A Chip Shop in Poznan, Ben Aitken
A Chip Shop in Poznan, Ben Aitken
List: $29.99 | Sale: $21.00
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A Chip Shop in Poznań
My Unlikely Year in Poland

Author: Ben Aitken

Narrator: Will M. Watt

Unabridged: 10 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/12/2019

Categories: Nonfiction, Travel, Reference

Synopsis

'One of the funniest books of the year' - Paul Ross, talkRADIOWARNING: 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.

About Ben Aitken

Ben Aitken was born under Thatcher, grew to 6ft then stopped, and is an Aquarius. He is the author of Dear Bill Bryson: Footnotes from a Small Island (2015), which was featured in the Guardian, The Times and on BBC Radio, and described by the Manchester Review as a ‘poignant comment on the state of the nation’ and a ‘highly accomplished homage’. In 2016 Aitken moved to Poland to work in a fish and chip shop. This book is the fruit of that unlikely migration.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Diana on June 20, 2021

3.6 ⭐ Много приятна книга, чрез която се доближих още повече до полската култура. Често съм ходила в Полша, по работа, и съм с прекрасни впечатления от тяхната натура, но никога не ми се е удавало възможност да науча повече за техните традиции и обичаи. Тази книга ме въведе буквално в тамошните домов......more

Goodreads review by Teri on January 05, 2021

2/5 stars As someone who very vaguely studied Poland's diaspora in England for geography, I was quite intrigued by the prospect of learning more about a country so antagonised by the British media. Whilst this book had lots of heart, it definitely wasn't the critical essay I was hoping for. Because t......more

Goodreads review by Jess on February 09, 2020

The English 75% of me: I don’t want to be rude about this book, because I am not convinced that the author is really ok, and someone should probably check in on him. It was interesting at times, but frustrating at others, and a bit of a struggle to finish. The Polish 25% of me: Do not trust a word t......more

Goodreads review by Carole on July 03, 2019

After a recent phase of reading about the holocaust and the Polish people’s dark and troubled past, I was ready to introduce a lighter period of literature into my life and the ‘Chip Shop in Poznan’ was right up my street and a good segway into a glimpse of post war, post-communist Poland. Ben’s jour......more

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