Todd Tyrtle
Decent book with some good points. BUT oh man, the repetition. Concepts were beaten to death even going so far as to literally say at the end “We presented the same list in the introduction...” and then proceeding to copy and paste the content from the beginning all over again. I know repetition helps learning but maybe it also helps bulk up a book when you need to get it to print and you haven't quite got enough content also?
Still, it was an inspiring read despite this obvious flaw.
Merged review:
Decent book with some good points. BUT oh man, the repetition. Concepts were beaten to death even going so far as to literally say at the end “We presented the same list in the introduction...” and then proceeding to copy and paste the content from the beginning all over again. I know repetition helps learning but maybe it also helps bulk up a book when you need to get it to print and you haven't quite got enough content also?
Still, it was an inspiring read despite this obvious flaw.
Decent book with some good points. BUT oh man, the repetition. Concepts were beaten to death even going so far as to literally say at the end “We presented the same list in the introduction...” and then proceeding to copy and paste the content from the beginning all over again. I know repetition helps learning but maybe it also helps bulk up a book when you need to get it to print and you haven't quite got enough content also?
Still, it was an inspiring read despite this obvious flaw.
This is the third time I've tried to read this. I'm embarrassed to admit that I stopped the first couple of times in part out of jealousy. I am also studying Hindi but I wasn't making such good progress. To be fair it had a lot to do with how little I was studying. This time, though, I have been paying better attention and feeling better about my own skills and so what I found was that reading the book didn't make me feel simultaneously jealous and down on myself for not trying very hard. Instead I really enjoyed it. It felt very familiar and reminded me of my own trips to Rajasthan and all of the help I've been getting from native Hindi speakers. Hearing about her own struggles and triumphs as someone learning language later in life felt very familiar. I know exactly what she was feeling when she would describe problems she had or things she was proud of. Her talk about language learning and motivation was also really fascinating. I liked how we went back and forth between her experiences and some of the more technical details.
Like any good travel memoir it makes me feel like I do at the end of a trip to a beloved place - sad to see it come to an end.
Really fun read. I have memories of hanging out with friends for a season, summer, or grade in school and everything is amazing. You all have so much fun together doing ridiculous things and living like siblings. Reading this felt like being a fly on the wall for a lifetime spent like this among three friends. Yes, they were famous and that informed some of the stories - but the interesting part wasn't that they were famous - it was capturing that friend-meets-family dynamic.
One of those books you're sad is over because now you can't experience it again.
Really fun read. I have memories of hanging out with friends for a season, summer, or grade in school and everything is amazing. You all have so much fun together doing ridiculous things and living like siblings. Reading this felt like being a fly on the wall for a lifetime spent like this among three friends. Yes, they were famous and that informed some of the stories - but the interesting part wasn't that they were famous - it was capturing that friend-meets-family dynamic.
One of those books you're sad is over because now you can't experience it again.
I really wanted to like this because it's such a great idea but I feel like something was missing. Maybe it was the lack of any sort of stakes for the author. To me it read like an expanded to-do list, ticking off people to thank.
But I love the idea and I'm glad it's done - I just feel like something got lost in the translation because I just couldn't get invested in it. I suspect he had some trouble at times as well - especially toward the end where he didn't even know how many people he had thanked. 957? 1015? Oh I don't know, I'll call it 1000. Good enough. That feels like a metaphor for what I saw as the biggest shortcoming of the book.
I really wanted to like this because it's such a great idea but I feel like something was missing. Maybe it was the lack of any sort of stakes for the author. To me it read like an expanded to-do list, ticking off people to thank.
But I love the idea and I'm glad it's done - I just feel like something got lost in the translation because I just couldn't get invested in it. I suspect he had some trouble at times as well - especially toward the end where he didn't even know how many people he had thanked. 957? 1015? Oh I don't know, I'll call it 1000. Good enough. That feels like a metaphor for what I saw as the biggest shortcoming of the book.
This was a tricky read for me. Sometimes it was so negative I couldn't stand it. Other times he made Kolkata sound amazing and fascinating. As someone who has never been there and knows far too little history and culture of the area, I can't begin to comment in a decent review - so think of this less about the book and more about me. There were times I thought I would give up on it and other times I really enjoyed it.
