Into Iraq: Michael Palin

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After WW1 and the break-up of the Ottoman Empire there was a relatively short, ultimately unsuccessful, attempt by the British Empire (the biggest of them all) to engineer some stability in the area. The book is beautifully illustrated and written in Palin’s easy to read diary format which he has honed over decades of doing such series for television although now they are for ITN and Channel 5 here in the UK rather than the earlier, and higher budget, trips for the BBC. Hij begon in 1980 met een aandeel in “Great railway journeys of the world”, een programma van de BBC waarin hij Groot-Brittannië per trein doorkruiste.

Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page.Not only was it my first time there, it was the first time I’d seen such damage and such resilience side by side.

Bookplates are official labels which are signed by the author and then fixed to the title page of the book. Vroeger heb ik series en volgens mij ook boeken gelezen van hem dus ik was heel enthousiast om weer een nieuwe te proberen.

Dit boek was echt heel leuk geschreven, de vertaling was OK (wat kleine foutjes/zinnen die toch net niet lekker liepen), en ik zat er helemaal in, ik kon gewoon niet stoppen. Illustrated throughout with colour photographs taken on the trip, and permeated with his warmth and humour, this is a vivid and varied portrait of a complex country. I can't believe I didn't think about Michael at all during the pandemic, all cooped up and unable to visit new places, eat new dishes, and meet new people. Hij volgde de loop van de Tigris van aan de grens met Turkije naar Basra, bijna aan de Perzische Golf.

Auch wenn das Buch alles hatte, was mir an den Büchern von Michael Palin gefällt, konnte er mich nicht so fesseln wie sonst. I haven’t seen that so not sure if there’s stuff here he couldn’t say on camera but was fun reading for an insight into Iraq today. It was short and to the point as always yet, I can’t help feeling that, despite trying to sound upbeat at times, this one just failed to capture the essence of the author’s usually upbeat style of writing. For someone who is literally Iraqi and knows most of the stuff in this book – it was nothing new except for a few things I'll probably ask my dad about. Nach einigen Etappen haben sich diese Reisende und auch die Leserin dann im unterwegs sein eingerichtet.

Waar de gelegenheid zich aandient gaat Michael Palin op zoek naar geschiedenis, maar hij heeft tegelijkertijd veel aandacht voor het roerige nabije verleden en de toestand vandaag. For me the real insights of travel are in the details – faces glimpsed, sounds caught on the wind, tastes of dishes you’ve never eaten before, words exchanged over a mug of sweet tea, the shocks and surprises round every corner. Daarna volgden nog vele andere reizen, waarvan ook boeken verschenen, vaak met veel kleurenfoto’s en vanuit een dagboekperspectief geschreven.