Lots
Marc Martin
Big Picture Press
Prepare for a visual tour that takes in places as different as Delhi and Antarctica, Alice Springs and the Amazon rainforest,
Tokyo and the Galapagos Islands and the wonderful and exciting things to be found at each destination. There’s a plethora of people to meet, amazing and common or garden animals to encounter – the inevitable abundance of dogs in Paris, and the elephant shrews of Cape Town. Tokyo seems almost over-run with vending machines and Kawaii (cute things), whereas cats are curiously common in Cairo;
and Delhi is replete with rickshaws of various kinds; and chai wallahs are always on hand to provide you with a cuppa.
chai wallhas at work
All this and much more, is contained within Marc Martin’s vibrant, jam-packed illustrations printed on beautifully matt spreads – one per location.
There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to his choice or arrangement of destinations: Ulaanbaatar with its ubiquity of yaks and Reykjavik, home to lots of Annas and Jóns clearly interested him so there we are.
Amusing snippets of information are scattered over the large pages, some such as Lenin almost ‘accidentally’ being an honorary member of the Beatles are funny, or that New York is sometimes called ‘The City that Never Sleeps’ (probably on account of the coffee!) Martin suggests.
So, if you want to be an ‘armchair traveller’, this is for you; better still, get hold of the book, be inspired by one of the destinations herein and then pay it a visit, to learn more about its people, wildlife, buildings, food, transport and landmarks for real.
