Leo McKinstry
Kingdom in the Clouds
Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot
By Mark Vanhoenacker
Chatto & Windus 338pp £16.99 order from our bookshop
In the wealth of aviation literature, there is an abundance of first-hand accounts by military pilots, particularly those of the Second World War. Civilian air travel has been served far less well, perhaps unsurprisingly, given that combat and conflict are seen as more exciting. But this extraordinary book by Mark Vanhoenacker, a Boeing 747 pilot, demonstrates that, in literary terms, airliners can be just as compelling a subject. Part autobiography, part travelogue, part prose poem, this book provides a powerful antidote to the conventional belief that the romance of flight has been lost in the modern age of mass transit. More than a century after the Wright brothers first took to the air, the author shows that the conquest of the skies is still as wondrous as ever. Jaded travellers, whose journeys between identikit international airports are filled with nothing more than in-flight movies and plastic meals, should read this book to recapture the forgotten thrill of flying.
Vanhoenacker has been captivated by aeroplanes ever since his youth and his continuing love for them shines through every chapter. Even now, after all his experience of long-haul travel, he continues to feel a surge of adrenalin during takeoffs and landings. His description of preparing the engines of a 747
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
The first holiday camps had an 'ethos of muscular health as a marker of social respectability, and were alcohol-free. How different from our modern Costa Brava – not to mention the innumerable other coasts around the world now changed forever'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/from-mont-blanc-to-magaluf
'The authorities are able to detain individuals in solitary confinement for up to six months at a secret location', which 'increases the risk to the prisoner of torture'.
@lucyjpop looks at two cases of China's brutal crackdown on free expression.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/xu-zhiyong-thupten-lodoe
'"The Last Colony" is, among other things, part of the campaign to shift the British position through political pressure. As with all good propaganda, Sands’s case is based in truth, if not the whole of it.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/empire-strikes-back