Audiobook7 hours
Headhunters on My Doorstep
Written by J. Maarten Troost
Narrated by Simon Vance
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
Entertainment Weekly calls acclaimed author and essayist J. Maarten Troost a "funny, candid, and down-to-earth travel companion." Both witty and poignant, Headhunters on My Doorstep follows Troost as he retraces Robert Louis Stevenson's path through the South Pacific. Somewhere between AA meetings in Tahiti and discovering how the Island of Merrymaking got its name, Troost reconnects with himself, his family, and the beauty of life.
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Reviews for Headhunters on My Doorstep
Rating: 3.6481481481481484 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
54 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent recovery autobiography. I was rooting for the author and want to read his other books now.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Travel/memoir. (read only to p.190) Recovering alcoholic recuperates on isolated Pacific islands, following the footsteps of RLS. Takes a while to get into this, and then just meanders, but I don't mind Troost's style and find his observations interesting enough. I would've stuck with it if only I didn't have all these other books (with waitlists) from the library to finish.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Funny, yet the better portion of the book is about his alcoholism, which I'm not interested in. Any book he writes about the islands, though, is tasty, so worth the read.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Troost finds another excuse for wandering about the world, this time to explore the travels of R. L. Stevenson and to work out some of his sobriety kinks. Some interesting observations, a little history, and far too much ruminating over his addiction issues. The use of the Stevenson history to give the book a path to follow seemed a bit contrived and the time he spent in the various locales didn't seem to have much to do with the Stevenson story. We spent a great deal of print on the Marquesas and not much more that a chapter or two on other islands.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Highly readable and fairly entertaining, but just not satisfying. Your time would be better spent reading his other book, "The Sex Lives of Cannibals".
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The book was not as cheerful as the author's previous books. However, I still enjoyed reading it very much. The book describes Mr. Troost's trip through the Pacific in the steps of RLS and serves also as an instrument for him to come to terms with his own alcohol addiction. I hope he will continue to have the strength to take it one day at a time!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharply funny and unflinching: Troost blends his own observations of (mostly) French Polynesia with powerful doses of honest autobiography and insightful reflection on Robert Louis Stevenson's journey along the same routes.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I am a big fan of armchair travel, and this fits the bill. Part travel, part memoir, and part history, I was left with a satisfying sense of the Marquesas islands. The writing was honest and the narration was great.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5More than a travelogue of the south seas, Head Hunters On My Doorstep, follows in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson. it also explores the difficulties the author faces as a recovering alcoholic set adrift away from family with the temptation to consume alcohol, a very real possibility, and how difficult this addiction can be, both for the addict and those around him. This was a fantastic book!