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The Lunatic Express: Discovering the World … via Its Most Dangerous Buses, Boats, Trains, and Planes
by Carl HoffmanIndonesian Ferry Sinks. Peruvian Bus Plunges Off Cliff. African Train Attacked by Mobs. Whenever he picked up the newspaper, Carl Hoffman noticed those short news bulletins, which seemed about as far from the idea of tourism, travel as the pursuit of pleasure, as it was possible to get. So off he went, spending six months circumnavigating the globe on the world's worst conveyances: the statistically most dangerous airlines, the most crowded and dangerous ferries, the slowest buses, and the most rickety trains. The Lunatic Express takes us into the heart of the world, to some its most teeming cities and remotest places: from Havana to Bogotá on the perilous Cuban Airways. Lima to the Amazon on crowded night buses where the road is a washed-out track. Across Indonesia and Bangladesh by overcrowded ferries that kill 1,000 passengers a year. On commuter trains in Mumbai so crowded that dozens perish daily, across Afghanistan as the Taliban closes in, and, scariest of all, Los Angeles to Washington, D. C. , by Greyhound. The Lunatic Express is the story of traveling with seatmates and deck mates who have left home without American Express cards on conveyances that don't take Visa, and seldom take you anywhere you'd want to go. But it's also the story of traveling as it used to be -- a sometimes harrowing trial, of finding adventure in a modern, rapidly urbanizing world and the generosity of poor strangers, from ear cleaners to urban bus drivers to itinerant roughnecks, who make up most of the world's population. More than just an adventure story, The Lunatic Express is a funny, harrowing and insightful look at the world as it is, a planet full of hundreds of millions of people, mostly poor, on the move and seeking their fortunes.
Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons Of An Italian Life
by Frances MayesTwenty years ago Frances Mayes, having ended a long marriage and begun a new relationship, was travelling in Italy and happened upon an abandoned, grand but dilapidated three-storey house called 'Bramasole' just outside the Tuscan hillside of Cortona. Mayes fell in love with the house, eventually buying it and beginning a long and arduous restoration. The process of making Bramasole her home - and simultaneously of establishing a new life in Italy - were the subjects of her bestselling memoirs UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN and BELLA TUSCANY. In the decade since BELLA TUSCANY was published, Mayes has gone from being a proud resident of Cortona to one of its most esteemed citizens as well as Tuscany's literary doyenne. Her books are endlessly devoured and discussed by book groups, her speaking engagements and readings are mobbed, and Bramasole's gates receive daily visits from fans from around the world. In this new memoir Mayes offers her readers another deeply personal account of her present-day life in Tuscany, encompassing both the changes she has experienced since her first books appeared, and sensuous, evocative reflections on the timeless, unchanging beauty and simple pleasures of Italian life. Among the themes Mayes examines are how her life in the mountains introduced her to a 'wilder' side of Tuscany and with it a new scale of engagement among Tuscany's mountain people. Throughout she thoughtfully muses on the many joys of building an Italian life: Tuscan icons that connect with her life and have become for her storehouses of memory and how a significant part of her adjustment has awakened her to the possibilities in spontaneity and trust in instinct. She reflects on the writing life she has enjoyed in the room where UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN began and on the wider view she's gained since then.
Seized: A Sea Captain’s Adventures Battling Scoundrels and Pirates While Recovering Stolen Ships in the World’s Most Troubled Waters
by Max HardbergerSeizedthrows open the hatch on the shadowy world of maritime shipping, where third-world governments place exorbitant liens against ships, pirates seize commercial vessels with impunity, crooks and con artists reign supreme on the docks and in the shipyards-and hapless owners have to rely on sea captain Max Hardberger to recapture their ships and win justice on the high seas. A ship captain, airplane pilot, lawyer, teacher, writer, adventurer, and raconteur, Max Hardberger recovers stolen freighters for a living. InSeized, he takes us on a real-life journey into the mysterious world of freighters and shipping, where fortunes are made and lost by the whims of the waves. Desperate owners hire Max Hardberger to "extract" or steal back ships that have been illegitimately seized by putting together a mission-impossible team to sail them into international waters under cover of darkness. It's a high stakes assignment-if Max or his crew are caught, they risk imprisonment or death. Seizedtakes readers behind the scenes of the multibillion dollar maritime industry, as he recounts his efforts to retrieve freighters and other vessels from New Orleans to the Caribbean, from East Germany to Vladivostak, Russia, and from Greece to Guatemala. He resorts to everything from disco dancing to women of the night to distract the shipyard guards, from bribes to voodoo doctors to divert attention and buy the time he needs to sail a ship out of a foreign port without clearance. Seizedis adventure nonfiction at its best.
