Long Way Round

'A highly readable and spiritually uplifting book about a dream come true' Wanderlust 'Touching and memorable ... one for armchair travellers and bike freaks' Daily Mail From London to New York, Ewan and Charley chased their shadows through Europe, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia, across the Pacific to Alaska, then down through Canada and America. But as the miles slipped beneath the tyres of their big BMWs, their troubles started. Exhaustion, injury and accidents tested their strength. Treacherous roads, unpredictable weather and turbulent politics challenged their stamina. They were chased by paparazzi in Kazakhstan, courted by men with very large guns in the Ukraine, hassled by the police, and given bulls' testicles for supper by Mongolian nomads. And yet despite all these obstacles they managed to ride more than twenty thousand miles in four months, changing their lives forever in the process. As they travelled they documented their trip, taking photographs, and writing diaries by the campfire. Long Way Round is the result of their adventures - a fascinating, frank and highly entertaining travel book about two friends riding round the world together and, against all the odds, realising their dream.

It started as a daydream. Poring over a map of the world at home one quiet Saturday afternoon, Ewan McGregor - actor and self-confessed bike nut - noticed that it was possible to ride all the way round the world, with just one short hop across the Bering Strait from Russia to Alaska. It was a revelation he couldn't get out of his head. So he picked up the phone and called Charley Boorman, his best friend, fellow actor and bike enthusiast. 'Charley,' he said. 'I think you ought to come over for dinner...'From London to New York, Ewan and Charley chased their shadows through Europe, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia, across the Pacific to Alaska, then down through Canada and America. But as the miles slipped beneath the tyres of their big BMWs, their troubles started. Exhaustion, injury and accidents tested their strength. Treacherous roads, unpredictable weather and turbulent politics challenged their stamina. They were chased by paparazzi in Kazakhstan, courted by men with very large guns in the Ukraine, hassled by the police, and given bulls' testicles for supper by Mongolian nomads. And yet despite all these obstacles they managed to ride over 20,000 miles in four months, changing their lives forever in the process. As they travelled they documented their trip, taking photographs, and writing diaries by the campfire. Long Way Round is the result of their adventures - a fascinating, frank and highly entertaining travel book about two friends riding round the world together and, against all the odds, realising their dream.

Eighteen countries. Five shock absorbers. Two bikers. One amazing adventure... After their fantastic trip round the world in 2004, fellow actors and bike fanatics Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman couldn't shake the travel bug. Inspired by their UNICEF visits to Africa, they knew they had to go back and experience this extraordinary continent in more depth. And so they set off on their 15,000-mile journey with two new BMWs loaded up for the trip. Their route took them from John O'Groats at the northernmost tip of Scotland to Cape Agulhas on the southernmost tip of South Africa. Along the way they rode some of the toughest terrain in the world -- and met some of the friendliest people. They rode their bikes right up to the pyramids in Egypt and visited Luke Skywalker's house in Tunisia. They met people who had triumphed over terrifying experiences -- former childhood soldiers in Uganda and children living amidst the minefields of Ethiopia. They had a close encounter with a family of gorillas in Rwanda and were nearly trampled by a herd of elephants in Botswana. Riding through spectacular scenery, often in extreme temperatures, Ewan and Charley faced their hardest challenges yet. With their trademark humor and honesty they tell their story -- the drama, the dangers and sheer exhilaration of riding together again, through a continent filled with magic and wonder.

On February 16 2016, motorcycle adventurer Charley Boorman suffered a major road traffic accident in Portugal. Having spent the better part of his life on some form of motorbike, his world came crashing down after he was knocked off a Triumph Tiger Explorer, smashing his right ankle and causing severe damage to his left fibia and tibia. It was unclear if he would ever walk properly again, let alone ride a motorbike. Moving between past and present, Long Way Back recounts Charley's journey back of recovery, the ambulance ride, the numerous operations in a Portuguese hospital, the medivac aircraft flight back to London. In alternating chapters, as his inability to walk for several months provokes introspection, Boorman recounts his childhood, where his passion for motorbikes began, and the formative influences in his life - from his father, a touring film director, to his long-time friend Ewan McGregor, and Sean Connery's son Jason, who first introduced him to bikes. As Charley struggles to cope with this potentially life-changing situation, it is these touchstones who will give him strength on the long way back to health.

This adventurous work records Robert Edison Fulton's solo round-the-world tour on a two-cylinder Douglas motorcycle between July, 1932 and December, 1933. First published in 1937.

