ANDREW BLACKWELL is a journalist and filmmaker living in New York City.
“Andrew Blackwell is a wonderful tour guide to the least wonderful
places on earth. His book is a riveting toxic adventure. But more
than just entertaining, the book will teach you a lot about the
environment and the future of our increasingly polluted world.”
—A.J. Jacobs, New York Times bestselling author of The Year of
Living Biblically
“With a touch of wry wit and a reporter's keen eye, Andrew
Blackwell plays tourist in the centers of environmental destruction
and finds sardonic entertainment alongside tragedy. His meticulous
observations will make you laugh and weep, and you will get an
important education along the way.” —David K. Shipler, winner of
the Pulitzer Prize and author of Rights at Risk: The Limits of
Liberty in Modern America
“I'm a contrarian traveler. I don't obey any airport signs. I love
the off season. And, when someone says to avoid a certain place,
and almost every time the U.S. State Department issues a travel
warning, that destination immediately becomes attractive to me.
Visit Sunny Chernobyl is my new favorite guidebook to some places I
admit to have visited. As a journalist, as well as a traveler, I
consider this is an essential read. It is a very funny -- and very
disturbing look at some parts of our world that need to be
acknowledged before we take our next trip anywhere else.” —Peter
Greenberg, Travel Editor for CBS News
“Humor and dry wit lighten a travelogue of the most polluted and
ravaged places in the world...With great verve, and without
sounding preachy, he exposes the essence and interconnectedness of
these environmental problems.” —Starred Kirkus Review
“In 'Visit Sunny Chernobyl: And Other Adventures in the World's
Most Polluted Places,' Blackwell avoids the trendy tropes of
"ecotourism" in favor of the infinitely more interesting world of
eco-disaster tourism...[Visit Sunny Chernobyl] is a nuanced
understanding of environmental degradation and its affects on those
living in contaminated areas...[Blackwell] offers a diligently
evenhanded perspective...Blackwell is a smart and often funny
writer, who has produced a complex portrait in a genre that
typically avoids complexity in favor of outrage.” —The Wall Street
Journal
“In this lively tour of smog-shrouded cities, clear-cut forests,
and the radioactive zone around a failed Soviet reactor, a witty
journalist ponders the appeal of ruins and a consumer society's
conflicted approach to environmental woes.” —The Times-Picayune
“Entertaining, appealing, and thoughtful travelogue covers some of
the world's most befouled spots with lively, agile wit... The
book...offers an astute critique of how visions of blighted spots
create an either/or vision of how to care for the environment and
live in the world.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Visit Sunny Chernobyl is hard to categorize--part travelogue, part
memoir, part environmental exposé--but it is not hard to praise.
It's wonderfully engaging, extremely readable and, yes, remarkably
informative...An engagingly honest reflection on travel to some of
the world's worst environments by a guide with considerable
knowledge to share.” —Roni K. Devlin, owner of Literary Life
Bookstore & More
“Ghastliness permeates Visit Sunny Chernobyl...[Blackwell] presents
vivid descriptions of these wretched places, along with both their
polluters and the crusaders who are trying--usually without
success--to clean them up” —The New York Times
“Devastatingly hip and brutally relevant.” —Booklist, Starred
Review
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