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Review: Susan O’Neill’s Calling New Dehli For Free

Calling ND

Calling NDThere really is something quite beautiful in knowing that someone can find humour in this dark world of ours, and something incredibly artistic in managing to write about everyday life and entertain with your words. Film Director Kevin Smith can do it, Steven Harris can do it and now I discover that Susan Kramer O’Neill is the Queen of doing it. Calling New Delhi For Free starts with an introduction from Susan on many things but mainly technology and how its evolution is everywhere. The introduction alone is worth the cover price. Susan has collected together her blogs, essays and columns from years of jotting down her thoughts and produced a wonderful collection of memories that I think most people in some aspect of their lives will have gone through but maybe not had the skill to communicate it this well.

I may not have travelled in exotic places like Mexico and Viet Nam but I have had a puncture on my bike and tried to board a busy train. I pick these two examples to show the diversity in the books locations but also that we really are talking mundane everyday stuff as the content. And it works! I learned about Mexico City’s colour coded train maps with their catchy symbols, the archaeological treasures that can be found in the surrounding city landscape, but also Mexico’s trains are really hard to board with the sheer amount of people trying to ride them.

I haven’t ever cycled the Viet Nam countryside, but I have had a puncture and gone through the frustration of realising that my new inner tube is rubbish and my super expensive pump being as badly made as my inner tube. But the surrounding village coming to greet me and their own bike guru fixing my wheel with an old and worn pump whilst a child chews on brake cables? Not as yet although I wish I’d seen this.

Whether it’s fixing a computer printer that is four days past its guarantee, committing Armageddon on some carpenter ants, or just buying a cup of coffee, this collection is some of the funniest and honest writing I’ve seen in a long time and the very essence of great internet usage. I can’t fault it in any way. I sat and read the collection in one sitting such was the addictive nature of the prose but I can see this working as a coffee table book, or the sort of title you bring out at dinner parties to entertain a lubricated guest.

***** 5 Stars!!!!

Steve

Kindle Paperback

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