Touching the moon

by John Preston

Genres: Travel, History

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

John Preston is the arts editor and television critic of the Sunday Telegraph. He is the author of three highly acclaimed novels, including Kings of the Roundhouse (2005), and a travel book, Touching the Moon. He lives in London.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Reviews

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this may upset the applecart but I'm giving this 4 stars. I found it accidentally while trying to order The Dig. It was a vicariously adventurous read for a chilly, locked down Canadian spring - a fun and inadvertently educational trek through a completely unfamiliar (to me) landscape and I quite enjoyed it. I'm going to pass this on to a friend who'll get a charge out of it too (and she's been to Africa) and see what she says. There were some very funny parts (I'd like John Preston of the navy blue body part to exchange stories with Garrity from Rescue Me who had an orange adventure) and a few horrifying ones. Glad I found this.

[Peg Lotvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Be careful what you wish for, be very very careful. John Preston dreamed about the Mountains of the Moon even before he knew they were real. H. Rider Haggard, one of his all time favorites mentioned them in She or maybe it was in the film made of She with Ursula Andress. Anyway he grew up, realizing that Ursula Andress was unobtainable, but the Mountains of the Moon were there somewhere. Through research he found out the MoM were in Uganda. No one went near Uganda during Idi Amin's rule because the chance of not coming back was real. After Amin, Preston found a friend (as crazy as he) to partner on a trek to the MoM. My takeaway from that trek is: don't go there. a few have, including our author and found nothing but swamps, mud jungle, steep hills, not much else.

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my top 5 books. This book - part biography, part travel lit - transports me to a distant time and place every time I read it. usually at least once a year...

I love the stories from his childhood, the early attempts at writing, the secret dreams of a mystical place that becomes a real goal. And it is funny!

Full marks for this one!!

[Diane in Australia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 Stars = Okay. I liked the book. It was worth reading.