Publication date: 2002-10-07
Dewey code: 910
RRP: £19.99
Price: £12.99
Review Sahara (Radio Collection) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:Michael Palin's personality is a combination of some very disparate elements, many of them displayed at their most attractive in Sahara. There's the friendly, avuncular manner; the easy-going charm that women find so attractive; and that vein of surrealistic, sardonic humour that is the legacy of his Monty Python days. All these characteristics combined to create the perfect host for the ambitious travel programmes with which he's latterly been associated. The shows (and the handsome companion books that invariably accompany them) avoid the sometimes over-serious approach of other presenters and show us some very exotic parts of the world filtered through Palin's very idiosyncratic vision. Audiences and readers can't get enough. Sahara gives us the latest of his epic voyages, and this one possibly represents the most arduous challenge of his career: across the massive and unforgiving Sahara desert. In this beautifully produced volume (studded with some eye-catching colour photographs), we are taken on a unique journey, as Palin reveals the Sahara to us as something considerably more than endless sand dunes. Facet by facet, Michael Palin uncovers a colourful and eccentric panoply of cultures, with chequered histories that stretch back to the dawn of time. Beginning (and ending) in Gibraltar, we are taken from the fabled realms of the ancient Egyptians to the Islamic republics of the present day, as Palin conjures up a journey that alternates between gallows humour and often considerable discomfort. Most of us will never experience the teeming nightlife of Dakar or travel down the river Niger to the fabled city of Timbuktu. [+]But Palin has done it for us, and this book (with or without the accompanying TV series) is a highly enjoyable way to relive that journey with him. -Barry Forshaw.
Publication date: 2008-07-03
RRP: £13.99
Price: £6.98
Review Friends Like These / Random House Audiobooks:
Creator: Alex Jennings
Edition: Abridged Ed
Publication date: 2005-05-19
Dewey code: 910
RRP: £14.99
Price: £9.49
Review Attention All Shipping / Time Warner AudioBooks:
Publication date: 2003-11-03
Dewey code: 910
RRP: £7.99
Price: £3.54
Review Bill Bryson's African Diary / Corgi Audio:
Publication date: 2008-02-04
RRP: £15.99
Price: £10.63
Review Giles Wemmbley-Hogg: Goes Off: Series 2 (BBC Audio) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Publication date: 2005-01-27
Dewey code: 910
RRP: £13.00
Price: £4.99
Review To the Baltic with Bob / Penguin Audiobooks:The historian Macaulay once remarked that the British navy of Pepys' day was staffed by gentlemen and seamen: the seamen were not gentlemen and the gentlemen were not seamen. Comedian Griff Rhys Jones, and theBob of To the Baltic with Bob, would fall, decidedly, into the "gentlemen" category of mariner: enthusiasts, amateurs in the original sense of the word and therefore, naturally, inept sailors. (Rhys Jones pins the blame for his obsession with all things nautical on Arthur Ransome and on his late father, who made the freezing West Mercia boat park the family's home from home. ) Luckily for Rhys Jones, his mate Bob is a marginally worse yachtsman. And in this record of a summer voyage from the Thames estuary to St Petersburg, Bob, the ex-hippie entrepreneur with a beguilingly childlike urge to possess Scando-Soviet tat (canned reindeer, Russian amphibious vehicles etc) is cast as Passepartout to Rhys Jones's Phileas Fogg. The pair are assisted on their journey by Baines, a technical wizard whose abilities, as Jones says, "certainly drew attention to our own deficiencies". Rick, an anally retentive chartsman, is also around until the point at which, like a commissar in a Politburo photograph, he vanishes following a testy disagreement with the author about "Baltic surge". The wayward sea, estuary and canal route through Holland, Denmark, Latvia, Finland, Russia and the Turko Archipelago-"so topographically complex that it was expedient not to draw it"-results, predictably, in a slew of map-prodding nautical mishaps and encounters with intransigent boat repairers, officials, restaurateurs and Estonian lap dancers. As is to be expected, from one half of television's Alas Smith and Jones (or Snow in My Cottage, as Finnish viewers knew it), Rhys Jones writes very amusingly. The petty on-board squabbles and reminiscences about his boat-blighted youth are funny and, intermittently, affecting. [+]The contrasts he draws between the "practical, modest" peoples of Scandinavia and the swaggering pomposity of ex-imperialist nations such as Britain and Russia are well made. But, at over 400 pages, the book is flabby, bloated by extraneous incidentals and verbatim renderings of conversations of the "oh, do you remember the 1970s" variety. When, on page 370, Griff asks Bob: "Can you even remember Helsinki?" some readers may find, they too, have to think twice before answering. -Travis Elborough.
