Grains of Sand [Hardcover]

This book is readable and entertaining, but should be approached as a well-written travel diary rather than anything more. Buckley gets reasonably off the beaten track and his account is lucid and the pace keeps moving nicely. However, in an age when off-beat travel is widely practised, the book lacks something unique to take it from the 'enjoyable' category to the 'special' category. His openness in meeting locals and engaging with them on a personal level is probably the best feature of the book.

Roughly half the book is devoted to his African journeys, which the rest of this review focuses on. For a former BBC journalist, political insight into the troubled regions he visits is surprisingly absent - and would have made so much more of the issues he identifies in talking to his fellow (local) travellers. By contrast he does frequently introduce his own political/social opinions - quite right too, that's why he's written a book. However, whilst being critical of many things and often with justification, there is a frustrating naivety to his thinking. In Africa it is easy to point out the problems. Understanding the causes is harder, and politically-correct, champagne socialist opinions like his don't necessarily underpin clear thinking. Hardest of all is to begin to grasp at potential solutions - and that Buckely fails to attempt. Yes, few white farmers in Namibia control much of the productive land. Yes, the Tuareg's traditional existence in Niger is under threat. Yes the Himba there will face potential destruction if the consumerist West gets too close, as it is. Whilst tragic, sadly these issues are historical and economic facts. But how can they be dealt with now to create better outcomes than a laisser faire approach will? You won't get much from Buckley in that respect. To get an understanding of such African issues at the level of its real citizens, readers should turn to Dispatches from a Fragile Continent by Blaine Harden or In the Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski - both superb, well written and with greater depth of thinking than Buckley ever achieves. Sven Lindqvest in 'Exterminate the Brutes' also travels in the Sahara, but the journey is incidental (though fascinating) relative to his gripping and shocking thesis of human cruelty and the horrors of Western colonialisation.

Buckley's rare passages introducing a historical context to the people and lands he is passing through are good, but too few and far between. Occasionally he mentions previous travellers to the places he visits - Mungo Park in Niger for example - but again fleetingly and infrequently. How can anyone for example write an account of a journey to the Tibesti mountains without referring to the experiences and majestic writings of Wilfred Thesiger, who was there in 1939 by camel, before mechanized transport reached that desolate spot (The Life if My Choice, Wilfred Thesiger)? Equally sparse is material about the geographical, geological and zoological/botanical uniqueness of the deserts he visits. Thesiger's other books about the deserts - Arabian Sands for example - should also feature above Buckley in the 'desert writings' pantheon, alongside Saint-Exupery's 'Wind, Sand and Stars' (which at least gets a cursory mention by Buckley). But if you've got all of those on your book shelf, then Grains of Sand is a decent enough read to while away some time....

I loved this book and found the style as good as any bestselling fiction writing. It really gripped me so that I didn't want to put it down. I could picture the desert, the heat and the life (human or otherwise)and could not wait to read what happenned next.

This book tells the story of a young man's incredible circumnavigation by way of the world's deserts.

Starting in Africa, the author spends two years journeying through the driest spots on the planet. The author discusses the influences that the desert exerts on us, how 'empty' places seem to hold such fascination.

In the course of his journey the author meets the peoples of the deserts and immerses himself in their lives. This is an extraordinary adventure and the book is highly enjoyable.