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Newest Travel Reviews (view source)
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[[Category:New Reviews|Travel]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove --><!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{Frontpage|author=Alastair Humphreys|title=Local|rating=5|genre=Travel |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.|isbn=1785633678}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0957181167|title=Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian Lewis|author=Alan Marshall|rating=5|genre=Art|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 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.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=5|genre=Travel|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?}}{{Frontpage|author=Merryn Glover|title=The Hidden Fires|rating=5|genre=Travel|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 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.|isbn=1846975751}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0B7289HKQ|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=Kari Loya|rating=4|genre=Travel|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 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.}}{{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).
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.|isbn=0241357705}}{{Frontpage|author=Monica Connell|classtitle=Against a Peacock Sky|rating=5|genre=Travel|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 "wikitableunderstand" cellpadding="15" <!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- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HEREin, to break her own rules and to truly connect with the people of the village where she hauled up.|isbn=1780600429}}{{Frontpage|author=Nicolas Bouvier|title=The Japanese Chronicles|rating=5|genre=Travel|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. |isbn=1906011044}}{{Frontpage|author=Stephen Fabes|title=Signs of Life|rating=5|genre=Travel<!|summary= I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth- Potts -->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.|isbn=1788161211}}{{Frontpage|-author=Rob Baker| styletitle="widthToubab Tales: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"The Joys and Trials of Expat Life in Africa|rating=4|genre=Travel[[image:1501329413.jpg|linksummary=http://www''"Go to Mali," they said. "The music is amazing," they said.amazon"And you get ten hours of sunshine every day.co" So I did.uk/dp/ISBN/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]''
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|genre=Entertainment Travel|summary=The debate is never-ending about how much In the summer of the author2008, this book's life we can find author was spending her days working in an office job in their pagesthe USA while spending her nights dreaming about being somewhere else, and what bearing every circumstance of their lot had on their outputdoing something else. Things perhaps are heightened when they do a Hemingway or a Greene and travel the worldLong story short, but so often they have had a cause to stay she ended up volunteering in one place and writeGhana, West Africa. Does that creative spirit survive Now coincidentally, in the walls and air summer of 2010, this review's author was spending ''her'' days working in an office job (albeit in the room they worked inUK) while spending ''her'' nights dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something else, and do those four walls''she'' ended up just 3 countries away, volunteering in Sierra Leone, or the viewWest Africa. So you can see why, feature in the books? And does any of when this really matter in admiring the great works of literature? Wellbook came up, this volume itself kind of relies on that as being said reviewer was delighted to have the case, but either way opportunity to read and critique it's a real pleasure.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785781855</amazonuk>171024299X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Thomas H CookMourby_Rooms|title= Tragic ShoresRooms with a View: A Memoir Of Dark TravelThe Secret Life of Great Hotels|author=Adrian Mourby|rating= 4
|genre=Travel
|summary= Thomas H Cook, an American author valued for the quality of writing and compelling intrigues of his numerous thrillers, Adrian Mourby has written given us a collection flying visit to each of nearly thirty accounts fifty grand hotels, from fourteen regions of visits the world, with the hotels in each section being arranged chronologically rather than by region, which helps to the give something of an overall picture. So what makes a hotel 'grand'tragic shores? 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 title. There is no noticeable rhyme or reason Americas, move to the order of presentationUnited Kingdom, apart from the lastcircumnavigate Europe, briefly visit Russia and the most personal tale which links the travel report to the author's personal loss of his wife Turkey then northern Africa, India and long-time travel companionAsia. Australia, who features in many of the chaptersit seems, as does not go for the couple's daughter, but they all the pertain to Cook's visits to what he describes as ''the saddest places on Earth''grand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184916326X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1908745819|title=Surfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=5|genre=History|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 authorconsidering ''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.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1912242052|title=O Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=3|genre=Art|summary=Tim Moore''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''.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Woolf_Great|title=The Cyclist Who Went Out Great Horizon: 50 Tales of Exploration|author=Jo Woolf|rating=3.5|genre=History|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.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Hailstone_Berlin|title=Berlin in the ColdWar: Adventures Along the Iron Curtain Trail1959 to 1966|author=Allan Hailstone
