The Life of My Choice - Hardcover

Thesiger, Wilfred

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 000216194X ISBN 13: 9780002161947

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1987

Synopsis

Wilfred Thesiger, this century’s greatest living explorer, reveals the events and people that most influenced his travels through some of the most inaccessible places on earth.

As a child in Abyssinia he watched the victorious armies of Ras Tafari returning from hand-to-hand battle, their prisoners in chains; at the age of twenty-three he made his first expedition into the country of the Danakil, a murderous race among whom a man’s status depended on the number of men he had killed and castrated. His widely acclaimed books, Arabian Sands and The Marsh Arabs, tell of his two famous sojourns in the Empty Quarter and the Marshes of southern Iraq. But Thesiger’s true character and motives have until now remained an enigma. In this, his autobiography, he shares some of the experiences that allowed him to live the life of his choice.

About this title

Review:

‘One of the few people who in our time could be put on the pedestal of the great explorers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.’
David Attenborough

‘He is unquestionably, one of the greatest travellers the British have ever produced, the last of our recognizable primitives. He also writes with much distinction and honesty.’
Geoffrey Moorhouse, Daily Telegraph

‘A treasure galleon built to the same specifications as Arabian Sands and The Marsh Arabs... it is the record of a man magnificiently and unabachedly out of step with his times’
E.S Turner London Review of Books

From the Back Cover:

Wilfred Thesiger is the last of the great British eccentric explorers, a legendary figure, renowned for his travels through some of the most inaccessible places on earth. As a child in Abyssinia he watched the victorious armies of Ras Tafari returning from hand-to-hand battle, their prisoners in chains; at the age of twenty-three he made his first expedition into the country of the Danakil, a murderous race among whom a man’s status in the tribe depended on the number of men he had killed and castrated. His widely acclaimed books, 'Arabian Sands' and 'The Marsh Arabs' tell of his two famous sojourns in the Empty Quarter and the Marshes of southern Iraq. But Thesiger’s true character and motives have until now remained an enigma. In this, his autobiography, he highlights the people who most profoundly influenced him and the events which enabled him to lead the life of his choice.

“One of the very few people who in our time could be put on the pedestal of the great explorers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.”
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH

“A treasure galleon built to the same specifications as 'Arabian Sands' and 'The Marsh Arabs' ... it is the record of a man magnificently and unabashedly out of step with his times.”
E.S. TURNER, 'London Review of Books'

“He is, unquestionably, one of the greatest travellers the British have ever produced, the last of our recognizable primitives. He also writes with much distinction and honesty.”
GEOFFREY MOORHOUSE, 'Daily Telegraph'

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 000216194X
• ISBN 13: 9780002161947
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464