A Chip Shop in Poznań: My Unlikely Year in Poland
By Ben Aitken
3.5/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
'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 Gdansk 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.
Ben Aitken
Ben Aitken was born under Thatcher, grew to 6ft then stopped, and is an Aquarius. He is the author of four books: Dear Bill Bryson, A Chip Shop in Poznan (a Times bestseller), The Gran Tour ('Both moving and hilarious', Spectator) and The Marmalade Diaries.
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Reviews for A Chip Shop in Poznań
13 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ben is Samuel Pepys of our generation! As a Brit who has been living in Poland for the past 2 years, I find this a really accurate and humorous depiction of this extremely niche lifestyle!
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I did not like the first 250 pages. Every chapter starts with: I was hungover again. Writer narcissistic and tries to hide it by showing off his (Googled?) Knowledge of books. Would recommend The Gran Tour by the same writer though.