AA Gill is Away

I didn't know A A Gill's travel writing until I came across this book in my local library. I'm so glad I did. "A A Gill Is Away" is just terrific. Gill takes readers places they've never even heard of and makes a great trip of it. Pieces like "The Fatal Shore" and "The City that Russia Forgot" give readers travel writing that is enlightening, entertaining, honest and heart breaking. His work is not about what hotel to stay in or where to eat, it's about what it's like to go somewhere, see life, talk to people.

Remarkably skilled, very funny, insightful writer and thinker. I don't even agree with his perspective at all times - politically, sometimes bordering on snobby - but his writing is so rich and entertaining that I can look past those disagreements. Highly recommended, especially for those who are world travelers.

Whatever he writes - read it. Some may be scathing, some may be extremely opinionated but all will be insightful, interesting, astonishing and directional - as you will have to visit any if these places. Often hysterical. Lyrical prose with absolute bite. I will read anything he's written and wish I could get his columns too! London, the world ( incl America), food and restaurants will never be viewed the same.

Gill is at his best when things are at their worst. This is observational humor of the highest order, crossing the border from interrogation to vivisection with wit and wisdom. Like an English Dennis Miller, with more time on his hands, he'll launch into something or someone without fear or favour, to marvel or despair at the humanity within. He does and sees things you might want to, but now you don't have to.

Thank you AA Gill, for your incisive, insightful, intrepid, intelligent and incredibly beautiful writing. Your Sudan note made me cry. But why are so anti-Japan? In any event, I am glad I read your book. Now I will read everything else you have written. A big thanks again. People like you make reading fulfilling.

I found this book hugely enjoyable. A. A. Gill travels to all sorts of unlikely places -- generally not tourist destinations -- stays a short time while observing closely, and writes short articles about them. These pieces are fascinating, astonishing, sometimes funny, always interesting. It's a great book for someone who likes to read in short bursts.

The cover is black. Matte, ominous, "2001" monolith black, the title spelled out in stark white letters. It's a collection of travel writing, but no clues for guessing that when AA Gill is away, he's not sunning his backside in St. Tropez or picking sunflowers in Andalusia (or if he is, he has to good sense not to tell anyone). It's not just the cover that's black and white: Mr Gill takes us to some of humanity's darkest hellholes, but also shines a light in some surprising places. He veers between apoplectic rage and childish glee, but his writing always sears like a quicklime shower. This is travel writing like you've never seen before. Ladies and gentlemen, AA Gill is the new black.The AA Gill of the title is Adrian Anthony Gill, restaurant and TV critic for the UK's Sunday Times newspaper, travel writer and contributor to magazines such as Vanity Fair and GQ. The key word there is "critic", and Mr Gill has scribbled himself a very profitable byline in being an outrageously, provocatively opinionated ass about most things. In the course of his literary career he has managed to give offense to--in order of decreasing plausibility--animal-lovers, the Germans, the Albanians, and the Welsh. Irritatingly, he also happens to be a very, very talented ass. Mr Gill is the master to the unexpected metaphor and vivid visual imagery, each page hitting you like a psychedelic thunderstorm.He's also one of the few writers this side of Edgar Allan Poe who appears aware that English is a spoken language, not just a written one. Try reading it out loud, "chuckling children being bathed in tin buckets ... gaggling women at the wheezing water pump filling the first of interminable four-gallon plastic cans", and you realize there's more to Mr Gill than foreigner-baiting. It's travel writing, but at times it's closer to poetry."AA Gill is Away" is a collection of 25 travel articles by Mr Gill, previously published in either the Sunday Times or GQ (the latter are easy to spot--they're about either cars or porn), mainly between 1998 and 2001. The book is divided into four sections, titled South, East, West and North, though these divisions only make sense if you happen to be Maltese: Argentina and Cuba are West, but Milan and Monaco are North.Mr Gill is not a foreign correspondent, and these pieces tend to be more snapshots than in-depth analyses. Often, when he takes us somewhere unexpected or makes us look at something in a new way--he spends several days as the director of a pornographic movie--this is effective and informative. Bethlehem on the eve of the new millennium is a revelation, his piece on sleeping sickness in Uganda is a wakeup call. However, when it really is just AA Gill on holiday, the end result meanders about very prettily but doesn't leave any lasting impressions.As delightful as the articles are, Mr Gill's hyperactive vocabulary and emotional extremes can be a little wearying. Sometimes, too, he's so busy tossing out Technicolor commentary he forgets there are readers trying to keep up with him. You want to sit him down, fix him some ice tea, and say "Now the Gilly, what was that about Canadians and Cubans being the opposite poles of human variation? Can't make head nor tail of it." What does he mean when he says hating Germans is "the only thing that truly emulsifies us"? I don't hate the Germans; I know what an emulsion is, but I'm clearer of how they work in chemistry than international relations. Maybe the line works better in Britain, as do the references to Britons famous in the UK and not elsewhere.Intellectually, "AA Gill is Away" is like learning at the feet of Socrates. You shake your head. "If only I could write like this". Emotionally though, it's hard to know how to react to the book. Mr Gill is a professional critic; that is, he earns a living by being contentious. You always wonder how much is heartfelt, how much is calculated to push your buttons. Does he really hate Japan or is that what he thought would make a better story? A little of both, perhaps. No doubt he feels, but also he exaggerates.I doubt I could be friends with Mr Gill, and I certainly wouldn't want to travel with him. Yet I could read and re-read almost any one of these pieces endlessly and call it perfection. Black, you see, never goes out of style.

