| Pillars of Hercules |  | Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Penguin Putnam~trade
Category: Book
Buy New: $8.00
New (6) Used (22) Collectible (2) from $2.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 1922675
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 544
ISBN: 0241135044
EAN: 9780241135044
ASIN: 0241135044
Publication Date: October 26, 1995
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Paul Theroux has developed one of travel writing's most identifiable styles: always the foreigner, always a bit apart, slightly irascible, but perfectly observant. At last he has ventured to one of the most traveled places on earth, and returned with his most exhilarating, revealing, and eloquent travel book. In this modern version of the Grand Tour, Theroux sets off from Gibraltar, one of the fabled Pillars of Hercules, on a glorious journey around the shores of the Mediterranean.
Product Description
The popular author of The Great Railway Bazaar and other travelogues traces a modern version of the Grand Tour of Europe--a lively, sometimes violent journey around the shores of the Mediterranean.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 33 more reviews...
 A Great Book on the Mediterranean Seaboard September 9, 2008
I instantly became intrigued the minute I opened up this book. It is a wonderful chronicle of one man's adventures as he circumnavigates the shores of the captivating Mediterranean Sea. I could really imagine myself being in his coat pocket as he made his way around and about the many countries that form the shores of this mysterious sea.
The author is a very genuine human being and comes across very sincere in his recounting of his unconventional route about. As a fancier of history, culture, foreign politics, and geography this book had me quite compelled through and throughout. I didn't want it to end!
The book has staying power. Right there on my shelf as it would be a hard one to let loan or otherwise part with.
I'm very glad I found it, and will no doubt seek out other books by this author.
And I am very anxious now to make my own way into the Mediterranean!
 Don't waste your time June 7, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Please don't waste your time with this book. Theroux proves to be narrow minded, constantly negative, and regularly insensitive or incorrect in his portrayal of each region's history (his summery of modern Greece in particular was just painful). Which is a shame because he traveled to many very interesting places, he just seems to have been mostly interested in complaining about the pan handelers that bothered him in each of them. The start really says it all, when he decries the horrors of middle-class beach tourism (very original) and then proceeds to travel up the Costa del Sol in Spain, one of the heaviest beach resort areas in the world. I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear that he didn't like it, lol. Further, everything is shaded by a disdainful and superior attitude towards everyone he met...except fellow writers of course who were always "well respected". Maybe this overawes and "educates" some people, but as an intellectual myself who has traveled to some of these places also it just seems like the kind of elitist crap that gives the educated a bad name. Maybe his other books are good, he can certainly write, but I'll never read them after this one.
Vintage Theroux August 24, 2007
As expected, another wonderful travel book from a master, this time spiced with some biting observations of the moneyed tourist class.
A gorgeous bit of writing. March 21, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have read five of Paul Theroux's travel books: The Great Railway Bazaar, The Kingdom by the Sea, The Old Patagonian Express, Travel Fiend and now The Pillars of Hercules. I can say without a doubt, that this is my favorite travelogue of his. The book is concise and knowledgable and shows erudition lacking in most travelogues.
It is a total learning experience. I have looked up more words in this book than in most books I read. And I really appreciate that. He doesn't write books for people who are looking to read about the surface of a culture, or who just want the interesting bits revealed to them. He writes books for people that are truly interested and will take the time to learn all that he supplies the reader.
And I think this is his crowning achievement!
Filled with great stuff March 9, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Well, I just enjoy listening to (reading) what this guy talks (writes) about in his travels. An example (just one of many, many) is about the Mafia Monks. Seriously! Their nefarious activities "never prevented their hearing confessions, saying masses, or preaching at funerals - in one case, the monk in question saying a funeral high mass and preaching piously over the body of a man he had ordered killed." And I like the way he talks to ordinary people on the street and gets their point of view. Yes, it's a topsy-turvy world, but it sure beats the artificial world of fiction. I just visited Las Vegas. People wasting their lives chasing the jackpot, the fantasy world. Well, to each his own. But Paul Theroux tells it like it is - nutty, maybe, but that's the reality.
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