A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar – 1923 Lady Bikers in Turkmenistan
Posted: June 15th, 2012 | 5 Comments »Can’t say whether or not this book – A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar – is any good (though it did get picked as a Summer Read by The Missoulian newspaper, as did Midnight in Peking):
It is 1923 and Evangeline English, keen lady cyclist, arrives with her sister Lizzie at the ancient Silk Route city of Kashgar to help establish a Christian mission. Lizzie is in thrall to their forceful and unyielding leader Millicent, but Eva’s motivations for leaving her bourgeois life back at home are less clear-cut. As they attempt to navigate their new home and are met with resistance and calamity, Eva commences work on her book, A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar…In present-day London another story is beginning. Frieda, a young woman adrift in her own life, opens her front door one night to find a man sleeping on the landing. In the morning he is gone, leaving on the wall an exquisite drawing of a long-tailed bird and a line of Arabic script. Tayeb, who has fled to England from Yemen, has arrived on Frieda’s doorstep just as she learns that she is the next-of-kin to a dead woman she has never heard of: a woman whose abandoned flat contains many surprises – among them an ill-tempered owl. The two wanderers begin an unlikely friendship as their worlds collide, and they embark on a journey that is as great, and as unexpected, as Eva’s. A stunning debut peopled by unforgettable characters, A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar is an extraordinary story of inheritance and the search for belonging in a fractured and globalised world.m
Midnight In Peking was #1 on the Summer reading list in Motown! The list was put together by a Detroit News columnist.
The link to the list is below.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120608/OPINION03/206080307
Did you enjoy reading it? I’m trying to decide whether it should join my ever-growing to-be-read pile…
A month ago, I purchased 3 books that were recommended in this blog.
Cause For Alarm by Eric Ambler. An excellent read. I thoroughly enjoyed it. A page-turner. Ambler’s prose is like Hemingway’s, clean. I plan to buy one or two more books by Ambler.
Burmese Days by George Orwell. Orwell is an outstanding writer. The story was well-crafted but laden with description. I had to slow down to take in all the detail. Still a decent read.
Midnight In Peking by our host. I’ve saved this for last. I expect to start it tomorrow. I’ll let you know my thoughts as soon as I’ve finished it. I would warn you, though, that I am a China lover and, therefore, biased.
Midnight In Peking. I’ve read 87 pages thus far. If you haven’t done so already, buy the book! Well worth it.
Beware – it goes right down hill from page 89!!