Difference between revisions of "Newest Travel Reviews"

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==Travel==
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|author=Alastair Humphreys
{{newreview
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|title=Local
|author=Simon Armitage
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|rating=5
|title=Walking Home
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|genre=Travel  
|rating=4
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|summary= Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the world.  And then written about it.  For this book he walked and cycled very close to home and then wrote about it.  As he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt ''to share what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map.  Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding…''   One of the joys of the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.
|genre=Travel
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|isbn=1785633678
|summary=Poet Simon Armitage decided in 2010 to walk the Pennine Way 'in reverse' - instead of heading to Scotland, he'd start just across the border and walk in the direction of his native Yorkshire. As if doing it this way, with the sun, wind and rain in his face wasn't hard enough, he also challenged himself to do it without a penny to his name, earning cash for the journey by giving poetry readings in pubs, village halls and living rooms. Could he make a 256-mile journey supported only by the kindness of strangers and his own willpower?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571249884</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0957181167
|author=Cathy Birchall and Bernard Smith
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|title=Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian Lewis
|title=Touching The World: A Blind Woman, Two Wheels and 25,000 Miles
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|author=Alan Marshall
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
|genre=Travel
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|genre=Art
|summary=Consider the world.  There might not be enough of it to go around in some over-crowded places, but there is enough variety in it - and us - for us all to have our own version of it; our own perceptions, experiences and expectationsThose are drastically altered from those of you and I if one is blind, as Cathy Birchall isBut that simple fact did not stop her taking a year out, and starting in August 2008, perch herself on her husband's pillion seat and be taken from one end of the earth to the other and back again.
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|summary=There are few positive things which can be said about a substandard apartment when you’re on holiday but this time, in trying to avoid looking at a problem I found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures on the walls - and was completely taken by the work of Brian LewisI searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions of this book and the print I wanted was ‘not available’Oh, dear - then a few doors down from the apartment, I found a gift shop with a stack of brand new books - and a framed print of the picture I wanted.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956497586</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1785633457
|author=Joseph Mitchell
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|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car
|title=Up In The Old Hotel
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|author=Clive Wilkinson
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|summary=One of the joys of reviewing books is when you stumble across something, know you are going to love it, ask for it, have it delivered and then spend a week or so being absolutely entranced.  It could so easily have been a disappointment.
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|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?
 
 
Joseph Mitchell is one of those men, one feels one should have heard of, should know about.  Not just that, he is one of those, one wishes one could have known.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956159X</amazonuk>
 
 
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|author=Merryn Glover
|author=Andrzej Stasiuk
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|title=The Hidden Fires
|title=On The Road to Babadag
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|summary=Sometimes we should trust our instinctsWhen I saw ''Babadag'' on the Shelf I knew I would love itWhen I sat in my garden on a hot sunny evening and struggled my way through the first chapter, I had my doubts.
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|summary= It is always about the book, not the writer, but there are times when the author's hinterland is also the background to the book and so it is necessary to understand that context, in order to appreciate the bookMerryn Glover is of Australian parentage, was born in Kathmandu, grew up in the Annapurna and Himalayan and now lives in Badenoch in Scotland.  I can think of no-one better a combination to give us a re-appraisal of Nan Shepherds work than the first Writer in Residence in the Cairngorms National Park.   Merryn walks, not so much in the shadow of Shepherd, but in her spirit. I think the two would have gotten along famously.
 
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|isbn=1846975751
Oh, ye of little faith...!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099507145</amazonuk>
 
 
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|isbn=B0B7289HKQ
|author=Terry Darlington
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|title=Conversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America
|title=Narrow Dog to Wigan Pier
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|author=Kari Loya
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|summary=You might not realise, but there is a hierarchy in publishing of narrowboat travelogue trilogies.  At the bottom is Shane Spall, mostly for the fact her and husband Timothy's boat isn't narrow, and partly for the fact she's only published the first volumeWith three volumes under his belt, we have Steve Haywood, but top of the pile is Terry DarlingtonOne example of the proof of this is that Mr Haywood was front page news in the Leicester Mercury when he wrote them a letter about the graffiti near his mooring, while Mr Darlington trended number two on the BBC news sites when his boat burned down, such is the esteem he, his wife, his narrowboat and his narrow dog (Jim the whippet) is held in.
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|summary=Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a good time to do itThe decision was made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of a challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it on.  Merv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593067673</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Erling Kagge
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|title=Walking: One Step At A Time
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|rating=5
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|genre= Lifestyle
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|summary= Those who have read my reviews before will know that how much I loved a book is evidenced by the number of pages with corners turned, so let me start this one with an apology to the Norfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was your book not mine. In my defence, I will say that as a reader of this type of book there is something connective about noting where prior readers were inspired (provided it is subtle – I'll allow creased corners, but not scribbles – for the latter we must buy our own copy – which I am about to do as soon as I have finished telling you why).
  
