A Chip Shop in Poznań

My Unlikely Year in Poland

By: Ben Aitken

Narrated by: Will M. Watt

Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

"One of the funniest books of the year..." (Paul Ross, talkRADIO)

WARNING: CONTAINS AN UNLIKELY IMMIGRANT, AN UNSUNG COUNTRY, A BUMPY ROMANCE, SEVERAL SHATTERED PRECONCEPTIONS, TRACES OF INSIGHT, A DOZEN NUNS AND A REFERENDUM.

Not many Brits move to Poland to work in a fish and chip shop.

Fewer still come back wanting to be a Member of the European Parliament.

In 2016, Ben Aitken moved to Poland while he still could. It wasn’t love that took him but curiosity: he wanted to know what the Poles in the UK had left behind. He flew to a place he’d never heard of and then accepted a job in a chip shop on the minimum wage.

When he wasn’t peeling potatoes he was on the road scratching the country’s surface: He milked cows with a Eurosceptic farmer; missed the bus to Auschwitz; spent Christmas with complete strangers and went to Gdańsk to learn how communism got the chop. By the year’s end he had a better sense of what the Poles had turned their backs on - southern mountains, northern beaches, dumplings! - and an uncanny ability to bone cod.

This is a candid, funny and offbeat tale of a year as an unlikely immigrant.

©2019 Ben Aitken (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

I liked it.

Clever, humorous and human. Even his sometimes meloncoly caused me to like the book and it's author all the more. For me, it was an enjoyable and meaningful vicarious sojourn.

Immigration in reverse.

A lot of Americans may not be aware of the number of Polish immigrants in Great Britain. The author makes an interesting adventure out of finding out why so many people are leaving Poland, and what it would be like for an Anglephone to get by on minimum wage in Poland. The book is thought provoking, funny, and at times poignant. Very interesting book that was narrated in a very professional manner by Wil Watt.

Great narration, okay story

I would listen to Will M. Watt narrate the dictionary, so of course this was overall an enjoyable listen. That being said, I wasn’t that impressed with the story itself. The first chapter or two read heavily like Bill Bryson, which isn’t surprising given that the author spent time traveling with him. But Ben Aitken is not Bill Bryson. The attempts at wit didn’t always land and were not funny enough to justify the snark. There were moments of true insight, but often it read as trying too hard to be profound. The author supposedly quoted passages of text and poetry during his conversations and excessive number of times - dare I say an unbelievable amount. Some parts about Poland, its culture, history, and people were truly interesting. The book would have benefited from more of that and less of the author getting drunk and being hungover. This was an interesting premise for a book, but the execution left me wanting.

Strong pluses and minuses

This book has strong pluses and strong minuses which is why I gave it 3 stars. Pluses: some very interesting anecdotes and some great incites into Polish life. Minuses: the author's left-wing biases come into play too much and take away from the story. Also, in so many of the recounted stories the author is either drunk or hungover; the title of the book could have been The Drunk Escapades of a Brit in Poland. A good book if you can tolerate the bias.

top travel memoir

about Poland, life, adventure. some of the humour/irony lost on me but he's British. one for all ages i'd say, and not just those invested in Poland

meh

the reading was emotionless, the story is all over the place, nothing interesting or funny or sad. it was a very plain book