Last Places: A Journey in the North

I enjoyed this vicarious trip to lands I have always been interested in, but will never be able to travel to. Mr. Millman has taken this journey for me. He writes of his love for cold rocky lands, for tiny, sparsely populated islands out in the middle of the Atlantic and in out of the way places. He writes about what he has seen and experienced in these cold exotic places and wamts his readers to experience them also.Lawrence Millman is very knowledgeable about the different floras and faunas in these islands and coutries and also knows much about geology. He felt he needed to take the journey because of his love of these places; plus he wanted to experience what the Vikings saw and experienced on their journies to what was in their time unknown places. Then he wrote this great book so others can also take this trip without ever leaving their comfortable homes and lives.Mr. Millman is at ease with the animals and the natives and interacts with both groups.. At times he goes to their homes, eats their food which most of us would fear to do with people of unknown customs and ways of eating plus the type of foods these natives eat. He walks all over these rocky, barren lands eschewing renting a car for he wants to experience all types of weather, all hard climbs. Looking from the window of a bus is not for him.However, toward the end of his journey though he really doesn't want to, as he prefers to travel as the Vikings did ,he takes planes and a bus to get to Labrador.This is one great trip. I enjoyed the book and will read and reread it. Mr Millman is a man of courage, adventure and love of life. He writes about these lands just as he sees them and not through rose colored glasses. Because of his book I was able to walk through cold lands, visit strange places and peoples, and take slow boat trips to tiny strange villages.This book could be called Lost Places because they are not on the tourist trips and few people know or care about them except only the indigenous peoples and those like Lawrence Millman.he takes planes and buses to get to Labrador.

The best travel writing reveals new layers of a place, and inspires us to pick up an atlas — not just to find out where these strange settings are, but to start planning a trip of one's own.Millman's travels take him through some fascinating bits of both physical and human geography: from the Shetland islands to the Faroes, through the Iceland's uninhabited centre, deep into Greenland, and finally to Labrador and Newfoundland, as he loosely follows the route of the Vikings and immerses himself in myth, landscape, solitude and questionable meals.I first encountered Millman's work many years ago in Best American Travel Writing 2001, the one edited by Paul Theroux, and his story of Pantelleria stuck in my head ever since, hovering at the back of my mind long after I'd transposed the location to Lampedusa.I found a copy of An Evening Among Headhunters some years after that, and several of those stories left a similar mark. I grew up in a small St Lawrence River town in Ontario, and became temporarily obsessed with Anticosti Island after reading his book — an island I'd never heard of and still have yet to visit.And I found Last Places while researching an upcoming journey to Iceland. Halfway through the book, I found myself ordering copies for friends, and sending away for Millman's other northern books.This is an inspiring journey, wonderfully written, funny, honest, and true. Highly recommended.

The first few pages of this book drove me to my dictionary repeatedly. Hardly a single page left me without the intense need to dive into my dictionary - and an excellent dictionary at that. I found more often than not that the words searched for were not there, or that the meanings that made sense were obscure, or idiosyncratic. I realized quickly that I could not possibly get through the entire book that way and decided to just relax, understand what I could, and forget about struggling with what I could not. Mr. Millman is an independent soul and he makes up words, uses slang I am not familiar with and also uses obscure words in common and sometimes uncommon ways. I think this delights him. His travels delighted me. And Mr. Millman appears to be a delightful, jocular person who is comfortable in strange, lonely places. I am glad to have been taken on this trip with him through his book. I highly recommend this book particularly to people who are not so compulsive as to need to understand every nuance of what they are reading. Unfortunately for me, I am that compulsive person. Like Mr. Millman's journeys, it is often a journey into an unknown place.

As one who loves adventure travel I rate this as one of the best accounts ever for one chasing through this part of the world. It was especially meaningful as I have traveled the same route...The Shetlands, The Faroes, Iceland, Greenland and Labrador. How much fun to re-live it through the eyes of Lawrence Millman. Unlike Millman, I never had the chance to meet and live with the folks like he did. His encounters with the locals are so funny and engaging that you'll find yourself laughing throughout the book. If you are the least bit interested in this part of the world, read this book first and you'll hardly be able to wait to start your trip. This man is truly a great story teller and the kind of guy you'd just like to sit down with and rehash his adventures. What a great book!

I've read this book several times and bought this copy for a friend. The author traveled to Greenland, Iceland and other islands, stayed in a tent most of the time and made friends with the locals wherever he went. He even ate what they ate. Milman is a tremendous travel writer.The used book came in very good condition. I was proud to send it on.

Superb hands on travel essay - first person narrative, well-researched and the off-the-beaten-path themes throughout are appealing to "real" travelers. I bought a signed copy many years ago when it first came out. I bought this second copy for a friend who I'm trying to psyche up for an off-the-beaten-path trek to Iceland. :)

A brilliant book, based roughly on the route the vikings travelled from Norway to Canada, Millman retraces their 'footsteps' and visits various places in the North Atlantic, from Europe to America.Touching, surreal, uncomfortable (Christinemut!) and incredibly funny at times (I read this on the train, snorting loudly) it is unmissable for anyone interested in the vikings, the arctic or travelling. A well written book with an unusual angle.

Early delivery...thank you!

A wonderful book.