The history may be a little dodgy but the geography is spot on to quote Guy Browning in his introduction to these childhood vignettes. Geography because maps enchanted him then and now and the book comes with “adjusted” maps illustrating key moments from his life. It’s very funny, a wonderful portrait of a ripely eccentric family, a hugely enjoyable read.
Please note that we are awaiting an extract from the publisher for this title.
Guy Browning, author of the Number 1 bestselling Never Hit a Jellyfish with a Spade and popular longstanding Guardian columnist, finally turns his unique attention to a rich new comic seam - his own deeply eccentric and far-flung upbringing. Weaned on maps, educated by maps, surrounded by maps and ever so slightly in love with maps, Guy Browning presents a selection of intriguing and quirkily annotated cartographic gems to chart his unsteady progress from pewling toddler to pewling young man via the furthest corners of the Alps, Niagara Falls, the Mediterranean, Central America and darkest Chipping Norton. Maps of My Life revisits the richly comic highways, byways and unpaved tracks of Guy's unusually peripatetic early years, peopled with unforgettable relatives, friends and foe such as the Fatted Calf, the Sainted One, Langton Machoko and Marshal LaPoulette ...Beautifully produced with full-colour maps throughout, Maps of My Life is one of the funniest autobiographical travel memoirs since Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent .
Guy Browning writes the How to… column in The Guardian's Weekend magazine. He is also a business consultant specialising in creativity. He lives quietly in Oxfordshire. In addition to his two volumes of How To... columns, Guy is the author of Weak at the Top – the adventures of his management monster John Weak. Weak was adapted for BBC Radio 4 in 2005 and has been commissioned for a second series.