{{newreview
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Erligg Kagge is a Norwegian explorer who has walked to the South Pole, the North Pole and the summit of Everest. He knows a thing or two about walking. However, this isn't a travelogue about any of those epic journeys, it is instead a thoughtful exploration of what it means to walk. It is a plenitude of unnumbered essays about walking. There is no 'contents' page and I haven't counted. In small format paperback, each essay is only a few pages long. Perhaps then, better thought of as a meditation rather than an essay.
|author=Jean Sprackland
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|isbn=0241357705
|title=Strands: A Year of Discoveries on the Beach
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=Sprackland is a poet, and a good one. At least I assume she's a good poet – I rarely read poetry these days. Her first collection was shortlisted for the Forward Prize, her second was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award and her third won the 2007 Costa Poetry Award. Unless all of the panels harbour the same judges, that's a lot of people thinking this is someone special.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087452</amazonuk>
 
 
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|author=Monica Connell
|author=Jeremy Bullard
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|title=Against a Peacock Sky
|title=Life On The Line
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|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|summary=Jeremy Bullard began his working life as a Chartered Accountant but eventually realised that the most exciting part of the day was his journey to work on his moped. Next came a spell as a IT Consultant into which he put heart and soul and only just escaped with his sanityA mental breakdown and a spell in The Priory convinced him that he had to rethink his life choices and high on the list was a long-distance trip on a motorbike.  The first two trips - from London to Cape Town and the reverse - were aborted and we join him as he attempts his most ambitious journey.  He's heading from New York to the very south of South America.  Oh, and he's taking in the Galapagos and Easter Island.
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|summary= Monica Connell went to Nepal to do the fieldwork for her Ph.D. in social anthropology. I think it is important to know that. She went on a grant-supported trip, with a relatively specific objective. She wasn't a hippy wanderer looking for Shangri-la. She wasn't a mere tourist passing throughShe went with a fundamental aim of learning about these people and how they lived. She also went, presumably, with the academic discipline of how to find these things out, how to organise them in her mind, how to "understand" them in the context of her own paradigms, and how to keep enough notes and files and photos to help her create some greater sense of the experience after the event. Fortunately, she also went with a sense of open-ness and curiosity and a willingness to muck-in, to break her own rules and to truly connect with the people of the village where she hauled up.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956968309</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1780600429
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Nicolas Bouvier
|author=Jean-Paul Kauffmann
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|title=The Japanese Chronicles
|title=A Journey to Nowhere: Among the Lands and History of Courland
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|rating=5
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|summary=When I turn to travel writing, it is a healthy balance of that about places I have been to, and places I've not. But without sounding too big-headed it is seldom places I have never heard of in any context - especially those I have passed through, what's more. The 'nowhere' in focus here is Courland, which was more-or-less the coastal slither of the top of Latvia, and was once an independent Duchy. In one fell swoop Kauffmann seems to become the only travel writer to have written a book about the place, at least for many a generation, and, it's pleasant to say, probably the best one could have hoped for.
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|summary= It never does to start a review of a book with a quote from the blurb, but sometimes it's unavoidable. Le Monde reviewed this book, at some point, with the words ''what the old master craftsmen would call a masterpiece.'' It is precisely that. A masterpiece in the sense of the craft as well as the art of writing. I'm going to hesitate to call it 'travel writing' because this is as much a history of Japan, a mythology-primer for the Japanese culture as it is a personal response to living and travelling in the country.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050362</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1906011044
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Stephen Fabes
|author=Agatha Christie and Mathew Prichard (editor)
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|title=Signs of Life
|title=The Grand Tour: Letters and photographs from the British Empire expedition
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|summary=In 1922 Agatha Christie, already the author of three very successful books, was happily married with a small daughter, and her heart's desire was to continue writing while she led a quiet life in the countryHowever her husband Archie was becoming increasingly restless and disenchanted with working in the City, and his longing for a change was suddenly to be fulfilled in a most unexpected wayAn old friend, Major Belcher, 'blessed with great powers of bluff', presented them both with the opportunity of a lifetime – to join him on a trip to several imperial outposts in preparation for the forthcoming British Empire Exhibition to be staged at Wembley.  Archie would be his financial adviser, and Agatha was cordially invited for the trip, as his wife(Two-year-old Rosalind would have to stay at home, a decision which involved some soul-searching).
