About this item
"This is the inspiring story of an ordinary guy who achieved two great goals that others had told him were impossible - first by setting a record for the longest automobile journey ever made around the world -- in the course of which he blasted his way out of minefields, survived a breakdown atop the Peak of Death, came within seconds of being lynched in Pakistan, and lost three of the five men who started with him, two to disease, one to the Vietcong. After that - although it took him 47 more years - Albert Podell set another record by going to every country on Earth. He achieved this by surviving riots, revolutions, civil wars, trigger-happy child soldiers, voodoo priests, robbers, pickpockets, corrupt cops, and Cape buffalo. He went around, under, or through every kind of earthquake, cyclone, tsunami, volcanic eruption, snowstorm, and sandstorm that Nature threw at him. He ate everything from old camel meat and rats to dung beetle and the brain of a live monkey. And he overcame attacks by crocodiles, hippos, anacondas, giant leeches, flying crabs -- and several beautiful girlfriends who insisted that he stop this nonsense and marry them. Albert Podell's Around the World in 50 Years is a remarkable and meaningful tale of quiet courage, dogged persistence, undying determination, and an uncanny ability to extricate himself from one perilous situation after another - and return with some of the most memorable, frightening, and hilarious adventure stories you have ever read"--"In 2003, Albert Podell realized that he'd been to 110 countries in the world. What if, he wondered, he could go to them all? He would set foot in not just the well-known tourist destinations in Europe or the vacation spots in Latin America, but the little-known, far-off lands that most people don't know exist. In Around the World in 50 Years, Podell recounts the misunderstandings, detours, accidents, breakdowns, robberies, and even wars that he needed to overcome to visit every corner of Earth. He describes his encounters with voodoo rituals, fruit-bat pie, the Ghost Fleet of Truk Lagoon, Cuban counterintelligence agents, the New Guinea wigmen, camel caravans, the Lord's Resistance Army, and much, much more. With a wry, exuberant style, Podell's observations on the unusual and exotic places that lay beyond the usual tourist trails make this book a standout on the travel writing shelf"--
About the Author
ALBERT PODELL recently became the first American known to have visited every country in the world. Decades earlier, he was the co-leader of the successful Trans World Record Expedition and co-author of Who Needs A Road, an adventure classic still in print after 48 years. His thrilling new book, Around the World in 50 Years, will be published March 24 by St. Martin's Press.
Al has been an editor at Playboy and several outdoor magazines, reviewed books for the Chicago Sun-Times, managed the literary quarterly that introduced the Beat Generation writers to American readers, and has published more than 250 magazine articles, mostly on adventure.
Al holds a degree in government from Cornell, with emphasis on foreign affairs, was the Graduate Fellow of the Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago, and received a law degree from NYU.
He has had successful careers as an editor, director of photography, freelance writer, advertising creative director, ad agency VP, good-government lobbyist, trial attorney, producer and director of feature-length music videos, and (much less successfully) theatrical investor and producer. He spent seven years supervising the marketing of movies for 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures, was president of the American Society of Magazine Picture Editors, head of the American Society of Film Advertisers, and ran the annual Motion Picture Advertising Awards. His music videos have won the bronze and silver awards at the Houston Film Festival and the gold award at the Charleston Film Festival. As an attorney, he never lost a jury trial in 32 years.
Al is an all-around outdoorsman - skier, boarder, hiker, biker, camper, backpacker, mountaineer, canoer, kayaker, long-distance swimmer, scuba diver, windsurfer, and adventurous vegetable gardener.
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