Travelogues Books

Very engaging story. The transformation from everyday life to a simpler one connected with nature and a spiritual awareness is inspiring.

This book reads like a novel about the cruising experience and why people want to sail to far away places. It's not a How-To book; Beth's other book "The Voyagers Handbook" is an excellent How-To reference for offshore sailing. In Blue Horizon Beth shares her reasons for sailing to far away places and her inner feelings and awareness during her travels. She describes the beauty, the satisfactions, the thrills and the fears she experiences. This book can be enjoyed by the non sailor as well as the sailor. An added treat is to put the Lat & Long for each destination into Google Earth and view photos that travelers have inserted. The photos provide a view of the scenes that Beth and Evan enjoyed.

Outstanding. There is a reason we sail that goes beyond wind, water and something to do. Read the book...

Blue Horizons is a collection of articles originally appearing in Blue Water Sailing magazine. Presented as a series of expanded log entries or perhaps long letters home, Leonard chronicles a six year sailing adventure through the high latitudes of the northern and southern hemispheres. Blue Horizons is more than a travelogue or the story of a sailing adventure, it is one woman's journey of self-exploration as she and her partner Evans sail around the world.

Leonard explores her relationship with her partner, her friends and family, herself and her world. Along the way we are treated to vivid descriptions of the majesty of the high latitudes and the generosity of those who live in the far corners of the world. Leonard's accounts are frank and honest. No, it is not all paradise; one can get seasick, one does get angry with one's partner. Perhaps the most poignant passages are those addressing her relationship with the sea, and the personal transformations that occur on long ocean passages. Sailing brings one closer to the natural world, a world Leonard aptly describes.

Blue Horizons is a compelling read. If you're considering an ocean voyage, Blue Horizons is a must read. For the rest of us, it is enjoyable read of one woman's exploration of seldom traveled lands and herself.

Dave Lochner
NauticalReads

Sailing journey books-- the Pardy's most notably, but other as well- usually follow a trip from start to finish. The little mediations you find on nature, self-reliance and self-realization are embedded within a longer narrative about storms, calms, pirates and other near disasters. This book is different and I'm not sure what to make of it. Leonard has the poet's gift for observation and description and pretty much what this book is is a collection of these meditations, within the frame of a few pages of log entries. Don't get me wrong, you know she's on a sailboat, this book doesn't read like "Daily Mediations for Sailors" but as much as I admire her writerly skill, I do prefer a bit more story in my sea stories.

Still, the book's keeper. And I don't keep anything except for books that really interest me.

A bottom-up social history of some of the most important radical struggles in the last two decades; a critical, first-person account of revolutionary movements, their successes as well as failures, their potential as well as their flaws. Ryan's radical anthropology of a dozen different movements reads like an ethnography of activism, from Ireland to Kurdistan to Guatemala and Chiapas.

Never one to blithely proceed as a militant tourist, Ryan consistently critiques his own role in the narratives he recounts, exploring tensions of race, class and nationality in the brave new world of global neoliberalism. Nor is he simply a lifestyle radical, playing mount-the-barricades in a dozen different cities. "Unconditional solidarity for any political party or movement is a foolish stance," he writes after discovering the new neoliberalized version of Sandinistas in Nicaragua, "especially when one has no participation in the process of decision-making or ideological direction. But one's loyalty remains to the idea and the revolutionary actions of a movement in a particular time." (264)

Who are the "clandestines"? As Ryan describes it, "clandestinity is about protecting ourselves, our rebel spaces and allowing the seed to germinate underground." (273) His description of developing, maintaining and deploying these spaces will be interesting to anyone pursuing radical social change.

Written by diehard anti-capitalist Ramor Ryan, Clandestines: The Pirate Journals Of An Irish Exile gathers memories of an anarchist's travels and exploits across the world during the 1980's and 1990's. From the hovels of Berlin during the fall of the wall, to a mystery in the Zapatista Autonomous Zone, to a Croatian Rainbow Gathering following G8 protests in Genoa, to a Kurdish guerilla camp, Clandestines tracks the struggles of a world in flux, on the cusp of transforming into a post-Cold War society. A sharp-eyed perspective from an author who despises all forms of imperialism and is utterly unafraid to declare it.

I can honestly say that I learned a great deal from reading this book, and enjoyed every minute of it. Ryan's stories are full of grit, hope, morality and rebelliousness. Highly recommended.

I never thought I would enjoy a travel journal, but Ramor Ryan changed my mind. At first I thought it was going to be an over-romantic story of this guy traveling around the world in order to avoid himself, in the way that a lot of Crimethinc type of stuff reads. I'm really not into that kind of stuff. However, he really surprised me, and I'm ashamed I thought that of him in the first place in association with Crimethinc, because this guy is a real character, a great writer, and no one can call him fake for leaving out the messy details. In fact, read about his review of the two different "Days of War and Nights of Love" (one by Crimethinc, and one by Eduardo Galeano) online.

