Papua New Guinea: Tales from a Wild Island, is part biography, part memoire and covers the four years I lived in Papua New Guinea, a country where 800 distinct languages are spoken and where in Pidgin English a helicopter is a 'mixmaster bilong Jesus,' and a crocodile is a 'puk-puk'.

This book is available in hardback direct from Hale Books, London or from Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Papua-New-Guinea-Tales-Island/dp/0709084498/

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Hardback 189 pp
Language: English
Size: 25 x 19 cm
Illustrations: 85x colour
ISBN-13: 9780709084495
Published: Robert Hales, London, 2009.
For further information Visit: http://www.howardmbeck.co.uk

Review:

Howard Beck is no ordinary travel writer. When visiting a country, he immerses himself totally in his experiences, taking his readers to new levels of awareness. In Papua New Guinea: Tales from a Wild Island, the earthy narrative introduces the reader to a rugged land of 10,000 colourful tribes, a weird and wonderful bestiary and an adventurous author whose culinary bent finds him dining on python, rat, bat, parrot and insect pupae. Adventures in a land described as ‘like every place you’ve never been’ see Howard one moment standing on the country’s highest mountains, the next exploring the mysterious world beneath the jungle in search of the planet’s deepest cave. His travels with a ‘tea-towel map’, described with down to earth and often amusing clarity, will have the reader warming to tales of archery contests with wild tribesmen, the discovery of macabre burial sites, sorcery in the dead of night and of being invited to live with a tribe in the land of Laughing Death, where the deceased are exhumed and eaten as a mark of respect. Lavishly illustrated, this is a book to inspire adventurers and travellers alike, whether aspiring or of the armchair variety.
Arthur Champion