About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherGranta Books

ISBN-101847080014

ISBN-139781847080011

eBay Product ID (ePID)70954073

Product Key Features

Book TitleCountry in the Moon : Travels in Search of the Heart of Poland

Number of Pages320 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicEurope / Eastern, General, Europe / Poland

Publication Year2008

IllustratorYes

GenreTravel, History

AuthorMichael Moran

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height1.3 in

Item Weight20.8 Oz

Item Length9.4 in

Item Width6.4 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

Dewey Edition22

Reviews"Erudite, humbling and rhapsodic . . . No thinking traveller interested in Poland should overlook this essential book." -The Guardian, "Literary travel writing at its best: elegiac, informative and profound probably the best travel book I will read this year." -Wanderlust, "Moran is a sensitive, intelligent companion, as able to capture the rapacious spirit and chaotic conditions of modern Poland as he is the mournful, savage ghosts of its past. The result is moving and absorbing." - Metro, "Erudite, humbling and rhapsodic . . . No thinking traveller interested in Poland should overlook this essential book." -The Guardian, "Moran is a sensitive, intelligent companion, as able to capture the rapacious spirit and chaotic conditions of modern Poland as he is the mournful, savage ghosts of its past. The result is moving and absorbing." -Metro, "Literary travel writing at its best: elegiac, informative and profound probably the best travel book I will read this year." - Wanderlust

Dewey Decimal914.380457

Synopsis'A Country in the Moon' is the result of Michael Moran's fascination with Poland. Honouring a deathbed pledge to his uncle, he gives an insider's view of a country embarked on wrenching change after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the confrontation of ghosts from the wartime and communist past., Poland was once the largest country in Europe - and one of the most powerful. The opulence of the Orient lived alongside the melancholy of the Romantic north creating a nation of passionate extremes and paradoxical psychology, but a country that valued honour and freedom above all. Devastated by waves of brutal invaders - Tatars, Swedes, Germans and Russians - Poland as the 'bulwark of Christendom' was virtually eclipsed in the eighteenth century, an all but forgotten magnificence..... A Country in the Moon is the result of Michael Moran's fascination with this remarkable land over nearly two decades. Honouring a deathbed pledge to his uncle, an eccentric concert pianist obsessed with the music of Chopin, he gives an insider's view of a country embarked on wrenching change after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the present confrontation of ghosts from the wartime and communist past.....In this uproarious personal memoir and meticulously researched cultural journey we keep company with a gallery of fantastic characters - Tatars and Teutonic Knights, Napoleon's mistress and daredevil Spitfire pilots, robbers and Rolls-Royce mechanics, heroic defenders of freedom alongside an ill-assorted group of modern Britons and Poles. In chronicling the resurrection of the nation from war and the Holocaust, he paints a portrait of cities lost and cities gained, monumental castles, primeval forests and picturesque landscape gardens among the finest yet least-known in Europe.....This captivating journey into the heart of Poland is a timely and brilliant celebration of the return to the European fold of a valiant and richly cultured people., The author of Beyond the Coral Sea, shortlisted for the Thomas Cook travel literature prize, shows the quirky, colourful side of Polish life and provides a condensed social history of Poland just after the Soviet collapse. Many of Michael Moran's encounters over his past 15 years in the country are funny and bizarre, but he also looks at anti-semitism and the Holocaust. In 1976 Moran promised his dying uncle, the eccentric concert pianist Edward Cahill, that he would scatter his ashes at Chopin's birthplace in Poland. In the meantime though, he managed a post-Communist venture in Warsaw to introduce Polish banks to "the joys of the market economy," had a liaison with a Cabinet Minister's wife and drove 80,000 miles in an antique Rolls-Royce. Through all of this he has come to have a deep understanding of Poland's troubled history and character.

LC Classification NumberDK4037