In the great tradition of Irish story-tellers, Ryan recalls experiences from the squats of West Berlin, the war zone of Kurdistan, the revolution and post-revolution repression in Nicauragua, his youth in Ireland watching the British army attack a Republican demonstration, and much more. He is an exile from his native land, moving from situations of struggle across the planet with a keen analysis of each. Ryan left Ireland in the 1980s for Nicaragua to help defend the Revolution there, and ended up seeing the Sandinistas crumble under the might of the US-funded Contras, alienating Indigenous peoples struggling for autonomy in the process. He remarks that a generation of international solidarity activists in the 1980s got their start in Nicaragua; much like many saw the same in Chiapas in the 1990s.

If you've never heard of Ramor Ryan, look him up. I would love to meet him, because this guy has such a wealth of information and has seen so much without thinking he is better than anyone else for having done so. He brings a personal touch to bloody places stormed by revolution, repression, and fights for a better world. By the end of it, I thought to myself that he had really lived his life thus far to the fullest, and brought a whole new meaning to what I thought of as an "international solidarity" activist. Much of what he writes is exciting in that revolutionary situations are very much within reach, but at the same time depressing when he discusses the aftermath in the case of defeat (like in Kurdistan or in Nicaragua).

If you want to find an inspirational person, you have to meet Ramor Ryan by reading his Clandestines.

I have read numerous engrossing and exciting novels this year, but this book tops all of those, and these stories are true! If you like adventure, or want to simply know more about the world, read this book. He puts a very human face on the trials and tribulations of so many varied people, you ultimately feel like you were there. This book is your chance at a small piece of Ramor's varied experiences. Don't miss-out on the adventures.

This is both a great read and an important historical document. Fanny Trollope was the mother of Anthony Trollope, perhaps the most prolific English novelist of the nineteenth century and my favorite. Fanny's husband was ineffectual in the breadwinning department, but fortunately for the family, Fanny herself was energetic and enterprising. She took one of her sons (not Anthony) and an artistic young man to the United States. She was planning to join a friend of hers who was a mover in setting up the utopian community in Harmony, Indiana, but the place turned out to be squalid, and she didn't stay long.

Fanny spent most of her time in the U.S. in Cincinnati and in her book is very hard on the city and its inhabitants. She especially objected to the pigs' role as garbage collectors. (In those days, pigs roamed the streets freely, like sheep grazing.) Fanny felt most of the people she encountered were loud, dirty, vulgar, and fanatically patriotic. It is her vivid descriptions of the physical conditions and the people that give this book its historical and entertainment value.

While she was living in Cinci, she opened a retail emporium and filled it with rather shoddy merchandise sent from England by her husband. She also attempted to bring culture to the inhabitants. Not surprisingly, both ventures failed.

After Mrs. Trollope returned to England, she supported her family by writing novels that were quite popular at the time, though they haven't become the classics her son's have. She spent her final years living in Italy with another son and his wife.

This is an extremely entertaining commentary on American manners and well written. I agree, however, with Mrs. Trollope's son, Anthony, who commented that Mrs. Trollope is a keen observer but she understands little. Certainly her complaints about the lack of gentility among Americans is valid but she completely missed the wonderful lack of class restraints endemic to English society which afforded Americans "class mobility"--freedom of opportunity (except for native Americans and slaves).