The Bizarre Truth: How I Walked Out the Door Mouth First ... and Came Back Shaking My Head
by Andrew ZimmernHost of The Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods" and famed food-critic Zimmern offers a deliciously satisfying--at times, horrifying--exploration of the planet's culinary curiosities.
Female Nomad & Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World
by Rita Golden Gelman Maria AltobelliRita Golden Gelman, author of Tales of a Female Nomad, celebrates the wonders and joy of cross-cultural connecting with this collection of stories and recipes from more than forty authors. She also includes anecdotes about her own further adventures. Happy reading and bon apptit, selamat makan, buen provecho!
Saved by Beauty: Adventures of an American Romantic in Iran
by Roger HousdenRoger Housden traveled to Iran to meet with artists, writers, film makers and religious scholars who embody the long Iranian tradition of humanism, the belief in scholarship and artistry that began with the reign of Cyrus the Great. He traveled to the mountains of Kurdistan to learn from Sufis, whose version of Islam exhorts nothing but tolerance and love. From the bustle of modern Tehran to the paradise gardens of Shiraz to the spectacular mosques and ancient palaces of Isfahan, Housden met Iranians who were warm, welcoming, generous, intellectually curious, and who would recite the poetry of Hafez or Rumi at the slightest opportunity. Saved By Beauty weaves a richly textured story of many threads. It is a deeply poetic and perceptive appreciation of a culture that has endured for over three thousand years, while it also portrays the creative and spiritual cultures within contemporary Iran that are rarely given any mention in the West. It is a suspense story that reflects on the philosophical and aesthetic questions of good and evil, truth and beauty. And finally, it is the story of a man in his sixties on a personal quest to discover if the Iran of his youthful imagination continued to exist, or whether it had been lost forever under a strict totalitarian regime. In Iran, Roger Housden was brought face to face with the reality that beauty and truth, deceit and violence, are inextricably mingled in the affairs of human life, and was forever changed.From the Hardcover edition.
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
by Candice MillardNATIONAL BESTSELLER • At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait—the bestselling author of River of the Gods brings us the true story of Theodore Roosevelt&’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.&“A rich, dramatic tale that ranges from the personal to the literally earth-shaking.&” —The New York Times The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranhas glide through its waters; boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron. After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil&’s most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemisphere forever. Along the way, Roosevelt and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, losing their canoes and supplies to punishing whitewater rapids, and enduring starvation, Indian attack, disease, drowning, and a murder within their own ranks. Three men died, and Roosevelt was brought to the brink of suicide. The River of Doubt brings alive these extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived. From the soaring beauty of the Amazon rain forest to the darkest night of Theodore Roosevelt&’s life, here is Candice Millard&’s dazzling debut.Look for Candice Millard&’s latest book, River of the Gods.
Maximum City
by Suketu MehtaA native of Bombay, Suketu Mehta gives us an insider's view of this stunning metropolis. He approaches the city from unexpected angles, taking us into the criminal underworld of rival Muslim and Hindu gangs; following the life of a bar dancer raised amid poverty and abuse; opening the door into the inner sanctums of Bollywood; and delving into the stories of the countless villagers who come in search of a better life and end up living on the sidewalks.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
by Suketu MehtaA brilliantly illuminating portrait of Bombay and its people--a book as vast, diverse, and rich in experience, incident, and sensation as the city itself--from an award-winning Indian-American fiction writer and journalist. A native of Bombay, Suketu Mehta gives us a true insider's view of this stunning city, bringing to his account a rare level of insight, detail, and intimacy. He approaches the city from unexpected angles-taking us into the criminal underworld of rival Muslim and Hindu gangs who wrest control of the city's byzantine political and commercial systems ... following the life of a bar dancer who chose the only life available to her after a childhood of poverty and abuse ... opening the doors onto the fantastic, hierarchical inner sanctums of Bollywood ... delving into the stories of the countless people who come from the villages in search of a better life and end up living on the sidewalks--the essential saga of a great city endlessly played out. Through it all--as each individual story unfolds--we hear Mehta's own story: of the mixture of love, frustration, fascination, and intense identification he feels for and with Bombay, as he tries to find home again after twenty-one years abroad. And he makes clear that Bombay--the world's largest city--is a harbinger of the vast megalopolises that will redefine the very idea of "the city" in the near future. Candid, impassioned, funny, and heartrending, Maximum City is a revelation of an ancient and ever-changing world.
