David Bramwell (2)

This one should have been a 5 star, but I knocked 1/2 star off for some shocking editing blunders and another 1/2 star for occasionally crossing the line from humorous commentary into editorialising. And really cheap, newsprint type paper stock.

Otherwise it is an excellent read; most of the people profiled were unknown to me, so there was a lot of new information. Those I'd heard of before were shown here from a different perspective, giving me a more rounded view of them.

The book is divided by types: Tricksters and Subversives, Creative Mavericks, Wild at Heart, etc. with 8-10 people profiled under each. The emphasis is on profile; these are not comprehensive by any stretch, but each chapter ends with suggestions for further exploration of each person via books, excursions, movies, etc.. I can't think of any of them that I didn't find fascinating in their own way and quite a few of them got the "read out loud" treatment.

If you like off-the-beaten-path knowledge and see this one out in the wild, check it out - it's worth a read.… (altro)

If you have been following me for a while, then you’ll know I read a lot of travel books. These are the conventional sort, a person heads off to another location in the world with the intention of discovering something from an unexplored corner or to experience another culture. They often discover as much about themselves in the process though. But there are little journeys that barely make it from the lesser pages of the newspapers or stories from the lower depths of the internet that rarely get heard about.

Jo Tinsley and David Bramwell have found these tiny personal odysseys and brought them together in this collection. You can read about the man who claim to have sailed around the world, whilst only going as far as the Atlantic, those that set off with the intention of finding the centre of the earth, POW’s who were helped in their escape by an unexpected source and complete cadavers and body parts that have kept moving long after you’d expect them to stop.

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

We do live in a strange world, and this great little collection goes some way to proving that the truth is often much stranger than fiction. Some of these tales are quite amusing and others are little tragedies but they are all fascinating in their own right. It fits in really well with The Mysterium and I am looking forward to the third book, The Odditorium, very soon.… (altro)