The Size of the World - Hardcover

Greenwald, Jeff

3.77

199 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1564406237 ISBN 13: 9781564406231

Publisher: UNKNO, 1995

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A respected travel writer, who at the age of forty traveled around the world without ever flying, recounts his experiences as he walked, bused, trained, and sailed through a twenty-five-thousand-mile, nine-month trip

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Review:

To recapture "the sense that the sidewalk in front of [his] house is connected, physically, with every other place on Earth" -- and inspired by Tibetan ritual, Chinese fortune cookies and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s axiom that "Strange travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God" -- Greenwald set himself a unique fortieth birthday challenge: "To travel from Oakland, California, to Oakland, California, without leaving the ground." This is the story of his journey around a planet covered with very good people and very bad roads.

From Publishers Weekly:

Greenwald (Shopping for Buddhas) has produced a travel book like no other. While few will be tempted to follow in his frustrating paths to outposts of civilization, his tale of the journey is an armchair delight for its originality, humor and striking prose. In late 1993, Greenwald sets out on the eve of his 40th birthday to circle the globe without resort to airplanes?a pilgrimage to retrieve his lost sense of the real size and nature of the world. Ambivalent about traveling alone, he persuades Sally, a former lover, to accompany him. Sally, whose real interest is spiritual self-realization, leaves him in Athens to join her guru in India. Greenwald aims to reach Nepal in time to join a trek to the Buddhist holy mountain of Mt. Kailas. Among his talents is the knack for instant intimacy with strangers, which can turn a reluctantly granted five minutes with Paul Bowles in Morocco into a warm fellowship spanning three days. Funny and engaging, this is one-of-a-kind travel literature.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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