my opinion Pole To Pole is one of the best of Michael Palin's adventures,
One of the big, Next to Around The World In Eighty Days and Full Circle, Each of these books contain a epic journey an expedition in to the unknown, Each of these written and experienced when the world felt a lot bigger and travel took days and weeks rather than hours,
He and his crew took to local public transport to complete most of these trips, which has resulted in some very funny, frustrating and quirky happenings.
He has written many other travel books and each are good, But the first three when there were no Internet, Satnav and devices with apps really felt like a trip into the unknown,
If you enjoy travel writing, books on expeditions like Ranulph Fiennes, These are really worth a read! Really enjoyed this one, A lot more detail than Around the World inDays, You know what you're getting with the Palin books, It is hardly extreme adventure stuff but great for observational and historical content, Delightful as always as we can expect from Mr Palin but the real worth of this book is not only the splendidly incongruous journey but as a record of a world on the cusp of farreaching changes their transit through the USSR came only a few days before the abortive August coup against Gorbachov.
My biggest issue with Palin's around the world indays was how rushed it was, it didn't make for enjoyable reading, In Pole to Pole the journey is epic but due to a longer timeline you can tell Palin has enjoyed himself more, . . even though he cracks a rib, gets a fever, shoves crushed bark up his nose and suffers from the shits for the bulk of the journey, The book still feels more like a journal than a travel book which is a shame, as some things are only briefly mentioned and Palin's sense of humour only makes an appearance now and then.
I'd give this a higher rating if there was more detail about some of the places, I did find it interesting that this journey took place as USSR was falling apart, Palin wasdays out of Ukraine when they got independence,
Interesting journey, worth reading just to see that Michael Palin does not shy away from any challenge,
Read as part of the armchair challenge,
As one might expect, the style of this book closely follows that of the preceding Around the World InDays in layout, format and writing style.
Palin writes very well, although he does point out plenty of extremely tiny details that perhaps times of extreme boredom during long train journeys made seem more appealing to him than they did to this reader almostyrs later.
That said, the BBC route organisers have clearly made some efforts to liven up what could've been a somewhat samey trudge down thedeg meridian, with trips to a gold mine, safari, white water rafting and journeying on the Blue Train like a South African Orient Express.
Aboutof this route takes in Africa, from the coast of Egypt down to Cape Town, so the maps are appreciated, although I wish they had been located inside the inner covers for convenience.
For all this, somewhere around the Sudan, Eritrea, Tanzanian and Zambian parts,pages in, where the author and his entourage became ill, my interest in this trip began to wane as I suspect theirs did too.
On the whole, this was interesting and informative, occasionally funny, educational and mostly worthy, just not quite as enjoyable as its prequel,./As road trips go, a four and a half months long journey from North to South Pole throughcountries including the Soviet Union, which was to break up shortly after Palin returned home from thistravelling adventure is surely a rather unique kind of experience.
A wealth of impressions, various extremes, a good dose of humour and interesting facts made this a thoroughly entertaining read, Though a spellcheck for foreign terms and locations might have been beneficial, . . Uusikau Punki, indeed. Fun book to listen to and always a bonus when the author reads it themselves, What an adventure! What a great book! Considering almostyears have passed since Michael Palin has undertaken this journey, it is still a very interesting and refreshing book to read.
The world seemed to be a very eventful place in, The disintegration of the Soviet Union, the beginning of the end for Apartheid, the end of a dictatorship in Ethiopia, Palin has seen it all and related all to us.
Interspersed with funny appointments, even his ailments have an entertaining description, I recommend it to all people that enjoy a very good travel book, that shows us a specific moment in time, I wonder how much different some of the places would be if visited now, Really enjoyed listening to this as an audio book, Micheal Palin is an excellent story teller, This is really my first time experiencing Micheal Palin's travelbased stories, and I'm delighted to have found something so unique and humourous, I don't have much to say about this in terms of a review, but if you are at all interested in travel and Micheal Palin as a person I only knew him previously from Monty Python, then I recommend this book.
It's an easy listen and will perhaps give you an insight into the world before your time, This television series which I will now watch with great interest, was filmed ina year before I was born, Micheal Palin travels through the Soviet union mere days before it collapses, and through South Africa during the end of Apartheid, These are things that I have never experienced, so it's interesting to see the world in a different perspective, I can certainly imagine that if Micheal Palin repeated this exact route today, his experiences would be markedly different, That's the wonder of the world we live in, I remember watching this series on TV, Always loved Monty Python and was delighted that Michael Palin has all these travel shows, Listening to it on audiobook now is a delight, Narrated by the author himself, it feels like an uncle telling you stories of his many exotic travels, Of course, at this point, it's also a historical track since I'm sure many things have changed from, When he was travelling, the Soviet Union is still hanging on to its last breaths, It would be interesting for the youngsters of today to hear how things were in the "old days", One also wonders if traveling the same route nowadays would be easier than before, I enjoyed this, but it was all terribly rushed, Didn't really get the feel of a place before being rushed off to the next,
Also, it was quite heartbreaking to read a book that commented on the then brand new independence of the Ukraine on the very day the Russian tanks were rolling in to try to take it back.
: Rereading in a gorgeous new Folio Society edition, Fascinating to readyears on, the journey taking place in, the year that saw the end of the Soviet Union and apartheid and so much more, Palin is a perfect guide, both comic and thoughtful, Off to watch the TV series again, No, this book is not about a stripclub
dancer forced to work alone a whole evening without a break, It is, literally, an account by the wellknown Monty Python alum Michael Palin not to be confused with his longlost cousin in Alaska of his travels from North Pole to South Pole, down through Europe and Africa.
He is a travelling man, A companion book to the PBS series, I really enjoy his shows and have enjoyed the books as well, His humor is understated here, and it is pleasant, This is not the hard hitting indepth reportage of some travel writing, but lighter, comealongwithme invitation to get a quick glimpse of some of the world, and occasionally an unusual location.
I highly recommend the dvds, .