Storybook Travels: From Eloise's New York to Harry Potter's London, Visits to 30 of the Best-Loved Landmarks in Children's Literature
by Colleen Dunn Bates Susan LatempaIn their imaginations, children travel the world when they read such books as "Madeline, "A Bear Called Paddington, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and "Little House on the Prairie. Make these imaginary journeys a reality for your children with visits to the actual settings of these and dozens more of the best-loved tales in children's literature. Storybook Travels is the ultimate guide for book-loving parents in search of vacations the whole family will enjoy. Let Storybook Travels be your family's companion on unforgettable excursions, including: A magical walk through London looking for the mysterious spots young Harry frequents in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone A fun-filled visit to the Plaza Hotel in New York City, reliving the charmed existence of Eloise A busy day in the tiny Tuscan village of Collodi, watching a puppet show, exploring a hedge maze, and enjoying other activities in homage to "The Adventures of Pinocchio A scenic trek following the same trail created by Brighty the Burro, a real-life hero whose story is told in" Brighty of the Grand Canyon A wonderful sojourn in Paris and surrounding areas, visiting museums, eating at typical French cafes, and spotting the famous water lilies at Monet's home in Giverny, all celebrated in "Linnea in Monet's Garden An afternoon of barbecue and music at the Chicago Blues Festival, in the imaginary company of Yolonda and her harmonica-playing little brother, the stars of "Yolonda's Genius With itineraries for more than thirty locales in North America and Europe, Storybook Travels" explores destinations near and far, rural and urban. Whether you want to plan a trip that will mean as much to you as itwill to your children (or grandchildren), are looking for ways to enrich already-planned trips, or want to bring to life the fondly remembered books of your own childhood, Storybook Travels is your guide to one enchanting jo
A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
by Tiziano TerzaniNow in paperback, this work by Terzani, a jet-age Asian correspondent, recounts his year of traveling the Far East by foot, boat, bus, car, and train--but never by airplane--while rediscovering the land, the people, and himself.
Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile
by Sara WheelerSqueezed between a vast ocean and the longest mountain range on earth, Chile is 2,600 miles long and never more than 110 miles wide--not a country that lends itself to maps, as Sara Wheeler discovered when she traveled alone from the top to the bottom, from the driest desert in the world to the sepulchral wastes of Antarctica. Eloquent, astute, nimble with history and deftly amusing, Travels in a Thin Country established Sara Wheeler as one of the very best travel writers in the world.
The Titanic: Lost … and Found
by Judy DonnellyA simple account of the sinking of the Titanic and the discovery of its remains many years later.