I generally like travel essays. Unfortunately, this is perhaps one of the sparsest sections of the bookstore (especially once you remove the volumes written by Americans pretending to be expats in Italy).I read this book in one sitting. I read fast, but even so that's not all that common, and is normally something I can say only about an excellent novel. I was sorry for this book to end.What is presented in this book is a set of travel essays which range in subject from the Sudan to California, Monaco to the British Army's Sniper school. The author's style is as readable as Bryson or Cahill. The author is a bit pretentious (as noted by other Amazon reviewers) in his forward and in his introductory sections for the broad categories of his pieces (North, South, East, and West), but that pretention does not tend to flow into the columns themselves. Gill is perhaps the travel writer for the rest of us, who suggests that you should go see the Taj Mahal, or Havanna, even if it's been done to death because the places are worth going to, even though they are popular. (Reworded then, that they are correctly identified as places worth going to, and that is why they are popular.)I hope Mr. Gill continues his travels, and that another volume may be published some day.

I still cannot get over the fact that this voice is silenced. All the sardonic and brutal wits aside, there is such warmth, sincerity and compassion in A.A. Gill’s writing. I miss him everyday, and it is hard to imagine not missing him one day. But for now, I dig up all of his writings that are available to us mere mortals and I allow him to keep me up until 3 am, reading his writing on his travels, only to realise that I had to be up for work in 2 hours. I hope more people will discover him. One does not have to agree with him to enjoy his writing and is wit. I am so grateful that he had done so very much and we all get to enjoy and benefit,

Gill is great company, like going on trips with a learned, well informed uncle. In this collection he makes multiple trips into various countries throughout Sub-Saharan Africa covering everything from rare beetles to the lack of aid in war torn countries. He goes to Tokyo and pulls no punches on his thoughts about the culture there. He makes some intrepid journeys into the Eastern Bloc venturing into the grim perdition of Russian exclave Kaliningrad and he makes a surreal visit out to the ghostly Aral Sea. He finds himself a judge at the Miss Iceland competition and he also makes a number of journeys closer to home, throughout the UK. If you are a fan of his other work then this will keep you happy. If you have never read his travelogues before then what are you waiting for?...

AA Gill is a sore loss to the written word. His books, read for the first time or on re-read bring the places of his travels into startling clarity.He is much missed.

A great little book. Travel with Adrian Gill as he visits places you have probably never been to. Precise observation combines with a highly developed sense of humour. I am only sorry that I have been late to find AA Gill.

Mr gill is one hell of an essayist. One of the finest writers in the english language. Lovely. Lovely. This is how to write.