The lifeless moonscape of Canada's oil sand strip mines.
A vast vortex of plastic floating endlessly around the Pacific.
An eerily abandoned town square in a radioactive Ukrainian wilderness.
These are places the tourist boards would rather you didn't see. The places that don't show up in any guide books. And the places that, six years ago, journalist and film-maker Andrew Blackwell set out to explore. Visit Sunny Chernobyl is the wry, funny, sometimes poignant tale of his trip through the world's most degraded environments.
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He has seen the worst we can do to ourselves, met the best of us trying to repair the damage, and discovered - mystifyingly, at times - beauty in the planetary dark side. - The Times
A wise, witty travel adventure that packs a punch - and one of the most entertaining and informative books I've read in years. Visit Sunny Chernobyl is a joy to read and will make you think -
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 -
Andrew Blackwell takes eco-tourism into a whole new space. Visit Sunny Chernobyl is a darkly comic romp -
We've got lessons to learn from disaster sites. Thankfully, Visit Sunny Chernobyl means we don't have to learn them first-hand. Cancel your holiday to Chernobyl: Pick up this brilliant book! -
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 -
An essential read. A very funny – and very disturbing –look at some parts of our world that need to be acknowledged. Visit Sunny Chernobyl is my new favorite guidebook to some places I admit to have visited -
Every now and again a ray of sunshine lifts the usual gloom-and-doom of environmental crises and this witty, warm and refreshingly honest tour of the netherworld of modern life offers a particularly bright one ... Andrew Blackwell wades into the world’s worst pollution hotspots with an engaging combination of curiosity and open-mindedness. This is much more than a guide book to ecological devastation. It is a moving and often hilarious story of human dignity rising above unimaginable squalor -
ANDREW BLACKWELL has worked as film editor, story consultant, and reporter on projects featured on NPR, PBS, the BBC, the New York Times online, and in the weekly news magazine Dan Rather Reports. He lives in New York City.
