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A.A. Gill is Further Away: Helping with Enquiries
From the moment he joined THE SUNDAY TIMES, A.A. Gill has wanted to interview places - to discover the personality of a place as if it were a person, to listen and talk to it. A selection of the very best pieces that Gill has written over the past five years, A.A. GILL IS FURTHER AWAY is a wonderfully insightful and funny compendium of travel writing taken mostly from THE SUNDAY TIMES, but also from GQ, TATLER and CONDE NAST TRAVELLER. Gill writes with a clarity and acerbity that conveys the intensity of his experiences in his travels around the world. His book includes essays on Sudan, India, Cuba, Germany and California. In each piece, there is a central image Gill uses as the key to unlocking the personality of a place.
- GenresTravelNonfictionEssays
256 pages, Paperback
First published April 14, 2011
15 people are currently reading
169 people want to read
About the author
A.A. Gill
36 books102 followersAdrian Anthony Gill was an English journalist. He was the author of 9 books, including The Angry Island. He was the TV and restaurant critic and a regular features writer for The Sunday Times, a columnist for Esquire, and a contributor to Vanity Fair. He lived in London.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 6, 2012
Since Goodreads couldn't trace it, I assume this isn't yet published in America. You can get it on Amazon.uk.
Gill is a journalist, and the only good reason for buying the Sunday Times. His research is meticulous, his prose dances and sparkles, his insights are jaw-dropping, and in a sentence he can reduce you to tears.
It would be impossible to recommend this book too highly.
Gill is a journalist, and the only good reason for buying the Sunday Times. His research is meticulous, his prose dances and sparkles, his insights are jaw-dropping, and in a sentence he can reduce you to tears.
It would be impossible to recommend this book too highly.
February 10, 2017
Read this on my blog: https://theinkcloud.wordpress.com/201...
Everyone was shocked. It was unexpected, especially since A.A.Gill had only recently revealed his cancer. His death has shaken literary world, and now there is a gaping hole where his columns used to be, ever opinionated and witty, and the newly-employed writers are floundering to fill it. Reading over their thoughts of the mango soufflé suddenly appear (whereas it most certainly hadn’t before,) trivial. Of course those journalist can’t help it, but how can you fill the page in place of one of the best journalists of our time, and not appear feeble in comparison?
I decided to read A.A.Gill is Further Away because his death had inspired me to look what he had achieved and created. It contains a remarkable selection of short essays. The book is roughly split into two: the first half is comprised of essays which he had written about his experiences in England, and for the latter each essay is about a foreign country. The remarkable thing about Gill’s writing is that the subject is almost regardless. His essays about bantam chickens are as compelling as those reflecting on his trip to Haiti. Every topic felt fresh and were explored with such a zest and enthusiasm towards writing about the subject, that is difficult to find. You can tell the Gill enjoyed his job, that he felt satisfaction from diving into corners of the English language to extract the most precise metaphor, or adjective, or whatever else it was. The descriptions are vivid and quite literary for essays, which I enjoyed because often I find that non-fiction books can be stale in that respect.
The variety of subjects were in itself a relief: each essay is roughly 10 pages long and detailed enough to make one feel (if somewhat briefly) immersed in the location, but because Gill’s writing is incredibly intense, not so long that one loses concentration or interest. Gill has a unique voice, one which is blatantly unafraid to point out the faults in a country or to highlight the triumphs in the ordinary. This is wonderful. So often people are timid to say something that not only defies public opinion, but in fact is disparaging, simply because of fear. There’s none of that here! And those readers who think that this type of writing, or as it has been labelled ‘complaining’, is dull, well it isn’t. Gill writes about, for example, his Madagascan tribal culinary experience with such humorous distaste that it’s impossible not only to sympathise with him, but to laugh.
I thought that A.A.Gill is Further Away was a fantastic collection of essays, and contained some of the best pieces of travel writing that I’ve come across. If you’re looking for an escape, not necessarily to another world as the cliche goes, but at least to another country, then look no further.