Charley Boorman is back on his bike exploring the world's second largest country - home to some of the most stunning and challenging terrain known to man. Canada is a country of extremes, and Charley knows all about pushing the limits. He goes dirt biking in New Brunswick, dives through old shipwrecks in Tobermory and rides along Butch Cassidy's old Outlaw Trail. He also meets a fascinating mix of people on his journey. As he heads across Canada, he plays ice hockey with a legend of the game; spends a day as a Mountie cadet and nearly meets a ghost in Winnipeg . . . Written with Charley's trademark enthusiasm and humour, Extreme Frontiers is fast-paced, hugely entertaining and packed with adventure (and rather a lot of mosquitoes).

“An intense snapshot of the chain reaction caused by pulling a trigger.” —Booklist (starred review) “Astonishing.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A tour de force.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A Newbery Honor Book A Coretta Scott King Honor Book A Printz Honor Book A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021) A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner for Young Adult Literature Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Winner of the Walter Dean Myers Award An Edgar Award Winner for Best Young Adult Fiction Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner An Entertainment Weekly Best YA Book of 2017 A Vulture Best YA Book of 2017 A Buzzfeed Best YA Book of 2017 An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds’s electrifying novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds—the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother. A cannon. A strap. A piece. A biscuit. A burner. A heater. A chopper. A gat. A hammer A tool for RULE Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES. And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if Will gets off that elevator. Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence, as could only be told by Jason Reynolds.

Ted Simon is the author of the classic travel book JUPITER'S TRAVELS. It documents his four-year journey round the world by motorbike, travelling through Europe, Africa, South and North America, and Asia. A number one bestseller in the late 1970s, it is still regarded as one of the greatest motorcycle books - indeed, one of the greatest travel books - ever written. In 2001, at the age of 69, Ted Simon decided to retrace his journey, and DREAMING OF JUPITER is the result. It took him two and a half years - during which time he revisited all the countries he had travelled through in the 1970s. He found much had changed, and he reflects upon the increased poverty, political upheavals, environmental issues and indeed the changes in himself. But ultimately, DREAMING OF JUPITER is a hugely inspiring read with a positive message at its heart - that even at the age of 70 you can still set off on an adventure, and be surprised and excited by what life throws at you along the way.

Jupiter's Travels -Ted Simon's astonishing 4 year motorbike journey around the world The book that inspired Ewan McGregor's Long Way Round In the late 1970s Ted Simon set off on a Triumph and rode 63,000 miles over four years through fifty-four countries in a journey that took him around the world. Through breakdowns, prison, war, revolutions, disasters and a Californian commune, he travelled into the depths of fear and reached the heights of euphoria. He met astonishing people and was treated as a spy, a welcome stranger and even a god. For Simon the trip became a journey into his own soul, and for many others - including bikers Charley Boorman and Ewan McGrergor - it provides an inspiration they will never forget. This classic text, which has informed a whole genre of travel writing in the thirty years since it was first published, will never be bettered for sheer adventure, passion, humour and honesty. Brought up in England by a German mother and a Romanian father, Ted Simon found himself impelled by an insatiable desire to explore the world. It led him to abandon an early scientific career in favour of journalism, and he has worked for several newspapers and magazines on Fleet Street and elsewhere. Ted Simon is also the author of Riding Home and The Gypsy in Me.

As the producer and director of some of TV's most successful travel series - The Long Way Down, The Long Way Round, Race to Dakar and By Any Means - Russ Malkin is an expert in adventure travel. Here, in Big Earth - 101 Amazing Adventures, which has a foreword by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, Russ talks us through his favourite trips and destinations, so we can set off and explore this incredible world for ourselves. Although there are challenging trips for the serious traveller here, you don't need months to spare or thousands of pounds to get started. Some of these trips you can do in just a few days - race the Isle of Man TT circuit, camel trek in Morocco or sail from Dover to Calais; some you can do in two weeks off work - trek the Inca trail, ride a Harley along route 66 or get an overland truck trough Peru; while a few will take you that little bit longer - ice climb the Mont Blanc Massif, cycle across the Andes or drive from Cairo to Cape Town. Whether you are looking for a weekend break to tame your inner adrenaline junkie, a two-week holiday to blast away the cobwebs, a three-month trip of a lifetime, or an armchair escape from the drudgery of everyday life, this is the perfect adventure travel book for you.