Day trips to the desert: A sort of travel book

Geoff Nicholson is a pretty quirky author. I have read a fiction book of his previously - What Did We Do on Our Holiday? and I think very much to read and enjoy him you need to ‘get' his humour. It will definitely not work for everyone, or probably many.

This is non-fiction, and as can be seen from the title, it is ostensibly about deserts. It was cheap in a second hand bookshop, I recognised the authors name and thought I would give it a go.

I say ostensibly about deserts. It contains four sections, each about travel to a desert, but the thing that ties this book together is the death of the authors father. He is at a different stage of dying for each section, and it is a particularly sad read in the parts about this - very real, and very honest with his thoughts - actually that last part applies right through, the author shares all his thoughts. Many of these are humorous - I am not sure all are supposed to be.

Nicholson's trips to the desert consist of - a group tour in Morocco which doesn't really reach the Sahara, but gives a ‘flavour of the desert'. The only quote I marked comes from this section: P35, upon reaching a traditional Berber hut, with a family dressed in traditional clothes...

We were told we were free to take pictures of the scene, but it would cost us a couple of dirhams each. Some of our group lost the moral high ground here, handing over eh money and began snapping their cameras. Others, myself included, felt that this was a fairly unedifying spectacle. We never expected much human dignity from tourists, but we'd hoped for more from the Berbers.