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Rating: 
Summary: Marvelously Motivating & Fun
Review: I absolutley adored this memoir of Miles & Guislane Moreland's inspiring walk from sea to sea, Mediterrean to Atlantic across France. From the small bed & breakfast type inns to the larger hotels, the changing landscapes, and of course, the dogs(!) they encountered made for a far too quick of a read. I was enjoying their trip so much that I wanted their walk to go on for another 300+ miles! Makes one want to go on a walk as well, to the point of looking forward to blisters, afternoon exhaustion, and picnics of wine and cheese. And the insight gained by living a simpler, but far more satisfying life.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun, amusing, and inspiring
Review: I enjoyed the bemused, self-deprecating tone of the narrator in this story. He is a typical Englishman and he knows it, and he plays this as a strength in giving us his impression of life, the Walk he and his half-French wife take across France, and his mid-life crisis. As I read the book, I felt like I was making a friend. The descriptions of the countryside and the sights were a little sparse, and I found it hard to imagine what it all looked like. Also, the snippets of history provided were a little jarring and disconnected, and not terribly interesting. But the thing that makes this book a winner and redeems it is the gentle and wide-eyed optimism of its protagonists, the Morlands, as well as their indomitable spirit in facing the hardships of walking hundreds of miles. I was hoping to learn a little more about France, but still thought this book was a nice read for while I was commuting on the subway to work. Sometimes my journey felt like it was paralleling the Morlands'. I recommend this book if you like travelogues and are interested in France.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, amusing, and inspiring
Review: I enjoyed the bemused, self-deprecating tone of the narrator in this story. He is a typical Englishman and he knows it, and he plays this as a strength in giving us his impression of life, the Walk he and his half-French wife take across France, and his mid-life crisis. As I read the book, I felt like I was making a friend. The descriptions of the countryside and the sights were a little sparse, and I found it hard to imagine what it all looked like. Also, the snippets of history provided were a little jarring and disconnected, and not terribly interesting. But the thing that makes this book a winner and redeems it is the gentle and wide-eyed optimism of its protagonists, the Morlands, as well as their indomitable spirit in facing the hardships of walking hundreds of miles. I was hoping to learn a little more about France, but still thought this book was a nice read for while I was commuting on the subway to work. Sometimes my journey felt like it was paralleling the Morlands'. I recommend this book if you like travelogues and are interested in France.
Rating: 
Summary: A fragment of an autobiography
Review: If you are looking for a travel-log of things to see and do as you walk across France, then this book is not for you. The content of this book is really a fragment of Miles Morland's biography. It can be considered a daily diary describing the progress of Morland and his wife (Guislaine) as they walk across southern France from the Mediterranean to the French coast. Dispersed among the descriptions of countryside, farm animals (especially dogs and one amusing encounter with a very large bull), hotels and cafes are vignettes of the Morland's troubled marriage, and Morland's career "Shouting Down The Phone" in the financial districts of London and New York. The walk is the Morland's first venture after Miles has "retired" from "Shouting Down The Phone". (I am repeating the phrase just to mimic one aspect of the book.) Undertaking such a walk deserves considerable praise, especially as neither of them had any prior claim to physical fitness. The walk was made less difficult by carrying light packs and walking relatively small distances each day. Extensive planning helped them identify towns and villages with suitably comfortable beds and restaurants which might provide shelter and food at night. Even so they do not find things as idyllic as many readers might expect from the title. The faults of many of the accommodations and cafes they visit are noted in some detail, although without malice - I suspect that the Morland's expectations were higher than is the reality of village France. It's worth noting that although Miles did not miss his old job during and immediately after the walk (he planned on becoming a writer), he does appear to have gone back to it in recent times. Whether his marriage survived remains unanswered!
Rating:
Summary: forget self-help, go for a walk!
Review: READ THIS BOOK! Forget self-help and buy this! If you are in need of a laugh, an inspiring marriage to aspire to, motivation to get off your arse and exercise despite years of misuse and have never been to France or have been but can't be there now... then .....READ THIS BOOK.You might also learn abit too.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing from the Get-Go...
Review: This book may well have been titled "Whining & Dining Our Way from One Bad Hotel to the Next Across France". The walking pair, British "Wall Street" Miles and wife Guislane, set out on a month long stroll from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. What could have been a picturesque, inspiring and informative triumph quickly becomes a hip-aching, blister-breaking, "where's my Evian", husband-wife downer. Throughout the walk, Guislane is fervently scribbling notes in her journal - if only she had offered some interesting commentary on what was going on around them instead of between them! No town seemed to impress them; no river, castle, lodging, meal, or outfit seemed to gain their favor. They drank a lot, which I can fully appreciate considering the disdain they seemed to find in each agonizing (for the reader as well) kilometer. You learn very little about France, but much about the cranky Morlands.
Rating:
Summary: British couple hikes from Mediterranean to the Atlantic.
Review: This charming book tells the true story of a hike across France. Miles Morland and his French wife make this trip both to commemorate his retirement at age 45 and to try to mend their strained marriage. The author quits his high-pressure financial market job in London and takes a month long walk across France with his wife. They allow a month for the five hundred kilometer trip and set a grueling 20 to 30 kilometer per day pace for themselves. The author is strangely frugal for someone of his background. They stay in second-rate hotels in unfashionable parts of towns. They take meals in out of the way restaurants and are sullenly served by the haughty locals. His wife buys a pair of hiking boots to replace the uncomfortable blister-causing pair she brought from home, which they mail back to England. They take with them only the things that will fit into rucksacks they carry on their backs. This trip was a unique quest, more an ordeal than an adventure. Dogs, heavy traffic, and blistered sore feet torment them. I feel that they enjoyed themselves less than one has a right to expect on a month long vacation. An engaging read about a trip that I wouldn't want to try to duplicate myself.
Rating:
Summary: The Travels of an Inspired Type A
Review: To choose a long walk (about 350 miles) is inspirational. What's troubling is a narrator who lacks the self-awareness to see the silliness in making up rules like "seven minute breaks." Miles, this proverbial type-A personality, thinks he's mellowing, loosening up, leaving Wall Street thinking behind. But he's a complete control freak who refuses to even let his wife see his bible of maps. One hopes that he'll grow and even poke fun at his rule making. But he never does. Still, this is not a bad book. It's just waylaid by a bourgeoisie label-conscious demand for Evian. Part of it might be the sophistication of seeing Europe as an easy adult playland. Aspects of the marriage are revealed that are really quite daring, much like the choice of undertaking the adventure. As far as the decription of food and wine, it wasn't particularly knowledgeable nor descriptive. Maybe it's just too dated.
Rating:
Summary: The Travels of an Inspired Type A
Review: To choose a long walk (about 350 miles) is inspirational. What's troubling is a narrator who lacks the self-awareness to see the silliness in making up rules like "seven minute breaks." Miles, this proverbial type-A personality, thinks he's mellowing, loosening up, leaving Wall Street thinking behind. But he's a complete control freak who refuses to even let his wife see his bible of maps. One hopes that he'll grow and even poke fun at his rule making. But he never does. Still, this is not a bad book. It's just waylaid by a bourgeoisie label-conscious demand for Evian. Part of it might be the sophistication of seeing Europe as an easy adult playland. Aspects of the marriage are revealed that are really quite daring, much like the choice of undertaking the adventure. As far as the decription of food and wine, it wasn't particularly knowledgeable nor descriptive. Maybe it's just too dated.
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