Off the Rails, Beppe Severgnini
Off the Rails, Beppe Severgnini
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Off the Rails
A Train Trip Through Life

Author: Beppe Severgnini

Narrator: Edoardo Ballerini

Unabridged: 7 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 02/12/2019


Synopsis

In this witty and entertaining collection of travel tales, an acclaimed journalist explores his obsession with trains--and what his rail journeys have taught him about culture and identity.

"I've gone around the world in installments. Every trip has been a revelation. I've watched regions, nations, and continents change moods and I've met more people on trains than in forty years of airplane flights. Every train trip has been a spectacle. Trains are stages, cafés, bazaars. The only talk show that will never go off the air..."

Beppe Severgnini has spent his life traveling the world, and not just because he's a journalist; he's a passionate, unflagging train buff. Off the Rails recounts some of his favorite trips across Europe, Australia, Asia, and the United States, each journey bringing readers not only to a different place but to a different time, from his honeymoon on the Trans-Siberian Express (in a four-person compartment!), to a winding journey from Russia to Turkey during the last summer of communism, to a recent coast-to-coast trip with his son from Washington, D.C., to Washington State.

Off the Rails is the perfect getaway for anyone with a touch of wanderlust, who dreams of escape or just likes to laugh. Filled with memorable characters and perceptive observations, it demonstrates--hilariously--what unites us.

With the world in chaos and life in perpetual fast-forward, it's always the right time to hop on board with Beppe Severgnini and meet your charming, hapless, quarrelsome, romantic, shifty, quirky, endearing neighbors.

About The Author

Beppe Severgnini is an acclaimed columnist for Italy's largest circulation daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera. A longtime Italian correspondent for the Economist, he is a frequent contributor to the New York Times. Among his books are La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind, Mamma Mia!: Berlusconi's Italy Explained for Posterity and Friends Abroad, and the international bestseller Ciao, America!: An Italian Discovers the U.S. He lives with his family outside of Milan.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Darius

I like the idea, and Mr. Severgnini is quite qualified as a writer to execute this premise. My biggest issue was that everything was too short - very little description, very little discussion with the characters he meets, we only seem to get glimpses of the larger stories. I'd like to find these la......more

Loved the humor, but the travel was the most non travel commentary I have ever read! Husband loves train travel, we have taken numerous holidays in trains, trains all felt incidental to his book... Good thing I had loads of laughs!......more

Nothing happens in this book.......more