Back to home page - News From Nowhere Radical & Community Bookshop

News From Nowhere Radical & Community Bookshop

not-for-profit - a workers'co-op - committed to social justice | 96 Bold Street, Liverpool L1 4HY - 0151 708 7270

What Goes Around: A London Cycle Courier's Story

by Emily Chappell - £12.99  Guardian Faber Publishing (2016)
paperback    ISBN 13: 9781783350537 | ISBN 10: 1783350539

Emily Chappell never meant to be a cycle courier. She planned to earn her living using her mind rather than her legs. She thought it'd be a useful stopgap while searching for a 'real' job. Today, six years on, she's still pedalling.
'It's my most enduring love affair; the career that's shaped my life, made me what I am, and entirely derailed any hope of a normal existence.'
 
As she flies through the streets of the capital, dancing with the traffic, Chappell records the pain and pleasure - both mental and physical - of life on wheels: the hurtling, dangerous missions; the ebb and flow of seasonal work; the moments of fear and freedom, anger and exhaustion; the camaraderie of the courier tribe and its idiosyncratic characters; the conflict and harmony between bicycle and road, body and mind. At the same time it is a hymn to London; its changing skyline, its chaos and interconnectedness:
'the unlikeliest street corners will have some tattered threads of memory fluttering from them like a flag...It's almost as if the memories have overflowed from my head and scattered themselves about the city. Some parts of my life I can recall simply by thinking of them; others I think I'd remember better if I went back to a certain part of London and plucked them up from the tree I'd hung them from, or retraced them from the park bench I'd scratched them on, or snatched them up as they blew around in circles in an alleyway like a discarded carrier bag'.
 
This is a book about discovery and belonging, connection and memory, choosing life's uncharted course and the delicious sensation of just riding.

(Price & availability last checked: July 2016)

This website can't tell you if we have this book in the shop or not - to ask, phone us or use the enquiry link below. (We can order most books within 7-10 days, subject to availability.)
  


In booklists: Work and Worker's Lives, Women's Biography and Autobiography, Cycling and Bikes,
In categories:
Warning: extract() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /home/newsfro/public_html/books/DisplayBookInfo.php on line 182
World - North America, Feminism & Women, Health & Wellbeing, Environment & Animal Rights,

© News From Nowhere Co-operative Ltd IP24524R 2004-2024 | Privacy policy | Contact | return to top of page