Overview

There's never been a better time to live on this planet London - the Jolly Pilgrim sets off on a bicycle ride to Istanbul, planning a rendezvous with the girl he wants to marry. Eighteen months later and halfway around the world, following hospitalisations, financial meltdown, torment and heartbreak, he goes to live as a hermit in South America, to explore a bunch of ideas about humanity's place in the universe. He swims the Bosporus and works in a drag club, hitchhikes across Australia and dances salsa in an Ecuadorian prison, experiences rapture and revelation amidst talismanic historical and religious sites, endures love, voyeurism, bees, ants, sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and in response, conceives a message of hope for civilisation. Part adventure story, part reflection on the state of our species, this profoundly uplifting, real-life odyssey ends with a call-to-arms for the human race to be more honest about itself. It's time to think bigger Welcome to enlightenment 2.0

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9781906316853

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Funny and exciting, giving a real feel of how scary it was at times. A mixture of your being so small in the grandness of things and yet the unlimited potential of each individual human being. I love it!A Jane Isles, Occupational Therapist, Suffolk Thank you so much for sending this, I have shed a few tears and am quite moved. I sat out on my veranda with a pint of beer and read it all the way through - I am impressed; highly engaging, thoughtful, philosophical, funny and incredibly true to form.A Kerry Swift, Publicist, Melbourne

Author Information

Peter Baker grew up in East Anglia and read physics at Durham University. After graduating he moved to Asia, working as a science teacher in India and (briefly) as a club singer in Bangkok. On his return to the UK he became a writer for a global insurance consultancy in the West End, while exploring London's intellectual and cultural scene, pursuing interests in evolutionary psychology, economics and history, and beginning the development of his thesis regarding the shape and character of the human adventure. In 2005, he embarked upon the journey recorded in this book, during which his ideas concerning the context of contemporary civilisation became fully formed. Following his return home, he spent a year living in a one-room wooden cabin at the bottom of an apple orchard, while writing and caring for his dying mother. He then moved back to London, took a job in the City and spent two years polishing the manuscript. The Jolly Pilgrim is his first book.

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