Just when you think life couldn’t hand you any more moldy apples, or mutant chickens, you get a beautiful moment of Toblerone reprieve and today’s is the news that Steve Coogan will be back in full ah-ha mode in Alan Partridge: Nomad. The new hardback release will be the second significant outing for the North Norfolk DJ and cast-aside TV presenter, following the genius of his autobiography, I, Partridge, and this time he’ll be channeling the combined wanderlust spirit of Bill Bryson, Ray Mears and Robert Falcon Scott.
Release details
Nomad will be released on hardback, ebook and audiobook on the 20th October 2016, making it a big shout for winter’s comedy book of the season’s greeting. If it’s anywhere near as successful as its predecessor then it should be nestled in the glory of the #1 book spot in the pop fiction charts come the exchange of gifts, mince pies and seasonal affective disorder that has come to dominate the Christmas period.
The audiobook will be narrated by Alan Partridge (AKA Stevie Boy Coogan) with a reading length of 6 hours and 2 minutes, which is going to be a very fun way of getting through Alan’s grand tour of the UK.
Nomad synopsis
Following in the footsteps of his forebear, Bill Bryson, in Notes From A Small Country and The Road To Little Dribbling, but with the same foot-powered ambitions of Levison Wood’s Walking The Himalayas, Alan will be hitting the fields and spinneys of fair old Blitey for an epic adventure of his own. Setting out with his rambling boots drawn tight, Safari coat caressing his outdoors-man shoulders and Afghan scarf tossed nonchalantly around his well-weathered gullet, he’ll be going that extra extra mile to find a place he once knew well… a place called Britain.
While the rumours that someone died during the period of his sojourn in the dangerous green hills of the United Kingdom are uncorroborated, there should still be more than enough front-line action for the wandering man to find himself a little, while he’s reconnecting with his homeland. There’s also some indication that he may have spent the night inside the still-warm carcass of a recently deceased cow just to stay alive, and that he was savaged by a red squirrel in the haunting wilderness of the Yorkshire Moores, but we’ll have to wait to read the book to find out how much of the hype is for real.
Fortuitously, he managed to keep a Captain’s log of his epic journey of discovery, referred to as his “journal journal”, in which he has journalised the journal of his jours like a jubilant jamboree of journalistic jocularity. The synopsis for Alan Partridge: Nomad is keen to emphasise the intensity of the personal significance of the great British trot for the outspoken disc jockey and Abba aficionado, so if it isn’t personal, and indeed significant, then you might want to ask for your money back before you get too deep into the page-turner.
First impressions
With stark similarities to the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, but without Samwise, or Michael, along for moral support, Alan has had to brave it alone, taking in the fiery eye of a nation set adrift in the English Channel. We can’t wait to read all about it when Nomad is released later this year to find out whether or not Alan Partridge is still roaring the roar of freedom, despite the grey skies he’s set himself beneath.
