RIDING THE IRON ROOSTER: BY TRAIN THROUGH CHINA

By Paul Theroux

Synopsis

Paul Theroux left Victoria Station thinking that taking eight trains across Europe, Eastern Europe, the USSR and Mongolia would be the easy way to get to the Chinese border - the relaxing way, even. The reality, of course, was very different. In fact, Theroux experienced a decidedly odd trip to China that set the challenging tone for his epic year-long rail journey around that vast land - a journey which involved riding nearly every train in the country.

Sample Player

Narrator	Tim Verity
Length	19hrs 30mins
Catalogue No.	15456
Publisher	Penguin; 1989

Other audiobooks by Paul Theroux

THE BAD ANGEL BROTHERS

There's sibling rivalry and then there's the relationship of brothers Cal and Frank Belanger, which takes fraternal antipathy to a whole new level. Enemies seemingly since childhood, the small town of Littleford, where they are nicknamed 'The Bad Angle Brothers', just isn't big enough to hold them both. So Cal strikes out for the world's wild places—a gifted geologist in search of gold and other precious minerals, leaving Frank to develop a successful career as the town's lawyer, fixer and local hero. Apart, their differences are muted by distance, but when Cal, newly rich and newly wed, returns to the town of his birth, to buy a house and raise a family, Frank gives him the opposite of a brotherly welcome. From undermining Cal's marriage, while Cal is away on business, to torpedoing his finances, nothing is off the table, setting the scene for a tale of gleefully vicious betrayals and reprisals, culminating in the ultimate plan: murder.

DARK STAR SAFARI

Travelling across bush and desert, down rivers and across lakes, and through country after country, Theroux visits some of the most beautiful landscapes on earth, and some of the most dangerous. It is a journey of discovery and of rediscovery, of the unknown and the unexpected, but also of people and places he knew as a young and optimistic teacher forty years before.

DEEP SOUTH

For the past fifty years, Paul Theroux has travelled to the far corners of the earth. Here he turns his gaze to a region much closer to his home. Travelling through North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas he writes of the stunning landscapes he discovers - the deserts, the mountains, the Mississippi - and above all, the lives of the people he meets.

GHOST TRAIN TO THE EASTERN STAR

From the Eurostar in London, Paul Theroux sets out on a journey to the East, travelling overland through Eastern Europe, India and Asia. Infused with the changes that have shaped the exterior landscape and enriched with developments to his own perceptions and psychology, his account is an absorbing follow-up to The Great Railway Bazaar. (12513).

THE GREAT RAILWAY BAZAAR

A captivating account of Paul Theroux's epic journey by rail through Asia. Travelling on the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Hikari Super Express to Kyoto and the Trans-Siberian Express, he describes the many places, cultures, sights and sounds he experienced and the fascinating people he met.

THE OLD PATAGONIAN EXPRESS

Paul Theroux depicts a train journey down the length of North and South America, from ice-bound Massachusetts to the arid plateau of Argentina’s most southerly tip. He describes the people he encountered – the tedious Mr Thornberry in Limón and reading to the legendary blind writer, Jorge Luis Borges, in Buenos Aires.

ON THE PLAIN OF SNAKES

Nogales is a border town caught between Mexico and the United States of America. A forty-foot steel fence runs through its centre, separating the prosperous US side from the impoverished Mexican side. It is a fascinating site of tension as the town fills with hopeful border crossers and the deportees who have been brought back. And it is here that travel writer, Paul Theroux will begin his journey into the culturally rich but troubled heart of modern Mexico in this mesmerising exploration of a region in conflict.

UNDER THE WAVE AT WAIMEA

Joe Sharkey knows he is passed his prime. Now in his sixties, the younger surfers around the breaks on the north shore of Oahu still revere him as the once-legendary 'Shark', but his sponsors have moved on, and Joe wonders what new future awaits him on the horizon. Uninterrupted quality time with the ocean, he hopes.Life has other plans. When he accidentally hits and kills a man near Waimea while drunk-driving, he fears he will never rebound. Under the direction of his stubbornly loyal girlfriend Olive, he throws himself into uncovering his victim's story. But what they find in Max Mulgrave is entirely unexpected: a shared history - and refuge in the sea. Set on the stunning Hawaiian coast, Theroux captures the glory and nostalgia of looking back at a rich and adventurous past, whilst learning to ride out life's next unexpected wave.