Amazon.com description: Product Description: “Travel , in a word, is for people who have nothing better to do.” The slanted eyes on the other side of the vodka bottle narrowed. “It seems to me, my friend, that you have nothing better to do.” Journeying down the road less traveled in Robert Louis Stevenson's famed, Travels With A Donkey In The Cevennes, fellow Scot, Christopher Rush has written a modern classic. Accompanied by a wonderful donkey named Anatole, Rush tries not to make an ass out of himself on his journey from Le Monastier-Sur-Gazelle to St Jean-Du-Gard. Realizing many of his worst fears, Rush is forced to ford raging streams buck naked, confronted by menacing hunters, lashed by torrential storms, often hungry and always directionally challenged. But with a little help from his friends Philip Larkin, Spanish thinker Miguel de Unamuno, Pablo Neruda, and the Bard of Avon, the vagabond turns these unfortunate events into a spiritual journey of discovery that raises the bar on travel writing. Following the agnostic Stevenson's path to a monastery where one of the monks resembles Buddy Holly, Rush discovers the “romance of those who are abroad in the black hours.” An admirable tribute to the memory of his wife Patricia, Traveling Hopefully is Christopher Rush's poetic journey of the spirit through the south of France. This beautifully written book will return an echo from every heart.What The Critics Are Saying About To Travel Hopefully by Christopher Rush “The most remarkable book I've ever read.. about the thing which you hope isn't going to happen.” -John Bayley ' “An inspiring account”. - Bel Mooney: The London Times “Rush's love for his soul mate blazes through his writing... The insight into suffering is both moving and illuminating... Quirky and colourful... moving and very human.” Joanna Briscoe: The Sunday London Times.“An astonishing pilgrimage from rage to redemption... A searing pain blazes from Christopher Rush's memoir.” Larushka Ivan-Zadeh: The Guardian. “Moving and touching.” Jeremy Treglown: The Financial Times. “Desperately moving and beautifully written.” John O'Connell: Time Out (Book of the Week) “A brave and graceful book.” Euan Cameron: The Spectator “An inspired Mozartian requiem, beautiful and terrible, wonderful and awful... As powerful a piece of writing as you are likely to read this year... It will move the hardest of hearts to tears. His books stick in the mind when others fade from the memory the instant one puts them down. A lyrical, passionate, sensuous writer... Think of George Mackay Brown, or Dylan Thomas.” Alan Taylor: The Sunday Glassgow Herald “A magnificent memoir... A work born of unquenchable art, of a talent refusing to expire in the face of death... It is difficult to convey the praise the book deserves. First, the opening pages involve a torrent of remembered pain that few would be capable of putting into words... Second, the prose possesses an honesty that is fresh, still bleeding, yet shorn of the confessional guff that infests the modern media... And third Rush healed himself in a magnificent place... The landscape is transformed. So here's one for the dust-jacket: Rush captures all of this almost as well as RLS!” Ian Bell: Scottish Review of Books “Resonant, rich and raw... the master of lyrical lushness, firing every idea and image so luminously it could be picked off the page like a shard of ceramic... A harrowing, howling account from a man whose soul is steeped in literature, love and torment... described with almost unbearable keenness... (A) superbly readable and engaging travelogue... A profoundly moving book... Rush's handling of it is so intelligent and acute, he lifts it from an automatic response of sympathy to one of awe at his descriptive, introspective powers. He never reaches for the easy phrase, the cliched cop-out. His prose is riven with literary allusions and half-quotes, adding a texture of remarkable fluidity, authority and passion... Remarkable for the quality of its writing, unforgettable for its portrait of love, loss, and the first glimmer of returning hope…. Rush is one of Scotland's literary stars. You won't read many more memorable books this year.” Rosemary Goring: The Glasgow Herald “The words marvellously possess a seismic force... The pages translate pain into words... white heat of sorrow... conveyed in writing that sings with tremendous descriptive richness and self-perception. The overall weight of emotional ballast is beautifully balanced by a dawning of purpose... I was twice moved to tears, yet constantly braced by the tensile courage of the enterprise.” Tom Adair: The Scotsman “A truly mesmerising and beautiful book... an uplifting story... rich with comic and disturbing detail; a compendium of vital, sparky talk about desire, bereavement and memory, the sensations of the body, the love bonds of father, husband, mourning widower…. sweet, searching, devastating.” Adam Piette: Scotland on Sunday “To Travel Hopefully is on a par with Joyce's Ulysses, though strikingly different. and it has even more passion than Ulysses... It may well be the Ulysses of the twenty-first century... To Travel Hopefully is the creation of a true passionate lover - a lover of his wife, his children, of people he meets, students he teaches, a lover of literature, philosophy, the thrilling loneliness of thinking and writing, and always a lover of nature. The journey described drives the reader through fierce intensities - the intensity of loss and grief, of howling lamentation and sheer emptiness, of stumbling, resolute recovery, of slow, spellbinding recreation of self. I thought it was like reading a new book of the Bible - the Book of Identity - because it was as if he were helping God to re-create him... This book is one of the great works about Creation itself... And what stunningly beautiful and moving writing it is. When I put it down, all I could think was: 'I want to give a copy of this book to every living person on this planet.' Reading it fills me with a sense of gratitude and privilege.” Brendan Kennelly.“He writes brilliantly in this most evocative of books... The writing itself carries the stamp of tragedy, but also of Stevenson's positive and romantic genius. It is more than worthy of him... Rush has succeeded in universalising a private grief, till it encompasses all we have ever felt - a road map through illness, bereavement and what lies beyond. No one who can actually read should be without it.” Professor Derry Jeffares.“As a human document it astounds me... and I marvel at its literary qualities... Nothing can shadow the stature of this book or how enriched I've been by reading it, or my admiration for Christopher Rush's achievement. It is to be treasured not just on the page, but in the heart - and spirit.” Stewart Conn (Scotland's Poet Laureate).