- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Corgi (1 Mar 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0552154598
- ISBN-13: 978-0552154598
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.6 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 364,059 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
Product Description
Book Description
Travel writing at its best - the gripping true story of disaster in the Sahara.
Product Description
1955, Kenya. A group of four acquaintances set out to drive from Nairobi to London, via the Sahara desert, in a 8 horse-power Morris Traveller. Under the leadership of Alan Cooper, a down-on-his-luck farmer, the group was made up of a worldly field biologist who recorded the whole trip on her 8mm cine camera, a genteel schoolmistress of uncertain age in search of romance, and a 17-year-old boy whose mother had insisted that the trip would make a man of him. What united them was a desire for adventure.
As they set off through Equatorial Africa the omens seemed against them. The Mau Mau uprising against British rule in Kenya was at it's height and the days of colonial rule were ending. Their journey was to take them through an Africa that very soon would cease to exist. But it was the desert that turned their joyride into a nightmare. What began as an adventure ended as a desperate fight for life in the blazing sands of the Sahara. Trek brings this story to dramatic life and is a classic account of survival against the odds.
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
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A pacy thriller,
By
This review is from: Trek (Paperback)
Trek is an excellent book. As well as being a factual account of a trek across Africa in the 1950's, it is a pacy thriller. Right from the start I knew something bad was going to happen to the four people who set off from Kenya to drive to London - but not what or when. We take for granted satellite navigation and mobile-phone communication - imagine travelling across the Sahara desert in a Morris traveller, using only maps, without any back-up vehicles or means of summoning help. Trek is full of carefully-researched information about the history and geography of the countries visited, which now look very different on the map. It interweaves the early 90s when Paul Stewart wrote the book, and the 50s - the information gleaned from diaries and interviews with the survivors is written as a story, so the reader is drawn into events as they unfold. I enjoyed the detail - the animals encountered along the way, the constant bugs, times when the luggage would crash down on the back-seat passengers as the car bounced across potholes. Details are also given of what happens to the body with extreme heat, and the process of dying of thirst.
Trek is a story of a disaster waiting to happen, and yet the saddest aspect of the story, the tragedy, is not that the travellers set out in the first place, but that they were so close to being rescued when disaster struck. How one person, the diary-keeper of the journey, came to be rescued, is a real tear-jerker. Trek is a fascinating read, a page turner to the end.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Classic Eccentricity,
By
This review is from: Trek (Paperback)
This book recounts an ill-fated trip in 1955, which is a classic example of British eccentricity which seems, very sadly, to be dying out now. The first part of the quartet's journey, leaving Kenya and then travelling through Uganda, Congo, Cameroon and Nigeria is a jolly traipse through colonial Africa, where the worst part of the journey is getting harassed by the nocturnal insects.
However, Stewart is setting us up for the downward spiral of events that occur as the little Morris leaves Nigeria and encounters the ravages of the Sahara. As the car gets repeatedly stuck in the sands, Stewart does well to convey the stiff upper lip attitude of the travellers as they refused to panic or despair in the face of the horrendous situation they found themselves in. This is a nice little book, which benefits from Stewart's long held interest in this ill-fated escapade and the fact that he met two of the travellers at their homes in Kenya. The photos in the book (all taken by the quartet themselves) are an invaluable addition to help the reader visualise the highs and lows of this epic journey. Something that would have added to the completeness of the book, would have been some mention of what finally happened to the Morris (is it lying decrepit in some Kenyan farm building?) and also, if possible, some modern day photos or description of the area where the French Foreign Legion finally came to the rescue. I also need to add that if you require a more compact (but much more sensationalist) account of this same journey, you should get your hands on the "The Wide World: True Adventures for Men" book, which is available elsewhere on Amazon.
3.0 out of 5 stars
The real story,
By
This review is from: Trek (Paperback)
As a person who knew the diarist in this story I can say that she did not like this book and put pen marks through many of the pages, I'm afraid there is a lot of 'Creative writing', in this book, but never the less it is an interesting read.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
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.
|
