As the catchy title may lead you to discern, this is the second of the Oscillator Press collections of writing by ‘writers who ride’, this time with a foreword by Charley Boorman. There are some of the instantly recognisable names here, like Ted Simon, Chris Scott, Lois Pryce and Sam Manicom, but rather like the last edition, there are some that will be totally new to you, and what better way to sample and get a feel for different styles?
Catherine Germillac from France, who I was fortunate to meet at The Overland Event, writes of the surreal in Colombia, as she tries to deliver chocolate truffles through a Bogota gun fight. Allan Karl, who’s an author and TV personality based in California, recounts the hilarious tale of getting change – of a sort – from a Guatemalan policemen who’s demanding a bribe and Billy Ward decides to test his mettle by sleeping totally wild in the African bush.
I’d never heard of Allan and didn’t know that Catherine or Billy wrote so engagingly, and that’s the real beauty of this anthology. Here is an introduction to writers and to experiences in twenty-four parts of the world that you may have never considered visiting and it’s really worth reading these easily accessible vignettes. There’s a full list of the included authors below. Already available in North America, the planned UK release of Motorcycle Messengers 2 is end of March 2019.
Review by Paddy Tyson
ISBN: 978-09918-250-2-8
287pages (£13.50)
Published by Oscillator Press (2018)
Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent, Billy Ward, Chris Scott, Dylan Wickrama, Liz Jansen, Sam Manicom, Jacqui Furneaux, Ian Brown, Lisa Morris, Jordan Hasselmann, Zac Kurylyk, Jeremy Kroeker, Lois Pryce, Catherine Germillac, Allan Karl, Paddy Tyson, Carla King, Ted Simon, Ed March, Mark Richardson, Simon Thomas, Michele Lamphere.