Pagan Holiday: On The Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists
by Tony PerrottetThe ancient Romans were responsible for many remarkable achievements--Roman numerals, straight roads--but one of their lesser-known contributions was the creation of the tourist industry. The first people in history to enjoy safe and easy travel, Romans embarked on the original Grand Tour, journeying from the lost city of Troy to the Acropolis, from the Colossus at Rhodes to Egypt, for the obligatory Nile cruise to the very edge of the empire. And, as Tony Perrottet discovers, the popularity of this route has only increased with time.Intrigued by the possibility of re-creating the tour, Perrottet, accompanied by his pregnant girlfriend, sets off to discover life as an ancient Roman. The result is this lively blend of fascinating historical anecdotes and hilarious personal encounters, interspersed with irreverent and often eerily prescient quotes from the ancients--a vivid portrait of the Roman Empire in all its complexity and wonder.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Lasso the Wind: Away to the New West
by Timothy EganA New York Times Notable Book of the YearWinner of the Mountains and Plains Book Seller's Association Award"Sprawling in scope. . . . Mr. Egan uses the past powerfully to explain and give dimension to the present." --The New York Times"Fine reportage . . . honed and polished until it reads more like literature than journalism." --Los Angeles Times"They have tried to tame it, shave it, fence it, cut it, dam it, drain it, nuke it, poison it, pave it, and subdivide it," writes Timothy Egan of the West; still, "this region's hold on the American character has never seemed stronger." In this colorful and revealing journey through the eleven states west of the 100th meridian, Egan, a third-generation westerner, evokes a lovely and troubled country where land is religion and the holy war between preservers and possessors never ends.Egan leads us on an unconventional, freewheeling tour: from America's oldest continuously inhabited community, the Ancoma Pueblo in New Mexico, to the high kitsch of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where London Bridge has been painstakingly rebuilt stone by stone; from the fragile beauty of Idaho's Bitterroot Range to the gross excess of Las Vegas, a city built as though in defiance of its arid environment. In a unique blend of travel writing, historical reflection, and passionate polemic, Egan has produced a moving study of the West: how it became what it is, and where it is going."The writing is simply wonderful. From the opening paragraph, Egan seduces the reader. . . . Entertaining, thought provoking." --The Arizona Daily Star Weekly"A western breeziness and love of open spaces shines through Lasso the Wind. . . . The writing is simple and evocative." --The EconomistFrom the Trade Paperback edition.
A Goodfella's Guide to New York: Your Personal Tour Through the Mob's Notorious Haunts, Hair-Raising Crime Scenes, and Infamous Hot Spots
by Henry Hill Bryon SchreckengostFans of Henry Hill, New York, or pop culture won't want to be without this gritty, funny, and informative guide through the underbelly of the world's greatest city--a personal tour of the mob's notorious haunts, hair-raising crime scenes, and infamous hot spots.
God at the Edge: Searching for the Divine in Uncomfortable and Unexpected Places
by Niles Elliot GoldsteinHere is a book about adventure, raw experience, and facing inner demons. Niles Elliot Goldstein is a young rabbi who sets out to find God in tough and often scary situations: dogsledding above the Arctic Circle, taking the Silk Road into Central Asia without a visa, being chased by a grizzly bear, cruising with DEA agents through the South Bronx, and spending a night in jail in New York City's Tombs. He explores the connections between struggle and growth, fear and transcendence, and uncertainty and faith, seeking the boundary where the finite meets the Infinite. Goldstein is not alone in making this kind of pilgrimage. There has always been a strong tradition of seekers who looked for revelation outside conventional religious settings and encountered God in moments of anguish, terror, and pain. Goldstein juxtaposes his own experiences with those of some of the great historical figures of Judaism and Christianity -- Jonah and St. John of the Cross, Moses Maimonides and Julian of Norwich, Nachman of Bratslav and Martin Luther -- as well as lesser known mystics and preachers, and he discovers, as they did, that it can sometimes take a journey to the edge to recognize God's presence in our lives.
The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
by Caroline AlexanderIn August 1914, days before the outbreak of the First World War, the renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven set sail for the South Atlantic in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize in the history of exploration: the first crossing on foot of the Antarctic continent. Weaving a treacherous path through the freezing Weddell Sea, they had come within eighty-five miles of their destination when their ship, Endurance, was trapped fast in the ice pack. Soon the ship was crushed like matchwood, leaving the crew stranded on the floes. Their ordeal would last for twenty months, and they would make two near-fatal attempts to escape by open boat before their final rescue. Drawing upon previously unavailable sources, Caroline Alexander gives us a riveting account of Shackleton's expedition--one of history's greatest epics of survival. And she presents the astonishing work of Frank Hurley, the Australian photographer whose visual record of the adventure has never before been published comprehensively. Together, text and image re-create the terrible beauty of Antarctica, the awful destruction of the ship, and the crew's heroic daily struggle to stay alive, a miracle achieved largely through Shackleton's inspiring leadership. The survival of Hurley's remarkable images is scarcely less miraculous: The original glass plate negatives, from which most of the book's illustrations are superbly reproduced, were stored in hermetically sealed canisters that survived months on the ice floes, a week in an open boat on the polar seas, and several more months buried in the snows of a rocky outcrop called Elephant Island. Finally Hurley was forced to abandon his professional equipment; he captured some of the most unforgettable images of the struggle with a pocket camera and three rolls of Kodak film. Published in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History's landmark exhibition on Shackleton's journey, The Endurance thrillingly recounts one of the last great adventures in the Heroic Age of exploration--perhaps the greatest of them all.
