I read all his books despite the fact that his self absorption is maddening and this one was not that different. To travel so many places and spend all your time loooking inward is strange- but- here and there you get a glimpse of Stevenson or the South pacific
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This is not a fun book like all of the author’s books from Oceania—you will learn he’s sadly and desperately recovering from alcoholism, which isn’t much of a surprise if you read his prior books. So trigger warning. He takes a solo trip to follow Robert Louis Stevenson’s travels to his final resting place in Samoa, with stops in Kiribati and islands in Micronesia. Having listened to his other books, this is a sharp departure from his fun-loving days in Kiribati, Vanuatu, and Fiji. But it’s still him doing half-witted things like a very short swim with sharks. His candor and insight are appreciated. It’s a well-written book. By the way, if you haven’t guessed by now, the titles of his books are only very remotely related to the substance of his books, here even less so. I hope his recovery continues. ( )

This is the fourth book in the travelogues by J. Maarten Troost, better known for his hilarious "The Sex Lives of Cannibals." Like his other books, "Headhunters" details his explorations and witty observations on life in the South Pacific, this time specifically following the trail that Robert Louis Stevenson laid out in his own voyages in the South Seas well over a century earlier.

Whereas the other books are erudite and witty travelogues, worth it for their entertainment value, "Headhunters" has that as well as the author's reflections on his own struggles with addiction, in a way that manages to be entertaining, insightful, and well-woven into the fabric of the travelogue.

This is my favorite book by J. Maarten Troost so far, because of having all the same tongue-in-cheek humor as his other books and also being more revealing of his own struggles and insights arising from them. ( )

Travel/memoir. (read only to p.190) Recovering alcoholic recuperates on isolated Pacific islands, following the footsteps of RLS. Takes a while to get into this, and then just meanders, but I don't mind Troost's style and find his observations interesting enough. I would've stuck with it if only I didn't have all these other books (with waitlists) from the library to finish. ( )

Funny, yet the better portion of the book is about his alcoholism, which I'm not interested in. Any book he writes about the islands, though, is tasty, so worth the read. ( )