Alexander Frater

Reading this in the post USSR, 9/11 world it's almost like having three reference points. First is the Imperial Airways time up to World War II, and his experiences trying to recreate those flights and destinations in the early 1980's. Then reading it today (2017) and realizing that travel to even exotic locations was so much simpler then. Ticket, boarding pass, resolve any visa issues and then proceed on board. Find your seat and have a smoke if you are so inclined, talk to the crew, and even get invited up to the flight deck.
I found the writing to be somewhat confusing, in that within a paragraph or two he jumps back and forth between 1933 and 1982. All in all an interesting read.… (mer)

This book surprisingly failed to engage me. I know what they say about the cover and the title, but I still got fooled. Without analyzing too much, I think one reason could be because I shifted from my kindle to the paperback edition I owned, with really small font size to boot, and I had to read most of this one lying down because I had hurt my back. That may have affected my concentration in no small measure. Or maybe I just wasn't interested.

The passages to do with description of the weather are well written, but how many of those can you take? But they were few and far between. I think what also did me in were the frequent lapses into entire passages from books with "olde" english, with facts and tid-bits perhaps interesting to researchers, but something I had little interest in. I could at best only scan those to get back on track. I did read 'em but I wasn't paying attention. A good bit of the book was about the author trying to obtain permission to get to Cherrapunji.

I wish the entire book was like the last chapter. It would have been more readable. This one was a very tough exercise in trying to get the book over with. I only persisted because I'd bought the damn thing. Hodja's Peppers.… (mer)