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Chargement... Departures and Arrivalspar Eric Newby
  
Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre.  John_Vaughan | Aug 29, 2011 |    Budzul | May 31, 2008 |
Newby delights in undercutting his own achievements. Once he is on a cycling trip around Holland on an expensive touring bicycle. “From time to time,” he writes, “we were overtaken by elderly Dutch ladies, some of them in national garb and mounted on bicycles that looked like two harps welded together.” Neither does he neglect the ominous. Kurds with rifles guard an important site in Anatolia... Newby has the usual traveler-troubles: forgotten luggage, ill-natured automobiles, noisy hotel neighbors, wrong turns, and unsavory food. Full of odd and quiet moments, telling detail, wit, and wisdom.
From an open boat ride on the Ganges to the Indian Ocean (pushing in the water most of the way) to long-distance cycling through Europe to exploring the Forbidden City in China, the tales of Eric Newby's travels are always entertaining in his recollections of highlights from an eventful life. He transplants the reader to all manners of eclectic terrain: from early childhood adventures among the shops, streets, and eccentrics inhabiting the darkest London suburb of his upbringing to an elephant fair in India; from the faded glamour of days and nights on the Orient Express to a roughneck settlement of opal miners in Australia, where men carrying large amounts of cash travel armed, but still have been known to disappear. Whether he is putting heart and soul into building the perfect grotto in his Devon garden with his wife and the stonemason, rambling around a semiaban-doned and despoiled Calabria, or wrestling with the logistics of baby-rearing, both existing admirers and new readers will enjoy the exuberance and humor that Departures & Arrivals has to offer. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
Discussion en coursAucunCouvertures populaires
 Google Books — Chargement...GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)910.4History and Geography Geography and Travel Geography and Travel Accounts of travel and facilities for travellersClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne: (3.37)
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Travels from earliest childhood memories...accompanied walks up to the bend and back of his home street in darkest Barnes in SW13… to even more foolhardy forays in Yemen, China and Russia, often by bicycle, raft and early ‘developing country’ transport Eric, and his ever present companion Wanda, revel in his big, wide, wonderful world. Unlike the elderly lady he takes to see the view atop of her local mount, overlooking the Po Valley – which she had never before left – who exclaims;”Come’ẻ grande il mondo!” and then insists on being taken straight home, Eric glories in his travel, arrivals and departures.
Extraordinary things always happen to Eric on his journeys, or, if they fail to materialize despite his prodding curiosity, there is always the fascination of history, or people to describe in rolling prose. All the narratives of the author please, and he added immeasurably to the genre of travel books with wisdom and sneaky, chuckling wit.
Or his wife Wanda tells him off and puts them firmly back on their crooked, always chaotic, and enjoyable paths!