Category Archives: Books review

“A Death in Brazil: A Book of Omissions”, by Peter Robb, Bloomsbury.

Posted on August 19, 2017 by

Courtesy Bloomsbury publishing If I were to trawl through my notebooks, through the shapeless lumps of bytes that make the impalpable documents folder in my laptop’s solid-state drive, I’d find a page, or many a .docx files, titled exactly like … Continue reading →

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“Arabian Sands”, by Wilfred Thesiger, Penguin Books.

Posted on August 19, 2016 by

Italo Calvino once wrote that a ‘classic’ is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. If this is the approved meter of judgement for the category, then I’ve no doubts that Arabian Sands belongs to … Continue reading →

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Book review: “The places in between” by Rory Stewart, Mariner Books.

Posted on February 13, 2016 by

Every now and then I happen to lay my hands on a creased, coffee-stained copy of glossy travel magazines. Be it Condé Nast, be it Monocle, it’s bound to eventually pontificate over which country, or city, is the next big … Continue reading →

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“Blood river. A journey to Africa’s broken heart” by Tim Butcher, Vintage.

Posted on September 5, 2015 by

I was travelling through a country with more past than future, a place where the hands of the clock spin not forwards, but backwards. It doesn’t happen very often to me to mumble “No shit” at an audible level on … Continue reading →

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“Dark Star Safari” by Paul Theroux, Penguin Books

Posted on May 2, 2015 by

Source http://www.paultheroux.com Paul Theroux and I go a long way. I originally picked up his book almost one year ago, in its podcast form, and then – almost immediately – dropped it. The reason? The voice of the reader: whereas … Continue reading →

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“In Search of Kazakhstan”, by Christopher Robbins, Profile Books

Posted on March 17, 2015 by

I might not be a shopper faithful to the brands, but when it comes to books I’m quite a man of habit in the sense that I have a tendency to stick with an author that I know and respect and … Continue reading →

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“To a Mountain in Tibet’, by Colin Thubron, Vintage

Posted on January 10, 2015 by

Courtesy Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9571766-to-a-mountain-in-tibet There’s an expression that Stephen King seemingly likes to use when describing the rapture of writing or reading, the feeling of concentrating on the task at hand so much that we end up being oblivious to the passing … Continue reading →

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“Chile – Travels in a thin country”, by Sara Wheeler, Abacus

Posted on November 22, 2014 by

Having spent most of my reading time engrossed in travel literature I think I’m now adequately equipped to put together a brief phenomonology of the writer of this genre that I so much adore. Let’s assume to have a chart, … Continue reading →

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“Terra incognita”, by Sara Wheeler, Vintage

Posted on October 31, 2014 by

Did you ever come across a travel book that you have to read only in tiny bites, small series of pages in order to prevent you from saying “Ah, sod it” and leave the bus-train-metro-sofa where you were reading it, airport-bound? … Continue reading →

Posted in Books review, Overlooked locations, Reflections | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

“Shadow of the Silk Road”, by Colin Thubron

Posted on October 10, 2014 by

The first time I took this book in my hands I almost regretted buying it. Mind you, it was a cheap bargain at Turnham Green’s Oxfam branch, so at least I was sure that those £2.90 had not been wasted, … Continue reading →

Posted in Asia, Books review, Middle East, Overlooked locations, Turkey | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments