What do you think?
Rate this book
Following Josh
From Beijing's hutongs to the "always undefeated" city of Warsaw, follow Josh along with author Dave Norman as they explore the Far East and Eastern Europe by rail. Whether drinking with nomads in Mongolia, dining with locals in Seoul, or exploring Russian paintball combat with a "retired" Soviet arms dealer, Norman's blend of humor and history makes the adventure come alive. At its core, "Following Josh" is the story of two friends reuniting on an epic adventure across Eurasia. After teaching abroad, Josh is homeward bound while Dave takes the long way from their hometown to a new start in New York City-different trajectories, even while traveling together. Trapped together in stuffy Russian rail cars and cheap hostels, they realize just how far apart they've grown...and what it takes to start anew-in friendship as well as in life. Excerpt from page 134: ..".she embodies my image of a Mongol skin like oiled leather, glistening brown eyes that search through heaven and time and space, her hair a rainbow of silver, one shade for each of her two or three hundred years moving around the steppe." Dave Norman is the author of three other nonfiction books, including the history title "White River Junctions" and the industry-leading "501 Paintball Tips, Tricks, and Tactics." He lives and writes in Portland, Maine and Columbia, Illinois. www.davenorman.net
322 pages, Paperback
First published September 14, 2011
2 people are currently reading
1 person want to read
About the author
Dave Norman
13 books7 followersDave Norman is the author of four books, including “Following Josh” (f/64 Publishing, 2011), “White River Junctions” (f/64 Publishing, 2011), “501 Paintball Tips” (Tate Publishing, 2008), and “A Small Town Celebration” (f/64 Publishing, 2010). He specializes in narrative nonfiction.
Dave’s work has appeared regularly in newsstand magazines, literary magazines, and newspapers, since 2002. He has served as a newsstand magazine editor for Beckett Media, Harris Publications, and as a field editor for smaller media groups. Dave has published articles on travel, sports, hunting, defense, and current affairs.
To research his most recent book, “Following Josh,” Dave spent 10 weeks riding the Trans Mongolian and Trans Siberian railroads from Beijing, China, to Warsaw, Poland. The travelogue also documents his changing relationship with childhood friend Josh Vise as they each use the trip to mark transitions in their lives—Josh as he returns from living abroad, and Dave as he settles down with his fiancée.
Dave travels extensively to research and promote his books, having visited nearly every US state and more than twenty countries. The best tea he’s found was in India, the best coffee in Thailand, and by far the dodgiest accommodations in Nepal.
Dave is currently at work both writing his own books and editing manuscripts for others. His ambitions are fueled by dangerous amounts of coffee.
Dave is a 2007 graduate of Dartmouth College’s Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program, and a 2004 graduate of Westminster College. He lives in greater Portland, Maine.
www.facebook.com/theauthordavenorman/
www.davenorman.net
Dave’s work has appeared regularly in newsstand magazines, literary magazines, and newspapers, since 2002. He has served as a newsstand magazine editor for Beckett Media, Harris Publications, and as a field editor for smaller media groups. Dave has published articles on travel, sports, hunting, defense, and current affairs.
To research his most recent book, “Following Josh,” Dave spent 10 weeks riding the Trans Mongolian and Trans Siberian railroads from Beijing, China, to Warsaw, Poland. The travelogue also documents his changing relationship with childhood friend Josh Vise as they each use the trip to mark transitions in their lives—Josh as he returns from living abroad, and Dave as he settles down with his fiancée.
Dave travels extensively to research and promote his books, having visited nearly every US state and more than twenty countries. The best tea he’s found was in India, the best coffee in Thailand, and by far the dodgiest accommodations in Nepal.
Dave is currently at work both writing his own books and editing manuscripts for others. His ambitions are fueled by dangerous amounts of coffee.
Dave is a 2007 graduate of Dartmouth College’s Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program, and a 2004 graduate of Westminster College. He lives in greater Portland, Maine.
www.facebook.com/theauthordavenorman/
www.davenorman.net
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 21, 2015
As an avid armchair traveler, the unexpected advantages and additional benefits of reading a book such as Following Josh is its exceptional ability to provide a captivating cerebral journey. Dave Norman's impressive facility to turn ordinary words into sharply visual and spontaneously engrossing experiences eminently surpasses most travel memoirs.
Although his somewhat pompous friend Josh considers himself the superior and knowledgeable guide, Dave truly is the consummate traveler who tumbles as easily into Josh's turf in Seoul as he does in Beijing, Ulan Bator, Irkutsk, Perm, Moscow, and Brest. Their long-planned marathon Russian railway adventure quickly runs awry as Josh whines and groans when the cultural environs and disparate hostels prove less enchanting than the well-marked guidebooks promise. Josh totally dissipated and blatantly cynical as they approach Krakow decides to leave, and Dave alone continues to their projected destination, Warsaw.
