Publication date: 2005-05
RRP: £15.00
Price: £16.99
Review A Journey with God: Don the Architect / The Publisher:
Creator: Jonathan Keeble
Publication date: 2007-04-01
Price: £53.50
Review Shadow of the Silk Road / ISIS Publishing:
Creator: Lisa R. Tucci
Publication date: 2007-02-14
RRP: £29.95
Price: £19.76
Review In the Footsteps of Da Vinci-Da Vinci Code Tour / Art&Media Communications USA:
Creator: Author
Edition: Abridged edition
Publication date: 2002-08-01
Dewey code: 814.54
RRP: £19.99
Price: £9.64
Review Me Talk Pretty One Day / Little, Brown & Company:David Sedaris became a star autobiographer on public radio, onstage in New York, and on bestseller lists, mostly on the strength of Santaland Diaries a scathing, hilarious account of his stint as a Christmas elf at Macy's department store. Sedaris's caustic gift has not deserted him in his fourth book, which mines poignant comedy from his peculiar childhood in North Carolina, his bizarre career path and his move with his lover to France. Though his anarchic inclination to digress is his glory, Sedaris does have a theme in these reminiscences: the inability of humans to communicate. The title is his rendition in transliterated English of how he and his fellow students of French in Paris mangle the Gallic language. In the essay "Jesus Shaves", he and his classmates from many nations try to convey the concept of Easter to a Moroccan Muslim. "It is a party for the little boy of God", says one. "Then he be die one day on two. morsels of. [+]lumber", says another. Sedaris muses on the disputes between his Protestant mother and his father, a Greek Orthodox man whose Easter fell on a different day. Other essays explicate his deep kinship with his eccentric mother and absurd alienation from his IBM-exec dad: "To me, the greatest mystery of science continues to be that a man could father six children who shared absolutely none of his interests". Every glimpse we get of Sedaris's family and acquaintances delivers laughs and insights. He thwarts his North Carolina speech therapist ("for whom the word pen had two syllables") by cleverly avoiding all words with "s" sounds, which reveal the lisp she sought to correct. His midget guitar teacher, Mister Mancini, is unaware that Sedaris doesn't share his obsession with breasts, and sings "Light My Fire" all wrong-"as if he were a Webelo scout demanding a match". As a remarkably unqualified teacher at the Art Institute of Chicago, Sedaris had his class watch soap operas and assign "guessays" on what would happen in the next day's episode. It all adds up to the most distinctively skewed autobiography since Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia. -Tim Appelo.
Creator: Jim Simpson
Publication date: 2003-07-01
RRP: £9.99
Price: £9.99
Review A Stroll Back in Time: Royal Westminster (Stroll Back in Time) / A Stroll Back in Time Ltd:
Publication date: 1995-06
Review World Adventurer 5-Pack Large Box / Cambrix Publishing:
Publication date: 1997-01-01
Dewey code: 523
RRP: £10.99
Price: £4.50
Review Apollo 13: The Real Mission (Great Speeches): The Real Mission (Great Speeches) / Soundworks,U.S.:
Edition: 2Rev Ed
Publication date: 2001-10-25
Dewey code: 430
RRP: £12.95
Price: £11.65
Review Berlitz German Travel Pack (Berlitz CD Pack) / Berlitz Publishing:
Edition: Cdr Blg
Publication date: 2008-02-01
Dewey code: 458
RRP: £12.34
Price: £5.91
Review Ivideo Italian (Ilearn Anywhere): Language Essentials for Your Travel Needs! (iLearn Anywhere) / Penton Overseas:
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2000-05
Dewey code: 910
RRP: £58.69
Price: £89.49
Review Full Circle / Chivers Audio Books:Having gone round the world and down the poles in Around the World in 80 Days and Pole to Pole, it seems fitting that Michael Palin should complete his travel odyssey for the BBC by completing Full Circle, the book which describes his journey through the 18 countries which border the Pacific Rim, and which make a rough circle of 11,000 miles in diameter. The result is a journey which, even by Palin's standards, is truly epic. Pole to Pole represents what is probably Palin's most ambitious piece of travel writing to date, as he gradually begins to piece together a common Pacific culture, as he travels through Russia, Japan, China, Southeast Asia, Australia and South America. Often the sheer scope of the journey becomes overwhelming and slightly impressionistic, but as ever Palin's wit and wonder at his discoveries and encounters is unflagging, from the wonders of the ancient civilisations of Asia to the startling modernity and squalor of Latin America. It's all enough to turn you into a Buddhist, and, in Full Circle, Palin comes as close to conversion as it's possible for an old Python. -Jerry Brotton.
