Paperback: 256pp

Publisher: Eye Books (Revised edition 2014)

ISBN: 9781903070857

Moods of Future Joys

Alastair Humphreys

£7.99

‘Alastair’s journey stands out as amazing’

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Mood of Future Joys follows round-the-world cyclist Alastair Humphreys on the first leg of his epic journey, starting in Yorkshire, then going down through Europe and travelling the whole length of Africa, including Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya.

The book conveys his journey in a style that is ‘reminiscent of the great tradition of the British explorers’ (The Guardian). At times uplifting, at times brutal, he faces loneliness, despair and harsh conditions, but his experience is ultimately one of joy and triumph.

Extracts

(Egypt)

I sat on a low stool in a street café, smoked a nargileh water pipe and played backgammon with a wise old man. His parents gave up the nomadic desert life when he was a boy, and came to live in the city. He bought me glasses of tea, and in return he had the pleasure of winning several games of backgammon. He threw the dice, one red, one green, onto the board of black wood and pale mother-of-pearl. “All the four colours of our flag,” he observed, exhaling a plume of sweet apple smoke. He spoke of backgammon as a philosophy for life. “It is black and white and you have no choice over what is dealt for you, or over what other people do to you. The choice that you have is how to best play your own pieces, to make all you possibly can out of what you have been dealt.”

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Extracts

(Egypt)

I sat on a low stool in a street café, smoked a nargileh water pipe and played backgammon with a wise old man. His parents gave up the nomadic desert life when he was a boy, and came to live in the city. He bought me glasses of tea, and in return he had the pleasure of winning several games of backgammon. He threw the dice, one red, one green, onto the board of black wood and pale mother-of-pearl. “All the four colours of our flag,” he observed, exhaling a plume of sweet apple smoke. He spoke of backgammon as a philosophy for life. “It is black and white and you have no choice over what is dealt for you, or over what other people do to you. The choice that you have is how to best play your own pieces, to make all you possibly can out of what you have been dealt.”

quotes

‘Alastair’s journey stands out as amazing’

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

reviews

‘Reminiscent of the great tradition of British explorers’

The Guardian

‘Humphreys writes with an open heart and he tells us the moments where he is at his lowest ebb and his moments of elation. Overall a very enjoyable read; looking forward to the second half soon’

Halfman, Halfbook ****

extras

ABOUT

Alastair Humphreys

Alastair Humphreys is a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. He has cycled around the world, rowed the Atlantic Ocean and walked a lap of the M25 – one of his pioneering microadventures.

He is the author of 14 books, including Great Adventurers, which won the Stanford’s Children’s Travel Book of the Year and the Teach Primary Award for Non-Fiction.

He has written eight books for Eye including the bestselling The Boy Who Biked the World trilogy, a series of novels for 9–12-year-olds based on the real-life adventures he recounted in Moods of Future Joys, Thunder and Sunshine and Ten Lessons from the Road. His more recent The Girl Who Rowed the Ocean is a similarly novelised version of his transatlantic crossing. It was shortlisted for the Stanford’s Children’s Travel Book of the Year.

He is a qualified teacher.