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| Dreaming of Jupiter | 
 enlarge | Author: Ted Simon
Publisher: Sphere
Category: Book
Buy New: £12.99
New (5) from £10.30
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 97346
Media: Paperback
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 1847441815
EAN: 9781847441812
ASIN: 1847441815
Publication Date: November 15, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
first few chapters depressing but then full of richness June 13, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I nearly put this book down in the first 80 pages-Ted Simons finds anti-climax at every corner-people he met in the 70s have gone-the world seems full of litter and is now built up where once was paradise. However I began to realise that his honesty is part of the author's strength . He equally describes the beauty of Africa-the thrill of the high Andes , the stunning Australian outback and the kindness of strangers.We are left with an impression that it is still a wonderful world out there but it needs protecting.When I look back at Jupiter's travels he also describes misery filth and poverty amongst beauty .Why did that not affect me in the same way when I first read it? It probably did .We look back at Jupiter's travels through rose tinted glasses and I'm sure we will do the same with this book.It is a classic which took me from my hammock in the garden to the wild high places of the world and gently back again-Well worth reading
 A remarkable journey by a remarkable man February 21, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ted Simon is a very remarkable man and, in his 70's, to undertake a 59,000 mile motorcycle journey visiting 47 countries is little short of astonishing.
And he did all this without back up teams of people to support him or arrange his visas or anything else, but on his own.
However, it is a very different book to Jupiter's Travels.
I think this is possibly explained by Ted himself in chapter 27 -'It seemed to me impossible to say anything upbeat and optimistic about the changes I had seen'.
Whilst Jupiter's Travels was full of optimism - indeed Ted describes himself seeing 'in the world of the seventies a kind of innocence' - the world of the new millenium is rather less so. Vastly improved communication has destroyed the innocence. The immolation of the twin towers, and America's reaction to it, has created a very different world.
So Dreaming of Jupiter is not an optimistic book, but may well give you much food for thought.
The good news is that Ted is an optimist himself, because only an optimist could have undertaken this journey, not once, but twice.
Highly recommended.
 Don't try to re-visit your youth August 30, 2007
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
As a sequel to one of the seminal books of my youth I was looking forward to this hugely. I was very disappointed and eventually abandoned the quest for any deep insight, skimming the last third. Any sense of adventure in Simon's repeat journey is quashed by concerns of liaisons with film crews in Africa and trying to update a website as he goes. The whole thing becomes a compromise and totally against the spirit of going with the flow and freeing up the mind that imbued the adventures of the first book. This is unhappily summed up in Simon's closing paragraph where he's casting around for a catchy last line. He alludes, weakly I thought, to the dreams and aspirations apparently captured in his face in a photograph taken during the first journey. This fudge compares very unfavourably with the magical last line from his first book '...an enchanted land perhaps, where men can still dream of being Gods.'
Dreams are made of this......... April 18, 2007
20 out of 20 found this review helpful
As with the original Jupiters Travels extremely well written,this extraordinary book is imaginative, thought provoking and inspiring to any reader not just lonely adventure bikers. Reading the two books gives a great comparison of the developing world and reflects on the population expansion issues of our greedy western civilisation whilst from a biker angle reads with continual interest ..Well recommended ..you need never have worn leathers, dropped a bike or stripped an engine to enjoy! but you will need to have been in love at least once in your life to understand some of the deeper moments.
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