The Star's critics ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARTIN HALL, MICHAL BONCZA, ANGUS REID reviews Holy Cow, One to One: John and Yoko, King of Kings, Panda Bear in Africa
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A global tourist trap
An exploration of the downside to mass travel is engaging but not wholly satisfying, says MIK SABIERS
The World in a Selfie caption: THE WRITTING’S ON THE WALL: Unrequited Love in Barcelona credit: Miltos Gikas/Flickr
PATRICK JONES recommends a vital anthology from Afghan and Iranian poets where the political and personal fuse into witness-bearing and manifesto-making
WILL STONE is impressed by Hania Rani who is already making a name for herself in the male-dominated world of modern classical music
MIK SABIERS enjoys the theatrical feminist six piece who have a lot of fun that the audience feeds off as the set rolls on
New releases from Ibex Band, Lucy Dacus, and Various Artists
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by characters so un-nuanced as to be unreal, a stereotypical plot and a conceptual vampire
WILL STONE appreciates an artist who can swerve from industrial noise to clubby trance pop without missing a step
The World in a Selfie: An Inquiry into the Tourist Age
Marco D’Eramo
(Verso, £20)
PREDICATED on the premise that there is nothing more annoying than a tourist blocking that perfect shot of the tower of Pisa or even the Mona Lisa, Marco D’Eramo’s The World in a Selfie is readable, well-researched and well-written. It takes not just tourists but tourism as a whole to task.
Whether touching on Mark Twain’s travel exploits as one of the world’s first globetrotters, admonishing Adam Smith over the “grand tour” or even imaging what aliens from another planet would make of the annual pilgrimage to pastures new, tourism is tackled head on. And it’s found wanting.
D’Eramo proclaims that “tourism is the most important industry of the century” and rolls out facts and figures backing that claim.
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