Compulsively Aimless

Newby's life was an adventure from the mundane to the extreme. He is most likely my favorite travel writer for his humor, self-deprecation and gift for understatement in the face of the most ridiculous adversity.  Amazon Reviews offers a Newby-like summation saying he "has never been bedeviled by practicality."   Born near London, he left a job as a junior ad writer to sign up as an apprentice on a Finnish windjammer Moshulu  that rounded Cape Horn from Australia to Europe.  This gave him his start for the book  The Last Grain Race.   His sailing life was cut short by WWII and he enlisted in the Black Watch, an elite commando force.  He was captured off the coast of Sicily in 1942 and later escaped with the help of local Italians.  He later married the daughter of the farmer who sheltered him during the escape, which he wrote about later in h is memoir  Love and War in the Apennines.   After the war, he worked in the women'...

To the Western mind, Marco Polo is the grand daddy of all explorers--the top tier with Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong.  From 1275 to 1292, he traveled through China, Mongolia and Japan.  His accounts of Kublai Khan's Court, exotic animals and inhospitable deserts were so spectacular that he was not believed by his hometown Venetians.   Personally, Marco Polo was the gateway explorer for me as an armchair traveler.  He set out for the unknown through Central and Eastern Asia, areas that still intrigue me today.  Starting with his original book of Travels , I've added others.  1.  The Travels of Marco Polo, Edited with Introduction by Michael Komroff with Illustrations by Witold Gordon (1930).   Based on Polo's original account dictated to a fellow prisoner as well as the explorer's notebooks.  Hardback and paperback issued in 1982.  The hardback has contemporary color prints and beautiful wide margins that make it a ...

France fell to the German Blitzkrieg in six weeks.  A complete contrast to the four years of trench warfare of WWI.  From the invasion to the occupation to the Allies retaking Paris, I've collected several books on the French experience. 1.  Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France, Ernest May (2000).   Details how Hitler believed in his victory over the French.  Bought new. 2. And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris, Alan Riding (2010).   During the Nazi occupation, cultural life in Paris continued to thrive.  Maurice Chevalier and Edith Piaf sang in night clubs, Picaso continued to paint, and Jean Paul Sartre wrote and produced plays.  Bought used at BJ's books in Warrenton. 3.  Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation, Glass, Charles (2011).   A fascinating series of accounts of Americans caught in Paris during the Nazi occupation.  Many heroic stories you've never heard in...