Category Archives: Books review
“The Stranger in the Woods”, by Michael Finkel, Simon & Schuster
Source One fine day in 1986, sometime after the Chernobyl disaster and well into Reagan’s second term in office (and a few months before my birth, though it wasn’t mentioned), a twenty-something called Christopher Knight parked his almost-new Subaru Brat … Continue reading
Posted in Books review
Tagged Books review, Chris Knight, Finkel, Hermit, Journalism, Junger, Literary review, Maine, Michael Finkel, Stranger, USA, Woods
22 Comments
“Shark Drunk” by Morten Strøksnes, Vintage.
Norwegians are an inscrutable bunch. I’ve got colleagues from up there and, let me tell you, they are a constant source of wonder. Amongst many things, they’ll think nothing of saying things such as “Because you haven’t asked for this … Continue reading
Posted in Books review
Tagged Aasjord, Book, Book Review, Books, Critique, Greenland, Greenland Shark, Havbuka, Hemingway, Lofoten, Morten, Morten Strøksnes, Nordic, North, Norway, Ocean, Sea, Shark Drunk, The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean, Travel literature, Vestfjord, Vintage
15 Comments
“Midnight in Sicily” by Peter Robb, Vintage.
Much in the same way that those who learn a language end up with a much deeper knowledge and command of its grammar than the natives, it’s also true that foreigners can, if they live someplace long enough, get to … Continue reading
Posted in Books review, Odd ones out
Tagged Andreotti, Borsellino, Christian Democrats, Cosa nostra, DC, Falcone, Giulio Andreotti, Mafia, Midnight in Sicily, Peter Robb, Robb, Sciascia, Sicily, Vintage, Vintage books, Vintage Press
2 Comments
“My War Gone By, I Miss It So”, by Anthony Loyd, Anchor.
My edition has been printed in 2000 and, as all cheap paperbacks, isn’t ageing very well. The pages are yellowing with the characteristic celerity of poor quality pulp; its spine is bent, but in fairness it was already in this … Continue reading
Posted in Books review
Tagged addiction, Anchor, Anthony Loyd, Balkans, Book reviews, Books, Bosnia war, Caucasus, Chechnya, Croat, Daesh, heroin, HVO, I miss it so, Journalism, My War gone by, Serbia, Serbs, Srebrenica, Syria, The Times, UN, War
14 Comments
“Out of Steppe” by Daniel Metcalfe, Arrow – Random House
If the passion for travelling off the beaten path, exploring places that don’t make it on the top-shelf brochure at your local Trailfinders (but, let’s face it, they don’t even make it to the bottom one), was a genetic strand … Continue reading
Posted in Books review
Tagged Afghanistan, Aral Sea, Arrow, Asia, Books review, Bukhara, Bukharan Jews, Byron, Central Asia, Colin Thubron, Daniel Metcalfe, Iran, Karakalpakstan, Kazakhstan, Moynaq, Pakistan, Random House, Tehran, The Economist, Thesiger, Travel literature, Travel writing, Uzbekistan, Volga Germans, Wilfred Thesiger, Yaghnobi
12 Comments
“A Death in Brazil: A Book of Omissions”, by Peter Robb, Bloomsbury.
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
Posted in Books review, Odd ones out
Tagged A death in Brazil, Bloomsbury, Book Review, Brazil, Fernando de Collor, Lula da Silva, Nordeste, Pernambuco, Peter Robb, Recife
9 Comments
“Arabian Sands”, by Wilfred Thesiger, Penguin Books.
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
Posted in Books review, Uncategorized
Tagged Africa, Arabia, Arabian Sands, Bedouin, Bedu, History, Middle East, Penguin books, Travel literature, Travelling, Travelogue, Wilfred Thesiger
8 Comments
Book review: “The places in between” by Rory Stewart, Mariner Books.
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
Posted in Books review
Tagged Afghanistan, Asia, Rory Stewart, The Places In Between, Travelogue
4 Comments
“Blood river. A journey to Africa’s broken heart” by Tim Butcher, Vintage.
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
Posted in Books review
Tagged Africa, Blood River, Journalism, Kabila, Mobutu, The Congo, The Daily Telegraph, Tim Butcher, Travel writing, Zaire
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