A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East

A thoroughly enjoyable book. Frankly I had not heard about this author before, but I enjoy reading travelogues, and something in the title and the cover photo attracted me towards the book. Terzani takes us through the exotic countries of Indo-China and Far-east, and always he has the same goal wherever he visits - to meet a local fortune-teller. The author is very sympathetic to the fortune tellers, even if they are charlatans. Throughout the book, he is a bit critical towards the monopoly and the materialistic culture of the Chinese in all these countries. Perhaps it is as a result of having been expelled from that country in the past. Travelogues read even better when an author intersperses the narrative with vignettes from his own life, but this is missing in this book. The author takes a very impersonal view of the matter, and does not reveal too much about himself. Almost all of the fortune tellers the author meets predicted that he would live long and be healthy, but now we know the sad story - the author died of a tumour at the age of 68. I can't wait to locate and read his other travelogue through the defunct Soviet Union. --Raghavan

What a story teller, and what a life this chap must have lived. I found his writing to be utterly entertaining and top notch. Terzani paints a wonderfully vivid picture of all the locales he visits, it makes you want to jump on the first plane to Asia to go and discover this amazing part of the planet.

Being of German and Chinese parentage and having lived and travelled throughout Asia all my life, I have finally found my thoughts about this vast continent and its spirituality on paper.As Terzani himself states in this book "It sometimes takes a Westerner to make sense of Asia" and I too have found this to be true. Unlike some misguided reviews that I have read about this book, Terzani is absolutely spot on in his anlysis and interpretations of Asia and its status quo. "A fortune teller told me" is great travel literature, great socio-political commentary and food for the soul all at once. Here is a man in search of truth, travelling through the continent with the richest and oldest history, needlesly reinventing and destroying itself, its identity and its spirituality in order to catch up with the youngest and most money-orientated civilizations.The West looks to the East for Answers and the East looks to the West for answers in this amazing book.Two thumbs up!

I fell on this book by pure chance, as I was offered a previous book by Terzani: "In Asia". This book arose my interest on travel writings, but I have difficulty finding a book at the same level, as the author is a master in explaining the cultural, political and economical keys making Asia one of the most interesting places in the world. His travelling by train, car and ship adds a charm that makes you want to jump on the first train and enjoy the timeless travel through this wonderful continent. The fortune-tellers' consultancy is only a curious detail in this in-deep essay on colourful places and people.

Tiziano Terzani, a top journalist from Europe who covered Asia for years, had a hobby of visiting fortune tellers. One year, one of the fortune tellers told him to avoid all air travel in 1992. Imagine, no air travel for an international journalist! But Terzani decided to do just this, to travel only by surface during 93. His wonderfully understanding boss approved, he spent that year only doing surface travel, sometimes illegally across borders that are closed except to air travel. We get some interesting views of quite a few Asian countries, like Thailand, Hong Kong and more, while Terzani records his visits to fortune-tellers to get confirming readings and gives us his impressions of life in exotic places.Did the fortune-teller give him an accurate reading? Would Terzani have been in an air crash? There was of course, an air crash somewhere, sometime. Would Terzani have been on that plane? We second-guess this question all through the book, while Terzani takes us on a fascinating tour of Asia through the back streets and cubbyholes of famous and not-so-famous fortune-tellers and psychics.If you love the books of Paul Theroux, you may very much enjoy this book as well.