Not Quite Lost: Travels Without A Sense of Direction

by Roz Morris

Overview

In life there’s the fast lane, and then there’s the scenic route. Take your time getting there and you might meet people whose stories are as gripping as those of any famous name.

In Not Quite Lost, Roz Morris celebrates the hidden dramas in the apparently ordinary. Her childhood home, with a giant star-gazing telescope on the horizon and a garden path that disappears under next door's house. A tour guide in Glastonbury who is having a real-life romance with a character from Arthurian legend. A unit on a suburban business park where people are preparing to deep-freeze each other when they die.

But even low-key travel has its hazards, and Roz nearly runs down several gentlemen from Porlock when her brakes give up on her. She takes her marriage vows in a language she doesn't speak, has a Strictly-style adventure when she stumbles into a job as a flashmob dancer, and hears an unexpected message in an experiment in ESP.

Wry, romantic, amused and wonder-struck, Not Quite Lost is an ode to the quiet places you never realised might tell you a tale.

'Move over, Bill Bryson...' Independent bookseller Peter Snell

Product Details

BN ID:	2940154562048
Publisher:	Roz Morris
Publication date:	10/02/2017
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	348 KB

About the Author

STOP PRESS! Roz Morris's novel Lifeform Three is a finalist in the People's Book Prize, general fiction category. NEW RELEASE! Not Quite Lost: Travels Without A Sense of Direction. 'An ode to the quiet places you never dreamed would tell you a tale.' Out now. Roz Morris writes fiction and essays about unusual ways we can be haunted and how we seek people and places we belong with. Her work has been profiled by The Guardian, Literature Works, the Potomac Review, Rain Taxi and BBC Radio. Her fiction has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide, although you won't have seen her name on the covers - she began her career in secret, ghostwriting fiction for big-name authors. Now she's coming out of the shadows. Her own novels have been described as 'profound tales and compelling page-turners', with fine-honed language, unforgettable characters, and gripping, unusual storylines. Plaudits include a top-ranked title in the American Library Journal programme, a longlisting for an international award alongside Neil Gaiman and a finalist position in the People's Book Prize 2017. She is a writer, journalist, fiction editor and the author of the Nail Your Novel series for writers. She teaches creative writing masterclasses for The Guardian newspaper in London and is also the author of a series for writers - Nail Your Novel. If you want to get to know her a little better, drop in at www.rozmorris.wordpress.com and her blog www.nailyournovel.com - where she keeps a regular diary of challenges she's tackling in her writing

Table of Contents

Eve of destruction 9

A childhood home in Alderley Edge, Cheshire

Pardon our French 20

Paris; Mexico City

Nobody comes here in November 27

Craven Arms, Shropshire; Penzance, Cornwall

You are not Morgana and I am not Merlin 39Salisbury, Wiltshire; Glastonbury, Somerset

I came to find her 53

Westhumble, Surrey

Staircases to nowhere 57

Torrington, Devon

Travels without a sense of direction 67

Suffolk

A time traveller’s road 79

The A303, Wiltshire; Somerset

How to win an argument about a window 82

Norfolk; Lincolnshire

Cold sleepers 88

Cryonicists of East Sussex

You’re not from here 98

Holcombe Rogus, Devon; Porlock, Somerset

The mother ship 105

Shropshire

An earthquake 112

Vicenza, Italy

A bad cold and a village of lost voices 116

Purton Green, Suffolk

An experiment in ESP 122

Roehampton, London

Power stations of the mind 125

Gate Burton, Lincolnshire

Strictly faking it 130

Liverpool Street Station, London

Heyday 163

Baltonsborough, Bath; Somerset

West word 176

The places of Not Quite Lost

Editorial Reviews

12/04/2017
This slight collection of vignettes about the travels of novelist Morris (My Memories of a Future Life) meanders along at a gentle pace. Many of the episodes described occurred during ill-conceived trips to small British towns, with descriptions of problem-laden vacation flats with leaking roofs or wonky ovens, unhinged tour guides, and the busy highways or mud-rutted paths that separate the author and her husband from the nearest pub. To these sketches, Morris adds an account of her jolly encounter with a band of cryonicists and an interesting interlude about her decision to take part in a flash mob, an experience that led the author to consider a change in her career. All too often these episodes read like jottings in a diary rather than full-fledged essays; they describe incidents but do little else. The prose is pleasant but the book lacks the verve and insight that sustains many travelogues. (BookLife)

Publishers Weekly

‘Filled with charm and wit … from small giggles to full-on guffaws’ – Davida Chazan aka The Chocolate Lady

‘Turns the mundane into the hilarious or the dramatic’ – Andrew Collins

‘I devoured most of it in a single, long, bewitched session’ – Henry Hyde

‘Bloody good – keep a copy in your guest room and you’ll never see your guests’ – Clare Flynn

‘Laugh-out-loud moments and old-fashioned GOOD writing’ – Icy Sedgwick

‘Move over, Bill Bryson … beguiling’ – Peter Snell, independent bookseller

From the Publisher