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- Aged 25 plus
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- Round the world travel
- April: 'Dark Star Safari'
- March: 'Passport to Safer Travel'
- February: 'Misadventures in a White Desert'
- January: 'Trail of Visions - Route 2'
- December: 'The Faber Book of Exploration'
- November: 'The Rough Guide to Travel Health'
- October: 'The End of Elsewhere' by Taras Grescoe
- May: The Trail to Titicaca by Rupert Attlee
BOOK REVIEW
"The writing is excellent and is simultaneously infused with both humour and sadness."
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Travel fiction
| Title: The International Gooseberry |
| Author: Ben Hatch |
| Publisher: Orion Mass Market Paperbacks |
| ISBN: 0752843850 |
 Description: Kit Farley, at the centre of Ben Hatch's The International Gooseberry, has turned drifting into an Olympic sport. After an unsatisfying career as TV reviewer for the Bucks Chronicle, he walks away from the mouldy remains of his friendships and his love affairs and hits the road. Playing the reluctant gooseberry to Carlos - a best mate becoming less matey by the minute - and Carlos's emotionally unstable girlfriend Dominique, Kit embarks upon a backpacking odyssey whose only limits are dwindling funds and the need to get back in time for his Dad's wedding. Stranded in a hinterland of flop-houses populated by drawling surf-bums, pursued by e-mails from his worried family, Kit finally realises that the only thing he's running away from is himself. One of the great things about travel is that you can never truly predict where you're going to end up. The same could be said of this outstanding work by Ben Hatch. It has all the trappings of a laddish coming-of-age yarn--replete with its pointless jobs, nightmare flat-shares, difficult girlfriends and uneasy nihilism. But what upgrades this novel into the First Class lounge is its sharply truthful treatment of relationships. The close bond between Kit and his brother Danny, ruptured by an event of heart-rending sadness, is the true driving force of the novel--a rich seam of emotional honesty underpinning its most comic moments. This is men's writing at its finest--an On the Road minus the drugs and with an admirable degree of heart. -- Matthew Baylis |
List Price: gapyearbooks / Amazon Price: £5.59 You Save: £1.40 (20%) |
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| Title: The Alchemist |
| Author: Paulo Coelho |
| Publisher: HarperCollins |
| ISBN: 0722532938 |
 Description: Like the one-time bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Alchemist presents a simple fable, based on simple truths and places it in a highly unique situation. And though we may sense a bestselling formula, it is certainly not a new one: even the ancient tribal storytellers knew that this is the most successful method of entertaining an audience while slipping in a lesson or two. Brazilian storyteller Paulo Coehlo introduces Santiago, an Andalucian shepherd boy who one night dreams of a distant treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. And so he's off: leaving Spain to literally follow his dream.Along the way he meets many spiritual messengers, who come in unassuming forms such as a camel driver and a well-read Englishman. In one of the Englishman's books, Santiago first learns about the alchemists - men who believed that if a metal were heated for many years, it would free itself of all its individual properties, and what was left would be the "Soul of the World." Of course he does eventually meet an alchemist, and the ensuing student-teacher relationship clarifies much of the boy's misguided agenda, while also emboldening him to stay true to his dreams. "My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they look up at a moonless night. "Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself," the alchemist replies. "And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity." |
List Price: gapyearbooks / Amazon Price: £3.99 You Save: £4.00 (50%) |
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| Title: The Backpacker |
| Author: John Harris |
| Publisher: Summersdale Publishers |
| ISBN: 1840241616 |
 Description: Once your brain adjusts to the seriously weird typeface used for the printing of this book, prepare to be immersed in John's backpacking experiences... from his dangerous exploits in India and Thailand, to the extremely evocative, poignant and memorable trip about a stolen yacht in the swollen seas off the coast of Australia, to his seriously frustrating time spent Down Under. Prepare to be hooked.There's a bit of to-ing and fro-ing... some 'rewind' and 'fast forward' moments... in fact the book starts off at the end of the story and uses flashback to tell the rest. If you enjoyed the movies The Beach and The Perfect Storm, then this is right up your street! The imagery used during the devastating storm will stay with you for a very long time... Every reader should identify with John... his aspirations and dreams. The enigmatic Rick, his travelling companion during most of his dramas, also leaves a lasting impression. |
