Cover Image: Running on Empty

Running on Empty

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Member Reviews

What an amazing story about an amazing man!
The travel story follows Guy Deacon as he travels down Africa in a campervan, raising awareness of Parkinson's disease which he himself has.
The story makes you laugh and cry and is written very well.
The start of the book explains about Guy's earlier life as a military man, and all the places he was stationed.
The book is very interesting and I learnt a lot about Africa, Parkinson's and also camper vans and what can break will break on them!

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This is an incredible read! I am amazed by Guy’s determination to raise awareness and carry out such a difficult journey across Africa. I learnt so much about Parkinson’s Disease from this book.

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Wow, this was great! I skimmed some of the first 30% because I do not care about military promotions. The rest, during the actual journey, was fascinating and I loved how Guy wrote about locals in each country.

I was so impressed by his journey - to do that would be hard regardless, much less with advanced Parkinsons.

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Guy Deacon has retired from a life of military service and is living with a fairly recent diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease. Guy decides that he wants to revisit Africa, a continent he served in and loved and he not only wants to visit….he wants to drive through all of Africa alone and visit every country in his hardy little 4X4 wagon. This is a rough road for a team, let alone a man with an illness that is complicated by stress, heat, dehydration, lack of sleep, and missed medications. Guy experiences all of these, along with car trouble and no access to parts, con artists, scary checkpoints, bribery demands and many more hazards. He is blessed with encounters of people who go far out of their way to help him and to further the cause to help people living with Parkinson’s Disease. Guy’s roadtrip was a brave undertaking and many were inspired. Well done, Mr. Deacon. #netgalley #RunningOnEmpty

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I had to read this book due to my love of Africa, the way Guy Deacon traveled through the continent, and the fact that he did it with Parkinson's is simply incredible. My absolutely favourite things about this book is the descriptions of different places, cultures, problems, and solutions of what he encountered in the different countries, plus all the lovely and extremely helpful people he met throughout his journey.

The things I was less fond of was, probably due to me being a civilian, some of the army things, and of course, the long detour he had to make back to the UK due to Covid.

I wish I could say this is something I will do as well, but I simply will not. I sadly do not think it would be safe for a woman to do this (bummer), plus I lack all the incredible contacts the author has. I know he had quite a few setbacks with the car, medication, and other things, but it is amazing how many people he knew and all the people who were willing to help him. Massive respect for doing this trip with Parkinson's! I have no clue how he did it.

I loved the journey in itself. There are so many familiar things, like crossing the borders, bad roads, but overall the friendliness when it comes to Africans, plus of course the opportunists in between all the friendly people.

Highly recommended, and I hope people reading the book will learn something about Parkinson's as well!

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I really wanted to enjoy this book, but although the stories are interesting and hearing Guy's experience was fascinating and also inspiring, I found it a real struggle to get through as I just wasn't carried along by the narrative...

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