Author(s): Eric Newby

Travel Literature

From an open boat ride on the Ganges to the Indian Ocean (pushing in the water most of the way) to long-distance cycling through Europe to exploring the Forbidden City in China, the tales of Eric Newby's travels are always entertaining in his recollections of highlights from an eventful life. He transplants the reader to all manners of eclectic terrain: from early childhood adventures among the shops, streets, and eccentrics inhabiting the darkest London suburb of his upbringing to an elephant fair in India; from the faded glamour of days and nights on the Orient Express to a roughneck settlement of opal miners in Australia, where men carrying large amounts of cash travel armed, but still have been known to disappear. Whether he is putting heart and soul into building the perfect grotto in his Devon garden with his wife and the stonemason, rambling around a semiaban-doned and despoiled Calabria, or wrestling with the logistics of baby-rearing, both existing admirers and new readers will enjoy the exuberance and humor that Departures & Arrivals has to offer.