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.

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.

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.

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

Unnecessary and upsetting chapter 18

Chapter 18 ia upsetting, disturbing and unnecessary with its horrific graphic descriptions. It ruined the whole book that I was enjoying up to then. Thank goodness I can get a refund as I won't be going further or listening again.

I love Poland

Audio book listening, I'm no intellect, failure at reading so enjoy this lazy method, only returned from a mini break in Poznan so was intrigued when saw this, so much easier when you can relate to somewhere, me & Ben probably have different political views, which come across, but that's fine, I'm sure we could have a polite debate on this, many great parts, but the Xmas tradition of turning up unexpectedly, wow Mr Benjamin got bigger balls than me, I cringed with embarrassment, but was so impressed, great book, love this type of reading, thank you.

Excellent, unexpectedly brilliant.

Poetic prose used to illuminate the mundane. Makes me fancy a trip to Poznaz. 😂

forgettable

I'm 5 chapters in and about to give up, as so far the sole genuine insight about life in Poland is that the words are really long. I don't think it's even made me smile once, let alone laugh and appears to be the authors aimless musings on his life but with no actual insights in to Poland specifically.

my partner is Poland and there is a lot about the country that we find interesting or funny, so I had high hopes for this but it's been pretty bad so far.. I feel the author also sees himself as an overly literary type writing his memoirs, but he just doesn't pull it off.

First Bill Bryson rip off, now this! Lacks energy.

I got through the whole book, something I wouldn't have done if actually reading it myself. I kept expecting something to happen but the author apart from deciding to go to Poland seems to be so apathetic that he just drifts from one situation to another as a causal ill informed observer. The inclusion of footnotes do get very repetitive as he does the research after. I've read other reviews and was under the impression that the book would be charming and witty ( I laughed out loud once!), it's neither, droll perhaps. I didn't particularly enjoy his writing style which involves using three or four descriptive words in a row in an effort to depict thoughtfulness, one will suffice.
On to the narration which is no fault of the author, it was generally monotonous but better than if the Author had read it like in his previous books.
Bottom line: There are lots of better written travel books out there but if you have low expectations and want to know a little about Poland from a person who knows a little about Poland then give it a go.

Enjoyed every minute.

Beautifully narrated and fascinating story. Would definitely recommend it. I will also listen to it again.

nor home most of the time

describes Poland and its people and culture well. I went in 2001 to Poznan, enjoyed the novelty of Poland pre EU , the people were then quite introverted to foreigners but as they grew with EU MEMBERSHIP and the younger generations shook off their last 50 years , they expanded to a very different nation

It just didn’t grab me

I really wanted to like this book, I almost gave up several times but preserved. There’s some excellent parts on what nationality really means and for me showed how far this country has sunk. But it just didn’t do it for me as something I’d want to recommend or talk about with friends.

Yikes

Whiny, un-original, navelgazing, ill-
informed waste of the listener’s time. So sorry to have spent 3 hours before giving up.

This is a book as much about life as it is...

... about Poland. And works all the better for that. Aitken is a warm, intelligent and interesting story teller. It's not a Bill Bryson travel book (as I first thought), although there are echoes of that. Instead, Aitken has his own, less forced, more rhythmic style of writing. The narration is great too. Overall... one not to miss.