Fanny Trollope (1779-1863) wrote over 35 novels and several non-fictions books in her effort to rescue her family from poverty. However, the most read of all her books is "Domestic Manners of the Americans" which she published in 1832. It was in that distant year that Fanny and two of her children traveled across the Atlantic Ocean. Her purpose was to join a utopian community in Tennessee whose denizens were freed slaves.
Fanny left her impecunious and feckless husband the barrister Thomas Trollope back home in England. Her famous son Anthony did not make the trip as he was a student at Harrow School. Fanny knew her husband would join her in the USA when money became available. Later the family would flee to Bruges to escape creditors. Fanny eventually lived out her life in Florence near her son Thomas Trollope.
After leaving Tennessee the Trollopes settled for two years in the Queen City of the West Cincinnati, Ohio. Fanny did not like America or the American people! She found us xenephobic; boastful, prideful and violent.She hated the hypocrisy of life in Midwest Ohio although she did attend such cultural attractions as opera, plays and lectures. She favored the state Anglican Church of Great Britain not caring for America's separation between church and state.
This book could well be read alongside Charles Dickens' "American Notes for General Circulation" based on his 1842 six month trip to the USA.
Both Trollope and Dickens found the Americans crude, lacking in manners
and eager to make a quick buck. Listen to Trollope at her most scathing:
"..among the rich and the poor, in the slave states, and in the free states...I do not like them. I do not like their principals, I do not like their manners, I do not like their opinions." (p.314).
Fanny Trollope's book is more interesting than Dickens since she discusses colorful characters and shares anecdotes about her sojourn in our young republic. Like Dickens she hates the odious practice of tobacco chewing and the mangling of the English language. Trollope found us Yankees to be too serious and viewing us as poorly read. Unlike the wealthy and famous Dickens, Mrs. Trollope was a middle-aged woman fighting off poverty with her pen. I enjoyed her descriptions of nature such as those she paints of the Potomac River, Northern Virginia and the Niagra Falls area in New York and Canada. She is aware of flora and fauna and describes them with knowledge and in beautiful prose.
Dickens and Trollope give us the eye to see America in the days prior to the Civil War when the curse of chattel slavery ruled the land. Since those days America has granted freedom to all citizens. I wish both Fanny and Charles could visit us again in the 21st century. Their remarks would be of great interest to this reviewer and countless others!

All I can say is: what a great read! Who knew? Quite frankly, upon first sight of this book I must admit a bit of dread as the puritanical artwork does not smack of fun and games. Of course, as a literature student, I should know better than to ever judge a book by its cover.
Had I been Fanny Trollope writing such an account of America in the 1820s, I would be hardpressed to say that I would have changed a single word. Trollope has been the victim of many mean spirited caricatures and accusations by Americans and it still continues today, but what is interesting is that no one can do more than attack her person. In other words, no one seems to be able to refute her claims.
Trollope's "bitchiness" seems, for the most part, merited by my standards and while she finds much to complain about concerning an American democracy in its adolescence, she certainly discovers just as many things that she likes or finds beautiful.
Plain and simple, Americans collectively have a hard time taking criticism, especially from an outsider...and at that time, political criticism from a woman was deemed absurd if not audacious.
Last but not least, Fanny Trollope is always sure to preface anything she says with the conscious realization that she can only speak for what she has seen/heard personally and is thereby not judging ALL of America.
Trollope is witty and anecdotal and I think anyone interested in what an outspoken Englishwoman had to say about the New World should certainly pick up a copy. I found particular interest in gender/religious issues but got the most laughs out of her descriptions of American manners (or the lack thereof).
It is always interesting to see how much things have changed, and better yet, how many things have remained exactly the same!

Very entertaining read of the author's trip through 19th Century America, full of wonderful description and enlightening observations. Despite the griping below, Mrs Trollope simply reports what she sees - men spitting tobacco on the floor, ladies off in another room while the guys have a good time, etc. She reports accurately on our forefathers' rugged pioneer spirit, but points out the lack of education everywhere. We want to shout "lies!" but Mark Twain wrote about the same thing, and the aspects of our society that haven't changed much are still being commented on with the same frankness by writers like Saul Bellow, Gore Vidal, Dawn Powell, Paul Theroux and Joan Didion. Many true-hearted Americans will enjoy this book no end. Mrs Trollope clearly loved America and simply wrote truthfully about; she is simply beholden to no one - the essence of good writing. A thoroughly refreshing read.

This collection of short stories was given to me as birthday present and came wrapped up and labelled "highly recommended". I had some reservations at first but they quickly dispelled after reading the first few pages.

The emphasis is on quality writing as much as erotic content. The contributors range from talented debutants to distinguished authors, including a fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.

Editor Mitzi Szereto breaks out of the limited constraints of the erotic genre to present a unique piece of literature. Erotic encounters and fantasies from every continent are skillfully blended in a book full of warmth, enigma and passion. The book is full of fun and adventure - and you wouldn't mind reading it on a train or a plane.

In fact, I suggest you do - who knows where it will lead?

I think this is what literature is supposed to be.

Editor Mitzi Szereto assembles an eclectic group of writers writing an eclectic group of stories. You don't need to buy a plane ticket to have sex around the world, just read this book! Unlike most other erotica anthologies I've read, there is nothing remotely stale or trite in the storytelling in this one. Forget those so-called "Best" erotica books, because this one really IS the best.

Editor Mitzi Szereto has definitely outdone herself in this new offering of tales of erotic travel. There isn't one weak story in the bunch. Some of my favorites include Traditional Aryuvedic, Brit novelist Lesley Glaister's Silver Cowboy, and the editor's own Bakewell, Revisited, which made my breath catch in my throat. Szereto is a masterful prose writer in her own right, and her keen editorial eye for quality erotic storytelling is unrivaled by anyone else working in the genre. This is a truly superior anthology.

