greenland, Svalbard (Norway) and Lapland (Russia and Scandinavia). There is a huge amount of material in the book but Wheeler organises and presents it in a very readable, accessible style.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099516888</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Mark Griffiths
|summary=The British Empire, lawd bless it – so large the sun never set on it. Also never resting upon its surface, if this book is anything to go by, was an increasing spread of the moneyed classes, gallivanting off to all corners, whether as imperial missionaries, explorers, or just plain travellers.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0316731048</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=John Gimlette
|title=Panther Soup: A European Journey in War and Peace
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
|summary=In 1945, Americans came in their millions to liberate a Europe smashed by war. It was a movement of men and machinery on a scale never seen before. Many men died; more are dying off today. Sixty years on, travel writer John Gimlette chanced upon a survivor of that campaign. His meeting prompted a decision to retrace the GIs' progress through France, Austria and Germany to try and relive those events, and to discover what remains of them today. ''Panther Soup'' is the story of that journey.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091921384</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=George Saunders
|title=The Brain-dead Megaphone
|rating=4.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=American author George Saunders is known for his short stories and fiction, but he is also a journalist for publications such as ''The Guardian'', ''The New Yorker Magazine'' and ''GQ''. ''The Brain-Dead Megaphone'' is his first collection of essays and it's an interesting proposition: sixteen pieces ranging from travel writing, literary appreciation, political essays, to surrealist short fiction.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747594260</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Geert Mak
|title=The Bridge
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=The current Galata Bridge in Instanbul is a concrete structure less than 15 years old. A bascule bridge of some 490m, it carries a four-lane highway, a tramway and pedestrian walkways on its open upper deck with arcaded market areas beneath on the outer spans. At first sight it has little to recommend it. None of the grandeur of the Charles Bridge in Prague, nor the ostentation of Tower Bridge in London, nor even the elegance of the Golden Gate.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846551382</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Tom Fort
|title=Downstream: Across England in a Punt
|rating=3.5
|genre=Travel
|summary=In summer 2005, journalist and angler Tom Fort set off to follow the river Trent from its source near Stoke to its confluence with the Humber. ''Downstream'' is the aptly meandering story of his 170-mile trip. Travelling light, first on foot, then in a purpose-built 15-foot plywood punt, and finishing off on a bike, Fort traces the course of the river, surveying the towns and landscapes it shaped, and exploring the history which surrounds it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184605169X</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|title=Blood River
|author=Tim Butcher
|genre=Travel
|rating=5
|summary=Tim Butcher started working as a journalist in Africa in 2000…15 years after Live Aid gave us all hope that maybe the continent’s problems were solvable…and almost as long since we’d begun to realise that it wasn’t going to be that easy.
 
Two years into the bloodiest war in the world, the Congo – at the very heart of Africa – was seeing 1,000 deaths a day to the violence. And the world wasn’t even looking.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099494280</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|title=Lessons From The Land Of Pork Scratchings
|author=Greg Gutfeld
|genre=Travel
|rating=4.5
|summary=Greg Gutfeld came to England to take up a job as editor of a men’s mag. Leaving New York as a stressed yet slim high-achiever, he soon settles into life in the UK and embraces a new world where the food is crap and the beer lukewarm, but where the people seem remarkably laid back and happy nonetheless. Two years later he leaves to return to his homeland, somewhat heavier and generally less fit than when he arrived, but with a newfound understanding of the secret of happiness, which weirdly has nothing to do with herpes (see chapter 66).
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847370667</amazonuk>
}}