Theroux`s odyssey takes him from Eastern Europe, still hung over from communism, through tense but thriving Turkey into the Caucasus, where Georgia limps back toward feudalism while its neighbor Azerbaijan revels in oilfueled capitalism. Theroux is firsthand witness to it all, traveling as the locals doby stifling train, rattletrap bus, illicit taxi, and mudcaked footencountering adventures only he could have: from the literary (sparring with the incisive Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk) to the dissolute (surviving a weeklong bender on the TransSiberian Railroad). And wherever he goes, from the European Union to the Pacific Rim and back, his omnivorous curiosity and unerring eye for detail never fail to inspire, enlighten, inform, and entertain
