A.A. Gill is Further Away
by A. A. Gill
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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 show more 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 A.A. Gill uses as the key to unlocking the personality of a place. show lessTags
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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 show more 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. show less
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 show more 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. show less
I've liked all A A Gill's books of essays, and this one is no exception. He's witty, brutal, articulate, and glib but directs all this at himself as often as at others, so it comes off as less of a bully rant and more of an open house invitation to his subconscious. I have entertained a lot of people on the A Train between West 4th Street and 59th Street while reading his books; I laugh so hard I shake and tears start pouring down, I try desperately to regain control in front of the interested rows of eyes on all sides. I have to put the book up, wipe my eyes (while holding the book and my lunch bag), try to regain a poker face. I'd watch me too, if it were a choice between a hysterical girl trying to keep it together and Dr. Zizmor. I show more do zoom in and out of these books rather than read them cover to cover at a clip, but his often acute observations stay with me. show less
I anticipated disliking Gill's writing, but was surprised to enjoy all his work with its unexpected insights and humour.
Another fantastic collection of travel stories from a very gifted writer
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As a Welshman, I already know that A A Gill regards me as an "ugly, pugnacious little troll". Fair enough. Misanthropy can be entertaining, and in any case, his treatment of the English has been equally scathing. My problem is that his criticism is not always so even-handed. He is cruel about women who don't match his ideal of femininity – the historian Mary Beard, for example, recently show more attracted his ire for appearing on TV without enough make-up – but never questions his own aspirations to rugged machismo.
That imbalance is much in evidence in this collection of articles, in which our heroic hack describes his travels in places from Madagascar to Algeria to Svalbard. Gill larks about with the lads, mocking those excluded from the fun with a gracelessness worthy of Jeremy Clarkson; on a fishing trip, he compares the trailing net to "toilet paper caught in a fat girl's knickers". show less
That imbalance is much in evidence in this collection of articles, in which our heroic hack describes his travels in places from Madagascar to Algeria to Svalbard. Gill larks about with the lads, mocking those excluded from the fun with a gracelessness worthy of Jeremy Clarkson; on a fishing trip, he compares the trailing net to "toilet paper caught in a fat girl's knickers". show less
added by John_Vaughan
Author Information
21+ Works 1,113 Members
Adrian Anthony Gill was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on June 28, 1954. He studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London and at the Slade School, but did not graduate from either. A series of odd jobs followed as he descended into alcoholism. After entering a rehabilitation program in 1984 and joining Alcoholics Anonymous, he show more taught cooking classes. He wrote a short article about his recovery for Tatler's Good Rehab Guide and was hired as a food writer and essayist. In 1993, he was hired by The Sunday Times. He wrote about television, travel, and politics before taking over Table Talk, the newspaper's weekly restaurant column. His travel writing and foreign reporting were collected in A. A. Gill Is Away and A. A. Gill Is Further Away. His other books included Sap Rising, The Ivy: The Restaurant and Its Recipes, Le Caprice, Breakfast at the Wolseley: Recipes from London's Favorite Restaurant, Grand Cafe, The Golden Door: Letters to America, and Table Talk: Sweet and Sour, Salt and Bitter. His autobiography, Pour Me: A Life, was published in 2015. He died from lung cancer on December 10, 2016 at the age of 62. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Classifications
- Genres
- Travel, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 910.4 — History & geography Geography & travel modified standard subdivisions of Geography and travel Accounts of travel and facilities for travellers
- LCC
- G465 .G552 — Geography, Anthropology and Recreation Geography (General) Special voyages and travels
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 27
- Popularity
- 1,006,186
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (4.25)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
