Bookworm By John Andrews
This month I have a very special offering for Newsletter readers. I really do not think that the book I am about to reveal would have landed on my desk unless a great friend of mine from the USA had not sent the book to me for my birthday in March.
As we moan about wheelie bins, flight paths and potholes, it probably is fair that from time to time we should look back and perhaps reflect on how lucky we all are to be living in peaceful times in such a delightful location amongst the Chiltern Hills.
With all this in mind, I unwrapped my present, and for the next 24 hours I was spellbound and engulfed in one of the most compelling survival stories of all time.
‘The Long Walk’, published by the Lyons Press, is the true story of a trek to freedom by Slavomir Rawicz. This is one of those epic treks of the human race. Shackleton, Amundsen, Peary… history is filled with people who have crossed immense distances and survived against all the odds. However, the extraordinary feat of Rawicz and his companions, crossing an entire continent – the Siberian artic, Mongolia, the Gobi desert, Tibet and then the Himalayas – with nothing but an axe, a knife and a week’s supply of food is nothing short of miraculous.
In November 1939, Slavomir Rawicz was a proud Polish cavalry officer, aged 24, slim and smart in his well-tailored uniform with whipcord breeches and shining riding boots. In a few months he would be arrested and marched off to the Soviet Supreme Court and locked up in the damp cells of the Lubyanka. Then it was a cattle truck to Yakutsk in Siberia and eventual escape.
Read this epic tale and enjoy this testament to the strength of the human spirit and the universal desire for freedom and dignity.