| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'It is Murphy's caustic opinions which make this book ...Dervla Murphy is a free-thinking traveller, at once a romantic and a realist, extraordinary for her determination to cross Eurasia at the age of 75 with only her walking sticks and a smattering of Russian ... One hopes that the new generation will inherit her indefatigable spirit and gift for good crack'
'Murphy's great skill is her ability to win the friendship of locals in small town ... she remains a formidably intrepid traveller' (James Owen, Daily Telegraph )
'To say that she is intrepid is an understatement ... she writes with humour and empathy ... A delightfully idiosyncratic piece of writing'
'Outstanding ... richly illuminated by the blend of erudition and sympathy'
'I've always thought the underlying strength of Murphy's writing is her genuine awe of people living in extremis, and her stalwart rejection of Western European and US squanderlust'
(Rory MacLean, Sunday Telegraph )
'Murphy's great skill is her ability to win the friendship of locals in small town ... she remains a formidably intrepid traveller' (James Owen, Daily Telegraph )
'To say that she is intrepid is an understatement ... she writes with humour and empathy ... A delightfully idiosyncratic piece of writing'
(Clover Stroud, Sunday Telegraph )
'Outstanding ... richly illuminated by the blend of erudition and sympathy'
(Celia Brayfield, The Times )
'I've always thought the underlying strength of Murphy's writing is her genuine awe of people living in extremis, and her stalwart rejection of Western European and US squanderlust'
(Louisa Waugh, Herald )
'Dervla Murphy is the traveller many of us want to be: independent, insightful and intrepid with an ability to gain something edifying from almost any situation'
(Ruby Millington, Daily Express )Product Description
Silverland charts Dervla Murphy's extraordinary expedition through the snowscapes of Far Eastern Russia. No stranger to adventure, the intrepid septuagenarian's mid-winter journey takes her beyond Siberia to the furthest corners of Russia - areas proximate to Japan, Mongolia and the Arctic Circle. Here she discovers a strange world of lynx and elks, indigenous tribes and shamanism, reindeer broth and taiga-berry pie.
She takes the coal-fuelled slow-train around regions hardly exposed to tourism and there she meets a host of colourful and generous characters. They invite this unconventional Irish Babushka into their homes where she enjoys fascinating fireside debate bolstered by steaming samovars of sweet tea. Just like its author, Silverland is insightful, warm and truly original.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I am a long time Dervla Murphy fan and couldn't wait to read this, her latest, book. I was glad to see she has lost none of her adventurous spirit (in spite of being well in her 70s) or her love of discomfort, which makes Dervla so endearing. As usual, she mingles with locals and manages to gather a surprising amount of information (considering language barriers). She does get carried away on several ocassions, when raging against her pet hates, capitalism and the World Bank (although she does make it perfectly clear why she hates these and one tends to agree with her).
She suffers a few set backs which many other travellers would find off putting, including being robbed at gun point. It is also rather a sad book, because although it conveys the beauty of Siberia in winter and the friendliness of some (not all!) the Siberians, we also learn about the negative aspects of the 'new' Russia, which certainly do not seem to have brought many benefits to its citizens since the fall of Communism.
All in all this is Dervla Murphy still at her finest.
She suffers a few set backs which many other travellers would find off putting, including being robbed at gun point. It is also rather a sad book, because although it conveys the beauty of Siberia in winter and the friendliness of some (not all!) the Siberians, we also learn about the negative aspects of the 'new' Russia, which certainly do not seem to have brought many benefits to its citizens since the fall of Communism.
