Ex Libris Kirkland

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First Written 1934
Genre Travel
Origin Brazil
Publisher Marlboro
ISBN-10 081016065X
ISBN-13 978-0810160651
My Copy new paperback
First Read January 22, 2010

Brazilian Adventure



My favorite adventurer, brother to the man who invented James Bond. Fleming is a fun read, even in a travel narrative where not much happens. If you're new to him, start with "News from Tartary."

Noted on February 5, 2010

But the situation, I decided, had still certain rather desperate possibilities; and even when hope gave out, there were always the irony rations to fall back on.

Quoted on February 5, 2010

Of course, there is still plenty of adventure of a sort to be had. You can even make it pay, with a little care; for it is easy to attract public attention to any exploit which is at once highly improbably and absolutely useless.

Quoted on February 5, 2010

Young men are just as adventurous in 1933 as they ever were. But you can see with one eye that chances of any form of useful or profitable adventure are very rare indeed. . . So they give up all thoughts of a topee, buy a bowler, and start working at jobs which are almost always, at first, drab and uncongenial. This is a very good thing for the country and everyone else concerned; and it refleects great credit on the young men. . . So it requires far less courage to be an explorer than to be a chartered accountant. The courage which enables you to face the prospect of sitting on a high stool in a smoky town and adding up figures over a period of years is definitely a higher, as well as a more useful, sort of courage than any which the explorer may be called on to display. For the explorer is living under natural conditions, and the difficulties he meets with are the sort of difficulties which Nature equipped man to face; whereas he chartered accountant is living under unnatural conditions, to which a great deal of his equipment is dangerously ill-suited.

Quoted on February 5, 2010


Ex Libris Kirkland is a super-self-absorbed reading journal made by Matt Kirkland. Copyright © 2001 - .
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