Worlds Apart

Gavin Young was an admirable writer, ever adventurous; his reportage was always distinguished by compassion for the people caught up in war and disaster, but it wasn't sentimental or strident.
He was an adventurer for a lifetime and sought out the places where civil government and politics was disintegrating. He includes a piece about my own country (New Zealand) and the detrimental impact it has had on many of the Samoan population that emigrate there to provide for their families.
The section that covers the Vietnam War is a highlight of Young's collection. He was present at Hue before, during and after the Battle of Hue in March 1968. The horrible experiences that permanently wrecked the lives of the inhabitants at the hands of the show more communists is told with sober elegance.
All Gavin Young's books cannot be put down, I have found. This collection from a life fully lived, is another one show less

I first personally ‘discovered’ this author in his book Slow Boats to China and thirstily read it, ordered the sequel Slow Boats Home and devoured it in days. Why, I wondered, is an author as gifted, talented, readable and resourceful as this not more famous? I had not realized that he actually was !
Now, on my fourth or fifth Gavin Young book I discover how he became so resourceful and able to craft his works so tightly readable. Worlds starts by mentioning his early efforts to remain in the Middle East, where he was living with the Marsh Arabs – the subject of his first book – and he describes his early mentorship by Wilfred Thesiger, an English Arabist as famous as Philby or Gertrude Bell, advising him on his studies of the show more Arabs. Then, struggling to avoid returning to England to be trapped into the banking realms of his family he casually encounters Ian Fleming, of British Espionage and the James Bond series, who, working for the Times of London encourages the aspiring author to consider journalism. Gavin Young then proposes himself as an arabist- journalist to David Astor of the prestigious and influential weekly newspaper The Observer. He is accepted as – initially – the Tunisian ‘stringer’ goes on to become an award winning regular and senior reporter and has an amazing career as a journalist.
That is why the author is such a talented writer, able to engage a reader from even just an opening line of an introduction - and able to craft such a fascinating, and thrilling book as this.
"With me', Young explains,'travel was never a matter of chance - I ran away to it deliberately as boys once ran way to sea." show less