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Start giftingThe Sex Lives of Cannibals
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreAt age twenty-six, Maarten Troost decided to pack up his flip-flops and move to a remote South Pacific island. The idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the earth was irresistibly romantic. He should have known better.
This book tells the hilarious story of what happens when he discovers that the island is not the paradise he dreamed of. Falling into one amusing misadventure after another, Troost struggles with stifling heat, deadly bacteria, and polluted seas in a country where the only music to be heard is “La Macarena.” He and his girlfriend, Sylvia, contend with incompetent officials, alarmingly large critters, a paucity of food options (including the Great Beer Crisis), and bizarre local characters, including “Half-Dead Fred” and the so-called Poet Laureate of Tarawa, a British drunkard who’s never written a poem in his life.
J. Maarten Troost is a traveler and bestselling author of The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Getting Stoned with Savages, Lost on Planet China, and Headhunters on my Doorstep. Born in the Netherlands, he has lived in seven countries and traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific. He currently lives with his wife and two sons in the Washington D.C. area.
Robert Whitfield is the pseudonym for Simon Vance, an AudioFile Golden Voice with over forty Earphones Awards. He has also won more than a dozen prestigious Audie Awards and has narrated more than eight hundred audiobooks over thirty years.
Reviews
“A delightful, self-deprecating, extremely sly account of life in a place so wretched it gives new, terrible meaning to getting away from it all.”
“If you’re looking for an audio travelogue from hell, check out Simon Vance’s top-notch narration here…Vance provides a stiff-upper-lip tone perfectly suited to Troost’s narrative and unleashes a range of accents and voices that bring to life a South Sea island packed with lunatic locals.”
“A hilarious, sardonic travelogue…readers learn how humor itself can be a necessary tool for survival.”
“Truly funny and engaging…Troost’s darkly comic sensibility is nicely served by Simon Vance’s wry, understated delivery which captures the author’s flair for self-deprecation.”
“A comic masterwork of travel writing and a revealing look at a culture clash.”
“Troost has found his calling in broadly humorous travel writing. He’s a natural…He can also laugh at himself, almost as often as the islanders do… Lives up to the billing as ‘a travel, adventure, humor, memoir kind of book’—and a really good one, at that.”
“Written with wit and wonder, The Sex Lives of Cannibals is a great escape. You’ll learn something and laugh along the way.”
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