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I enjoyed the book and found many parts of it fascinating, but I think it also suffered from being long-winded. I think a good editor might've helped.
Regardless, his journey was remarkable. He interested me in what I consider one of the less interesting landscapes of the world. His sheer enthusiasm and the epic and historical nature of his journey drew me in.
For the most part, I liked the beginning the best. Mongolia had the closest link to un-Sovietised and un-Europeanised culture. Similarly, I enjoyed the first half of the book better because he was still on the open steppe in cultures that still have some nomadic traditions left. Once in Russia and Europe, his trip changed somewhat dramatically to something that I felt didn't quite fit the spirit of his journey as well, though still illuminating at times in a different sort of way.
I finished the book some months ago, but I just finished watching the related documentary series which totals about three hours. It was scrappy and scruffy but very good. While the book has more depth, with the series I was able to see and hear things that were impossible through writing - the close-to-100-year-old woman singing a traditional song, the traditional art and clothing of the isolated village in the Ukrainian mountains, the traditional music played by family members in Mongolia, etc. - and so I found the book and series very complimentary.
There were a couple of things that struck me in the documentary. First is how much of a gentle and tender (and courageous) soul Tim is. It's striking, really. He has a soft-spoken manner and one thing I don’t remember being in the book is his love of full-body hugging his horses often, which entails him, from a standing position on the ground, putting his arms around a horse’s neck from the side, then putting a leg at the top of the horse near its hind legs with Tim being completely off the ground while length-wise on the side of the horse hugging it for awhile. Also for instance, as he rides his horses the short distance to the final destination where the trip will be over, he starts bawling.
Second - the liberties taken with the truth, or rather omissions of the truth. In the series he claims he starts off alone, though we know from the book he starts off with his girlfriend who is entirely omitted from the documentary. Though news of his father's death and his subsequent pause from the trek is shown (the clip of Tim crying at the news is actually shown multiple times as a dramatic selling point, which I found slightly distasteful actually, especially considering the amount of other things altogether left out of the time-limited series), his pause to take a trip to I think it was the UK to accept an award was completely omitted. His fleeting romance with the girl in I think it was Kiev or somewhere thereabouts is omitted. Overall though, these are only minor things that don't really affect the truth of his journey.
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