Creator: Christopher Scott
Publication date: 2003-05
RRP: £57.50
Price: £57.50
Review The Road to McCarthy / ISIS Audio Books:The amazing success of McCarthy's Bar put Pete McCarthy securely into the upper echelons of modern travel writers. His skills were many: an uncanny knack for evoking the ambience of the often bizarre and unlikely places he visited; insights into human behaviour that range from the sardonic to the insightful, and (best of all) a fractured sense of humour that made reading the book in public dangerous if you didn't want to embarrass yourself by spontaneously laughing out loud. There were those who feared that his new book The Road to McCarthy would not match its predecessor for quirky and idiosyncratic charm, but a few pages of the first chapter quickly puts paid to the nay-sayers. Over a few pints, McCarthy unwisely decides to investigate mythical stories of his own clan history. Were the McCarthys a nomadic tribe who travelled from North Africa in the mists of pre-history? This none-too-serious attempt to anatomise worldwide Irish connections results in an outrageously entertaining odyssey. From the Fried Breakfast Zone of Belfast airport, McCarthy journeys to Morocco and Gibraltar and finds that the Casbah in Tangier doesn't have too many historical traces of a hereditary Gaelic Chief. Despite attacks from ornamental monkeys and ill-tempered geese, he ploughs through the fleshpots of the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean in his fruitless search (where the only Celts he encounters are worse-for-drink Glasgow Celtic supporters); and then, in the secluded Alaskan township of McCarthy (where else?) with its populace of just 18 bewildered citizens, he comes across a final revelation. This is absolutely hilarious stuff, every bit as entertaining as McCarthy's Bar-and that's no blarney. -Barry Forshaw.
Dewey code: 467.972
RRP: £8.99
Price: £34.92
Review Mexican Spanish (Travel Talk):
Creator: Inc. Berlitz International
Edition: 2Rev Ed
Publication date: 2001-10-25
Dewey code: 458
RRP: £12.95
Price: £6.60
Review Berlitz Italian Travel Pack (Berlitz CD Pack) / Berlitz Publishing:
Publication date: 2007-06-01
RRP: £45.50
Price: £47.49
Review A Piano in the Pyrenees / ISIS Audio Books:
Edition: MP3 Una
Publication date: 2007-05-28
Dewey code: 910.91631
RRP: £25.76
Price: £43.62
Review Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea / Brilliance Audio:
Edition: Spi Com/Pa
Publication date: 2008-04-01
Dewey code: 492
RRP: £12.50
Price: £8.25
Review Speak in a Week Arabic Week 2: See, Hear, Say & Learn: See, Hear, Say and Learn: Week 2 (Speak in a Week!) / Penton Overseas, Inc:
RRP: £10.99
Price: £6.01
Review Children's Favourite Travel Pack Songs and Surprises / Various Artists:
Run time: 810 min.
Creator: Patricia Gallimore
Publication date: 2001
Review Terra Incognita:
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2003-05-05
Dewey code: 910
RRP: £45.95
Price: £60.95
Review Sahara / Chivers Audio Books: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.
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2006-08-13
RRP: £43.47
Price: £45.46
Review The Travels of Maudie Tipstaff / Oakhill Publishing Limited:
| Models & Brands:
A Journey with God: Don the Architect, Shadow of the Silk Road, In the Footsteps of Da Vinci-Da Vinci Code Tour, Me Talk Pretty One Day, A Stroll Back in Time: Royal Westminster (Stroll Back in Time), World Adventurer 5-Pack Large Box, Apollo 13: The Real Mission (Great Speeches): The Real Mission (Great Speeches), Berlitz German Travel Pack (Berlitz CD Pack), Ivideo Italian (Ilearn Anywhere): Language Essentials for Your Travel Needs! (iLearn Anywhere), Full Circle, The Road to McCarthy, Mexican Spanish (Travel Talk), Berlitz Italian Travel Pack (Berlitz CD Pack), A Piano in the Pyrenees, Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea, Speak in a Week Arabic Week 2: See, Hear, Say & Learn: See, Hear, Say and Learn: Week 2 (Speak in a Week!), Children's Favourite Travel Pack Songs and Surprises, Terra Incognita, Sahara, The Travels of Maudie Tipstaff |
