or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
Express Checkout with PayPhrase
What's this? | Create PayPhrase
Sorry!
X
More Buying Choices
245 used & new from $0.01
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
The Songlines
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book
Tell the Publisher!
I’d like to read this book on Kindle

Don’t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.
 
  

The Songlines (Paperback)

~ (Author) "IN ALICE SPRINGS - a grid of scorching streets where men in long white socks were forever getting in and out of Land Cruisers -..." (more)
Key Phrases: Land Cruiser, Middle Bore, Father Terence (more...)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
List Price: $16.00
Price: $10.88 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $5.12 (32%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Wednesday, November 11? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
40 new from $5.49 202 used from $0.01 3 collectible from $5.00

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
  Hardcover -- $39.96 $0.01
  Paperback $10.88 $5.49 $0.01
  Audio, Cassette, Abridged, Audiobook -- -- --
  Unknown Binding, Import -- -- $0.55

Frequently Bought Together

The Songlines + In Patagonia (Penguin Classics) + What Am I Doing Here?
Price For All Three: $32.64

Show availability and shipping details

  • This item: The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • In Patagonia (Penguin Classics) by Bruce Chatwin

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • What Am I Doing Here? by Bruce Chatwin

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

What Am I Doing Here?

What Am I Doing Here?

by Bruce Chatwin
4.4 out of 5 stars (10)  $11.56
Dreamkeepers: A Spirit-Journey into Aboriginal Australia

Dreamkeepers: A Spirit-Journey into Aboriginal Australia

by Harvey Arden
4.5 out of 5 stars (6)  $15.30
Utz

Utz

by Bruce Chatwin
4.5 out of 5 stars (19)  $10.20
The Viceroy of Ouidah

The Viceroy of Ouidah

by Bruce Chatwin
4.0 out of 5 stars (9)  $10.40
Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings 1969-1989

Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings 1969-1989

by Bruce Chatwin
3.2 out of 5 stars (4)  $12.48
› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The late Bruce Chatwin carved out a literary career as unique as any writer's in this century: his books included In Patagonia, a fabulist travel narrative, The Viceroy of Ouidah, a mock-historical tale of a Brazilian slave-trader in 19th century Africa, and The Songlines, his beautiful, elegiac, comic account of following the invisible pathways traced by the Australian aborigines. Chatwin was nothing if not erudite, and the vast, eclectic body of literature that underlies this tale of trekking across the outback gives it a resonance found in few other recent travel books. A poignancy, as well, since Chatwin's untimely death made The Songlines one of his last books.


From Publishers Weekly

PW praised Chatwin's "entertaining" and "resonant" reflections on the distinctions between settled people and wanderers, and between human aggression and pacifism, as he searches central Australia for the pathways along which aborigines travel to perform their cultural activities.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Later printing edition (June 1, 1988)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0140094296
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140094299
  • Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #24,903 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

    #2 in  Books > History > Australia & Oceania > New Zealand
    #3 in  Books > History > Australia & Oceania > Australia
    #14 in  Books > Travel > Australia & South Pacific

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Author

Bruce Chatwin
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Bruce Chatwin Page
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:
Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
IN ALICE SPRINGS - a grid of scorching streets where men in long white socks were forever getting in and out of Land Cruisers - I met a Russian who was mapping the scared sites of the Aboriginals. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Land Cruiser, Middle Bore, Father Terence, Father Villaverde, Alice Springs, Land Rights, Elizabeth Vrba, Mount Liebler, Big Tom, Glen Armond, Gym Bore, Stumpy Jones, Central Australia, Native Cat, Port Augusta, Roe River, Tennant Creek, Todd Street, Ayer's Rock, Golden Age, Violet Crumble, Alan Brady, Aunt Katie, Cycad Valley, Father Flynn
New!
Concordance | Text Stats
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 27 books:
See all 27 books this book cites

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Songlines
87% buy the item featured on this page:
The Songlines 4.1 out of 5 stars (54)
$10.88
In Patagonia (Penguin Classics)
5% buy
In Patagonia (Penguin Classics) 4.3 out of 5 stars (18)
$10.20
Dreamkeepers: A Spirit-Journey into Aboriginal Australia
3% buy
Dreamkeepers: A Spirit-Journey into Aboriginal Australia 4.5 out of 5 stars (6)
$15.30
Wise Women of the Dreamtime: Aboriginal Tales of the Ancestral Powers
3% buy
Wise Women of the Dreamtime: Aboriginal Tales of the Ancestral Powers 4.3 out of 5 stars (3)
$10.17
Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(6)
(5)
(4)
(4)
(3)
(2)
(2)
(2)
(1)
(1)
(1)
See all 17 tags...

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more
 

Customer Reviews

54 Reviews
5 star:
 (27)
4 star:
 (13)
3 star:
 (7)
2 star:
 (5)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (54 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars do it, February 11, 2000
By Greg Flynn (Australia) - See all my reviews
Dying of AIDS and with Salman Rushdie, Bruce Chatwin made a lightning visit to Australia. The Songlines is the fascinating result of this terminal search for meaning.