Erotic Travel Tales 2, the second in this wonderfully original anthology series edited by author Mitzi Szereto, has something for everyone -- and gives it to us with a delicious punch to the brain...and the groin! A diverse collection with stories penned by old favorites and fresh voices in erotica, including erotica's first Royal Fellow of Literature. Szereto takes us on an unforgettable journey. I just hope we are gifted with a volume 3!

I've never been all that keen on erotica, but Erotic Travel Tales 2 has changed my mind. I was expecting the typical one-handed drivel you usually find in this genre, and did I get the surprise of my life when I opened this book to read the contents. Szereto's amassed an interesting collection of material penned by a wide range of voices -- from popular authors of erotica to those from more mainstream areas of literature. As a result, this is a collection utterly unique from anything else in its category. The stories work as literary fiction, erotic fiction, and travel fiction. You can't go wrong with this sparkling collection! Szereto is a real class act!

Travelling with Michael is to say the least exhilarating, fun, adventurous and a journey of discovery. While many can only dream of actually making the trip, Michael Palins' books are the next best thing. It's not just where he goes, but how he does it and perhaps most importantly: seeing it through his mind's eye, which needless to say can make humor out of nothingness. All you need is to relax and have the urge to increase your imagination. A wild but educative ride!

Michael Palin does it again with Full Circle. Starting in Alaska Michael travels anti-clockwise around the rim of the Pacific Ocean visiting countries as diverse as Russia, Korea, Viet Nam, New Zealand, Colombia and the west coast of North American. He tells of his adventures getting to and exploring some fantastic natural wonders, visiting a Russian gulag with a former inmate, the relief of Japan, the Vietnamese reactions to a westerner, the biggness of Australia and the hardworking people of South America. The section on the United States is short and not always sweet. Palin is taken aback by the physical bigness of Americans, and rush, and loudness. By the time he reaches Canada and attends a "lumberjack" fair (no singing Mounties included!) he really "wants to go home". We also learn a bit about how the series and book were produced, his wife Helen and their children, and that being on a job for the BBC doesn't always mean smooth sailing! Michael's friend Basil Pao took the photographs - he also joined Michael on "Around the World in Eighty Days". I can highly recommend this book and not only to fans of Monty Python - it doesn't end how you might expect!

As always Palin has produced a great travel book and series... this I found better than his "80 Days". The other thing people might find interesting about this travel book is that it takes us to some places which are hard to reach even in this day and age, so this is the only way we can know them.

Also suggested- "Hemingway Adventure"

Full Circle is just as good, if not better then his othertravel/comedy books. It is simply magnificent.

I've seen the 10-part Full Circle tv series, and I had a serious addiction from the start. When it ended, I went through a withdrawl period. I silently rocked myself in a chair in my room repeating "I must get the book,... must find book...must read book." I've got it now and I'm back on a Full Circle high. The book goes into details that they never had time for on the series. It tells you everything that you would have noticed had you been in Japan or Australia or Chile.

Ahh... I can imagine myself right now on the streets of China getting a massage from a blind man.

This is an amazing book, by a wonderful author. I would highly recommend reading it.

What a find! I'm amazed Dervla Murphy is not much better known. She has such an appealing vigor and zeal for adventure, combined with an acute eye for cultural observation and a rich capacity for description. Dervla takes one of the most audacious trips I've ever heard of, and undergoes some of the most harrowing and arduous of trials with non-showoff-y courage, such as when three heavy objects that turn out to be wolves fling themselves at her on a dark deserted road in the Balkans, or she is awakened in the middle of the night to find a "scantily dressed Kurd" standing over her bed. (In both instances her pocket pistol dispatched the dilemma without further ado.) Not only are these accounts riproaring, but she so warmly and affectionately describes the so-called "undeveloped" cultures she grows to know as she passes through remote stretches of Afganistan and Pakistan, that she quite awakens a First World reader to the narrowness of our outlook.

It was by accident I discovered this book, but how fortunate it was! Murphy did not just ride a bicycle from Ireland to India, impressive in itself, but she lived and laughed and played with the Prince's and Peasants she met through out her journey. Her descriptions of the people she meets and the ancient lands she cross are simple and magical.

Some of her experiences seem to belong to fairy tales, other's remind's one of Arabian Nights, and at other times, it seemed Murphy was whisked into Tolkien's land of Middle Earth with fierce and gallant warriors on horseback.

I will quote a couple of passages which highlight her sense of humor and observation.

"...But it was worth it all to rise gradually from that fertile, warm valley to the still, cold splendour of the snow-line, where the highest peaks of the Hindu Kush crowd the horizon in every direction and one begins to understand why some people believe that gods live on mountain tops."

