Narrow Dog to Carcassonne (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As husband-and-wife pensioners, Brits Terry and Monica Darlington sail their barge down the English canal system, along the Thames, past London, to Paris on the Seine and down the Rhône to Carcassonne, France. Along the way, they introduce the folks who make their homes on the water. They avoid teenage vandals, fail to teach their beloved whippet, Jim, to hunt rabbits and sail across the English Channel after nearly every informed acquaintance advises otherwise. The mixture of British vernacular and boating terms in this book originally published in England will leave some readers adrift. Yet the style echoes the author's clear zest for living in the moment. Frequent flashes of wit and poetic prose capture poignant emotions. The addendum of French phrases entitled French in Fifteen Minutes nicely sums up differences in the French and British cultures and makes clear the author's own mistakes while navigating a foreign language and culture. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

When they retired, Terry Darlington and his wife, Monica, decided to take a trip. The Welsh couple, along with their dog, a whippet called Jim, set out in a 60-foot narrow boat across the English Channel and down the Rhone River to the south of France. In this memoir of “travel travail, and dubious wine,” they describe the places they saw and the people they met. In a brief final chapter, they insist that the only way to learn to speak French “is to go somewhere where you have to speak the language or starve and do without sex.” This is followed by 18 phrases and a suggestion that at times of high excitement your action should be similar to a man standing beneath a tree catching plums. The book, which includes color maps and illustrations, no doubt is one of the most hilarious travel memoirs ever written. --George Cohen

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Delta; First American Edition edition (March 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038534208X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385342087
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #67,020 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #68 in

  Books > Travel > Europe > Great Britain

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars enjoy narrowdog, June 5, 2008

By	BarbV "BarbV" (Niagara Falls, NY) - See all my reviews

If you like travel and/or boats and/or dogs and/or a writer with humor and quotes from classics to films, this book will be right up your...canal. Funny and disarming, showing the downside moments as well as the champagne highs of taking a narrowboat across the Channel and, even more scaringly, down through France, not a dull page in the lot.

I can't wait to see what happens when Terry and Monica and Jim the Narrow Dog come to my home country in the US.

I read it in two sittings.
BarbV

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Narrow dog"was terrific!, July 14, 2008

By	John Houck - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

We've driven a barge to Carcassonne and the auther captures the experience. However, it was his sense if humor that kept us helpless.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a very good book!, August 25, 2008

By	Tea Time "Tea Time" (United States) - See all my reviews

I read a lot of travel books and especially a lot of books about travel or living in France. This is, hands-down, one of the top 3 I've ever read, and I can't remember what the other two are! This is funny! It's honest. It's sometimes exciting. The writing is much better than that of most travel tales, by far!

Mr. Darlington is a poet, and he's obviously had that wonderful sort of British education that sends one off into life with a head full of poetry as well as facts. This book is sometimes a poem, without a spare word. He makes his adventures come alive. He makes us want to be friends with him and his wife, Monica, and even with Jim the "narrow dog."

I am really looking forward to the publication next year of his book about traveling the the southern U.S. Mr. Darlington, I hope you keep writing for a long time!