The Cheapskate Millionaire's Guide to Bargain Hunting in the Big Apple
by Tracie RozhonWe snap to attention when we hear about urban miracles: the designer jacket picked up for a pittance, the killer apartment snagged for next to nothing, swank furnishings found at garage-sale prices. Treasures like these in New York City--where it often seems the best things are reserved for the wealthy--can now be yours, thanks to New York Times House and Home reporter Tracie Rozhon, a bona fide expert on how to live the good life in Gotham. InThe Cheapskate Millionaire's Guide to Bargain Hunting in the Big Apple, Rozhon shares her most closely held shopping secrets with the reader. She knows New York bargains inside and out, from the Lower East Side to suburban outlet stores, from estate sales to flea markets. Each chapter of her informative book concludes with an extensive listing of sources and services--complete with names, addresses, and phone numbers--and is loaded with great ideas on how you can find deals in clothes and jewelry (dream coats, designer labels, furs, diamonds, pearls) home furnishings (couches, chairs, rugs, draperies, fabrics, antiques, lamps, wallpaper) apartments, co-ops, and condos (buying and renting) home renovation (paint, lumber, hardware, bathroom fixtures, cabinets, appliances) food (gourmet groceries, caviar, coffee, wine, restaurant meals) nightlife (entertainment, clubs, bars) More than just a bargain hunter's guide, this book is a bargain hunter's dream. Tracie Rozhon shows you how to think like a cheapskate millionaire, so you can apply her shopping know-how to anything you hope to buy. You don't need to be a Rockefeller to grab what the Big Apple has to offer. . . but you do need this book's inspired advice.
Wrong About Japan: A Father's Journey with His Son
by Peter CareyPrevious winner of two Booker Prizes, Peter Carey expands his extraordinary achievement with each new novel -- but now gives us something entirely different. When famously shy Charley Carey becomes obsessed with Japanese manga and anime, Peter is not only delighted for his son, but entranced himself. Thus, with a father sharing his twelve-year-old's exotic comic books, begins a journey that will lead them both to Tokyo, where a strange Japanese boy will become both their guide and judge. The visitors quickly plunge deep into the lanes of Shitimachi -- into the "weird stuff" of modern Japan -- meeting manga artists and anime directors, "visualists" who painstakingly impersonate cartoons, and solitary "otakus" who lead a computerized existence. What emerges from these encounters is a pithy, far-ranging study of history and culture both high and low -- from samurai to salaryman, from kabuki theatre to the post-war robot craze. Peter Carey's observations are provocative, even though his hosts often point out, politely, that he is wrong about Japan. In adventures that are comic, surprising, and ultimately moving, father and son cope with and learn from each other in a place far from home. "No Real Japan," said Charley. "You've got to promise. No temples. No museums." "What could we do?" "We could buy cool manga." "There'll be no English translations." "I don't care. I'd eat raw fish." --excerpt from Wrong About Japan.
Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape: Vermont's Champlain Valley and New York's Adirondacks
by Bill Mckibben<P>The acclaimed author of The End of Nature takes a three-week walk from his current home in Vermont to his former home in the Adirondacks and reflects on the deep hope he finds in the two landscapes. <P>Bill McKibben begins his journey atop Vermont's Mt. Abraham, with a stunning view to the west that introduces us to the broad Champlain Valley of Vermont, the expanse of Lake Champlain, and behind it the towering wall of the Adirondacks. <P>"In my experience," McKibben tells us, "the world contains no finer blend of soil and rock and water and forest than that found in this scene laid out before me--a few just as fine, perhaps, but none finer. And no place where the essential human skills--cooperation, husbandry, restraint--offer more possibility for competent and graceful inhabitation, for working out the answers that the planet is posing in this age of ecological pinch and social fray." <P>The region he traverses offers a fine contrast between diverse forms of human habitation and pure wilderness. <P>On the Vermont side, he visits with old friends who are trying to sustain traditional ways of living on the land and to invent new ones, from wineries to biodiesel. After crossing the lake in a rowboat, he backpacks south for ten days through the vast Adirondack woods. <P>As he walks, he contemplates the questions that he first began to raise in his groundbreaking meditation on climate change, The End of Nature: What constitutes the natural? How much human intervention can a place stand before it loses its essence? What does it mean for a place to be truly wild? <P>Wandering Home is a wise and hopeful book that enables us to better understand these questions and our place in the natural world. It also represents some of the best nature writing McKibben has ever done.
