A Mad World, My Masters
Tales from a Traveller's Life
by John Simpson
Category: Biographies / General
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Publication date: 7 September 2001
Number of pages: 464
Interest Age: 18
Description:
There are only a handful of places left on this earth where you can't buy a McDonald's hamburger or stay in a Holiday Inn - and John Simpson has been to them all. This hugely successful volume of writing is a celebration of some of the world's wilder places. His extraordinary experiences include stories about a television camera that killed people, about how Colonel Gadhaffi farted his way through an interview and how he - Simpson - mooned the Queen. "Highly entertaining" - "The Times". "What amazing tales he has to tell, and with what enthralling vividness ...Riveting" - "Daily Mail". "The range of his travels is staggering ...Never less than entertaining, sometimes moving and often funny" - "Sunday Telegraph".
Review:
The BBC's world affairs editor tells us what it's like in some of the hot spots and hell holes of the world in this second volume of autobiography. His eventful career to date includes being hunted by the agents of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi Islamic fundamentalist and financier of international terrorism; having to undergo a painful tendon operation in a Belgrade hospital during a NATO air raid; and sheltering from being sprayed with sewage by the Chilean police. He interviews Colonel Gaddafi and the late Serbian warlord Arkan and undertakes horrific journeys to get interviews with Columbian drug dealers or Mujahideen guerillas. Not all of it finds him between rocks and hard places however, he was one of the first journalists to report the opening moments of the new millennium - from an island in the South Pacific, he smooches with the royals at Windsor and had the good fortune to know the late Martha Gellhorn. Throughout all this shines forth his zest for adventure, his breezy style, his insatiable love of telling stories and his sheer professionalism, making this a compelling book. (Kirkus UK)
What the papers say:
'Highly entertaining' The Times; 'What amazing tales he has to tell, and with what enthralling vividness...Riveting' Daily Mail; 'The range of his travels is staggering...Never less than entertaining, sometimes moving and often funny' Sunday Telegraph
Author's Biography:
John Simpson is the BBC's World Affairs Editor. He has twice been the Royal Television Society's Journalist of the Year and won countless other major television awards. He has written several books, including five volumes of autobiography, Strange Places, Questionable People , A Mad World, My Masters, News from No Man's Land and Not Quite World's End and a childhood memoir, Days from a Different World. The Wars Against Saddam, his account of the West's relationship with Iraq and his two decades reporting on that relationship encompassing two Gulf Wars and the fall of Saddam Hussein, is also published by Pan Macmillan. He lives in London with his South African wife, Dee, and their son, Rafe.
In Stock: 36 copies
