Book Review
Off the Rails By Beppe Severgnini
Have you travelled by train? Do you love travelling by train? Do you wish you were travelling on a train right now? Then this could be a book for you.
The Italian columnist, foreign correspondent and author, Beppe Severgnini recounts some of his train journeys over the last four decades across America, Australia, Europe, the USSR (one of which was on the Trans Siberian express - this is prior to the fall of communism - as a honeymoon trip!), and across his homeland of Italy.
While the author is Italian and the book is translated, I was pleased to be able to share some of the author's cultural references with a few nods and laughs. On a recent train trip he travelled with a bobblehead Donald Trump. No need to ask what people thought of Trump, fellow travellers came to him and volunteered their thoughts.
It made me want to travel to the places I haven't been to, and to experience the little and big things, including the monotony of long journeys, the bumps on the head and the unique window view from the top bunk of a sleeper car. There is nothing quite like the lull of the train's motion, the encounters with people of all walks of life, the views of course and being able to relax in this, mostly, stressfree way to travel.