An enduring friendship ebbs and flows and nothing tests one (or a marriage) more radically than daily confinement with that sole person, regardless of various locales and intermittent fellow travelers along the way. Written more like a novel than a travel journal; this is a book well worth reading, if not for Dave Norman's exceptional writing, then definitely as an inconspicuous traveler seeking an incredulous cultural and historical adventure. I think Dave sums it up best,
"…life is freedom and discovery and music you've never heard before…thinking outside our narrow channel even if we're happy with the herd's direction…"
Although his somewhat pompous friend Josh considers himself the superior and knowledgeable guide, Dave truly is the consummate traveler who tumbles as easily into Josh's turf in Seoul as he does in Beijing, Ulan Bator, Irkutsk, Perm, Moscow, and Brest. Their long-planned marathon Russian railway adventure quickly runs awry as Josh whines and groans when the cultural environs and disparate hostels prove less enchanting than the well-marked guidebooks promise. Josh totally dissipated and blatantly cynical as they approach Krakow decides to leave, and Dave alone continues to their projected destination, Warsaw.
An enduring friendship ebbs and flows and nothing tests one (or a marriage) more radically than daily confinement with that sole person, regardless of various locales and intermittent fellow travelers along the way. Written more like a novel than a travel journal; this is a book well worth reading, if not for Dave Norman's exceptional writing, then definitely as an inconspicuous traveler seeking an incredulous cultural and historical adventure. I think Dave sums it up best,
"…life is freedom and discovery and music you've never heard before…thinking outside our narrow channel even if we're happy with the herd's direction…"
December 2, 2018
Following Josh is a wonderful tale of a young man heading off for adventure with an old friend, Josh. Dave Norman really brought the countries he visited to life and I enjoyed his style of writing which made me feel I was right there with them; two young lads trying to figure it all out! Life, themselves and friendship.
August 10, 2016
I was really looking forward to reading this book, but, unfortunately, I wasn't as happy with it as I thought I might have been.
The frat-boy tone, with the one word sentences like ``Lame" and ``Ew", the constant quest to find a place to drink, the ignorant way he considers insulting his friend by calling him ``gay", really limits the appeal of the travelogue for me. Norman often seems blissfully unaware of his hypocrisy at times - for instance, it's disgraceful that the locals are drinking at nine in the morning, he comments on his way to find a bar to drink at in Mongolia. He complains that not enough Russians smile, yet spends almost all his time in Russia scowling and miserable, including one memorable scene in which he threatens to punch a woman. I'm not clear on why Norman even travels since he seems so miserable until he gets to Poland, and, even then, he only seems happy because he's ditching his travel companion and going to Portugal at the end of the week.
And the ellipses. So many ellipses. If there was ever a reason to remove someone's full-stop key from his keyboard, this book would be it. Each page is, literally, dotted with them. I don't want to have every one of his travel thoughts drift off half-baked. I want complete, self-contained, sentences.
I think this book would benefit from a more professional, more thorough editing. An impartial editor may be able to streamline some of the points about growth and adulthood that Norman flits around but never really examines. Right now, it's just some guy's travel litany of things that are ``wrong" in the places he visits (Seoul is too crowded, Beijing is too filthy, Ulan Bator too derelict, Perm is too boring, Moscow is too expensive). It needs a more cohesive narrative thrust than just going from one place to the next and documented why Norman would rather not be there.
The frat-boy tone, with the one word sentences like ``Lame" and ``Ew", the constant quest to find a place to drink, the ignorant way he considers insulting his friend by calling him ``gay", really limits the appeal of the travelogue for me. Norman often seems blissfully unaware of his hypocrisy at times - for instance, it's disgraceful that the locals are drinking at nine in the morning, he comments on his way to find a bar to drink at in Mongolia. He complains that not enough Russians smile, yet spends almost all his time in Russia scowling and miserable, including one memorable scene in which he threatens to punch a woman. I'm not clear on why Norman even travels since he seems so miserable until he gets to Poland, and, even then, he only seems happy because he's ditching his travel companion and going to Portugal at the end of the week.
And the ellipses. So many ellipses. If there was ever a reason to remove someone's full-stop key from his keyboard, this book would be it. Each page is, literally, dotted with them. I don't want to have every one of his travel thoughts drift off half-baked. I want complete, self-contained, sentences.
I think this book would benefit from a more professional, more thorough editing. An impartial editor may be able to streamline some of the points about growth and adulthood that Norman flits around but never really examines. Right now, it's just some guy's travel litany of things that are ``wrong" in the places he visits (Seoul is too crowded, Beijing is too filthy, Ulan Bator too derelict, Perm is too boring, Moscow is too expensive). It needs a more cohesive narrative thrust than just going from one place to the next and documented why Norman would rather not be there.
October 30, 2011
This was an early reviewer thru Librarything. Josh and Dave reunite and travel thruout eurasia together as young people can, and also as young people reuniting, they find how far apart they've grown. Despite their increasingly strained relationship they manage to find their way (mostly separate)to interesting, and sometimes scary places in the far east, Mongolia, and Hong Kong, and Seoul. It was an interesting book, but the underlying strain of the two guys, along with something else I can't quite name, dampened the book for me.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews