Btw, I forgot to add one... I also picked up one by Kaminer. Not Russendisko, one that had garden gnomes on the cover. I'll look it up when I get home. I've not read anything by him before. Have you?
Isn't that always the case. My last few going away holidays were always with the extended in-law family and that many people is simply not a holiday for me. My idea of a holiday is to spend time alone by myself... with a bunch of books (of course), not bring along a whole bunch of people that need to be entertained.
Well, my exhaustion stems from walking A LOT around Berlin and trying to visit as many sights as possible in 3 days, then getting up at 3:30am to fly back home.
We had a lot of fun but it was physically very taxing.
Ouch. Berlin -- even individual parts of it -- on foot is nothing for the podiatrically challenged; even less so if you're pressed for time. Speaking from 10 years' worth of experience of having lived there ... (as an adult, that is -- not counting the time of being carted around by my mom as a baby, some 20+ years earlier).
What in the reviews put you off? It won't be long before I start this one because I've been meaning to read it for ages (and it seems right up my street) but I'm intrigued what concerns you came across.
It was a few years ago, but I think I was looking for something specific in terms of a more-or-less unbiased history of the middle-east/near-east and several reviews suggested this wasn't really the case with this book.
Ah, ... that's not good. I was hoping for history of the region between the Black Sea and the other end of Asia that actually focuses on the people and concerns of those regions, not on European interests in the region. However, I guess, that this may not be that book, either.
In any case, I do look forward to reading it. I mean, it has to be better than Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game in terms of bias.
As for an actual account of travels across China and information about the Silk Road's eastern parts, I'd probably still look to Maillart's Forbidden Journey and Peter Fleming's New from Tartary as the best books I have read about that region (even tho both of these travelogues from the 1930s rather than histories of the region).
Have either of you read Colin Thubron's "The Lost Heart Of Asia" and / or Nicholas Bouvier's "The Way of the World"? Both travelogues, too; Thubron's of a trip to the various former Soviet republics collectively sometimes known as "the Stans" (Usbekistan, etc. -- going all the way to the Chinese border) shortly after the breakup of the old Soviet Union, and Bouvier's of a road trip he took with a photographer / artist friend in the 1950s, from Serbia via Turkey and Iran to Afghanistan. Both very interesting; Bouvier's in particular, I thought (OK, so I also liked his writing better ... :) ).
I have not read Thubron, but I have read Bouvier. the Bouvier trip was (in my mind) a very similar trip to that of Maillart's (with Schwarzenbach in The Cruel Way and by Maillart alone in some of her other books like Turkestan Solo). I preferred Maillart's account (even tho Bouvier was the better writer).
Thank you. It does sound good, doesn't it? It seems to be book one of a series, tho, so that's not what I expected when I snapped up a copy on the way back home. We'll see. :)
Yeah it does. I looked into the series a little more after I posted and I saw it's a pretty new series-Just started last year & there's only 2 books so far. I didn't realize that. I went ahead and got both books. : ) lol
Btw, I forgot to add one... I also picked up one by Kaminer. Not Russendisko, one that had garden gnomes on the cover. I'll look it up when I get home. I've not read anything by him before. Have you?
Now I need a holiday from the holiday. I'm knackered.
We had a lot of fun but it was physically very taxing.
In any case, I do look forward to reading it. I mean, it has to be better than Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game in terms of bias.
As for an actual account of travels across China and information about the Silk Road's eastern parts, I'd probably still look to Maillart's Forbidden Journey and Peter Fleming's New from Tartary as the best books I have read about that region (even tho both of these travelogues from the 1930s rather than histories of the region).
We had fun and I got to spend quality time with my mum. All good.