The good points are that Chatwin's considerable intellect and narrative capacities weave a story based on year's travel experience. The bad point is that he knew almost nothing about his subject and as such has written an Englishman's compassionate contemporary account of the colonies.

I live and work on a remote aboriginal community near the areas Chatwin visited. Traditional Aborignal law is an amazingly complex oral culture so rich in history and symbolism that I have profound doubts about any whitefella ever properly understanding it, let alone a visiting foreigner desperately looking for something.

This is a great book, but don't think by reading it you will get a terrifically accurate profile of what being an aborigine is, whatever that means. They are not, as Chatwin seems to deduce, another group of nomadic noble savages more fulfilled than the more sedentary post-agriculture communitites.

Comment Comment (1) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
51 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing and important, January 7, 2003
By Carper (Europe) - See all my reviews
This is a difficult book to describe: it masquerades as a Theroux style travelogue, but is anything but. I love Paul Theroux, but this totally transcends his travel writing. Chatwin starts out describing a trip to the Australian Outback. It starts out pretty conventional, in beautiful descriptive prose...but before too long you realize you are actually reading Chatwin's brilliant ruminations about the human race as a species, where we came from, and where we are going. The book is NOT really about the Aborigines, though they provide a number of terrific characters, and I suspect someone who really wanted to know more about the actual Songlines could be disappointed by this book. He very clearly sets up his own views against those of many important and popular thinkers. To sum it up, he makes a case that humans are not really an aggressive species at heart, and that evolution has not really programmed the human to fight for power but to defend the tribe. Not every will agree with this, but he makes a wonderful case and the book is beautiful and crystalline and should be read by everyone.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Much more than a travel book, March 26, 2000
William James said that to "learn the secrets of any science, we go to expert specialists, even though they may be eccentric persons, and not to commonplace pupils." It seems, Bruce Chatwin used the same method to shed light on what for him was the question of questions: the nature of human restlessness.

The Songlines consists of the stories of the eccentric experts in the science of restlessness Chatwin met in Western Australia, and notebook entries ranging from Blaise Pascal's philosophical reflections to a meeting with Konrad Lorenz in Austria. Chatwin had originally intended to use these notebook entries for a book on nomads. He gave up the project but the entries reveal the man and his quest.

In a way, The Songlines is Chatwin's own songline: a track which tells of what he found on his wanderings, and what he considered worth singing.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Annoying interjections
The first sentence sounded promising:"In Alice Springs - a grid of scorching streets where men in long white socks were forever getting in and out of Land Cruisers - I met a... Read more
Published on May 21, 2007 by Roman Zenner

3.0 out of 5 stars Bruce Chatwin wrote half a book...
The Songlines really captured my attention. Human ecology, cultural anthropology, human evolution, cultural imperialism, Songlines, Native Australians ("aborigines"), travels... Read more
Published on April 16, 2007 by Robert Schmidt

3.0 out of 5 stars Aboriginals in Australia
In Alice Springs the narrator called Bruce meets Arkady Volchok, an Australian citizen who is mapping the sacred sites of the Aboriginals. Read more
Published on March 13, 2007 by Philippe Horak

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the best
This is the kind of writing/reflecting many people do while travelling and is not a "how to" type of travel guide. Read more
Published on October 2, 2006 by Carlton M. Vandiver

5.0 out of 5 stars The Songlines
As i never wanted to go to Australia, i have to say that after reading this book i have not changed my mind, but it is not a point. Read more
Published on December 17, 2005 by Martin Madera

5.0 out of 5 stars Read before you go!
I wish I had read this book prior to our traveling to Australia.
It would have added more value to our already wonderful trip.
Published on October 1, 2005 by Kim Kirmmse Toth

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing...
I read it because some people recommended it to me as "the father of travel writing". However, it's not been a page-turner to me...
Published on September 29, 2005 by Milton Noses

4.0 out of 5 stars Solvitur ambulando
Nominally a book recounting the time Chatwin spent with the Australian Aboriginal tribes of Alice Springs, The Songlines in reality weaves together travel writing, history, and... Read more
Published on July 30, 2005 by C. Gilbert

5.0 out of 5 stars An Experience of the Sacred
Bruce Chatwin takes the reader on a delightful journey across cultures and through time and space as he looks at issues of creation, history, tradition, and the sacred. Read more
Published on July 19, 2005 by C. S. Estrada

5.0 out of 5 stars Chatwin's Novel Blends Anthropology and Philosophy
Chatwin's Songlines investigates the essence of humanity's interactions and impulses in a accessible, storytelling prose. Read more
Published on May 20, 2005 by Matthew L. Bender

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   

Product Information from the Amapedia Community

Beta (What's this?)

Look for Similar Items by Category

Look for Similar Items by Subject

Search Books by subject:































i.e., each book must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...
 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.