List Price: gapyearbooks / Amazon Price: £6.39 You Save: £1.60 (20%) |
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| Title: The Beach |
| Author: Alex Garland |
| Publisher: Penguin Books |
| ISBN: 0140258418 |
 Description: Salty McPepper says: 'One of the classic backpacking novels, The Beach tells the story of Richard, who travels to Thailand in order to get away from his life in England. In a Bangkok hostel he is given a map to a secret beach community, which he duly sets out to find. However, when Richard arrives on the seemingly perfect island, he soon starts to see a different side to the other travellers who live there.On the whole, The Beach is well written and quite easy to digest. The decriptions of the Thai coastline are fantastic and most travellers will identify with Richard at some point or other. The main storyline is also pretty snappy, and the other characters and subplots are also entertaining. However, The Beach is prone to being overly introspective at times, and Richard's obsession with war games can become tiring in places. Overall The Beach is definitely worth a read, and I would definitely recommend it. I give it 4/5.' |
List Price: gapyearbooks / Amazon Price: £3.99 You Save: £3.00 (42%) |
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| Title: Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko |
| Author: Patrick Neate |
| Publisher: Penguin Books |
| ISBN: 0140286551 |
 Description: The close resemblance of Patrick Neate's fictitious state of "Zambawi" to contemporary Zimbabwe, makes Musungu Jim and Great Chief Tuloko a tall but politically perceptive tale in which Neate takes the reader on a humorous tour of the downfall of a corrupt neo-colonial government.Weaving from presidential palace to rural homestead, and from intercontinental hotel to red light district, this is a splendid farce, full of pathos and biting humour, reminiscent of Tom Sharpe. A clear sense of each character's humanity prevails as Neate entwines the destinies of a young English teacher whose naiveté saves him as he finds himself centre-stage in a growing rebellion, a herb-smoking witchdoctor who exercises mystical powers with uncanny skill, presidents down on their luck whose attempts to exercise any power are increasingly futile, the blessed-into-boredom presidential offspring who slowly learn to control their own destiny, and a disenchanted soldier who wishes he had stayed a poet. Storytelling is the framework for this tale, as Neate constructs whole oral histories, and local myths through which the characters come to find themselves. With frequent reference to Latin maxims, and "Zamba" proverbs, ancestral powers are invoked to unfold the rich tapestry of "Zamba" legend. The "Zamba" language and proverbs are cleverly close to, but not quite identifiable as Shona and Swahili, giving the whole farce an extraordinary credibility and life. -- Oliver Phillips |
List Price: gapyearbooks / Amazon Price: £6.39 You Save: £1.60 (20%) |
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Description: Two young Americans, Will and Hand, decide to travel around the world in a week and give away a large sum of money in response to the untimely death of a friend. However, they find it is not only harder than expected to get around the world, but difficult to give away the money too.| Title: Backpack |
| Author: Emily Barr |
| Publisher: Headline |
| ISBN: 074726676X |
 Description: Tansy has to escape from her London life. She's desperate to get away from her media job, her coke habit, her dead mother and her selfish boyfriend. But she finds travelling through Asia more smelly than romantic and, besides, she's missing her boyfriend. However, she is determined not to give in, give up or go home. As she travels further east she begins to enjoy her journey - until murder starts to follow her and the trip becomes much more adventurous than she had anticipated.Cara Grayling says: "it gives a good idea what to expect from travelling, it’s a good read and it’s quite fun, in a weird way, to read about backpacking while backpacking". |
List Price: gapyearbooks / Amazon Price: £6.39 You Save: £1.60 (20%) |
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