HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

No Touch Monkey: And Other Travel Lessons…
Loading...

No Touch Monkey: And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late (Adventura Books Series) (edition 2003)

by Ayun Halliday

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
5332045,404 (3.31)24
Zine queen Ayun Halliday confesses the best-and worst-of her globetrotting misadventures. "I laughed hard on nearly every page of this shockingly intimate memoir and deeply funny book."--STEPHEN COLBERT Ayun Halliday may not make for the most sensible travel companion, but she is certainly one of the zaniest, with a knack for inserting herself (and her unwitting cohorts) into bizarre situations around the globe. Curator of kitsch and unabashed aficionada of pop culture, Halliday offers bemused, self-deprecating narration of events from guerrilla theater in Romania to drug-induced Apocalypse Now reenactments in Vietnam to a perhaps more surreal collagen-implant demonstration at a Paris fashion show emceed by Lauren Bacall. On layover in Amsterdam, Halliday finds unlikely trouble in the red-light district--eliciting the ire of a tiny, violent madam, and is forced to explain tampons to soldiers in Kashmir--"they're for ladies. Bleeding ladies"--that, she admits, "might have looked like white cotton bullets lined up in their box." A self-admittedly bumbling vacationer, Halliday shares--with razor-sharp wit and to hilarious effect--the travel stories most are too self-conscious to tell. Includes line drawings, generously provided by the author.… (more)
Member:dinarz
Title:No Touch Monkey: And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late (Adventura Books Series)
Authors:Ayun Halliday
Info:Seal Press (WA) (2003), Paperback
Collections:Your library
Rating:
Tags:None

Work Information

No Touch Monkey!: And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late (Adventura Books Series) by Ayun Halliday

None
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 24 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 20 (next | show all)
Duplicate copy in Indonesia.
One story on Indonesia: a visit to the Monkey Forest.
  Alhickey1 | Oct 30, 2019 |
Not as funny as it advertises itself to be. It's humor is bordering on how insane and culturally ignorant an American can be aboard. ( )
  AnnaHernandez | Oct 17, 2019 |
I bought this book at a little used bookstore on vacation in Illinois, because I have loved Halliday's writing on parenting and I have loved Seal Press. I was deeply disappointed.

This was a book full of privileged blundering into cultures around the world that lacked any kind of self-awareness. Yes, much of her behavior could easily be forgiven as the self-centered obliviousness of youth - had only there been any sort of acknowledgement that the author now realized how kind of fucked up some of these interactions were. But that's not the perspective of this book. Rather, the book if from the view of -- Look at all the wacky hijinks I got up to before I had kids and being a parent made all of this impossible!

It's not that she ever does anything awful, it's just that the tone of the whole thing was not really something I could relate to or enjoy much.

Super skippable. ( )
  greeniezona | Jun 8, 2019 |
An entertaining book, but if Stephen Colbert really laughed at every page as he says on his review... he is WAY too easily amused.

Don't get me wrong, I did laugh, but only a couple of times. I think I was more shocked that someone would continue to travel after placing herself (and her traveling companions) in danger time and time again. I would definitely put several of these tales in the "don't try this at home (or abroad)" category. I'm hoping this is just a collection of mis-adventures and that Ms. Halliday actually had some travel experiences that went well.

Her writing is witty and brings a bit of light to these tales, but not really what I was hoping for. ( )
  snotbottom | Sep 19, 2018 |
Ayun Halliday may not make for the most sensible travel companion, but she is certainly one of the zaniest, with a knack for inserting herself (and her unwitting cohorts) into bizarre situations around the globe. Curator of kitsch and unabashed aficionada of pop culture, Halliday offers bemused, self-deprecating narration of events from guerilla theater in Romania to drug-induced Apocalypse Now reenactments in Vietnam to a perhaps more surreal collagen-implant demonstration at a Paris fashion show emceed by Lauren Bacall. From taming the wild dog packs of Bali to requiring the services of a bonesetter in Sumatra, Ayun Halliday offers up the best of her itinerant foibles as examples of how not to travel abroad. For instance, on layover in Amsterdam, Halliday finds unlikely trouble in the red-light district—eliciting the ire of a tiny, violent madam,—and is forced to explain tampons, which she admits, “might have looked like white cotton bullets lined up in their box,†to soldiers in Kashmir—“They’re for ladies. Bleeding ladies.†A self-admittedly bumbling vacationer, Halliday shares—with razorsharp wit and to hilarious effect—the travel stories most are too self-conscious to tell.
  Alhickey1 | Oct 23, 2017 |
Showing 1-5 of 20 (next | show all)
no reviews | add a review
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
Things really went to shit in the Munich train station men's room.
Quotations
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

Zine queen Ayun Halliday confesses the best-and worst-of her globetrotting misadventures. "I laughed hard on nearly every page of this shockingly intimate memoir and deeply funny book."--STEPHEN COLBERT Ayun Halliday may not make for the most sensible travel companion, but she is certainly one of the zaniest, with a knack for inserting herself (and her unwitting cohorts) into bizarre situations around the globe. Curator of kitsch and unabashed aficionada of pop culture, Halliday offers bemused, self-deprecating narration of events from guerrilla theater in Romania to drug-induced Apocalypse Now reenactments in Vietnam to a perhaps more surreal collagen-implant demonstration at a Paris fashion show emceed by Lauren Bacall. On layover in Amsterdam, Halliday finds unlikely trouble in the red-light district--eliciting the ire of a tiny, violent madam, and is forced to explain tampons to soldiers in Kashmir--"they're for ladies. Bleeding ladies"--that, she admits, "might have looked like white cotton bullets lined up in their box." A self-admittedly bumbling vacationer, Halliday shares--with razor-sharp wit and to hilarious effect--the travel stories most are too self-conscious to tell. Includes line drawings, generously provided by the author.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.31)
0.5 1
1 6
1.5 1
2 9
2.5 4
3 45
3.5 7
4 31
4.5 2
5 13

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 204,626,525 books! | Top bar: Always visible