Lunchtime read: Around the World in Eighty Days

With my holiday looming it seemed like a good idea to choose a lunchtime read that is all about travel. It is also an excuse to pick up one of the £2 lime green Penguin Popular Classics. This range has largely passed me by but is a great idea because for slightly more than the cost of a newspaper you can get a classic book.

My knowledge of Around the World in 80 Days is based on cartoons and films so it should be interesting picking up the original book.

Highlights from the first V chapters
Phileas Fogg is a rich man who sticks to a rigid routine based around his home and the Reform Club. He dismisses his servant for bringing him his shaving water at two degrees out from what he expects and hires Frenchman Jean Passepartout. The new servant, who has a useful background in the circus world, is attracted to Fogg because he is looking for a quiet life but all of that will be changed when Fogg returns from the Reform Club earlier than normal and announces they are going round the world in 80 days.

The reason why is because there is a bank robbery and as Fogg discusses the prospects of how fare the criminal will have got in his escape with his friends in the Reform Club he mentions an article in the paper that says it is possible to go round the world in 80 days. They dismiss his suggestion so he bets £20,000 that he can do it and sets off home to pack and leave for the train to catch a boat to France. But no sooner is he on the continent than a warrant for his arrest is issued with Fogg being identified as the bank robber with the trip seen by the police as a ruse to throw them off his scent that kills off the business of betting money on Fogg’s success

More tomorrow…