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An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Genius or mental case? Prepare to be amazed. --Esquire
Move over, Michael Palin.
--Empire
Enjoy rib-tickling scribblings, previously unseen photos and hilarious extracts. --Shortlist
Not many idiots could make something this funny. --Guardian
The funniest man on the planet.
--Spectator
Move over, Michael Palin.
--Empire
Enjoy rib-tickling scribblings, previously unseen photos and hilarious extracts. --Shortlist
Not many idiots could make something this funny. --Guardian
The funniest man on the planet.
--Spectator
Product Description
Karl Pilkington isn't keen on travelling. Given the choice, he'll go on holiday to Devon or Wales or, at a push, eat English food on a package holiday in Majorca. Which isn't exactly Michael Palin, is it? So what happened when he was convinced by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant to go on an epic adventure to see the Seven Wonders of the World? Travel broadens the mind, right? You'd think so...Find out in Karl Pilkington's hilarious travel diaries.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What you would expect,
This review is from: An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington (Kindle Edition)
If you have listened to the Ricky Gervais podcasts or the XFM shows, or seen the animated TV series, or read Karlogy or any of his previous books, then you know exactly what you are going to get here. Karl hasn't changed, and it is doubtful he ever will. If you haven't experienced Karl before, then I suggest listening to one of the podcasts before reading this book. Karl's monotone, put-upon, Mancunian accent is a quintessential part of his character, and I can't imagine going through this book without mentally assigning that voice to his words. It will also be useful in understanding the dynamic between Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl. Essentially, Gervais and Merchant are performing experiments on poor ol' Karl to learn how his brain works, although sometimes they just mess with him for fun.'An Idiot Abroad' is the most ambitious of these experiments they have put together. Karl gets to travel and see the seven wonders of the modern world, and the results are documented in a TV series and this book, which is Karl's travel journal combined with numerous photos of the places he has been. He spends time with generous people in some of the poorest regions of the world, and gets to see the Wonders in ways inaccessible to a lot of people (he gets to go inside the burial chamber of one pyramid, and has a helicopter ride around the Christ the Redeemer statue). Karl hasn't written a huge amount about his experiences, but what there is is beautiful in a way only he could achieve. The appeal of Karl is not merely that he says stupid things, or that his concerns are petty - anyone could do that - it is that there is some semblance of logic in his thinking, and, personally at least, it mirrors a part of myself. The part of me that is more concerned with immediate comforts than new experiences, and is underwhelmed by things that I have been told I should find spectacular. Karl takes these feelings and runs with them to their absurd conclusions, so that a book about the wonders of the world spends much of the time detailing toilet concerns. That is not to say that Karl doesn't have quirks that are entirely his own. The little 'facts' and anecdotes he gathers from sources unknown are sometimes ludicrous (although the ones that end each chapter in the book appear accurate), and his desire to 'get rid of' pretty much everything are just more fascinating glimpses into his mind. Sometimes he will do or say something that has the appearance, briefly, of genius - the toilet chair springs to mind. As much as I love this book (and I should add the Kindle version that I downloaded is amongst the best formatted ebooks I have found), it is the podcasts that I will forever hold dear. There is something about his voice that adds so much more to his character, and the written word will never really capture that.
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ignorance is Bliss,
This review is from: An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington (Hardcover)
I bought this book roughly a week or so after the TV series finished and whilst watching the show I came to realize what Stephen Merchant said about dear Karl is true, "He's just a simple, ignorant, English bloke"... or something like that. And Karl is ignorant, completely unaware of how stupid or racist what he says is, and its simply one of the funniest things to read. Reading the "Travel Diaries" I couldn't help but find every word funny, everything he believes to be true is just laugh out loud funny and to view the world from his perspective is simply a treat. If you loved the series and every stupid little thing Karl has said, then you'll love the book, which is a much better, in depth look into the strange, hilarious mind of Karl Pilkington.
43 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Funny,
By Nicole Wandolowski (Michigan) - See all my reviews
This review is from: An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington (Hardcover)
Karl Pilkington is both an idiot and a genius - again. He's able to make the most banal instances interesting, and at the same time ignore the big events. For instance, he devotes the same amount of pages to questioning the sexuality of his Brazilian tour guide and complaining about what's for tea as he does to Christ the Redeemer.This book is a genuinely fun travel guide and personal diary. There are colorful hand-drawn maps, transcribed phone conversations with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and gorgeous pictures of the Seven Wonders and, better yet, the local geography, architecture, and people of each place Karl visits. The thing that excited me the most was the fact that there's so much new, fresh material in this book. I suppose it would be hard to travel the world and NOT find something new to say. If you're worried that this is just another compilation of Karl's greatest hits, don't be - by my count, Auntie Nora only comes up once and I don't recall him even mentioning the paper round he had when he was a boy.
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