Book info

• Title Strange Places, Questionable People
• Author John Simpson
• Year 1998
• Genre Memoir

For over thirty years, John Simpson has travelled the world to report on the most significant events of our time. From being punched in the stomach by Harold Wilson on one of his first days as a reporter, to escaping summary execution in Beirut, flying into Teheran with the returning Ayatollah Khomeini, and narrowly avoiding entrapment by a beautiful Czech secret agent, Simpson has had an astonishingly eventful career. In 1989 he witnessed the Tiananmen Square massacre, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism throughout Eastern Europe and, only weeks later, in South Africa, the release of Nelson Mandela. With Simpson's uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time, this autobiography is a ring-side seat at every major event in recent global history.

Thoughts

Mr C recommended this book to me, and as he doesn’t read an enormous amount, I take any recommendations from him quite seriously

Although John Simpson starts the book by claiming this is no ordinary autobiography, it is more a collection of stories, it certainly starts out with the biography feel. We have to sit through the indulgent childhood memoirs before we get to the good stuff.

However, when the real stories begin, pretty much as soon as Simpson joins the BBC, it really kicks off. Somehow, John has managed to be the foreign correspondent whenever anything major has been happening for several decades.

Tiananmen Square, Baghdad, Afghanistan, there are too many to mention. For me, it was more interesting to read about life in these countries - particularly the pieces about war-torn Bosnia, and John’s trip to the Amazon. Mr C rather preferred the moments when John would be doing a piece to camera and a missile would fly past the window behind him. Something for everyone, it seems.

My only complaint is that the book is incredibly long, and in Kindle terms, I could read for a long time turning page after page and only have crept forward one percent through the book. It took an age to read, but I’m glad I did.

Rating: 3 / 5