CondĂ© Nast Traveller – June 2008 So I want to catch up on two jewels missed earlier this year. Chief among these is Sarah Andersonâs Halfway to Venus: A One Armed Journey. Anderson lost an arm as a young girl; as an adult she set up the Travel Bookshop, in 1979. These and other life … Read more
Very nice review today in the Independent by Virginia Ironside and a piece in the Wexas Traveller magazine about âWhy I wrote the bookâ â I suppose the point of this blog is really over. The book is published and out and Iâm just accumulating reviews – nice though that is (as to date they’ve … Read more
At first sight, you could be forgiven for thinking that Halfway to Venus, a “one-armed journey”, was going to be a “poor me” book. But what makes it so different is that, despite having had her arm amputated due to cancer when she was 10, Sarah Anderson is at pains to tell us that she’s … Read more
Just before her tenth birthday, Sarah Anderson complained of a lump in her left arm. An hour later, she was sitting in the doctor’s surgery (a telltale sign that this was 1957 and not 2008). By the evening, her parents had been told by the doctor that their daughter was most probably suffering from a … Read more
A request for assistance cutting up food leads to a jaw-droppingly ignorant comment from an airhostess, âDo you mind being my baby?â Thus Sarah Anderson felt compelled to write about what itâs like to live with one arm, in a two-armed world. You could say Sarah isnât the luckiest person in the world. Her left … Read more
Help what a gap â so whatâs been happening? Daily (or rather hourly) checks on my rating on Amazon. Fluctuates from 2 thousand and something up to twenty thousand and something. But that must mean its still selling. The reviews I sent to Amazon STILL havenât been added â or rather only the very first … Read more
The unkindest cut Sarah Anderson’s poignant memoir Halfway to Venus describes life with one arm gone, says Andrew Barrow The author of this fascinating odyssey is better known as the founder of the Travel Bookshop, made famous in the film Notting Hill, than for losing an arm to cancer at the age of 10. Never … Read more
Iâve been slack about writing the blog ⊠so whatâs been happening? I spent most of Monday preparing the talk for the Broadway Bookshop (which happened last night) â very nice atmosphere. Full house which meant about 20 people and I think a fair amount of books were sold. Iâm still trying to get a … Read more
Tuck your thumb between your second and middle finger, sit down in a Turkish cafe, and those you are with may either thump or laugh at you. You’re making as obvious and vulgar gesture in their culture as giving them the finger. This trait of mine is something that runs in families, I now learn, … Read more
What I left out earlier in the week was the fact that on Tuesday Iâd been on Radio 5 Live with Victoria Derbyshire. On Saturday morning I did Saturday Live with Fi Glover â the most nervewracking radio to date â not least because I realised that so many people I knew would be listening … Read more