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Nick Tasler

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To Reach the Clouds / Man on Wire - Book and DVD.
Philippe Petit

I first came across this in DVD form and it is a fabulous film and brilliant book. The book was originally titled To ‘Reach the Clouds’, but more recently seems to have adopted the name used for the film ‘Man on Wire’.

It tells the story of Philippe Petit who in 1974 made an exuberant and illegal high-wire walk between the twin towers in New York. The story is quite remarkable, not simply for the final feat, balancing on a wire unprotected a quarter of a mile above the ground, but also for the meticulous and clandestine planning and plotting required to pull of the feat; a real-life James Bond plot.

The result is a fantastic story of how someone can achieve the seemingly impossible when driven by passion.

Petit is an exuberant Frenchman and I love his use of English to create word-pictures, in ways that English speakers seldom seem able. Brilliant.

Steve Unwin
February 2010

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