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| A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople - From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube | 
 enlarge | Author: Leigh Fermor Patrick
Publisher: John Murray
Category: Book
List Price: £9.99
Buy Used: £4.88
You Save: £5.11 (51%)
New (22) from £4.89
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 8445
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 4.8 x 0.8
ISBN: 0719566959
Dewey Decimal Number: 910
EAN: 9780719566950
ASIN: 0719566959
Publication Date: March 15, 2004
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 a lyrical meander through Europe March 3, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The simple concept of this journey was to walk from the hook of Holland to Istanbul following the two main arteries of Europe: the Rhine and the Danube. The book was written from pre-war notebooks so some of the language is slightly unfamiliar at first. Once you get over your modern cynicism the gentle pace and detailed descriptions will pull you through the slowly changing landscape of Europe. You will feel the cold of blizzards through dense woodlands and then warm up to drink schnapps in a Bavarian Inn. Despite the poetic prose and flawless rhythm the real strength of this book is the sheer scale and range of knowledge shown by PLF. I was never let down by his ceaseless curiosity, a curiosity which feeds off the assortment of characters he conversed with and the books he pored over en route. PLF is clearly a gifted Linguist and he has more than a passing interest in History, Folklore, Anthropology and Geography. This book also spurred me on to travel into Central Europe and see things for myself.
Deserves its reputation as a classic February 25, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
At first I had trouble adjusting to Leigh Fermor's extremely descriptive style. He furnishes his writing with rarely-used words and is happy to hold up the story for pages while he sidetracks us with art historical or architectural speculations. However, his charm and learning prove irresistible. This is an unforgettable book.
 A work of literature rather than a travel book June 26, 2007
0 out of 10 found this review helpful
Less of a travel book, more of a vehicle for the author's literary pretensions. His frequent descents into ponderous descriptions of architectural minutiae meant that I found myself skipping whole pages, something that is a rare event for me.
Great travel classic and much more February 4, 2006
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Leigh Fermor's great classic is extraordinary. His language is immensely beautiful, but I beleive that the secret to understand the book is that he is actually painting pictures with words. There are some great set pieces: the walk in Holland, breakfast in Rottterdam, the cold, the chateau life he began to lead after Munich. He is a polymath and the book is not really travel literature at all, or if it is, it is of a totally different order to anything I have ever read. Will Leigh Fermor write the promised third part of the great trilogy?
A Time of Gifts December 3, 2005
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
This book and it's companion Between the Woods and the Water are an enchantment rather than a literary experience. The printed words disolve instantly into brilliant pictures: sodden, grey London in December; magical images conjoured from distorted light on ripples of oily Thames water; magestic images of Storks soaring above red tiled rooves in Hungary, the keen bite of the wind coming over snow fields in Holland and the exhillaration of a sledge rushing over a frozen river. This is hardly prose at all, and sometimes it seems to get to somewhere beyond poetry.
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