Product DescriptionFirst published more than thirty years ago, Paul Theroux's strange, unique, and hugely entertaining railway odyssey has become a modern classic of travel literature. Here Theroux recounts his early adventures on an unusual grand continental tour. Asia's fabled trains -- the Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Frontier Mail, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Mandalay Express, the Trans-Siberian Express -- are the stars of a journey that takes him on a loop eastbound from London's Victoria Station to Tokyo Central, then back from Japan on the Trans-Siberian. Brimming with Theroux's signature humor and wry observations, this engrossing chronicle is essential reading for both the ardent adventurer and the armchair traveler.
What Others Say
Great Railway Bazaar
The book was in excellent condition when it arrived and it arrived in a timely manner. No complaints here!
A peerless and unforgettable travel narrative
This fabulous account of getting on the train in London and riding trains (including the decrepit Orient Express) through Europe, across Asia as far east as Japan, then looping back to Europe on the Trans-Siberian, is not a bit dated, even though it was first published in 1975. Theroux is sometimes cross and prickly, but he doesn't miss a thing, and he ventures into places (and eats things) that most people never would. Because he is also a novelist, he's deft at limning the appearances and characters of the people he meets, and these people, who are variously vain, odd, smelly, crazy, foolish, bigoted, or just eccentric, give this travelogue--and indeed all of Theroux's travel narratives--the quality of a Dickens novel. I've read and enjoyed ... Read More
The Great Railway Bazaar
Reading Theroux's travel literature, one wonders why he left home - the people he meets are almost universally irritating for him, and he takes little interest in much else except perhaps his own physical discomforts and prejudices. Of course we love to hate this type of splenetic and cantankerousness writing, not unlike Tobias Smollett's 1786 Travels Through France And Italy (Smollett also took a 'Grand Tour'). Theroux models himself an anti-tourist, resisting seeing the sites but when forced he rarely has anything positive to say. This appeals to the reader who wants to travel without being a tourist, but in the end comes across as crass and of little value. He is at his best describing the lowest encounters, prostitutes seem to fill the most ... Read More
