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linazu's review
3.0
I loved it, and I despised it.
This book is full of "romanticizing" of life. Likely I'll keep referring to it when I talk about slower living. About the fact that all the airports look the same and how taking the road or sea transport, we share something in common with everyone traveling - boredom. And how there's beauty in this.
Regarding cultures and people, my favorite little story was about tribal women selling goods and rejecting a much higher bill for two smaller ones - two must be worth more than just one, right?
It is a well-worth-a-read book, yet for me, it was torturous at times. The author would write somewhat cynically with a hint of superiority. Yes, we live in a world consumed by consumerism and capitalism and making money - I got tired of the rants. In addition, the back and forth of still going to the fortune tellers but simultaneously criticizing and judging them became repetitive.
This book is full of "romanticizing" of life. Likely I'll keep referring to it when I talk about slower living. About the fact that all the airports look the same and how taking the road or sea transport, we share something in common with everyone traveling - boredom. And how there's beauty in this.
Regarding cultures and people, my favorite little story was about tribal women selling goods and rejecting a much higher bill for two smaller ones - two must be worth more than just one, right?
It is a well-worth-a-read book, yet for me, it was torturous at times. The author would write somewhat cynically with a hint of superiority. Yes, we live in a world consumed by consumerism and capitalism and making money - I got tired of the rants. In addition, the back and forth of still going to the fortune tellers but simultaneously criticizing and judging them became repetitive.
gemma_tbr's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
lesekuchen's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
5.0
lizzina's review
5.0
I read this book slowly at the beginning. Slowly like the travels Tiziano makes through Asia. When he decides to follow what a fortune telle told him years before in Hong Kong, maybe he couldn't imagine how travels can change when you decide not taking a plane for a whole year, and keep on working as a journalist in Asia. This is a lovely book. Tiziano was a real traveller, not a tourist at all. He describes the bad and good part of every country he visits, but he never complains like tourist sometimes do. He meets so many people and it's nice to see its path through different fortune tellers :)
sailorpunk's review against another edition
3.0
I always find particularly dramatic when I finish a book on a trip, and in this specific case was more noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First: I read the last sentence in the very moment I landed in Bilbao which was the destination of my flight and the beginning of my trip to Spain. Second: I started reading it during my last visit to my family in Italy. Third: while I was on the flight from Hamburg, I read about arriving in Hamburg. The passage is the following (translated by me, since I read the book in its original version, in Italian):
“Hamburg is a harbour. Everyone knows it, everyone repeats it; but I had never really understood that until, like an hanseatic coming back after months at sea, I saw the roof of Cuxhafen lying on the horizon, then the small houses of the captains and the white manors of the rich merchants standing up above the majestic trees in Blankenese, and finally the copper-green bell towers of the city I was longing for. I had been to Hamburg dozens of times, but I needed a fortune teller from Hong Kong to make me feel its true soul.”
In fact, the book is the travel diary of the author for the year 1993, when, according to the aforementioned fortune teller, he would have died in a flight accident. Out of dare and curiosity, rather than out of superstition, Terzani decided to follow that advice and travel only by land and sea across Europe and Asia, and visiting plenty more fortune tellers on the way. The result is a long series of reflexions about the world that is changing and how the change relates with traditions and spirituality, and an endless praise of slowness and individuality. It’s a personal report and besides the author itself and his genuine and direct way of writing, doesn’t have much to share with the collection of news articles that is In Asia. It’s a very good book, but so far I prefer the journalist to the philosopher.
“Hamburg is a harbour. Everyone knows it, everyone repeats it; but I had never really understood that until, like an hanseatic coming back after months at sea, I saw the roof of Cuxhafen lying on the horizon, then the small houses of the captains and the white manors of the rich merchants standing up above the majestic trees in Blankenese, and finally the copper-green bell towers of the city I was longing for. I had been to Hamburg dozens of times, but I needed a fortune teller from Hong Kong to make me feel its true soul.”
In fact, the book is the travel diary of the author for the year 1993, when, according to the aforementioned fortune teller, he would have died in a flight accident. Out of dare and curiosity, rather than out of superstition, Terzani decided to follow that advice and travel only by land and sea across Europe and Asia, and visiting plenty more fortune tellers on the way. The result is a long series of reflexions about the world that is changing and how the change relates with traditions and spirituality, and an endless praise of slowness and individuality. It’s a personal report and besides the author itself and his genuine and direct way of writing, doesn’t have much to share with the collection of news articles that is In Asia. It’s a very good book, but so far I prefer the journalist to the philosopher.
_more_books_'s review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0