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|summary= I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity.  Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and do itI also didn't inherit the kind of steady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the requisite 'bottle'In order words I'm not the sort of person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six yearsFabes did precisely that.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000744768X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1788161211
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Rob Baker
|author=Tessa Hainsworth
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|title=Toubab Tales: The Joys and Trials of Expat Life in Africa
|title=Home to Roost
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
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|genre=Travel
|summary=There seems to be a plethora of books about people who have moved to unusual places, or changed lifestyle in middle age for a variety of reasons. This book features a London family who have moved to Cornwall, and is the third (so far) in a series about their transition.  
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|summary=''"Go to Mali," they said. "The music is amazing," they said. "And you get ten hours of sunshine every day." So I did.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848093756</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
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Rob Baker is an ethnomusicologist. ''A what?'' I hear you cry. Well, an ethnomusicologist studies music in relation to culture, so rather like a folklorist studies the oral and written story traditions relating to a culture.
|author=Andrew Martin
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|isbn=B089CSNFT7
|title=Underground Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Although he was born in Yorkshire, Andrew Martin has long been enthralled by the London Underground.  His father worked on British Rail, and Andrew himself therefore had free travel on the system as well as a Privilege Pass which entitled him to free first-class train travel on the national rail network.  Having lived in London for twenty-five years, commuting to various newspaper offices in his employment as a journalist, a job which has included writing a regular magazine column, Tube Talk, he is well qualified to write this entertaining and enlightening social history of the world's most famous underground railway.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684773</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Christine Brown
|author=Karen Wheeler
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|title=Bucket Showers and Baby Goats: Volunteering in West Africa
|title=Tout Soul
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|summary=Meet Karen. Expat fashion writer. French cottage owner. Devoted mother of Biff. Frustrated girlfriend of a dashing Portuguese hunk. Tout Soul is her 3rd book about a relocated life in rural France and after her previous tales of upping and leaving Blighty (book 1) and falling in love with the aforementioned dashing hunk (book 2) she’s now moved her focus to the pursuit of happiness.
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|summary=In the summer of 2008, this book's author was spending her days working in an office job in the USA while spending her nights dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something else. Long story short, she ended up volunteering in Ghana, West Africa. Now coincidentally, in the summer of 2010, this review's author was spending ''her'' days working in an office job (albeit in the UK) while spending ''her'' nights dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something else, and ''she'' ended up just 3 countries away, volunteering in Sierra Leone, West Africa. So you can see why, when this book came up, said reviewer was delighted to have the opportunity to read and critique it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957106602</amazonuk>
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|isbn=171024299X
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Mourby_Rooms
|author=Donovan Hohn
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|title=Rooms with a View: The Secret Life of Great Hotels
|title=Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea
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|author=Adrian Mourby
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=In January 1992 a container ship was on its way from China to the USA when it was caught in a storm and two containers broke loose from the deck.  They held nearly thirty thousand bath toys - yellow ducks, green frogs, red beavers and blue turtles - which were freed when the containers broke up and have circumnavigated the globe for almost twenty years.  Donovan Hohn was a teacher and when one of his students wrote an essay describing what had happened to the toys it caught Hohn's imagination.  The rest is - as they say - history and a very good book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908526009</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Paul Watson
 
|title=Up Pohnpei: A quest to reclaim the soul of football by leading the world's ultimate underdogs to glory
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Sport
 
|summary=I'm a huge fan of both football and reading, so a book about football is always likely to appeal to me as the best way of combining the two.  Recently, I've read books set at the pinnacle of the game in [[Life with Sir Alex: A Fan's Story of Ferguson's 25 Years at Manchester United by Will Tidey]] and about one man's struggle to bring football to a foreign land in [[Bamboo Goalposts by Rowan Simons]].  ''Up'' ''Pohnpei'' is firmly in the latter category, treading very similar ground to Simons' book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668501X</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Colin Thubron
 
|title=To a Mountain in Tibet
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|summary=This must go down as the least apposite indefinite article in a book title yet.  Yes, there are many other mountains dotting the plains of Tibet, but calling this one just 'a' mountain, when it is sacred to a fifth of the world's religious people...  Hindu and Buddhist faiths alike venerate Mount Kailas, and devotees are supposed to visit and circle round it to cleanse a lifetime's sins. Thubron takes us on his own pilgrimage, from impoverished cliff-side villages in Nepal, through to Chinese-occupied Tibet and to the sacred route around the mountain.
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|summary=Adrian Mourby has given us a flying visit to each of fifty grand hotels, from fourteen regions of the world, with the hotels in each section being arranged chronologically rather than by region, which helps to give something of an overall picture. So what makes a hotel 'grand'? The first hotel to call itself 'grand' was in Covent Garden in 1774 and it ushered in the beginning of a period when a hotel would be a lifestyle choice rather than a refuge for those without friends and family conveniently nearby. The hotels we visit all began life in different circumstances and each faced a different set of challenges. We begin in the Americas, move to the United Kingdom, circumnavigate Europe, briefly visit Russia and Turkey then northern Africa, India and Asia. Australia, it seems, does not go for the grand.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532646</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1908745819
|author=Elisabeth Eaves
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|title=Surfacing
|title=Wanderlust
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|author=Kathleen Jamie
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=Egypt. Australia. Papua New Guinea. Spain. Pakistan. New Zealand. France. For some that list will be a random list of places, mixing those they know with those they’ve never considered. Others might tick off a few and have the remainder on a ‘to do’ list. It’s probably only a small subset who will have passed through all of them, and an ever tinier one who will have spent considerable time in each. Canadian native Elisabeth Eaves is one of the lucky few who has been there, done that, and this book is essentially her travel diaries of those years wandering the globe.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1580053114</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Andrew Wilson
 
|title=Shadow of the Titanic
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Lesson one in writing non-fiction articles and journalism seems to be to find out what is topicalApril 2012 is the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic, and there are going to be hoards of people finding it topical to celebrate thatLesson two seems to be to find your own unique angle on the storyWilson approaches the Titanic disaster by sinking her at the end of chapter one, for he looks more at the lives of the people on board, and how they took the calamity and dealt with it.
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|summary=Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told whyThe blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself.''  Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am.  Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it.  It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventuallyI am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377300</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1912242052
|author=Ed Vulliamy
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|title=O Joy for me!
|title=Amexica: War Along the Borderline
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|author=Keir Davidson
|rating=5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=More than 38,000 people have been killed in the last 3 years in what Ed Vulliamy argues is an unacknowledged war, on the long border (2,100 miles) between Mexico and the United States. The war is between drug trafficking gangs over control of the lucrative drugs trade from Mexico to the US. In this compelling and disturbing work of reportage Vulliamy travels through the borderlands meeting some of the people affected.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546566</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Thomas Bruce Wheeler
 
|title=The London of Sherlock Holmes - Over 400 Computer Generated Street Level Photos
 
 
|rating=3
 
|rating=3
|genre=Travel
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|genre=Art
|summary=Should I trust a book that has a typo on the FRONT cover?  Would I purchase a book that practically says, as its first words, the e-book version is better than this paper thing?  This, despite setting up very much the wrong impression, is a gateway into the world of Sherlock Holmes - but does, as I say, blatantly show itself up as flawed, while the electronic version could count as a very worthwhile app for the Conan Doyle buff.
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|summary=''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and adventure.  His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the world''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780922094</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Woolf_Great
|author=Ian Mathie
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|title=The Great Horizon: 50 Tales of Exploration
|title=Supper With The President
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|author=Jo Woolf
|rating=5
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|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
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|genre=History
|summary=It's such a pleasure to read an Ian Mathie book, so I really looked forward to 'Supper with the President'. No surprises, then, to find this book every bit as delightful, intriguing and informative as his others. Ian Mathie knows exactly how to stitch up a good story; the occasional photographs - proving the stories are not fiction – come almost as a surprise. The books are helpfully illustrated with simple maps placing the stories in geographical context. To me, Ian Mathie is simply the best of the relatively unknown writers I have come across as a reviewer. Interestingly, the two men in my household grab and devour Ian Mathie's books, and I imagine anyone interested in development issues and/or Africa would welcome one or two of his titles for Christmas.  
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|summary=Jo Woolf has compiled a brilliant set of fifty short insights into the lives and achievements of some amazingly brave people. Their fearless journeys have helped us unlock many of the mysteries of the wildest parts of our world, and also given us an understanding of what it is like to be faced with the most terrible conditions and still have the determination and grit to carry on. This book could be viewed as a taster which encourages us to seek out and read more about some of the most iconic explorers. Their stories are pretty incredible and Woolf does them justice.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906852103</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Hailstone_Berlin
|author=Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare (ed)
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|title=Berlin in the Cold War: 1959 to 1966
|title=Under the Sun. The Letters of Bruce Chatwin
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|author=Allan Hailstone
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
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|genre=History
|summary=Bruce Chatwin was best known as a travel writer – this collection both confirms his 'wanderlust' but also clearly establishes that his writing was far more of a creative process than the usual journalistic approach to travel writing. Nicholas Shakespeare’s selection and passages of narration makes this a mix of the biographical and the autobiographical, a fascinating insight into a restless spirit, but also into the experimentation and literary reflection that made him outstanding amongst his peers.
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|summary=''Berlin in the Cold War: 1959-1966'' contains almost 200 photographs taken by author/photographer Allan Hailstone in his visits to the city during this period. The images provide an insight into the changing nature of the divide between East and West Berlin and a glimpse into life in the city during the Cold War.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089897</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Stewart_Marches
|author=Sonia Faleiro
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|title=The Marches
|title=Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars
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|author=Rory Stewart
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
|genre=Travel
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|genre=History
|summary=In 2005, there were 1,500 dance bars in Bombay, so called because they employed women to dance to popular music. Bar dancers could earn a lot of money compared to women in other traditional female jobs outside the sex industry, such as cleaners. Many of them also slept with men for money, but because her job was dancing not sex, a bar dancer could also see herself as infinitely superior to sex workers, whether street prostitutes, those working in brothels or call girls.
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|summary=The Observer quote on the front of the paperback edition of Stewart's latest book observes ''This is travel writing at its finest.'' Perhaps, but to call it 'travel writing' is to totally under-sell it. This is erudition at its finest. Stewart has the background to do this: he had an international upbringing and followed his father in both the Army and the Foreign Office, and then (to his father's, bemusement, shall we say) became an MP. Oh, and he walked 6,000 miles across Afghanistan in 2002. A walk along the Scottish borders should be a doddle by comparison.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857861697</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Bristow China
|author=Michael Booth
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|title=China in Drag: Travels with a Cross-dresser
|title=Eat, Pray, Eat
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|author=Michael Bristow
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
+
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I really enjoyed ''Eat, Pray, Love'' by Elizabeth Gilbert. Initially I thought I'd picked up a ''Me too'' variant with ''Eat, Pray Eat'' and must admit to my heart sinking. But no, here is a different personality with another story and writing style and after a few, doubting pages, I was away. This is a story of a family adventure to India, a hard-fought encounter with yoga, and some culinary interest thrown in. But like Elizabeth Gilbert, like most other visitors, India moved his life-view dramatically and for the better.
+
|summary=Having worked for nine years in Bejing as a journalist for the BBC, author Michael Bristow decided to write about Chinese history. Having been learning the local language for several years, Bristow asked his language teacher for guidance - the language teacher, born in the early fifties, offered Bristow a compelling picture of life in Communist China - but added to that, Bristow was greatly surprised to find that his language teacher also enjoyed spending his spare time in ladies clothing. It soon becomes clear that the tale told here is immensely personal - yet also paints a fascinating portrait of one of the world's most intriguing nations.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089633</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Mick Conefrey
 
|title=How to Climb Mont Blanc in a Skirt: A Handbook for the Lady Adventurer
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=Scott, Amundsen, Bleriot, Stanley and Livingstone, John Glenn, et all - any child should be drummed out of school if they can't name half a dozen explorers, travel pioneers and adventurers.  But give them a gold star if they can name a single female entrant to history's list. Hence this book, for while some mountains have been topped by a lady first of all, and some landmark achievements by the guys have been quickly followed by the gals, there is just too much ground to be made up in recognising what the fairer sex have done in the world of, well, going round our world.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851688412</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jasper Rees
 
|title=Bred of Heaven: One man's quest to reclaim his Welsh roots
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=Jasper Rees is a Welshman in his dreams. Despite his surname, he was born in England, but wishes he was from Wales. Seeking to find his inner Welshman – he's sure he has one as he had Welsh grandparents – he journeys around the land of his fathers trying to work out what it means to be Welsh.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682991</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Siddhartha Deb
 
|title=The Beautiful and the Damned: Life in the New India
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=This book immediately caught my eye with its terrific front cover. A picture says more than a thousand words ...  But I was conscious that, as a work of non-fiction, it may be full of rather dry facts and figures that I was going to have to plough through with grace and patience.  Couple that with, in my opinion, most of the Indian writers that I have read, have in my experience been unnecessarily wordy and flowery (and exasperating) choosing to use fifteen words when one or two would be nicely.  So, a little bit of trepidation as I open the book.  The first thing to strike me is the intriguing contents page.  As Deb is going to concentrate on a mere handful of individuals I'm not going to feel bombarded by hundreds of different stories vying for space on the page.  Good start.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917303</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michael Bond
 
|title=Paddington's Guide to London
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary=Some things are just a brilliant idea. Young Paddington Bear has written a guide book to his adopted home in the way that only he could do it.  All his old friends are there – Mr and Mrs Brown and their children Jonathan and Judy along with their housekeeper Mrs Bird and of course we mustn't forget Paddington's old friend Mr Gruber who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of London.  So, where is Paddington planning to take you?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007415915</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Hurst_Norfolk
|author=Michael Palin
+
|title=On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks
|title=Ox Travels
+
|author=John Hurst
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
+
|genre=Art
|summary=Ox Travels is an anthology of travel writing compiled to raise funds for Oxfam, but it is well worth buying and reading in its own right. Its generous 432 pages offer the chance to meet 36 writers, including travel writers, journalists and novelists, with an introduction by Michael Palin and an afterword by Barbara Stocking, Oxfam's Chief Executive.
+
|summary=It was pure serendipity: after a five-hour drive, we were, annoyingly, left with an hour to fill in Blakeney before we could have the keys to our holiday cottage. There was an art exhibition in the church hall, so we went in - and found a display of the most gorgeous pictures. I'd cheerfully have bought every one and hung them on our walls, but thought that I would have to make do with a couple of greetings cards when I saw ''On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks'' and I couldn't resist buying it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668496X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Karen Blixen
 
|title=Out Of Africa
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=It's more than a quarter of a century since I first saw the film ''Out of Africa'' and it's one of the few that have stayed with me over the intervening years. It wasn't just the story, but the personality of Karen Blixen and the wonderful landscape of the Ngong Hills, south of Nairobi, in Kenya's Rift Valley.  I remember looking for this book at the time, but being unable to find it, so the opportunity to read it now was too good to miss.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951437</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sara Wheeler
 
|title=Access All Areas: Selected Writings 1990-2010
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=This is a great book to acquire if your general knowledge of historical adventurers is as haphazard as mine. Somewhere along the line, I'd missed out on Scott and Shackleton, and it's very satisfying indeed to fill those gaps from such a reliable informant. One brisk section, for example, managed to encapsulate both Antartica's history and further outlook, along with sufficient atmospheric detail to ensure we mortals understood just what it feels like to sleep in Scott's hut during a wintry gale.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090712</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Tim Butcher
 
|title=Chasing the Devil: On Foot Through Africa's Killing Fields
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=Tim Butcher's day job from 1990 to 2009 was "journalist". 
 
 
 
I wonder what today's school-kids imagine when they say they want to be a journalist…  do they envisage writing about science, or economics, or celebrities, or do they see themselves as television reporters standing in flak jackets doing the obligatory piece-to-camera in the latest war zone?  Do they even read newspapers any more?  Do they realise that there are still also people out there in those war zones, without the glamour flak-jacket, just (if they're lucky) the ordinary pock-marked one, that they prefer not to wear because it's way too hot?  People who still ply the classic trade of actually writing what they see and trusting that they can do it well enough for the words to stand alone without the sound effects, without (quite often) any pictures, to make it "real"?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532069</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Trivia Reviews]]
|author=Michael Williams
 
|title=On The Slow Train Again
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=A few years ago Michael Williams, the railway expert who's written for numerous newspapers and magazines on the subject, released a book called ''On The Slow Train'' about some of Britain's best railway trips. With far too many journeys to fit into one volume, he's given us a dozen more in this sequel.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092857</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Gimlette
 
|title=Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=Apart from knowing that it borders Venezuela, Brazil and Suriname, a fact hammered into me in Year 8 Geography, I know very little about Guiana. And while you may think that's understandable, I'm not sure that it is, seeing as I read this book while living just two countries over. The thing is, it's a sort of tiny, forgotten country, isn't it? Over the years it has been involved in border disputes, has come under various nations' rule, and has changed names more often the P Diddy, and even after you take all that into account, I bet you can't think of a single thing there to go and see.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682525</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Yangzom Brauen and Katy Darbyshire
 
|title=Across Many Mountains: Three Daughters of Tibet
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=Fleeing your home can never be easy but when you are six, your only shoes are roughly hand-sewn and stuffed with hay, and your route is over the world's highest mountain range then it must be particularly challenging.  This was the journey that Yangzom Brauen's mother took with her parents when they fled Tibet after the Chinese invasion of 1959.  They were leaving behind all that they knew and travelling to India in the hope that they could find sanctuary in the country where the Dalai Lama was in exile.  'Across Many Mountains' is their story.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655344X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 11:59, 26 December 2023

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Review of

Local by Alastair Humphreys

5star.jpg Travel

Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the world. And then written about it. For this book he walked and cycled very close to home and then wrote about it. As he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt to share what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding… One of the joys of the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead. Full Review

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Review of

Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian Lewis by Alan Marshall

5star.jpg Art

There are few positive things which can be said about a substandard apartment when you’re on holiday but this time, in trying to avoid looking at a problem I found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures on the walls - and was completely taken by the work of Brian Lewis. I searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions of this book and the print I wanted was ‘not available’. Oh, dear - then a few doors down from the apartment, I found a gift shop with a stack of brand new books - and a framed print of the picture I wanted. Full Review

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Review of

Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car by Clive Wilkinson

5star.jpg Travel

Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it? Full Review

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Review of

The Hidden Fires by Merryn Glover

5star.jpg Travel

It is always about the book, not the writer, but there are times when the author's hinterland is also the background to the book and so it is necessary to understand that context, in order to appreciate the book. Merryn Glover is of Australian parentage, was born in Kathmandu, grew up in the Annapurna and Himalayan and now lives in Badenoch in Scotland. I can think of no-one better a combination to give us a re-appraisal of Nan Shepherds work than the first Writer in Residence in the Cairngorms National Park. Merryn walks, not so much in the shadow of Shepherd, but in her spirit. I think the two would have gotten along famously. Full Review

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Review of

Conversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America by Kari Loya

4star.jpg Travel

Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it. The decision was made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015. They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of a challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it on. Merv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's. Full Review

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Review of

Walking: One Step At A Time by Erling Kagge

5star.jpg Lifestyle

Those who have read my reviews before will know that how much I loved a book is evidenced by the number of pages with corners turned, so let me start this one with an apology to the Norfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was your book not mine. In my defence, I will say that as a reader of this type of book there is something connective about noting where prior readers were inspired (provided it is subtle – I'll allow creased corners, but not scribbles – for the latter we must buy our own copy – which I am about to do as soon as I have finished telling you why).

Erligg Kagge is a Norwegian explorer who has walked to the South Pole, the North Pole and the summit of Everest. He knows a thing or two about walking. However, this isn't a travelogue about any of those epic journeys, it is instead a thoughtful exploration of what it means to walk. It is a plenitude of unnumbered essays about walking. There is no 'contents' page and I haven't counted. In small format paperback, each essay is only a few pages long. Perhaps then, better thought of as a meditation rather than an essay. Full Review

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Review of

Against a Peacock Sky by Monica Connell

5star.jpg Travel

Monica Connell went to Nepal to do the fieldwork for her Ph.D. in social anthropology. I think it is important to know that. She went on a grant-supported trip, with a relatively specific objective. She wasn't a hippy wanderer looking for Shangri-la. She wasn't a mere tourist passing through. She went with a fundamental aim of learning about these people and how they lived. She also went, presumably, with the academic discipline of how to find these things out, how to organise them in her mind, how to "understand" them in the context of her own paradigms, and how to keep enough notes and files and photos to help her create some greater sense of the experience after the event. Fortunately, she also went with a sense of open-ness and curiosity and a willingness to muck-in, to break her own rules and to truly connect with the people of the village where she hauled up. Full Review

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Review of

The Japanese Chronicles by Nicolas Bouvier

5star.jpg Travel

It never does to start a review of a book with a quote from the blurb, but sometimes it's unavoidable. Le Monde reviewed this book, at some point, with the words what the old master craftsmen would call a masterpiece. It is precisely that. A masterpiece in the sense of the craft as well as the art of writing. I'm going to hesitate to call it 'travel writing' because this is as much a history of Japan, a mythology-primer for the Japanese culture as it is a personal response to living and travelling in the country. Full Review

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Review of

Signs of Life by Stephen Fabes

5star.jpg Travel

I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and do it. I also didn't inherit the kind of steady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the requisite 'bottle'. In order words I'm not the sort of person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that. Full Review

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Review of

Toubab Tales: The Joys and Trials of Expat Life in Africa by Rob Baker

4star.jpg Travel

"Go to Mali," they said. "The music is amazing," they said. "And you get ten hours of sunshine every day." So I did.

Rob Baker is an ethnomusicologist. A what? I hear you cry. Well, an ethnomusicologist studies music in relation to culture, so rather like a folklorist studies the oral and written story traditions relating to a culture. Full Review

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Review of

Bucket Showers and Baby Goats: Volunteering in West Africa by Christine Brown

4.5star.jpg Travel

In the summer of 2008, this book's author was spending her days working in an office job in the USA while spending her nights dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something else. Long story short, she ended up volunteering in Ghana, West Africa. Now coincidentally, in the summer of 2010, this review's author was spending her days working in an office job (albeit in the UK) while spending her nights dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something else, and she ended up just 3 countries away, volunteering in Sierra Leone, West Africa. So you can see why, when this book came up, said reviewer was delighted to have the opportunity to read and critique it. Full Review

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Review of

Rooms with a View: The Secret Life of Great Hotels by Adrian Mourby

4star.jpg Travel

Adrian Mourby has given us a flying visit to each of fifty grand hotels, from fourteen regions of the world, with the hotels in each section being arranged chronologically rather than by region, which helps to give something of an overall picture. So what makes a hotel 'grand'? The first hotel to call itself 'grand' was in Covent Garden in 1774 and it ushered in the beginning of a period when a hotel would be a lifestyle choice rather than a refuge for those without friends and family conveniently nearby. The hotels we visit all began life in different circumstances and each faced a different set of challenges. We begin in the Americas, move to the United Kingdom, circumnavigate Europe, briefly visit Russia and Turkey then northern Africa, India and Asia. Australia, it seems, does not go for the grand. Full Review

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Review of

Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie

5star.jpg History

Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you this one has your name on it. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering an older, less tethered sense of herself. Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly. Full Review

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Review of

O Joy for me! by Keir Davidson

3star.jpg Art

Oh Joy for me! gives Coleridge credit for being the first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and adventure. His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the world. Full Review

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Review of

The Great Horizon: 50 Tales of Exploration by Jo Woolf

3.5star.jpg History

Jo Woolf has compiled a brilliant set of fifty short insights into the lives and achievements of some amazingly brave people. Their fearless journeys have helped us unlock many of the mysteries of the wildest parts of our world, and also given us an understanding of what it is like to be faced with the most terrible conditions and still have the determination and grit to carry on. This book could be viewed as a taster which encourages us to seek out and read more about some of the most iconic explorers. Their stories are pretty incredible and Woolf does them justice. Full Review

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Review of

Berlin in the Cold War: 1959 to 1966 by Allan Hailstone

4star.jpg History

Berlin in the Cold War: 1959-1966 contains almost 200 photographs taken by author/photographer Allan Hailstone in his visits to the city during this period. The images provide an insight into the changing nature of the divide between East and West Berlin and a glimpse into life in the city during the Cold War. Full Review

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Review of

The Marches by Rory Stewart

5star.jpg History

The Observer quote on the front of the paperback edition of Stewart's latest book observes This is travel writing at its finest. Perhaps, but to call it 'travel writing' is to totally under-sell it. This is erudition at its finest. Stewart has the background to do this: he had an international upbringing and followed his father in both the Army and the Foreign Office, and then (to his father's, bemusement, shall we say) became an MP. Oh, and he walked 6,000 miles across Afghanistan in 2002. A walk along the Scottish borders should be a doddle by comparison. Full Review

link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/Bristow China/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21

Review of

China in Drag: Travels with a Cross-dresser by Michael Bristow

4star.jpg Autobiography

Having worked for nine years in Bejing as a journalist for the BBC, author Michael Bristow decided to write about Chinese history. Having been learning the local language for several years, Bristow asked his language teacher for guidance - the language teacher, born in the early fifties, offered Bristow a compelling picture of life in Communist China - but added to that, Bristow was greatly surprised to find that his language teacher also enjoyed spending his spare time in ladies clothing. It soon becomes clear that the tale told here is immensely personal - yet also paints a fascinating portrait of one of the world's most intriguing nations. Full Review

Hurst Norfolk.jpg

Review of

On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks by John Hurst

4star.jpg Art

It was pure serendipity: after a five-hour drive, we were, annoyingly, left with an hour to fill in Blakeney before we could have the keys to our holiday cottage. There was an art exhibition in the church hall, so we went in - and found a display of the most gorgeous pictures. I'd cheerfully have bought every one and hung them on our walls, but thought that I would have to make do with a couple of greetings cards when I saw On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks and I couldn't resist buying it. Full Review

Move on to Newest Trivia Reviews