The Old Patagonian Express Book Cover

The Old Patagonian Express


A work of Non-fiction


Subgenres:

  • Travel Memoir,
  • Train Travel,
  • Central America
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This book is for you if you're into...

  • Epic train journeys from Boston to the edge of Patagonia
  • Meeting eccentric fellow travelers and unforgettable locals
  • Travel writing that blends gritty reality with unexpected literary encounters
Publisher Description

The acclaimed travel writer journeys by train across the Americas from Boston to Patagonia in this international bestselling travel memoir.

Starting with a rush-hour subway ride to South Station in Boston to catch the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago, Paul Theroux takes a grand railway adventure first across the United States and then south through Mexico, Central America, and across the Andes until he winds up on the meandering Old Patagonian Express steam engine.

His epic commute finally comes to a halt in a desolate land of cracked hills and thorn bushes that reaches toward Antarctica.

Along the way, Theroux demonstrates how train travel can reveal "the social miseries and scenic splendors" of a continent.

And through his perceptive prose we learn that what matters most are the people he meets along the way, including the monologuing Mr. Thornberry in Costa Rica, the bogus priest of Cali, and the blind Jorge Luis Borges, who delights in having Theroux read Robert Louis Stevenson to him.

More Paul Theroux

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