Her writing style is as kooky and digestible as Bill Bryson’s, her genius as a raconteur inherited from her Danish journalist father who “never let anything get between him and a good story”. It was the family’s peripatetic lifestyle around America and Africa that imbued her with a lifelong fascination for travel and people...
Ignore her self-effacement. Hop on this bus, grab a seat up top and prepare yourself for a fun-filled, fact-packed, memorable ride.
No one who has heard Toksvig speak will be surprised to find a bedrock of compassion and righteous anger underpinning the book. She rails against the airbrushing of women from history and talks about her reasons for co-founding the Women’s Equality party and her optimism for change, despite occasionally despairing at the next generation of feminists. When she hears Lena Dunham say being wolf-whistled by a man sometimes makes her feel “validated”, Toksvig splutters: “Validated? What are we? Car park tickets?... Between the Stops is like browsing through a well-stocked museum of curiosities with a wise and kind guide; it’s part celebration, part confession, part call to arms and wholly entertaining. Don’t read it on the bus though – it will make you miss your stop.
