I picked this one up at a Borders going-out-of-business sale, and my goodness was it a good choice! I like amusing travel memoirs anyway. In this one, comedian Tony Hawks accepts a drunken bet to "hitchhike round the circumference of Ireland, with a fridge, within one calendar month."It's a lighthearted, happy book. Tony spends a lot of nights getting drunk with friends he makes along the road. He meets some colorful characters and sees some beautiful scenery, but unlike a lot of travel writers, he doesn't feel compelled to hit the official sites to report bleakly on them and he doesn't make fun of every other person he sees (Bill Bryson, I'm looking at you). Tony obviously likes people and genuinely cares about them, and if he has to drag a fridge around with him to make people happy and win a bet, by God he'll drag a fridge around with him.
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4 comments:
Love Ireland and had to come hear about the book - sounds like a funny and good-hearted read.
It's the kind of book that after you finish it, every time you notice it on the shelf, you smile. Or at least I do. It also made me really want to visit Ireland.
I complain a lot about the recent proliferation of books written by a person who picks a random, possibly odd thing, and then writes a book about doing it. I call them the "I did a thing" books. (Like Julie & Julia, or the guy who read the encyclopedia, or the guy who tracks down everyone with his name.) That said, this one came out before the trend, and I read bits of it at work. It's better than the rest of the genre (if it is indeed a genre, and I think it is now.)
Oh yeah, the guy who lived a year in the holy land dressed like Moses and that kind of thing. I agree. I almost didn't pick up this book just because it looked so gimmicky, but I read the first few pages and was laughing, so I got it. Glad I did.
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