All in all this is Dervla Murphy still at her finest.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I came across this book completely by accident (browsing in a bookstore in Switzerland); I'm not generally a fan of travel books but this one caught my attention and I bought it - to my delight! This is the only book I've read by this author but I am definitely planning to get others. It is captivating, informative, a great read. Also, she intersperses her travel accounts with interesting historical and cultural background. The section on TB in Russia, which I happen to know quite a bit about, was impressively accurate. Highly recommended!!!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I must have read 'Full Tilt' some 20 years ago and so I am no stranger to Dervla Murphy's personality and reputation. This (and the graphic on the cover) perhaps explains why I took this to be a book about a cycle adventure. In fact it is hardly that at all as most of the travelling is done by train. However, the travel writing is as vivid and insightful as you would expect from this author.
The book gives a masterclass in travel writing with flowing description jostling with personal encounters, historical backgrounders and political rants throughout the 275 pages. Dervla Murphy is at her best when she seeks to give you a sense of the lived lives of the people she encounters on her journeys. She is as much sociologist and historian as she is traveller. In this regard this book does not disappoint.
However, I have to say I did not finish it. By the end of my reading I ground to a stop: somewhere along the read the slabs of historical background and the rants against aspects of modern living and western policies got to be too much for me. While I share the general political perspective the author advances I lost patience and confidence with her on this occasion. I lost patience with the historical sections because they seemed remote and too poorly connected to the lives of the people she met. I lost confidence as I came to question the simplicity of her analysis of policy and so began to question how clearly she was seeing the people she met with. I worried that she was seeing their world through her own ideologically framed lens. I worried that she seemed to be locked into a past Russia that might have been admirable in many respects, but was now just not sustainable.
I think I had another problem. Travel in Siberia in winter is just too hard for me to imagine ever wanting to do it. Somehow the graphic account of life in perpetual frost crept into me and convinced me that this was a journey I could never imagine myself wanting to make.
I abandoned the book reluctantly, however, if for no other reason than someone who suffered as much as the author her research deserved to be cut some slack. She is a remarkable person and her fortitude would be outstanding at any age - far less as she is well over 70. Silverland also presents a very different and powerfully independent view of what is going on in the former USSR and in our wider world and for that it is to be welcomed and admired.
A serious book by a truly intrepid traveller with a strong spirit and very clear personal view of the world.
The book gives a masterclass in travel writing with flowing description jostling with personal encounters, historical backgrounders and political rants throughout the 275 pages. Dervla Murphy is at her best when she seeks to give you a sense of the lived lives of the people she encounters on her journeys. She is as much sociologist and historian as she is traveller. In this regard this book does not disappoint.
However, I have to say I did not finish it. By the end of my reading I ground to a stop: somewhere along the read the slabs of historical background and the rants against aspects of modern living and western policies got to be too much for me. While I share the general political perspective the author advances I lost patience and confidence with her on this occasion. I lost patience with the historical sections because they seemed remote and too poorly connected to the lives of the people she met. I lost confidence as I came to question the simplicity of her analysis of policy and so began to question how clearly she was seeing the people she met with. I worried that she was seeing their world through her own ideologically framed lens. I worried that she seemed to be locked into a past Russia that might have been admirable in many respects, but was now just not sustainable.
I think I had another problem. Travel in Siberia in winter is just too hard for me to imagine ever wanting to do it. Somehow the graphic account of life in perpetual frost crept into me and convinced me that this was a journey I could never imagine myself wanting to make.
I abandoned the book reluctantly, however, if for no other reason than someone who suffered as much as the author her research deserved to be cut some slack. She is a remarkable person and her fortitude would be outstanding at any age - far less as she is well over 70. Silverland also presents a very different and powerfully independent view of what is going on in the former USSR and in our wider world and for that it is to be welcomed and admired.
A serious book by a truly intrepid traveller with a strong spirit and very clear personal view of the world.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
armchair travel
In her unique style of mixing personal experiences, encounters with local people, apt descriptions of places and landscapes with general information about historic and political... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Moya Nolan
silverland - captivating landscapes and people
As usual I love and look forward to reading a Dervla Murphy book. She is such an intrepid traveller and with such a strong blend of humour, common sense, intellectual strength and... Read more
Published on 9 Jan 2010 by dizzy pointed
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
