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Are all these recommendations in English? If not, I'm out of luck!Splendid book! Homage to Catalonia is also worth a read. Try Bruce Chatwin or Robert Byron for something somewhat different but well written. I'm unlikely to follow them but interesting places.
Be careful - reading it might make you revise your packing list:Jill, I have never heard of Laurie Lee, but you have piqued my curiosity. I just googled his books and plan to check my library first before ordering this book on Amazon.
As I walked out one midsummer morning in the mid-seventies, at the same age as Laurie Lee was in the mid-thirties, I had his book with me as I set off on my own travels. 40+ years later I am re-reading it. What wonderful images his prose portrays of Spain before the Civil War. If you have ever stayed in one of those old buildings with a courtyard in the centre, now an albergue, you may sit there in the enveloping cool . . . close your eyes . . . and imagine how it must have been 80 years ago. Laurie Lee’s descriptions of the inns he stayed in are beautifully written. He walks through Zamora (on the Via de la Plata), Valladolid (on the Camino de Madrid), and Seville. You can almost picture in your mind the shimmering wheatfields and the intense, intense heat of midsummer.
A classic.
Jill
I'm minded of the municipal in Mansilla de las Mulas. Its been a few years now but I recall going through a door and rooms to left & right, one of which at least was a common room and where you met the hospitalera and did the stuff: and then out into a courtyard, full of pilgrim laundry and cats, and various rooms and buildings off it.If you have ever stayed in one of those old buildings with a courtyard in the centre, now an albergue, you may sit there in the enveloping cool . . . close your eyes . . . and imagine how it must have been 80 years ago.
Because it's not time yet.This is at least the third recent thread about books, blogs and stories - why aren't we walking?
It was quite sometthng over here (especially the going red part, which I didn't have a good enough camera for)!And a final thought for a night of a Full Moon, a Blue Moon, and a Blood Moon...
This is at least the third recent thread about books, blogs and stories - why aren't we walking?
At my younger years this questions frustrated me and I ended up 99% messed up getting what I want, been to but still felt so far...as I got older patience sharpened and every tiny step tingling cracking my excitement... my eyes may never see it by my hearts vision it.why aren't we walking?
I nearly fell off my chair when I read this - and then I checked and saw that you live in Illinois. Laurie Lee is an iconic (if not always reliable with the facts) figure in postwar English literature for both his poetry and prose. Cider with Rosie, his account of growing up in the rural west of England between the wars, was for many years a set text for 16-year-old schoolchildren studying English. He died in 1997, in the village in Gloucestershire where he had grown up, aged 82. A friend of mine, in the area on a camping holiday in the 1980's, met him in the local pub, and Lee recounted how he had been asked several times by visitors to the area to "show them Laurie Lee's grave."I have never heard of Laurie Lee
Cider with Rosie, his account of growing up in the rural west of England between the wars, was for many years a set text for 16-year-old schoolchildren studying English.
And I thought you were from South Africa.I grew up near the Cotswolds, about 30 miles from Stroud, where Laurie Lee went to school. I did read “Cider With Rosie” when I was about 16, but I can’t remember if it was a set book at school, or just that it was popular at the time. I think it is time to re-read that one too! I re-discovered “As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning” in a local second-hand bookstore quite by chance. So glad I did.
Jill
And I thought you were from South Africa.
Sounds very romantic. You could probably write your own book.I was born and grew up in England. Left home (one midsummer morning) and several years later ended up in South Africa, where I fell in love and stayed . I have been in South Africa over 40 years now, became a citizen (so I could vote), and it is now my home and where my heart is.
Jill
In your avatar, are you walking with a Maasai?I was born and grew up in England. Left home (one midsummer morning) and several years later ended up in South Africa, where I fell in love and stayed . I have been in South Africa over 40 years now, became a citizen (so I could vote), and it is now my home and where my heart is.
Jill
In your avatar, are you walking with a Maasai?
Thanks a million I must put that on my bucket list, seeing as I have parkinsons, I mustn't put it off too long!
Start with ‘cider with Rosie’Jill, I have never heard of Laurie Lee, but you have piqued my curiosity. I just googled his books and plan to check my library first before ordering this book on Amazon.
On the VdlP, in Zamora I think, we met a young guy who had just finished University and was planning on following in Laurie Lee’s footsteps, but in reverse (or something like that!).As I walked out one midsummer morning in the mid-seventies, at the same age as Laurie Lee was in the mid-thirties, I had his book with me as I set off on my own travels. 40+ years later I am re-reading it. What wonderful images his prose portrays of Spain before the Civil War. If you have ever stayed in one of those old buildings with a courtyard in the centre, now an albergue, you may sit there in the enveloping cool . . . close your eyes . . . and imagine how it must have been 80 years ago. Laurie Lee’s descriptions of the inns he stayed in are beautifully written. He walks through Zamora (on the Via de la Plata), Valladolid (on the Camino de Madrid), and Seville. You can almost picture in your mind the shimmering wheatfields and the intense, intense heat of midsummer.
A classic.
Jill
Ah, dear "Paddy", try Artemis Cooper's biography for some insight into that poesic prose.I re-read time and time again the trilogy by Patrick Leigh-Fermor, starting with ‘between the woods and the water’ a journey on foot in the mid 1930’s from the Hook of Holland to the Bosporus. Laboured - but in my view - exceptional prose about a time which has now long gone.
Ah, dear "Paddy", try Artemis Cooper's biography for some insight into that proesic prose.
Travel writers are not always the most accurate historians.
In A Moment of War, Laurie Lee recounts how, during his time in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, he:
In fact, he spent a total of nine weeks in Spain before being sent home as unfit to fight. (He suffered from epilepsy.) He never went anywhere near the front, much less took part in combat. His romantic episodes were almost certainly equally fictional.
- was imprisoned as a suspected spy
- had love affairs with two different Spanish women
- killed an enemy soldier in hand-to-hand combat.
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