Difference between revisions of "Newest Travel Reviews"

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[[Category:Travel|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Travel]]
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alastair Humphreys
|title=Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence and Emperor Penguins
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|title=Local
|author=Gavin Francis
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Travel
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|genre=Travel  
|summary=I know two books don't make a genre, but twice in recent years I have read autobiographical travelogues of men who felt too much was going on in their lives and their surroundings, and took themselves off to remote, isolated, extremely cold and inhospitable placesOne went to the shores of Lake Baikal, and shared his days hunting, fishing, drinking and reading with only a few very distant neighbours.  Gavin Francis took himself south, to the edge of the Antarctic ice, to spend a year as a scientific doctorHe wasn't able to be completely as alone as some have been in the past – even if he hid himself away in isolation before the week-long annual changeover of staff was through.  Francis ends up with a baker's dozen of companions, in a place where – apart from the ice, sealing things up – only two lockable doors exist.  You might think this was a large group of people for someone wanting to be alone, but the very tenuous and isolated feel of the place in the huge emptiness of the landscape is the main point of this book – that, and communing with emperor penguins…
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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 itAs 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 mapNature 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956596X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1785633678
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0957181167
|author=Chris Moss
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|title=Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian Lewis
|title=Smoothly From Harrow: A Compendium for the London Commuter
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|author=Alan Marshall
|rating=4
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|rating=5
|genre=Anthologies
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|genre=Art
|summary=If you want to get ''behind'' what commuting is really like - not in an academic or a political way, but from the perspective of having your hand through a strap and wishing that the man next to you wasn't ''quite'' so enamoured of Brut aftershave - then you need a travel journalistStep forward (but mind the gap), Chris Moss, who writes regularly for the ''Daily Telegraph'' and has done the same for the ''Guardian'', ''Independent'' and various magazinesMost importantly, he's commuted from Camberwell, Camden, Hackney, Harrow, Herne Hill, Surbiton and Tooting.  Personally, I think he deserves a medal.
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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>1905131623</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1785633457
|title=Slow Train to Switzerland: One Tour, Two Trips, 150 Years and a World of Change Apart
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|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car
|author=Diccon Bewes
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|author=Clive Wilkinson
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|summary=After several years in my position in relation to the book industry (on the periphery but left a bit – and round the bend a lot) I am never surprised at what has a market. Every niche has either been filled, or is getting there. So when I found in looking into this book that the author has written several before now, all extolling the virtues of Switzerland, I was not surprised. I was only regretting he hadn't chosen a cheaper country for us to likewise fall in love with. Still, all power to the author's elbow, as regardless of any other journalism he has produced from exploring the country, here he writes about one lengthy trip around the more popular parts with fresh and new-seeing eyes, helped by those who really were seeing it for the first time, a century and a half ago.
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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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1857886097</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Merryn Glover
|title=Sea Monsters: The Lore and Legacy of Olaus Magnus's Marine Map
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|title=The Hidden Fires
|author=Joseph Nigg
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|rating=5
|rating=4.5
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|genre=Travel
|genre=Popular Science
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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 ScotlandI 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.
|summary=A confession.  When reading hardbacks I take the paper cover, if there is one, off, to keep it pristineSometimes there's a second benefit, with [[Longbourn by Jo Baker]] as an example of having an embossed illustration underneath, or suchlike.  But with this book I won't be alone, for the cover folds out into an amazing artwork, such as has only two extant original copiesIt's a coloured replica of a large map of the northern seas and Scandinavia, dating from 1539, and is in a category of three major artful scientific papers from where the whole 'here be dragons' cliché about maps comes from. Its creator, Olaus Magnus, followed it up years later with a commentary of all the sea creatures he drew on it, but Magnus has waited centuries for this delicious volume to commentate on both together, in such a lovely fashion.
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|isbn=1846975751
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782400435</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B0B7289HKQ
|title=An Armenian Sketchbook
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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
|author=Vasily Grossman
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|author=Kari Loya
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|summary=In 1961, noted Soviet man of letters Vasily Grossman went to Armenia, for a couple of months' research and fact-finding, while he was working on transforming an Armenian novel of no small length into Russian.  (You can't call it translating, as he didn't speak Armenian beyond two words – he really was paid to rewrite it to some extent in his fashion.) With time spent in the capital, Yerevan, and in other rural areas, he got an intimate flavour of the country and its people, and this book is the resulting pieceIt's not really accurate to call it a travelogue, for it covers just a patch here, a topic there, and is in no correct order as such – and the author calls it a literary memoirWhat you can call it, however, is a success.
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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 it.  The 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 onMerv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857052357</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Erling Kagge
 +
|title=Walking: One Step At A Time
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre= Lifestyle
 +
|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=Tim Moore
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|isbn=0241357705
|title=You Are Awful (But I Like You): Travels Through Unloved Britain
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=This is not the first book I've read about the scummy, unloved corners of our country, and I approached it in just the same way I did with the last - I looked to see if it might feature Leicester, where I live. The opinion seems to be that you can only like Leicester enough to be proud of it if you're not from there originally - and as I grew up on the edge of a village in the middle of nowhere, it suits me fine.  But no - despite its problems (thanks, Labour councils) it doesn't count. It's not grotty, ugly, run-down and unappreciated enough. It still has some semblance of life, unlike too many towns and cities in Britain where the industry, the jobs, the life and the thought have been sucked out, seemingly beyond repair.  After stumbling upon the nightmare that is the out-of-season, redundant English coastal town, our author has valiantly journeyed round many of these grot-spots, and found the story of decrepitude only exacerbating.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546930</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Monica Connell
