Gone Viking: A Travel Saga

(Paperback)

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Description

Bill Arnott guides readers on an epic literary odyssey following historys most feared and misunderstood voyageurs: the Vikings!

To go Viking is to embark on an epic journey. For more than eight years, Bill Arnott journeyed throughout the northern hemisphere, discovering sites Scandinavian explorers raided, traded, and settled finding Viking history in a wider swath of the planet than most anthropologists and historians ever imagined.

With a small pack and weatherproof journal, Bill explores and writes with a journalists eye, songwriters prose, poets perspective, and a comedians take on everything else. Prepare yourself for an armchair adventure like no other!

From Europe to Asia, the Mediterranean to the British Isles, through Scandinavia to Iceland, Greenland, and the New World, with further excursions around Thor Heyerdahls Pacific, Roald Amundsens Arctic, and Olaf Crowbones stormy North Atlantic, Bill takes readers on a mythic personal adventure in real time a present-day Viking quest.

Reviews

Praise for Gone Viking: A Travel Saga:

An extremely well-documented travelogue with beautiful imagery. The Ottawa Review of Books

A fantastic read! Michael Seidelman, author of The Garden of Syn Trilogy

This is a writer who engages and entertains at every point along the way. Adrienne Drobnies, author of Salt and Ash

This is definitely one of the best reads of the year. Gone Viking: A Travel Saga is extremely entertaining, vibrant, and filled with vivid imagery you see and hear. Historical images weave in and out of the pages as the reader travels with Bill Arnott, the Anthony Bourdain of these pages. Arnott has the knack, with his finely honed writing skills, to make you feel like you are right there with him, travelling the same path. A peppering of songs and references to movies bring the places visited into a more tangible feel as we move through these splendid images and pages. Candice James, Poet Laureate Emerita and author of Rithimus Aeternam

In Gone Viking, Bill Arnott inspires intrepid adventurers and armchair travellers alike. Setting out to explore the reach and influence of the ancient Vikings, Arnott uncovers the essence of adventure that is at the heart of every great quest, which is a sense of discovery, felt viscerally. Jamey Glasnovic, author of Lost and Found and A Few Feet Short

With humour and keen observation, Arnott takes us from one windswept landscape to the next. Gone Viking makes me want to lace up my boots and follow along in the footsteps of the author. Jeremy Kroeker, author of Through Dust and Darkness: A Motorcycle Journey of Fear and Faith in the Middle East

Gone Viking: A Travel Saga is a fascinating travelogue! Bill Arnotts lyrical language and informative, funny anecdotes take the reader on an unforgettable journey from the UK to the Arctic, framed through the lens of a modern Viking adventurer. Annette LeBox, award-winning author of Peace is an Offering

Fasten your seatbelts, readers. Bill Arnotts Gone Viking: A Travel Saga has a glorious romp in store for you. Arnott is a seasoned, observant and insightful traveller. Gone Viking is a deeply, warmly human account of delightful peregrinations. You will enjoy it in the settled comfort of your armchair. But if youre outward bound to the UK, the Mediterranean, Scandinavia (of course) or even to Haida Gwaii bring a copy along. It will teach you things; but more than that, it will make for wonderful company. P.W. Bridgman, author of A Lamb: Poems

Gone Viking: A Travel Saga is a laugh-out-loud voyage for the armchair traveller. If youre dreaming of an eccentric Scandinavian journey, or the delights of the seascapes near Haida Gwaii or British coastal paths, this seated flight is for you. What makes it memorable are the witty anecdotes the author intersperses, worthy of stealing and retelling at boring parties as your own. Mala Rai, award-winning poet

The writing in Gone Viking: A Travel Saga is a sensory delight, a stunning portrayal of unique experiences that gets right inside the reader. A heros journey for the 21st century, Gone Viking will be on my reading list again and again. Cynthia Sharp, award-winning poet and author of How to Write Poetry

Gone Viking is entertaining and funny. Its no wonder it was a finalist for the Whistler Independent Book Awards. Bill Arnott has a natural gift of storytelling as epic and entertaining as the original Viking sagas. The narrative is infused with authentic voice and wonderful humour, layered with the echoes of other voices. Arnott compels the reader to join him in this must-read quest. Kerry Gilbert, award-winning author of Little Red and Tight Wire

A rollercoaster journey of fun and adventure. Storytelling at its best. Bill Arnotts Gone Viking: A Travel Saga feels like he is having a casual conversation with the reader, not as author/teacher and reader/student, but rather as fellow explorers experiencing these adventures together. A difficult thing to achieve and he gets it just right. George Dow, multimedia artist and writer

Arnott, like all accomplished Vikings, is a moving target who makes landfall in a place and meticulously pillages all the best bits to bring back home to his book and to you the reader. This smorgasbord of images and recollections is a joy to absorb. Youll find yourself travelling through a range of emotions as one minute youre marvelling at the beauty of his writing, the poetic images, and the next you find yourself chortling at some funny, often wicked, observation. Not many books achieve this. Gone Viking certainly does. Gray Lightfoot, author of A View From A Cab and the Humphrey Boggart novels The Malthouse Falcon and Biggs Leap

I thoroughly enjoyed Gone Viking. Bill Arnott explores the history of Viking culture through travels to the United Kingdom, Iceland, Greenland, northern Europe, Canadas west coast, and the Mediterranean. I love the prose, eloquent and descriptive, with humour thrown in. As a lover of travel writing, I look to get lost in the stories. Arnott accomplishes this in spades! I highly recommend this read for lovers of travel writing and history. Stephen Karr, poet

In Gone Viking: A Travel Saga, Bill Arnott takes you from British Columbias Haida Gwaii to Turkeys Ephesus and a whole lot of locations in between. After the first couple of paragraphs of this book, I resented having to lay it aside to do alternative activities like eating and sleeping. I began marking sentences, sometimes whole paragraphs, that inspired literary envy regarding his writing style: A new day, birdless grey sky pinched into folds like a rain-soaked blanket. Brixham harbours a rocking pincushion of masts. This should give you the idea that you MUST have this book. Robert Ramsay, writer

More than illuminating the Vikings themselves, what Arnott achieves in Gone Viking: A Travel Saga is a wide-ranging meditation on people, the landscapes they inhabit, and the sea. Told in Arnotts quirky and frequently hilarious style, Gone Viking ranges across huge swaths of geography. The book features places like Iceland, Tuscany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and all around the UK from Cornwall to the Orkney Islands. All these locales come to life in Arnotts thoughtful, funny and warm-hearted writing. Mark MacKenzie, mariner and poet

Author Bio

Bill Arnott is the bestselling non-fiction author of Wonderful Magical Words and Dromomania. Bills been a featured musician, spoken-word artist, moderator, per-former, and host at hundreds of literary festivals and mixed-media events across Canada and internationally. His articles, reviews, and poetry are published in Canada, the US, UK, Europe, and Asia, with features in literary journals, magazines, and anthol-ogies. Bill is a national songwriting finalist, poetry award recipient, and finalist for the 2019 Whistler Independent Book Award. When not trekking the globe with a horribly outdated camera phone or showing off his cooking skills as a culinary school dropout, Bill can be found on Canadas west coast, making friends and generally misbehaving. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.