|rating=4
|genre=TravelHistory|summary= One of the results I find from travel documentaries, often on TV but also ''Berlin in book form, is the verdict Cold War: 1959-1966'rather him than me' (and it generally is a he)contains almost 200 photographs taken by author/photographer Allan Hailstone in his visits to the city during this period. Yes, I'd like to go there and see what he's seen, but I'm damned if I would risk The images provide an insight into the danger, changing nature of the potential consequences divide between East and/or West Berlin and a glimpse into life in the effort city during the whole experience requiredCold War. This book is }}{{Frontpage|isbn=Stewart_Marches|title=The Marches|author=Rory Stewart|rating=5|genre=History|summary=The Observer quote on the epitome front of that, for as much as I love most the paperback edition of the twenty countries it hits on – give me a chance, IStewart's latest book observes 've not quite been to them all – I wouldn't countenance making this exact and exacting tripThis is travel writing at its finest. A couple of years ago'' Perhaps, those in the know somewhere in an office deemed the route of the entire old Iron Curtain – the fringe of the Soviet Union, plus Romania, Bulgaria etc – but to call it 'travel writing' is to be a pantotally under-continental biking routesell it. With This is erudition at its finest. Stewart has the news that background to do this: he can dismiss other attempts had an international upbringing and still have a claim to being followed his father in both the first person to clock Army and the whole mammoth trip, our gutsy author undertakes it allForeign Office, and thus surveys a scar across the entire continent then (to see if ithis father's still visible, and what flesh it once upon a time dividedbemusement, shall we say) became an MP. Oh , and he did it on a Communist-era piddly little bikewalked 6, lacking 000 miles across Afghanistan in both gears and good brakes, that was designed for nothing more strenuous than conveying you around 2002. A walk along the Scottish borders should be a campsite, not for 6,000 miles…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224100211</amazonuk>doddle by comparison.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Amelia DaltonBristow China|title=Mistress and CommanderChina in Drag: High Jinks, High Seas and Highlanders Travels with a Cross-dresser|author=Michael Bristow|rating= 3.54|genre=TravelAutobiography|summary= Nowadays, Amelia Dalton runs Having worked for nine years in Bejing as a travel agency whichjournalist for the BBC, by author Michael Bristow decided to write about Chinese history. Having been learning the look of itlocal language for several years, is a something of a modern version of how Thomas Cook began: excusive, tailorBristow asked his language teacher for guidance -made holidaysthe language teacher, cruises and expeditions all around born in the world catering to those who can afford this kind early fifties, offered Bristow a compelling picture of thing. ''Mistress and Commander''' shows how she got there: from an upperlife in Communist China -middle class wife whose life involved landed gentrybut added to that, boarding schools and county hunts Bristow was greatly surprised to scrubbing stinky goop from find that his language teacher also enjoyed spending his spare time in ladies clothing. It soon becomes clear that the cargo hold tale told here is immensely personal - yet also paints a fascinating portrait of one of what used to be a Danish Arctic trawler, running charters to St Kilda, dealing with doubtful mechanics, lecherous skippers, and getting her own Masterthe world's ticket, by the way of family tragedy, martial drama and what seemed like the steepest learning curve related to marine engines one could possibly imaginemost intriguing nations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910985171</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Gavin FrancisHurst_Norfolk|title= True NorthOn My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks|author=John Hurst|rating= 54|genre= TravelArt|summary=''True North''It was pure serendipity: after a five-hour drive, we were, annoyingly, while very much a travel book left with an hour to fill in Blakeney before we could have the grand tradition of the best travel writing that combines the trip report with keys to our holiday cottage. There was an art exhibition in the church hall, sowe went in -called background information is classified by Amazon in Cultural History and it's not as much found a display of a mis-classification as it could initially appearthe most gorgeous pictures. Francis, a Scottish GP who I''divides his time between writing d cheerfully have bought every one and doctoring''hung them on our walls, starts the body proper but thought that I would have to make do with a couple of greetings cards when I saw ''True North'' with one of the best opening lines I have read recentlyOn My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks''and I began to dream of the North in a stinking African hospital ward'couldn't resist buying it. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971306</amazonuk>
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