To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa by Rick Antonson

Buy To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa here. To find out more information or to view another item in this category, click next Africa Travel Books. To go back to where you were looking, use the "you are here" links below. Thank you for shopping at lastminutetravelbooks.com!

To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa by Africa Travel Books

To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa by Rick Antonson
Price: $20.51

Features

Paperback: 256 pages

Publisher: Dundurn Press May 12, 2008

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1550028057

ISBN-13: 978-1550028058

Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches

Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces

Product Review
From a ride up the River Niger to an open-air music festival in the desert, from the sudden close friendships that bloom during such travel to the machinations of an unscrupulous tour coordinator who seems intent on foiling his travel goals at every juncture, Antonson handles the joys and occasional frustrations of his trip in vivid, straightforward prose and with a wry sense of humour. - Vancouver Sun, June 7, 2008

“…nicely embroidered with local tones and textures, a regional history of West Africa, the Tuareg people and accounts of early European exploration.” Globe and Mail August 9

“Anyone interested in traveling to Africa should put Antonson’s book on the list, right after malaria tablets.” National Post, Saturday, July 26

"…Antonson’s (story) is engagingly real, laying bare his frustrations and doubts. A month of travel might not seem like enough to stretch into a whole book, but Antonson’s storytelling flows so well that the blow-by-blow account never gets tedious.” Georgia Straight (Vancouver, BC) July 10, 2008

"Allure of Timbuktu draws adventurers-and satisfies." - Star Phoenix

"For this trip, Antonson decided against his usual air travel and instead made the journey on the ground - by train, boat, car, camel and foot. The result, as recounted in his impressive new book, To Timbuktu for a Haircut, is a quixotic quest, alternately funny and thought-provoking."

Product Description

Historically rich, remote, and once unimaginably dangerous for travellers, Timbuktu still teases with "Find me if you can." Rick Antonson's encounters with entertaining train companions Ebou and Ussegnou, a mysterious cook called Nema, and intrepid guide Zak all make you want to pack up and leave for Timbuktu tomorrow.

As Antonson travels in Senegal and Mali by train, four-wheel drive, river pinasse, camel, and foot, he tells of fourteenth-century legends, eighteenth-century explorers, and today's endangered existence of Timbuktu's 700,000 ancient manuscripts in what scholars have described as the most important archaeological discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Think Eric Newby's A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush or Redmond O'Hanlon's Into the Heart of Borneo and you begin to see what kind of writer Rick Antonson is. To Timbuktu for a Haircut combines wry humour with shrewd observation to deliver an armchair experience that will linger in the mind long after the last page is read.

Reader Reviews
Reading Rick Antonson's book on Mali took be back to 2006 and my quick trip through Mali. Having visited many of the places that Rick featured it was a great experience to witness someone who had been there before me. As a travel book I believe it to be superb and a great way to feel Mali. And lo and behold he loved the same things about the places - Mopti, Dogon, Timbuktu and Essakane - that I came to treasure. He writes very well, he experiences the real feel of the Niger River area, he captures you into his journey. And the two things that he loved most about Mali, that is Timbuktu and its manuscripts and Le Pays Dogon; his time in both locations will send me on a return trip to Mali to further experience that remarkable country. This book on Africa is as close to a real guide as anything written by Paul Theroux or investigated by Lonely Planet. I so enjoyed this book.

To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa
List Price: $26.99
Available from Amazon
Price: $20.51
Updated on 10-30-2008.