Everyone was shocked. It was unexpected, especially since A.A.Gill had only recently revealed his cancer. His death has shaken literary world, and now there is a gaping hole where his columns used to be, ever opinionated and witty, and the newly-employed writers are floundering to fill it. Reading over their thoughts of the mango soufflé suddenly appear (whereas it most certainly hadn’t before,) trivial. Of course those journalist can’t help it, but how can you fill the page in place of one of the best journalists of our time, and not appear feeble in comparison?
I decided to read A.A.Gill is Further Away because his death had inspired me to look what he had achieved and created. It contains a remarkable selection of short essays. The book is roughly split into two: the first half is comprised of essays which he had written about his experiences in England, and for the latter each essay is about a foreign country. The remarkable thing about Gill’s writing is that the subject is almost regardless. His essays about bantam chickens are as compelling as those reflecting on his trip to Haiti. Every topic felt fresh and were explored with such a zest and enthusiasm towards writing about the subject, that is difficult to find. You can tell the Gill enjoyed his job, that he felt satisfaction from diving into corners of the English language to extract the most precise metaphor, or adjective, or whatever else it was. The descriptions are vivid and quite literary for essays, which I enjoyed because often I find that non-fiction books can be stale in that respect.
The variety of subjects were in itself a relief: each essay is roughly 10 pages long and detailed enough to make one feel (if somewhat briefly) immersed in the location, but because Gill’s writing is incredibly intense, not so long that one loses concentration or interest. Gill has a unique voice, one which is blatantly unafraid to point out the faults in a country or to highlight the triumphs in the ordinary. This is wonderful. So often people are timid to say something that not only defies public opinion, but in fact is disparaging, simply because of fear. There’s none of that here! And those readers who think that this type of writing, or as it has been labelled ‘complaining’, is dull, well it isn’t. Gill writes about, for example, his Madagascan tribal culinary experience with such humorous distaste that it’s impossible not only to sympathise with him, but to laugh.
I thought that A.A.Gill is Further Away was a fantastic collection of essays, and contained some of the best pieces of travel writing that I’ve come across. If you’re looking for an escape, not necessarily to another world as the cliche goes, but at least to another country, then look no further.
January 24, 2014
A book of short stories about travel. All of these were published in various magazines before, but that does nothing to diminish their quality.
Gill has a way of writing that captures the essence of a place and its people. It's travel writing that takes you to the destination. It also has humour, some acerbic observations, and perhaps a few over the top generalisations. But it's all well balanced. Even in his ridicule, Gill displays a sharp eye in his observations. And sometimes, like in his story about Haiti, a gut wrenching poignancy.
Some passages I highlighted, that perhaps display some of his writing style:
* Their vast stomachs held in by sweaty nylon shirts like warm mozzarellas, their blotched faces, the pallor of lives lived on a slow bar stool.
* In the boutiques, the glossy assistants stare at mannequins with a mutual mime of cashmere folding despair.
* Dubai has been mugged by its own greed.
* Emiratis are born retired.
* ...Tirana is a rare place, blessed with both fascist and communist architecture. The competing totalitarian buildings strut cheek by cheek down the potholed roads, like an authoritarian tango in marble and concrete.
Isn't that a lovely sentence, that last one? Doesn't it conjure a wonderful image?
I've also read Here and There: Collected Travel Writing, which is equally good.
Gill has a way of writing that captures the essence of a place and its people. It's travel writing that takes you to the destination. It also has humour, some acerbic observations, and perhaps a few over the top generalisations. But it's all well balanced. Even in his ridicule, Gill displays a sharp eye in his observations. And sometimes, like in his story about Haiti, a gut wrenching poignancy.
Some passages I highlighted, that perhaps display some of his writing style:
* Their vast stomachs held in by sweaty nylon shirts like warm mozzarellas, their blotched faces, the pallor of lives lived on a slow bar stool.
* In the boutiques, the glossy assistants stare at mannequins with a mutual mime of cashmere folding despair.