It made me also question “what is travel writing for?” Should it always be positive? Should it always be from the perspective of one in the know? Should it be all-knowing and say “This is what Kolkata is” or acknowledge they're seeing a tiny fraction of what is there - but that fraction could be one of many contradictory realities of the place. I don't think any of us could hope to present a perfect picture of any place no matter how much we know so then how do we present our own perspective?
What I did take away from this, though, is how little history I do know. A tiny fraction of partition, NOTHING about the famine of 1943, nothing of the Naxalites there in the 70's. So I guess I'm glad I read it even I didn't always enjoy it. It opened my eyes to a whole bunch of things I didn't know about before and that will likely result in my going down a whole bunch of other interesting rabbit holes.
I bought this without thinking on my last trip to Mumbai. I wanted something to bring the memory of the city and its people back to me when I went back home and this book really did it. It is a beautiful read with lots of heart. The author is very good at not just bringing you in to someone's life quickly, but to make you care deeply for them. I'm sorry to have finished it because now I can never enjoy reading it for the first time again.
Good but not as good as I'd hoped. I was left feeling like I'd eaten an otherwise well-seasoned dish that lacked salt. There were interesting ideas and experiences but nothing to really get me as hooked as I should be. I think in great part it was the lack of a sympathetic character. The main character had few details about her, and even lacked a name. It was a fascinating world and I'm curious about what happens next, but I'm not as blown away as I was by books from similarly mindbending worlds (like “More than This” by Patrick Ness, for example)
I'll give the Kindle sample for the next book a chance. Maybe he wrote a likeable and interesting character in to the next book.
The usual delightful richness from Rushdie. His books always make me think of the little threads that connect us to one another - reminding me of the size of the world.
It was both a terrifying and hopeful book to read in the age of Trump - though it was obviously written before this year it resonates well.
Except in this case we have 1,404 days to go. Three years, 10 months and three days by my reckoning. Watch for flying urns until then...
Very entertaining. I started reading it some time before my first trip to India then had to take it back to the library. Finished it after returning and really enjoyed the “visit back”. Now I want to go back again. The method of exploring a city - in spiral format, is a really interesting idea and makes me wonder how it would be to do that in my own city on foot, or in a bigger project, by bike.
Pretty disappointing. I feel like it was a series of complaints about the weather, the scariness of border towns, and suspicions about sketchy people who looked like they might want to rob them. (But never actually did anything). Humourless with little of the sense of either overcoming challenge and obstacles or change in the author's point of view or life (aside from the obvious change in lifestyle.) So, with the lack of that and any tension, pressure, or dynamic, it left me cold.
I have a soft spot for books like this and this one didn't disappoint. It also sent me down the rabbit hole of the insanity that is RAAM.
I have to admit, as little as I liked carrying camping gear and loads of heavy equipment on my bike in the past, the more I read stories about riding through this part of the world, the more the Route 66 bicycle route map set calls out to me. Someday - when the Canadian dollar is worth a bit more again...
I have a soft spot for books like this and this one didn't disappoint. It also sent me down the rabbit hole of the insanity that is RAAM.
I have to admit, as little as I liked carrying camping gear and loads of heavy equipment on my bike in the past, the more I read stories about riding through this part of the world, the more the Route 66 bicycle route map set calls out to me. Someday - when the Canadian dollar is worth a bit more again...
Enjoyable, though less so than, say, Riding the Iron Rooster.
I must say, though, after reading a few of his books, Theroux seems obsessed with prostitutes. I may know a little more about the countries he passes through, but I am guaranteed to know what the prostitutes were like. Though he says he doesn't partake. That said, I wonder if he doth protest too much...
Pretty disappointing, all in all. I didn't really connect with any of the characters and wasn't particularly interested in the plot either. So without emotional investment or quite frankly any emotional stakes at all, it just read like it was created by a computer program designed to drop the appropriate tech company names and archetypes in the right places.
I really WANTED to like the book, it just didn't deliver what I had hoped for.