"...when suddenly I came on the most unexpected sight-a playing field complete with twenty-two youths and a soccer ball. I know very little about soccer, but enough to know this is how it is not played. No one ever moved about trotting speed, no one ever tried to tackle anyone else, the referee never used his whistle, the ball was never headed and the two goalies sat crosslegged between the posts most of the time, looking abstracted. The real excitement from a spectator's point of view was caused by the fact that one side of the field had a sheer drop of 200 feet, so that the main object of all the players was to keep the ball from going into the ravine rather than to kick it between the posts."

I first read this book in the sixties in grade school. I bought the reissued edition, rediscovering it by coincidence. Ms. Murphy's journey in the early sixties is, if anything, more fascinating to read today in light of the changes in the Middle East since she travelled there. Her independence and cheerful acceptance of different cultures is refreshing. This book was written prior to the 'me' decade, and while intensely personal, lacks the self-preoccupation that more recent writers practice.

Additionally, unlike so many bicycle travelogues, this book doesn't focus on the author's bicycle! The focus remains on the journey, which renders it excellent reading for all, not just bicyclists.

This is a timeless read and one that can be revisited with pleasure.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Murphy's humor, tenacity and bravery are awe inspiring. She's attacked by wolves (or possibly wild dogs), wakes up in a tent after going to sleep out in the open, fends off an attempted rapist and has many other thrilling adventures. In one instance, when there are nefarious characters about, she is advised to booby trap her inn bedroom's doorway with empty bottles. In her journal, she calmly notes that emptying bottles is the one thing she's really good at.

I couldn't help feeling sad while reading this book. In 1965, when this book was published, most people were probably unfamiliar places like Kabul and Jalalabad. Now, of course, in the wake of the post-9/11 bombing of Afghanistan, Kabul is a household word. Turns out, that city was once breathtakingly beautiful, as well as the country around it. Murphy's trek takes her through Afghanistan at a time when the USSR and the US were vying for control of this country. The Russians were busy providing electricity and importing goods, while the Americans seemed to approach this ancient country with the intent to raze the traditional culture to the ground and replace it with a modern one. One wonders if, if both countries had never meddled with Afghanistan, there might never have been the Taliban? In any event, this book takes the reader back to a truly relevant experience of the not-so distant past.

Full of exciting tales of the road and the adventures that food can bring to the journey. This book is an absolute must! What is travel without food? Each story in this exceptional selection brings to the reader an intriguing fascination with the world and all it has to offer. Culture after culture you will be astounded by the discoveries each traveler brings to the table. This book is truly a treat for the hungry traveler and by books end, you will be satisfyingly full and content! Buy it and feast your way through the world with each turn of the page.

If you love food and travel, and who doesn't, you'll enjoy this book. I loved the compilation of stories, and how they illustrate how food adds to the experience of different places and different people. Just one warning: it will make you want to go someplace...and eat.

I love this book. I often pick up books from the Travelers Tales series and this one delivered even better than most! The articles were varied and delicious - it made me hungry to travel to far off places with these women and share a meal!

I loved the stories in Lisa Bach's book. Evocative passages that will have you reaching for your travel agent's number to experience it yourself...Or be an armchair traveler & chef, while your travel the globe, kitchen by kitchen, food stand to food stand.

This is such a wonderful book! I stumbled upon it at the bookstore and thought it had just the perfect concept. Food and travel--what else do you need? The selections here are amazing, and each piece really delivers. This is a must-have for any lover of food and adventure. Remember it the next time you need that special and unique gift for someone.

I very much enjoyed Michelle Caffrey's honest and fresh account of the agony and ecstasy of barge life. Being a fellow bargee, I can well relate to both the fears and the exhileration she writes about in her account of their first year of barging. It also made me long to cast off the ropes of my own barge and go travelling again - something I will be doing very shortly too. Thanks for a fun and inspiring read, Michelle.

This review was posted on Amazon Canada by Jan Rehner:
You don't have to know anything about barging or boats to love this book. All you need is a desire to learn about Burgundy France from a unique perspective. Michelle Caffrey tells her true-life story of buying and refitting a lovely barge and lets you drift with her along the tree-lined canals of one of France's most beautiful regions. Textured with fascinating characters and the rich detail of food, wine, and countryside, this book lets you "just imagine" an intriguing and peaceful life style--with a good measure of surprise and humour mixed in.

Like many of us, the Caffreys have a gipsie hidden deep in their soul. They were able to set theirs free. I'm extremely jealous. I've lived in Europe before and would love to find a way to return for extended stays. Barging is a recent lifestyle discovery for me and Just Imagine, has shown me the way to return to the old country and free my inner gipsie.
As something of a technical geek, the descriptions of the boats they looked at and the buying process they went through to find Imagine was of most interest to me. I now have a better idea of not only what kind of boat to buy but how to go about finding one. I did enjoy reading about the places and people they met but I'm also an explorer at heart, looking forward to my own discoveries. Their sense of entrepreneurship in starting Barge and Breakfast was also of interest as my wife and I both are involved in teaching entrepreneurship at Colorado Mountain College. My exposure to Roma people in Eastern Europe taught me that if you are going to be a gipsie, you also better be an entrepreneur. Sharing my boat with strangers in close quarters is not my idea of fun but it works for them. Proving that there are many ways to fund your dreams if you are creative. Seems like that is what "Just Imagine: New Life on an Old Boat" is all about anyway.
If there are any criticisms of the book it would be that the closer I got to the end of the story, the more grammatical mistakes I found. Not serious stuff but an indication that maybe barging is really more fun than writing about it.
Sail on friends. Some day we will gather by a campfire on the same riverbank to share a bottle of fine wine and a story or two.

Most books of this nature are re-hashes of the same story, but "Imagine...." goes a few steps further. It is well written and, for me, it was a good one-day read; not because I couldn't put it down....because I wouldn't put it down. It was that enjoyable. If you have ever thought about owning a barge, a boat, or even an RV, you will be able to enjoy this tremendously. This is a story of their first year. I hope there is a follow-up coming.

John Hardman

I have been to france many times and Michelle's story brought it all back to me. Her descriptions of the trials and tribulations made me wonder if I could ever be as brave as they were to take all this on. It was fabulous as her words helped me to remember the beauty of the landscape and the thoughts of the food and wine made my stomach growl. What a great story and a very easy and fun read.

Eric Newby, who died in 2006 at the age of 86, was an adventurer and gifted travel writer who chronicled his experiences in several books that reflect his curiosity and research about the world as well as his shrewd and often very hilarious observations of humans making their way in it. Originally published in 1956, THE LAST GRAIN RACE could be called memoir, but Newby recreates his apprenticeship aboard one of the last mercantile sailboats on the eve of World War II via his diaries, claptrap memory and research, creating an airtight world with immediacy. There is no sense of retrospect, distance of time or hindsight in the narrative.

Newby was 18 when he went to sea in 1938 on a barque owned by a Scandinavian shipping firm. Before World War II, it was still economical to deploy a commercial fleet of these behemoths around the world to scoop up grain crops from Australia for the European market. When his job at an advertising agency (hilarious) was threatened by lay-offs, he indulged the youthful romance of life at sea stoked by a girlfriend's naval father and signed up with the Erikson firm's ship, Moshulu. He kitted up grandly, found a Louis Vuitton steamer trunk. Immediately aboard ship, he learned that a lot of the work centered about scaling those tall masts, cleaning the "restrooms" and repelling off the side to scrape rust. He was the only Englishman among Scandinavians and Germans who were decidedly not of the Louis Vuitton school. Newby's character sketches are priceless and he captures the hybrid vernacular so well that by the end of the book, the reader knows as much as he learned. The book is loaded with technical information about the boat and its mission, but also with accounts of dramatic storms, bedbug plagues or occasional leisurely pursuits like capturing an albatross just to measure its wingspan. I purchased a used original UK Reader's Union edition (think Book of the Month Club) that usefully had a detailed illustration inside the back cover and a world map inside the front, with the journey dated and marked off.

Infrequently, news of the outside world drifted to the ship via a radio signal from a distant land. It is not good news, but at sea they can mostly ignore it. Like the Pequod in MOBY DICK, the Moshulu was its own complete world. That's the beauty of this book: it captures a fully evolved culture that would suddenly disappear a year later. When Moshulu unexpectedly returned first among the fleet, Newby packed it in. He had lived a lifetime and grown up in under a year. The next time the boat went out, it returned to the waiting Germans. Afterwards, it turned up in a future where commercial sailing ships were no longer competitive. Sic transit gloria mundi.

If you want some relaxing summer reading and if you like the sea by all means get this book. Eric Newby was an 18 year old kid who, with family approval, signed on as an appentice before the mast on the Finnish owned barque Moshulu in the fall of 1938 for a nine month sail from Queensown to Port Victoria in Southern Australia and return. The Moshulu was a steel sailing vessel, built in Sweden in 1905, 3,600 gross tons, 360 feet at the waterline, three masted ship-rigged with her main mast topping out at 198 feet at the cap. She could carry 4,800 tons of wheat - and did, setting the record of 92 days for her return voyage eastward round Cape Horn. (Her outbound voyge had beeen around the Cape of Good Hope)

Newby went on to become a rather prosperous clothier in London but was better known for his travel writing till his death last year (2006) at the age of 86. I had read his "Travels in the Hindu Kush" years ago and put him down as a kind of smart alek and I had also read the paperback of this book published by Penguin in 1971 but had not appreciated it till I got it down from my shelf of sea stories last week and read it again. He's a dmaned fine writer here and I take back what I said about him being a smart alek. His description of life at sea and the sea iself is as good as anything I've ever read; and you will enjoy it. For those who like sailing ships there's a lot of technical detail about rigging, watch-standing etc. and you can skip this and read about a storm at sea if you want but if you wade through the technical stuff you will be amazed at what you learn. I strongly recommend the whole thing to you.

In 1938 Eric Newby was eighteen years old. He left a dead end job with an advertising agency in London and signed as an apprentice seaman on the four-masted sailing ship Moshulu for a trip to bring back a shipload of grain from Australia. Moshulu was one of a dozen sailing ships still engaged in the grain trade and the 1938 trip was destined to be the last of the merchant sailing era.

Newby is undeservedly less well known than other writers who have imitated him. His books, "A Small Place in Italy, "On the Shores of the Mediterranean" and "The Big Red Train Ride" have been imitated by other authors. His writing style is spare and matter-of-fact; he doesn't try to impress the reader with overblown prose instead letting the facts speak for themselves without florid editorial comment.

There's a funny account a trick played by the Belfast stevedores on the sailors of Moshulu. Among the tons of rocks loaded into the hold were two dead dogs. The decomposing dog carcasses fill the ship's hold with an overpowering odor that plagues the men as they dump out the ballast and load the grain months later off the shore of Adelaide.

The Last Grain Race goes into great detail describing the operation of a sailing ship, complete with obscure jargon names for the sails and rigging. Newby seems to have been working too hard on the trip to completely enjoy and appreciate it. The books gives a glimpse at a lost world of merchant sailing ships and the quiet life of sailors at sea, now exchanged for sparsely manned giant container ships crossing vast oceans in a matter of days.

Moshulu returns to Queenstown, Ireland on June 10, 1939 after a pace-setting 91-day passage by war of Cape Horn. It had taken 8 months for a round-trip in which Moshulu brought 4,875 tons of grain from Australia to Ireland. Newby leaves the ship a full-fledged Ordinary Seaman. World War II will start in a few months and obliterate the peaceful world of merchant sailing ships.

I was ready to drive from Seattle to San Francisco when I stopped at the library for some road music and a book on tape. This particular day, I found a jewel by one of the greats, Eric Newby's "The Last Grain Race". Eric Newby has done so much, and has been so many places that it boggles the mind. This book chronicles the beginning of his life as a true adventurer, when on the eve of WWII, he shipped out as a complete novice seaman on one of the largest sailing vessels ever built, bound for Australia and back.
Though I've been reading his books for 20 years, for some reason I'd never run across "The Last Grain Race", and for well over 1000 miles I listened to the reading of this book, and when I got to Portland on my return leg, my first stop was at Powell Books to grab a hard copy of the book.
This is one of the finest books I've ever read. I was going to say "seafaring books", but that is too restrictive.
Eric Newby's commentary and sense of humor are first-rate, like always. While listening, and while reading, I was transported by this book. The conditions seem indescribable, but Newby succeeds in describing them, and paints cold, wet portraits of the days and nights in the rigging and the foc'sle of the barque "Moshulu". I subsequently found a book of the photographs of this voyage, Newby's "Learning The Ropes", which gives us faces to the cast of "Great Grain Race".
Old friends of my youth came to visit while I was engrossed in this book, Sterling Hayden's "Voyage", the film "Windjammer", and the loss of the sailing ship "Pamir" in the late 1950's. The "Moshulu" survives today, as a restaurant ship in Philadelphia, but she was interned on Lake Union in my hometown of Seattle during WWI, and her consort, the "Monongahela" was the last tall ship to pass under the George Washington (Aurora) Bridge before it was closed to tall-masted ships.
An interesting sidelight: While recently rewatching "Godfather II", I noticed that in the scene where young Vito Andolini (Corleone) arrives in New York, the ship he's on is the "Moshulu".
Eric Newby is one of a kind. Now that he is gone we'll never see his like again.

Unfortunately the unappealingly named "The Last Great Grain Race" might be left on the bookshelf if it were not for its companion volume of photographs more appropriately titled "Learning The Ropes; An Apprentice on the Last of the Windjammers," both by Eric Newby. Oddly these volumes were issued over forty years apart, Grain Race in 1956 and Ropes in 1999. (A recent volume of Grain Race was reissued in 1999, possibly to take advantage of the pictorial release.)

