At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig
By John Gimlette
By John Gimlette
By John Gimlette
By John Gimlette
Part of Vintage Departures
Part of Vintage Departures
Category: Latin American World History
Category: Travel: Central & South America | Latin American World History
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$17.95
Mar 08, 2005 | ISBN 9781400078523
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Sep 21, 2011 | ISBN 9780307806529
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Praise
"Colorful and meandering, by turns hilarious and horrifying, often delightful. . .and very, very odd. . . . An entirely faithful reflection of its subject." —The New York Times Book Review
“[Gimlette’s] account is so rich in anecdotes, so suffused in color and dialect that we are left with a sense of having somehow inhaled all this Paraguayan history and then experienced it through a nightmare or a dream. Gimlette has given us a cast of characters as vivid as any by Dickens or Waugh.”— The New York Times
“Gimlette knows his subject cold, and it’s a subject bound to have something for everyone . . . Charming and vivid. . . crammed full of a wild cast of characters and incredible experiences.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“A hilarious, informed anti-travelogue . . . with generous detail grounded in the author’s personal experiences, this is a travel book of the mind.”–The Boston Globe
"Blends travelogue, history and flights of descriptive whimsy to highly tonic effect. . . . For all his mastery of Paraguayan history, it’s Gimlette’s extravagant prose and unhinged enthusiasm that make the book. . . . You couldn’t ask for a more entertaining guide." —The Seattle Times
"Hilarious. . . . What keeps you reading about Paraguay, maybe in spite of yourself, is Gimlette’s marvelous wit and eye for character." —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Reading the book is like watching a Komodo dragon eat a tethered goat. Paraguay, as Gimlette portrays it, is . . . completely bizarre. . . . Conquistadores and Nazis, whores and cannibals, all of them rather awful, all of them splendidly rendered. . . . Graham Greene would have approved.” —National Geographic Adventure
“A glorious travel book . . . in which the country’s craziness is portrayed with humor, insight and considerable deftness of touch. . . . As a historian of the absurd [Gimlette] is superlative.” —The Sunday Times (London)
"A wildly entertaining read: a raucous blend of history, travelogue, and guide." —Conde Nast Traveler
"At The Tomb of the Inflatable Pig should be ranked among the very best explorations of its kind: at once a history and a guide to one of the least hospitable nations on earth." —The Washington Times
"Irreverent and rambunctious. . . . [A] superior travel book." —Foreign Affairs
“An extraordinary book, part history, part travelogue . . . so vivid that nobody reading it is ever likely to forget the country. . . . A book that sheds fascinating light on a forgotten corner of Latin America’” —The Daily Telegraph (London)
“A richly detailed catalog of oddities and horrors, the kind of eccentricities that flourish in isolation. . . . [Gimlette] spills Paraguay’s cruelest, most shameful secrets, but his admiration for the forlorn middle country is real on every page.” —Outside
"Howlingly entertaining. . . . There [is] no resisting Gimlette’s rollicking account." —San Diego Union-Tribune
"A truly wonderful exploration of one of the world’s most captivating countries … Brilliant." —Sunday Express
"[A] wonderful, wacky book. . . . Filled with the offbeat and the bizarre. Gimlette’s narrative attempts to flesh out a country that is as difficult to define as nailing Jell-O to a wall. Vivid, riotous, fascinating and never dull, his book is wildly entertaining." —The Tucson Citizen
"Compelling. . . . Blackly comical. . . . Spicy, exuberant prose." —Mail on Sunday (London)
"Eccentric and richly descriptive. . . . The best travel writers are those with both a sense of history and a sense of humor, and Gimlette qualifies on both counts." —Richmond Times-Dispatch
“[Gimlette] has a firm grasp of the country’s intriguing past, and a watchful eye on its perplexing present.” –Literary Review
“Terrifically funny. . . . A great book in the noble tradition of British travel writing.” —Hartford Advocate
“Perceptive and entertaining.” —The Times Literary Supplement (London)
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