East of Croydon
Sue Perkins
Narrated By: Sue Perkins
Duration: 10 hours and 24 minutes
What to expect
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of East of Croydon written and read by Sue Perkins.
A few years ago I was asked if I'd like to make a documentary on the Mekong River, travelling from the vast delta in Vietnam to the remote and snowy peaks of Tibet.
Up until that point, the farthest East I'd been was Torremolinos, in the Costa Del Sol.
Here's the thing:
I am scared of flying.
I have zero practical skills.
I can't survive if I am more than a three minute walk from a supermarket.
For the last seven years I have suffered with crippling anxiety
I bolt when panicked.
I cannot bear to witness humans or animals in distress
I have no ability to learn languages.
I am a terrible hypochondriac
And I am no good with boats.
So I said yes.
Genre
Classic travel writing, Travel guides: adventure holidays, Places & peoples: general & pictorial works, Performing arts, Memoirs, Humour, Autobiography: arts & entertainment
Listen to a sample
Alongside laugh-out-loud travel stories, the book also provides a moving account of her coming to terms with her father's death
Her misadventures deliver laughs aplenty, but she's also engaged with the places, politics and crucially, the people. Enjoyable, interesting and often moving
Praise for Spectacles:
Sue's memoir will leave you feeling like you've made a new best friend. Introducing us to a cast of friends, family and love interests, and not forgetting a psychopathic nun, Sue picks apart life in a refreshingly honest, warm and downright hilarious way... Spectacles firmly cements her as an exciting writer of the future
Vivid, laugh-out-loud, moving
Utterly wonderful. It's very, very funny and poignant and it's very Sue Perkins and that's the bliss of it
This smart and funny story is far from the photo-heavy, ghost-written volumes that it will compete with . . . Perkins is such a good writer . . . incapable of writing a boring sentence
Brilliantly written . . . fearlessly honest and full of heart, it will also make you laugh like a gibbon
Part memoir, part travel guide. A fab account full of wit and emotion
I absolutely loved it . . . whip smart and very funny
The former Bake Off presenter journeys far out of her comfort zone on travels from India to Indonesia, sharing entertaining travel stories and a moving account of grieving for her father
[A] deftly written and belly-laugh funny autobiography . . . Though she never suggests she might be remotely brainy, she clearly is. Her vocabulary makes Will Self's seem lacking, her writing is full of discreetly clever allusions . . . If she wants her readers to like her, she certainly achieved it with this reviewer who laughed and cried and secretly wants her as a best friend
Drama, tears and laughs - Spectacles has got it all. A brilliant, touching memoir suffused with love, it reminds you that life is best lived at wonky angles. I ADORED it
Alongside a wealth of vivid and hilarious travel stories, Sue also writes movingly about coming to terms with the recent death of her father as she stands beside the Ganges
It's a proper book . . . so well written. Tight & bright & full of inspiration
Very funny . . . It seems there are two Sue Perkins: the TV one, who gabbles and pratfalls, and the sensitive one who aches. The first of course, exists to protect the second. They can both write. The first writes comedy, the second tragedy; in this sense, reading her memoir is very like meeting her
Life, love and loss - it's all here ... Warm, crisp and beautifully layered - like its author, Spectacles is a complete delight
Relentlessly cheering, Spectacles is as charming and funny as Perkins herself. Like going for a long, slightly drunken lunch with your naughtiest friend
An unvarnished, endearing and very funny account