a century ago. In Another Fine Mess:
Across Trumpland in a Ford Model T,
Tim Moore sets off on a road trip
through 6,000 miles of Donald-voting
territories in an attempt to understand
why the US heartlands backed such a
leader. “Electing Trump felt like
shooting Earth in the face,” Moore
writes at the outset, only to find a lot of
honest folk and redneck decency along
his slapstick journey in an antique car.
It was in the same car, in the 1920s, that
the delightfully named Aloha
Wanderwell became the first woman to
drive around the world. The Canadian
adventuress is one of 50 writers, from the1700s to the present day, featured in
Wild Women and their Amazing
Adventures over Land, Sea & Air.
Mariella Frostrup’s 800-page selection
represents a stirring whistle-stop tour,
led by women who often risked
disapproval in leaving home to roam the
world. From African-American Juanita
Harrison, who in the early 1900s, only
40 years after the abolition of slavery,
began a solo trip around the world, to
Sarah Hobson, who travelled through
Iran in the 1970s disguised as a man,
each piece represents women who
Frostrup argues are “neither unique or
rare but part of a clamorous crowdwho’ve been shamefully underexposed”.
For most of us, a journey to discover an
off-the-beaten-track family holiday
home is a more recognisable form of
reckless adventure. A gifted raconteur,
Ian Ross (father of En Route’s Holly) has
followed up Rocking the Boat with a witty
and engaging account of establishing
Villa La Buntessa in a spot in southern
Italy that is both inaccessible and
reputed to be “bandit country”. In the
comic genre of disasterlogue, Beached
in Calabria is rich in local lore, lightly
worn history and a sunny celebration of
paradiso con il diavolo (you can’t have
paradise without a devil in it).5
6
7
8
9
10
5. Equine Journeys: The British Horse World by Hossein Amirsadeghi (Transglobe). 6. Erebus: The Story of a Ship by Michael Palin (Hutchinson). 7. A Moon Watch Story:
The Extraordinary Destiny of the Omega Speedmaster [Watchprint]. 8. Wild Women and their Amazing Adventures over Land, Sea & Air ed by Mariella Frostrup (Head of Zeus).
9. The Platform Edge: Uncanny Tales of the Railways ed by Mike Ashley (British Library). 10. Another Fine Mess: Across Trumpland in a Ford Model T by Tim Moore (Yellow Jersey)Haunted stations,
phantom passengers,
mysterious disappearances...
Who knew the railway ghost story
is a genre in its own right? This
collection of rattling-good short
stories from 1878 to 1985 gives
the reader an express ticket to
supernatural happenings
on the tracks.Dedicated to the
beauty of the horse (from
Shetland pony to Suffolk Punch) and to
the intrinsic horseyness of the British Isles,
Hossein Amirsadeghi covered 9,000 miles to
conjure this stunning, multi-faceted portrait of a
thriving equine tradition. Elegant and erudite, each
profile (of trainer, breeder, competitor, farrier,
saddle-maker, bloodstock auctioneer, hunt member,
equestrian event, film-industry horse supplier, horse
whisperer, the Jockey Club et al) adds a layer to the
nobility of horsemanship rooted in the
landscape since the Uffington White Horse
was created from chalk on an
Oxfordshire hillside in
prehistoric times.Strapped onto
astronauts, the Omega
Speedmaster Professional has
been to destinations that few
humans have reached—and
survived all the hazards of its
space travels. With stunning
imagery, these pages track
its epic trajectory.SEPTEMBER 2019 VANITY FAIR EN ROUTE
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