After a brief stint as an office clerk, Newby at eighteen signed on as an apprentice seaman for an around the world cargo voyage, with no nautical experience or skills other than a careful eye and superb memory for detail. "The Last Great Grain Race" is the story of one of the last four-masted barques, which in 1938 sailed from Ireland to Australia to pick up a cargo of grain and return to Ireland, a voyage which would take nine months. Ultimately it was to become the last voyage in such a vessel, as the impending war would change the world forever. We are fortunate that Newby was along to document the voyage. We are equally appreciative of his thoughtfulness in bringing his camera, as "Learning the Ropes" is the superb photo essay of this journey.

Newby apparently was a very skilled photographer. Oddly, he only briefly mentions his possession of a camera in "The Last Great Grain Race." He never lets on that his is so actively chronicling events and shipmates throughout the voyage. Though Newby does an excellent job describing what is like to climb aloft in all kinds of weather, the black and white photographs take the reader aloft as well and provide the narrative even with more impact and grace.

The crew is as varied and colorful as one might expect the conditions are harsh and oftentimes dangerous; the work is unrelenting, demanding and dangerous in its own right. Newby works alongside seasoned veterans and never shirks.

Grain Race however does have its limitations. There is a tremendous amount of technical detail that can often leave the reader literally at sea. For example "There were still the sheets of the topmast staysails to be shifted over the stays and sheeted home, the main and mizzen courses to be reset, and the yards trimmed to the Mate's satisfaction with the brace whips." Newby does provide a graphic of the sail plan and running rigging (79 reference points), but these are only of marginal assistance.

Another shortcoming is the language barrier Newby faces. This is a Finnish crew and commands are rarely given in English. Newby and the reader often have to work out the language; if the reader misses the first context or explanation then subsequent uses of the terminology will be lost, a glossary might have helped here. Newby does faithfully record dialects especially when he is being spoken to in occasionally recognizable English and these dialogues are often amusingly recounted.

Eric Newby should seriously consider issuing both in a single volume and one has to wonder why this wasn't done when Grain Race was first issued or at least when "Learning the Ropes" was released a couple of years ago. It is interesting to speculate on the length of time between the original release of Grain Race and the very vivid and informative photographs. Regardless it was worth the wait.

Grain Race the narrative and Grain Race the photographs make for an enjoyable double read.

The Lead Goat Veered Off is one of the most entertaining cycle touring narratives that I have read and there are plenty of them on my shelf. Neil Anderson has a wonderful knack for putting you right there next to him on the adventures that he and his wife share. From the hilarious to the absurd (being stuck in their tent for three days in a snowstorm with only oranges to eat comes to mind) to the sometimes arduous nature of touring (mountains that don't seem to have a summit) to the human stories that are both funny and touching. Something that this book communicates very well is that one of the best ways to see a country is by bicycle. Due to the slower pace and reliance on local products and services, interaction with the people and culture of the area are particularly rich. As is noted in many cycle touring books, there are people all over the world that are happy - if not insistent - to take you in, feed you, entertain you and live in your memories forever. This book is broken down into short chapters dealing with specific events or subjects, making it very easy to read snippets here and there during a busy life. Perhaps one of the most valuable things about this book is that it spurs you to think about your own life - is busy really what you want?

I cant wait for the next Biking Adventure...I've read both books by Neil Anderson..Wonderful writer, Excellent at conveying the adventure to words.
Neil and Sharon are so much fun to travel with. I love the interaction they have with others and each other and the area, real life!! Its so much fun to read. Neil is so honest in his writing.
Its not drawn out but its kept at a great pace life/biking adventure and just all around what a true travel adventure would be like. The GoOD tHe BAd ANd the UglY..:)
I hope another book is in the making. NEEd MOre!!

I read both of Neil's books and they are both ones I will never give up. I am an avid reader of cycling adventure books and Neil's sense of humor is second to none. Sharon and Neil share personal struggles and combine it with a simple way of seeing the world with a sense of awe and excitement. The book is broken into short stories and it is easy to read. You will only be disappointed after you have finished both books and now you have to wait for the third. Highly recommended.

I just finished "The Lead Goat Veered Off" second of 2 great reading
books by Canadians Neil Anderson (and his wife Sharon). This is an
entertaining read of their exploits as they travel though Corsica and
Sardinia on their 2+ year world cycling trip. If you didn't read the
first book "Partners in Grime" that's o.k. but it helps. They are both GREAT books. Really enjoyed them both.

I highly recommend this book - a good read by a pretty good author, and a fun story. I've thought of cycling just about everywhere in the world, but I never thought of Sardinia. If you read it, bear in mind that by the time these two got to Sardinia, they had to be fairly hardened cyclists, able to climb hills that might deter the rest of us. But again, good story, fun read, highly recommended.