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Kingdom by the Sea

A Journey Around the Coast of Britian

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About this listen

 American-born Paul Theroux had lived in England for 11 years when he realized he'd explored dozens of exotic locations without discovering anything about his adopted home. So, with a knapsack on his back, he set out to explore by walking and by short train trips. The result is a witty, observant and often acerbic look at an ever eccentric assortments of Brits in all shapes and sizes.©1983 The Cape Cod Scriveners Company (P)1990 Recorded Books, LLC Adventure Travel Anthropology Europe Great Britain Travel Writing & Commentary Witty
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The past is a different country or something like that. Paul Theroux'S journey round the United Kingdom in 1982 narrated by what sounded like an Alan Bennett impersonator unable to render any one of the regional dialects turned whatever humour was originally intended into a petulant whinge. It took a degree of effort to stick with it to the end.

A reasonable book let down by a less than average narrator

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Paul Theroux knows how to describe the people of Britain. With wit & charm he explains why we are British whilst traversing the coastline of this fair isle. Brutal honesty is his bag! Funny & informative.
A joy from start to finish.

The people & the places.

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A very enjoyable listen, especially when moving through the areas I knew from childhood and my teenage years.
The reader had a lot of accents to incorporate, and made a pretty good job of them, but his slight errors in pronunciation when narrating, grated somewhat.

An interesting perspective on one of this author's journeys

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Good start and nice idea behind the book. It looks at the English from an Americans eyes. Paul Theroux does this in an excellent manner. The narative was very good, and the facts interesting. What lost if for me was he rushed the story down the east coast to finish. This could have been because of the train strike, but it spoiled the end. I would love to see somone do this book again 30 years on and see how things have chnaged,



All in all good read, the narrator is not good at accents and this would have helped.



Would recomend

Interesting look a things I had forgotten 1982

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One of the most enjoyable travel and fiction writers, the book evokes a time past a culture that is dissolving even as I write. Mr Theroux takes us on a costal journey, with some of the best observations of people and places that have been written....makes you want to go travelling 😎👍

armchair travel and people watching

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