* Dubai has been mugged by its own greed.
* Emiratis are born retired.
* ...Tirana is a rare place, blessed with both fascist and communist architecture. The competing totalitarian buildings strut cheek by cheek down the potholed roads, like an authoritarian tango in marble and concrete.
Isn't that a lovely sentence, that last one? Doesn't it conjure a wonderful image?
I've also read Here and There: Collected Travel Writing, which is equally good.
October 29, 2018
Another fantastic collection of travel stories from a very gifted writer
July 10, 2016
Another excellent collection of AA Gill’s travel columns and opinion pieces, one of the only contemporary journalists whose prose is actually worth gathering up in a volume. AA Gill is Further Away is divided into two halves, “Near” and “Far,” with “Near” collecting stories from England and “Far” containing more general foreign travel narratives.
On the whole I enjoyed the English pieces better, as they range across topics as diverse as sustainable fishing, plastic surgery for burned WWII airmen, chicken breeding and dyslexia. There’s a marvellous love letter to Hyde Park, its “open plains and secret dells, wild places, ruins and follies, fountains and palaces.” One of the best articles is an exploration of the Battle of Towton, Britain’s bloodiest in history, yet largely forgotten.
The reason Towton hasn’t come down the ages to us may be in part that it was in the middle of the War of Roses, that complex internecine bout of patrician bombast, a hissy fit that stuttered and smouldered through the exhausted fag end of the Middle Ages like a gang feud. The War of Roses have no heroes; there are no good guys and precious little romance. They’re as complicated and brain-aching as Russian novels and pigeon breeding.
The second half consists largely of more typical travel articles, but still has a few gems, such as his trip to Svalbard, his coverage of the 2008 US elections, or his analysis of Dubai:
Dubai has been built very fast. The plan was money. The architect was money. The designer and the builder was money. And if you ever wondered what money would look like if it were left to its own devices, the answer is Dubai.
Enjoyable and illuminating as always.
On the whole I enjoyed the English pieces better, as they range across topics as diverse as sustainable fishing, plastic surgery for burned WWII airmen, chicken breeding and dyslexia. There’s a marvellous love letter to Hyde Park, its “open plains and secret dells, wild places, ruins and follies, fountains and palaces.” One of the best articles is an exploration of the Battle of Towton, Britain’s bloodiest in history, yet largely forgotten.
The reason Towton hasn’t come down the ages to us may be in part that it was in the middle of the War of Roses, that complex internecine bout of patrician bombast, a hissy fit that stuttered and smouldered through the exhausted fag end of the Middle Ages like a gang feud. The War of Roses have no heroes; there are no good guys and precious little romance. They’re as complicated and brain-aching as Russian novels and pigeon breeding.
The second half consists largely of more typical travel articles, but still has a few gems, such as his trip to Svalbard, his coverage of the 2008 US elections, or his analysis of Dubai:
Dubai has been built very fast. The plan was money. The architect was money. The designer and the builder was money. And if you ever wondered what money would look like if it were left to its own devices, the answer is Dubai.
Enjoyable and illuminating as always.
November 25, 2013
I love the acid and vinegar in his writing. Some of the most intense and captivating prose I have stumbled across in 2013. The essay on Fatherhood, Mandela, The Fourth Plinth, US elections, Iceland were very very good. OLD AGE just blew me out of the orbit. And his essay on Dubai remains THE BEST writeup about a place I have ever read bar none.
December 17, 2014
Poignant and sensitive with a sense of vulnerability, this book is almost the precise opposite of what I'd expected from Gill. So much for what I know. No matter what the subject matter may be, the articles in this book are nothing less than lessons in how to think - broadly yet incisively. Terrific.
July 18, 2012
A.a. Gill just cracks me up. He always finds the most extraordinary way to make a point. He describes a 2008 presidential rally as "so cloying it would give cynicism diabetes". I find his metaphors so clever and always introduce a way of looking at things that is hilarious.
July 31, 2012
He's the best.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews