The Ridiculous Race
26,000 Miles, 2 Guides, 1 Globe, No Airplanes
Henry Holt and Co. · Print & ebook · July 8, 2008
The most absurd, hilarious, and ridiculous travelogue ever told, by two hit-TV comedy writers who raced each other around the world—for bragging rights and a very expensive bottle of Scotch It started as a friendly wager: two old friends from The Harvard Lampoon, Steve Hely and Vali Chandrasekaran now hotshot Hollywood scribes, challenged each other to a race around the globe in opposite directions.
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- Who it’s for
- Two comedy writers turn an airplane-free race around the globe into a comic travelogue.
- Themes
- Around-the-world travel, Friendly rivalry, Comic mischief
- Genres
- Travel Writing, Travel Humor, Adventurers & Explorers
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The most absurd, hilarious, and ridiculous travelogue ever told, by two hit-TV comedy writers who raced each other around the world—for bragging rights and a very expensive bottle of Scotch It started as a friendly wager: two old friends from The Harvard Lampoon, Steve Hely and Vali Chandrasekaran now hotshot Hollywood scribes, challenged each other to a race around the globe in opposite directions. There was only one rule: no airplanes.
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The first man to cross every line of longitude and arrive back in L.A. would win Scotch and infamy. But little did one racer know that the other planned to cheat him out of the big prize by way of a ride on a quarter-million-dollar jet pack. What follows is a pair of hilarious, hazardous, and eye-opening journeys into the farthest corners of the world. From the West Bank to the Aleutian Islands, the slums of Rio to the steppes of Mongolia, traveling by ocean freighter and the Trans-Siberian Railway (pranking each other mercilessly along the way), Vali and Steve plunge eagerly and ill-prepared into global adventure. The Ridiculous Race is a comic travelogue unlike any other, an outrageous tale of two gentlemen travelers who can't wait to don baggy cardigan sweaters, clench corncob pipes between their teeth, and yell at their sons, "You lazy bums! When we were your age, we raced around the world without airplanes!"
Miles and Mischief
Two comedy writers turn an airplane-free race around the globe into a comic travelogue.
Come here for
- A no-airplanes wager with bragging rights and Scotch at stake
- Pranks and journeys by freighter and Trans-Siberian Railway
Expect
- Hazardous, ill-prepared travel with comic timing
- A globe-spanning contest rather than a quiet itinerary
Where it sits
| Travel Writing | 51% |
|---|---|
| Adventurers & Explorers | 45% |
| Travel Humor | 42% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Mongolia Travel
- Travel Writing
- Authors
- Steve Hely, Vali Chandrasekaran
- Publisher
- Henry Holt and Co.
- Published
- July 8, 2008
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Around-the-world travel · Friendly rivalry · Comic mischief
- Reading lane
- Mongolia Travel