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Product Description
Daily Mirror
`The greatest pub crawl ever recorded ... Full of wonderful
anecdotes, extraordinary characters and more absurd facts than any pub quiz
would throw up'
anecdotes, extraordinary characters and more absurd facts than any pub quiz
would throw up'
Review
'The greatest pub crawl ever recorded ... Full of wonderful anecdotes, extraordinary characters and more absurd facts than any pub quiz would throw up' Daily Mirror 'He's an authority on everything. I'll have whatever he's having ... Marchant is just the kind of bloke you'd like to meet down the pub' Daily Telegraph 'This book is funny, clever, informative and as sound as a pound ... buy this man a pint, somebody!' Lynne Truss 'It's the equivalent of one of those long-remembered, unscripted great nights out - without the hangover' Metro
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Booze may have given us the rolling English road - it's also given us this rollicking good read. Once again Ian Marchant sets off on adventures picaresque around the British Isles; his last book was guided by the railway network, this is driven only by the shortest journey from pub to pub and is consequently a less structured odyssey (but none the worse for that). What's becoming his trademark mix of learned erudition (mostly on alcohol related matters) and the utterly personal makes this another highly compelling, entertaining and - though I sense he'd hate anyone who said it - improving yarn. Should be hung in every pub toilet. The book, that is...
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Humorous Travel Book, a genre fathered by Bill Bryson et al, has grown into something of a monster. Straightforward travel books, it appears, no longer sell like they used to; a dash of humour or a funny twist - pulling a dishwasher around the Hebrides, say - will open up whole new galaxies of readers.
And so I approached The Longest Crawl with trepidation. Would it perform to stereotype with quaint country taverns lining up like suitors at a debutantes' ball to get their name, location and list of amenities in print? Happily, no. Instead it provided me with four hundred or so pages of brilliantly observed detail, painstakingly researched history and geography, a cast of characters for whom the term 'colourful' was invented and a knowledgable and endlessly interesting narrative which held my attention right to the final paragraph. And yes - there was humour, lots of it.
Mr Marchant appears to have approached his trek with the sole intention to inform rather than necessarily impress. Hence we have the no-holds-barred descriptions of a Sunday night in Great Driffield, a heroic pub crawl around Leeds and a search of Glaswegian off licenses for Buckfast Abbey tonic wine ("Buckie") and its partakers. The resulting narratives are as eye opening as they are entertaining.
Great swathes of the Kingdom were bypassed in Marchant's month long journey from the Scillies to the Shetlands (no Blackpool, Newcastle or Southwold) but it is still jaw droppingly impressive that the author drank his way from one tiny island to another without, seemingly, missing any of the detail on the way. We can only assume that he either used a dictaphone and the patience to translate its alcohol-induced contents afterwards or he possesses the sort of memory completely immune to the most severe of brain cell slaying benders.
My hat goes off to Mr Marchant and we can only hope that his liver and his thirst for adventure have not now deserted him as The Longest Crawl 2 should, by now, be in the planning stages. And this time don't forget Southwold!
And so I approached The Longest Crawl with trepidation. Would it perform to stereotype with quaint country taverns lining up like suitors at a debutantes' ball to get their name, location and list of amenities in print? Happily, no. Instead it provided me with four hundred or so pages of brilliantly observed detail, painstakingly researched history and geography, a cast of characters for whom the term 'colourful' was invented and a knowledgable and endlessly interesting narrative which held my attention right to the final paragraph. And yes - there was humour, lots of it.
Mr Marchant appears to have approached his trek with the sole intention to inform rather than necessarily impress. Hence we have the no-holds-barred descriptions of a Sunday night in Great Driffield, a heroic pub crawl around Leeds and a search of Glaswegian off licenses for Buckfast Abbey tonic wine ("Buckie") and its partakers. The resulting narratives are as eye opening as they are entertaining.
Great swathes of the Kingdom were bypassed in Marchant's month long journey from the Scillies to the Shetlands (no Blackpool, Newcastle or Southwold) but it is still jaw droppingly impressive that the author drank his way from one tiny island to another without, seemingly, missing any of the detail on the way. We can only assume that he either used a dictaphone and the patience to translate its alcohol-induced contents afterwards or he possesses the sort of memory completely immune to the most severe of brain cell slaying benders.
My hat goes off to Mr Marchant and we can only hope that his liver and his thirst for adventure have not now deserted him as The Longest Crawl 2 should, by now, be in the planning stages. And this time don't forget Southwold!
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What a treat - a month-long pub-crawl from the most southerly to the most northerly pub in the British Isles accompanied by the kind of chap you'd be happy to bump into at the end of any bar. Marchant's book is essentially a kind of love-letter to the joys of the English pub. And a funny one at that, with some truly laugh-out-loud moments. He has a great turn-of-phrase and can segue readily betweem moments of extreme humour and more explanitory passages about the process of brewing, say, without loosing the reader's interest.
A must for anyone who's ever enjoyed a shandy or two in their local.
A must for anyone who's ever enjoyed a shandy or two in their local.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Almost flawless
If you want to understand the British then you have to understand the British relationship with alcohol, from beer tp binge drinking to boozers to bosomy barmaids. Read more
Published 2 months ago by mike y
Most enjoyable read
I was enjoying this book so much I took it on holiday with me. A good mixture of humour and interesting facts. Easy to read in sections. Read more
Published 6 months ago by M. A. Cox
looks like a cracking good read
I bought this book for my sister so havn't read it properly but what i did read was extremely funny and interesting, and i will buy it for myself after xmas along with all Ians... Read more
Published on 22 Dec 2009 by N. Beedie
Ian and Perry go large . .
This book follows part time musician/writer Ian Marchant and his equally middle aged mate/driver/photographer, Perry, from the Scillies to the Shetlands, a month long winding and... Read more
Published on 26 Nov 2009 by tallpete33
Superb
A great read. Mr Marchant obviously knows one or two useless facts which he doesn't mind sharing - and I didn't mind receiving. Read more
Published on 9 Oct 2009 by APJ
Enormously good fun
This is a cracking read: funny, touching and exuberantly informative. The only flaw is the end - which is slightly lame and incoherent, but then, all good sessions conclude with a... Read more
Published on 14 Mar 2009 by John D
Great premise, bit of a let down. Buy 2nd hand!
I think Amazon recommended this book to me after reading Pete Brown's books based on pubs and beer (both excellent). Read more
Published on 9 Dec 2008 by E. Balcomb
Brilliant
I really enjoyed this (and I don't drink beer and rarely visit pubs these days). It is well written, it flows well and is an easy read. Read more
Published on 14 May 2008 by Sally
An OK read, but there's better!
I couldn't wait to get stuck into this book, as I love reading books about beer and pubs, as its an industry I've grown up in and as such have a real interest in. Read more
Published on 9 Jan 2008 by Carl Elliott
This is a great read.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I am probably biased because I am a real ale consumer and home brewer of 40 years plus. Read more
Published on 18 Dec 2007 by Simpleton
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