Across Europe to Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and onward to Siberia, Japan and Australia, this is a work that is rich in many dimensions. In essence it's a travel story about an eight-month, long and gruelling motorbike ride, but it contains so much more. The author paints a picture with evocative and detailed descriptions of cities and landscapes, accounts of people in different economic and political systems, whose lives were often harrowing, and the unending challenge of riding the machine across diverse terrains in changing conditions.

But it has the added perspective of a spiritual journey as the author grapples with the reality of the world about him and his inner demons, bringing an open mind to bear on the people and places confronting him - a journey into the writer's own soul as well as a cultural education.

But most of all it's a page-turning adventure story touched with humour and wit, a book that can be opened anywhere with the reader certain to find something interesting, surprising or amusing.

Malcolm Dunkeld began his trek in his mid-sixties in sober England and finished it in the Australian desert after a thundering crash. This book has it all!