Creator: Sir David Attenborough
Publication date: 2006-04-03
RRP: £15.99
Price: £5.99
Review David Attenborough, Zoo Quest for a Dragon / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Publication date: 2004-05-17
Dewey code: 910
RRP: £14.99
Price: £8.73
Review Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe / Corgi Audio:
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2006-03-06
RRP: £17.99
Price: £5.90
Review Moondust (BBC Audio) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Creator: Brawn Rosamund Coreen
Edition: 3.02
Publication date: 2006-10-01
RRP: £9.95
Price: £5.51
Review Personal Navigator Files CD version 3.02 / Discovery Walking Guides:
Publication date: 2004-02-02
Dewey code: 428
RRP: £15.99
Price: £7.94
Review Journeys in English / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Publication date: 2007-07-05
RRP: £13.99
Price: £7.77
Review Round Ireland with a Fridge / Random House Audiobooks:
Publication date: 2007-10-08
RRP: £25.00
Price: £3.89
Review Palin's New Europe: Abridged Reading / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Publication date: 2007-08-06
RRP: £12.99
Price: £7.47
Review Mark Tully's India (BBC Audio) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Dewey code: 492
RRP: £7.99
Price: £5.94
Review Egyptian Arabic (Travel Talk):
Publication date: 2004-05-17
Dewey code: 910
RRP: £14.99
Price: £7.31
Review Notes from a Small Island (Audiobook) / Corgi Audio:Bill Bryson is an unabashed Anglophile who, through a mistake of history, happened to be born and bred in Iowa. Righting that error, he spent 20 years in England before deciding to repatriate: "I had recently read that 3. 7 million Americans according to a Gallup poll, believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another, so it was clear that my people needed me. " That comic tone enlivens this account of Bryson's farewell walking tour of the countryside of "the green and kindly island that had for two decades been my home. ".
Publication date: 2006-05-04
RRP: £13.99
Price: £7.53
Review A Piano in the Pyrenees: The Ups and Downs of an Englishman in the French Mountains / Random House Audiobooks:
Edition: Abridged Ed
Publication date: 2004-05-17
Dewey code: 910
RRP: £14.99
Price: £8.56
Review A Walk in the Woods: Abridged / Corgi Audio:
Edition: Abridged Ed
Publication date: 2003-08-04
RRP: £19.99
Price: £12.78
Review Pole to Pole: BBC Radio 4 Full-cast Dramatisation (BBC Radio Collection) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:Having circumnavigated the globe from west to east in Around the World in 80 Days, Michael Palin proceeded to stretch even his endurance with his next journey, travelling due south from the North Pole, arriving five months later at the southernmost point of the globe, the South Pole. The result is Pole to Pole, Palin's account of his extraordinary journey between July and December 1991, passing through 17 countries from Greenland and the former Soviet Union in the north to Kenya, South Africa and Chile in the south. From the frozen wastes of both poles, to the scorching heat of Africa, Pole to Pole is a travelogue of bizarre extremes. Palin revels in the surrealism of it all as he travels through a range of vastly different European and African communities undergoing massive social and political upheavals in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Palin's shrewd observations are as ever interspersed with his eye for the weird and the comical, as he meets Santa Claus and Lenin, goes shopping for camels in Omdurman, and makes a final hectic dash to the South Pole via Chile. It's all quite exhausting! -Jerry Brotton.
Dewey code: 469
RRP: £7.99
Price: £7.93
Review Brazilian Portuguese: The New Traveler's Survival Kit (Travel Talk):
| Models & Brands:
Sahara (Radio Collection), Friends Like These, Attention All Shipping, Bill Bryson's African Diary, Giles Wemmbley-Hogg: Goes Off: Series 2 (BBC Audio), To the Baltic with Bob, David Attenborough, Zoo Quest for a Dragon, Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe, Moondust (BBC Audio), Personal Navigator Files CD version 3.02, Journeys in English, Round Ireland with a Fridge, Palin's New Europe: Abridged Reading, Mark Tully's India (BBC Audio), Egyptian Arabic (Travel Talk), Notes from a Small Island (Audiobook), A Piano in the Pyrenees: The Ups and Downs of an Englishman in the French Mountains, A Walk in the Woods: Abridged, Pole to Pole: BBC Radio 4 Full-cast Dramatisation (BBC Radio Collection), Brazilian Portuguese: The New Traveler's Survival Kit (Travel Talk)Top headlines: Larry Harmon, longtime Bozo the Clown, dies: Larry Harmon, one of the first men to play the famed Bozo the Clown character, has died at 83. ›21:43, 3.07 For a patriotic toast, raise a glass of sangria: Celebrate Independence Day with a glass of this traditional Spanish favorite made perfect for the Fourth with this red, white and blue recipe. ›15:09, 2.07 Emotional overeater quits sweets, drops 308 lbs.: After realizing compulsive eating controlled her every thought and action, 33-year-old Linda Horton decided to make a drastic change.Find out how the newest member of the Joy Fit Club finally found the strength to overcome her poor eating habits. ›17:07, 14.01 Google in deal with Brazil to fight child porn: Internet search company Google signed an agreement with Brazilian public prosecutors on Wednesday to help combat child pornography on its social networking site Orkut, an accord that the company believes is the first of its kind internationally. ›17:26, 3.07 French-inspired burger from 12-year-old champ: Looking for a creative burger recipe that's kid-approved? Here, young chef Joey Yarwick shares his award-winning recipe for Au Brie Burger a la Francais. 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While the move eases pressure on wallets, the Well-Mannered Traveler warns commuters need to remember their manners. ›13:42, 3.07 Pick up a plate and pile on the pork: On the first day of TODAY's barbecue challenge, its the battle of the Carolinas. Chefs Ed Mitchell and Jimmy Hagood cook up their delicious pork recipes. On the grill: barbecue pork shoulder and a whole hog. Get those napkins ready! Post 9/11 dragnet turns up surprises: Increased use of fingerprinting to identify foreign detainees reveals many have U.S. arrest records. ›06:49 Debt, credit, layoffs: Your questions answered: If you have questions about your money in today's economy, you're not alone. Here, TODAY personal finance editor Jean Chatzky tackles reader concerns about a few financially sticky situations. ›21:00, 21.02 Woman, 91, stuck under car for two days: A 91-year-old woman who had crawled under her car to look for her keys ended up stuck beneath an axle for two days until her mail carrier noticed letters piling up, police said. ›01:36 Best friends get gorgeous makeovers!: US Weekly contributor Jill Martin and hairstylist Louis Licari make over a pair of best friends who are ready to take a fashion-forward leap together. Bush 'concern' at N Korea issues: US leader George Bush says there is still concern over North Korea's alleged uranium enrichment, as G8 leaders gather in Japan. ›10:18 Analysis: McCain struggles to regain footing: John McCain calls himself an underdog. That may be an understatement. ›21:07, 5.07 Larceny in the air: Keep your valuables safe: With fares and fees skyrocketing lately, youre excused for feeling that someone's picking your pocket every time you fly. But every year thousands of airline passengers have items stolen from security check points, overhead bins, and bags both checked and unchecked. ›18:43, 2.07 Modern girls might see selves in Kit Kittredge: Despite her cloche hat, feed-sack dresses and obsession with a relic known as a typewriter, modern girls might see a lot of themselves in Kit Kittredge, the Depression-era living-doll in the new American Girl feature film. ›15:41, 3.07 Mystery cave opened at Mexican pyramid: Archaeologists are opening a cave sealed for more than 30 years deep beneath a Mexican pyramid to look for clues about the mysterious collapse of one of ancient civilization's largest cities. ›21:21, 3.07 Get caught up in Fearless Fourteen: Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is back on the prowl in Janet Evanovich's latest novel, "Fearless Fourteen." Read this excerpt and get caught up in the action. ›17:50, 27.06 U.S. share of foreign visitors slips, experts say: Despite the weak U.S. dollar, a boom in international travel around the world hasn't translated into an explosion of foreign tourists to the United States. ›15:36, 5.07 |