|author=Patrick Kingsley
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|title=Against a Peacock Sky
|title=How To Be Danish: From Lego to Lund. A Short Introduction to the State of Denmark
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|rating=5
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|summary=First, the bad news. This slim volume won't actually tell you how to become a Danish person, despite the title. What it will do, though, is give you a new appreciation for the people of Denmark, and quite possibly make you want to jump on the first plane to Copenhagen to savour what is, according to the United Nations, the happiest country in the world.
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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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721331</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1780600429
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Nicolas Bouvier
|author=Cees Nooteboom and Laura Watkinson (Translator)
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|title=The Japanese Chronicles
|title=Roads to Berlin
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|summary='Whoever controls Berlin controls Germany and whoever controls Germany controls Europe' is a remark which is attributed to Lenin. Until November 1989, the Berlin Wall bisected the historic city and divided its citizens from each other. Berlin was occupied, militarised and yet its people carried on with their daily lives amongst the ruins. Cees Nooteboom, a distinguished Dutch travel writer, knew something of the devastation of the past. He is old enough to have experienced, and at impressionable age, the Nazi Blitzkreig and occupation of Holland. A sensitive and susceptible person, he meditates upon the various strata of meaning, history, heroism and time itself. The result is a prose poem on a unique city that is condemned to be constantly developing, becoming rather than just being.
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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>0857050265</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1906011044
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Stephen Fabes
|author=Simon Garfield
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|title=Signs of Life
|title=On The Map
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|summary=You might think that there's not a lot which could be said about maps - but you'd be completely wrong. This is staggeringly good - one of the very best non-fiction books I've read all year. Garfield takes us from the Great Library of Alexandria to a map of the brain, via maps in films, treasure maps and JM Barrie's hatred of folding maps. Alternating between full chapters which tell the stories of cartographers and their maps in roughly chronological order, and shorter entries bearing the title 'Pocket Map' which pick out particularly interesting trivia, there's not a dull entry in the book.  
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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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685095</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1788161211
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rob Baker
|author=Simon Armitage
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|title=Toubab Tales: The Joys and Trials of Expat Life in Africa
|title=Walking Home
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|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?
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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>0571249884</amazonuk>
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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.
 +
|isbn=B089CSNFT7
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Christine Brown
|author=Cathy Birchall and Bernard Smith
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|title=Bucket Showers and Baby Goats: Volunteering in West Africa
|title=Touching The World: A Blind Woman, Two Wheels and 25,000 Miles
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|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=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>0956497586</amazonuk>
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|isbn=171024299X
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Mourby_Rooms
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|title=Rooms with a View: The Secret Life of Great Hotels
 +
|author=Adrian Mourby
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Travel
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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.
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1908745819
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|title=Surfacing
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|author=Kathleen Jamie
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|rating=5
 +
|genre=History
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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 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 amAdd 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.
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1912242052
 +
|title=O Joy for me!
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|author=Keir Davidson
 +
|rating=3
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|genre=Art
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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 adventureHis rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the world''.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Woolf_Great
 +
|title=The Great Horizon: 50 Tales of Exploration
 +
|author=Jo Woolf
 +
|rating=3.5
 +
|genre=History
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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.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Hailstone_Berlin
 +
|title=Berlin in the Cold War: 1959 to 1966
 +
|author=Allan Hailstone
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=History
 +
|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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Stewart_Marches
|author=Joseph Mitchell
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|title=The Marches
|title=Up In The Old Hotel
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|author=Rory Stewart
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Travel
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|genre=History
|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=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.
 +
}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=Bristow China
 +
|title=China in Drag: Travels with a Cross-dresser
 +
|author=Michael Bristow
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Autobiography
 +
|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.
 +
}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=Hurst_Norfolk
 +
|title=On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks
 +
|author=John Hurst
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Art
 +
|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.
 +
}}
  
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.
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Move on to [[Newest Trivia Reviews]]
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956159X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 11:59, 26 December 2023

1785633678.jpg

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

0957181167.jpg

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

1785633457.jpg

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

1846975751.jpg

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

B0B7289HKQ.jpg

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

0241357705.jpg

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

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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

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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

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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

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"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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Review of

On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks by John Hurst

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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

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