It's not often that a story grabs your attention straight away like this one did with me. On the face of it, a simple story about a young man setting off to find his fortune in a foreign land, the book has so much more. It's about youth and idealism, friendship, life on the road and the desire to just keep moving until you stop. And even though he obviously wrote it many years after making the trip (the emotions running through the tale are those of middle age not late teens), it hardly matters. Quite brilliant. Just like the 'sequel' A Rose for Winter.