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Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Round the Bend by Alistair McGuinness : A book tour, review!

DISCLAIMER: This review is *intentionally* not written in our usual format. This book is different and therefore requires a different review.

For an exciting guest post by Alistair McGuinness with real pictures from his travels, keep following Readers' Muse!

TITLE: Round the Bend
AUTHOR: Alistair McGuiness
GENRE: Travel, Adventure Travel, Living & Working Abroad
HOW WE GOT THIS BOOK:
we got this book as a part of a virtual authors book tour.
GIST:
From Luton to Peru to Ningaloo, a Search for Life After Redundancy
Three things happened simultaneously. The lioness charged, Alistair fled across the parched savannah and his wife screamed for him to run faster. Stuffed deep inside his tattered rucksack was a guidebook containing advice on what to do in wildlife emergencies, which he planned to read if he survived the next thirty seconds. Future plans to climb Kilimanjaro, teach English in the Amazon and live in Australia were temporarily forgotten as he turned to face the pouncing lioness, thinking back to the words of advice from his mother-in-law. “Don’t do anything silly, and look after Francine.” From deep underground in a remote Bolivian mine to the scorched Australian outback, Round the Bend is an adventure travel story. It explores the turbulence of redundancy, the excitement of travel, the anguish of leaving home and the challenges of starting a new life in Australia.
REVIEW:
          It is not every day that one comes across such an unique book. Round the bend shattered all my expectations I had in a typical book of such genre. It is an open, clear and straightforward journal, a record of experiences in travel.
          Listening to first hand experiences from far off relatives who went on wild safaris has always been a pastime of mine, and this book seemed just like that. The author has managed to capture in words the thrill of the jungle, the roads, the climate and the people. There is a little of everything in this little book.
          From self deprecating casual style of writing to the inevitable descriptive phrases, the book has every element to keep you in its hold. The best experience can be obtained by realizing that this book is, indeed, a travelogue and not a piece of fiction.
          Split second decisions and long thought out conclusions are all used simultaneously in this thrilling tale. Along the travel of Alistair to Australia, we learn not only about exotic countries, we also learn about learning to move out of base, learning to take split second decisions, learning to appreciate life and finally, learning to deal with life by its horns!
          The only wanting thing in the book is a lag in certain places could have been reduced.
          Go for this if you like to have adventures in your armchair. It doesn’t get more descriptive than this!
 Readers’ Muse rates this at 4.2/5
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Alistair grew up in the UK in a town called Luton, which lies 30 miles north of London. Family holidays were spent in County Donegal, Ireland, staying with his Grandmother in their large family home where she had once raised fifteen children.
It was these annual trips that made Alistair realise his Great Uncles were SeanachaĆ­s (Irish story tellers). After a few pints of Guinness in the family bar, brothers Barney and Francis would entertain the evening crowds with their recitations of life in rural Ireland. As their rustic voices carried across the crowded room, Alistair would watch and listen as the animated tales mesmorised the overseas visitors.
44 countries and four decades later, Alistair now calls Australia home and in the tradition of Great Uncles Barney and Francis, loves to recite stories. He lives between the beach and the forest with his wife, two young boys and a fun puppy called Peppi. After decades of adventurous escapades Alistair is calming down and has decided to write more and bungee jump less!
He works as a Business Improvement Specialist and has just spent three years as a fly in fly out employee at a remote iron ore mine site in Western Australia. As a trainer and facilitator, he has worked in Europe and Australia and is passionate about helping people and organisations to become successful.
A fun family day for Alistair would be fishing from the local jetty with his boys, taking the puppy for a walk along the beach at sunset and cooking a scrumptious curry in the evening with his wife.
An ideal adventurous day for Alistair would be a days walking and scrambling in the Lake District with friends, followed by a visit to a village pub nestled deep in the English countryside.
FORMATS AVAILABLE: Print & eBook, 256 pages
BOOK LINKS:
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
AUTHOR’S WEBSITE:


2 comments:

  1. Thanks for taking part in the tour. I'm glad you enjoyed Round the Bend so much!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you so much for reviewing my adventure travel book and I hope you enjoyed the Guest Post. It was lots of fun to write. I tried extremely hard to ensure that my travelogue (Round The Bend) was not just another book about faraway places. I am still crafting the art of story telling, but feel that I owe my Great Uncles a favour as they were traditional story tellers from Ireland and knew how to entertain a crowd!

    ReplyDelete

Not a SPAM comment! :)