Turner
by James HamiltonJ. M. W. Turner was a painter whose treatment of light put him squarely in the pantheon of the world's preeminent artists, but his character was a tangle of fascinating contradictions. While he could be coarse and rude, manipulative, ill-mannered, and inarticulate, he was also generous, questioning, and humane, and he displayed through his work a hitherto unrecognized optimism about the course of human progress. With two illegitimate daughters and several mistresses whom Turner made a career of not including in his public life, the painter was also known for his entrepreneurial cunning, demanding and receiving the highest prices for his work. Over the course of sixty years, Turner traveled thousands of miles to seek out the landscapes of England and Europe. He was drawn overwhelmingly to coasts, to the electrifying rub of the land with the sea, and he regularly observed their union from the cliff, the beach, the pier, or from a small boat. Fueled by his prodigious talent, Turner revealed to himself and others the personality of the British and European landscapes and the moods of the surrounding seas. He kept no diary, but his many sketchbooks are intensely autobiographical, giving clues to his techniques, his itineraries, his income and expenditures, and his struggle to master the theories of perspective. In Turner, James Hamilton takes advantage of new material discovered since the 1975 bicentennial celebration of the artist's birth, paying particular attention to the diary of sketches with which Turner narrated his life. Hamilton's textured portrait is fully complemented by a sixteen-page illustrations insert, including many color reproductions of Turner's most famous landscape paintings. Seamlessly blending vibrant biography with astute art criticism, Hamilton writes with energy, style, and erudition to address the contradictions of this great artist. From the Hardcover edition.
Trawler
by Redmond O'HanlonHaving survived Borneo, Amazonia, and the Congo, the indefatigable Redmond O'Hanlon sets off on his next adventure: his own perfect storm, in the wild waters off the northern tip of Scotland. Equipped with a fancy Nikon, an excessive supply of socks, and no seamanship whatsoever, O'Hanlon joins the commercial fishing crew of the Norlantean, a deep-sea trawler, to stock a bottomless hull with their catch, even as a hurricane roars around them. Rich in oceanography, marine biology, and uproarious humor, Trawler is Redmond O'Hanlon at his finest.
Tibet, Tibet
by Patrick FrenchAt different times in its history Tibet has been renowned for pacifism and martial prowess, enlightenment and cruelty. The Dalai Lama may be the only religious leader who can inspire the devotion of agnostics. Patrick French has been fascinated by Tibet since he was a teenager. He has read its history, agitated for its freedom, and risked arrest to travel through its remote interior. His love and knowledge inform every page of this learned, literate, and impassioned book.Talking with nomads and Buddhist nuns, exiles and collaborators, French portrays a nation demoralized by a half-century of Chinese occupation and forced to depend on the patronage of Western dilettantes. He demolishes many of the myths accruing to Tibet-including those centering around the radiant figure of the Dalai Lama. Combining the best of history, travel writing, and memoir, Tibet, Tibet is a work of extraordinary power and insight.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Theatre of Fish: Travels through Newfoundland and Labrador
by John GimletteAn extraordinary journey across the magnificent, delinquent coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. John Gimlette's journey across this harsh and awesome landscape, the eastern extreme of the Americas, broadly mirrors that of Dr Eliot Curwen, his great-grandfather, who spent a summer there as a doctor in 1893, and who was witness to some of the most beautiful ice and cruelest poverty in the British Empire. Using Curwen's extraordinarily frank journal, John Gimlette revisits the places his great-grandfather encountered and along the way explores his own links with this harsh, often brutal, land. At the heart of the book however, are the "outporters," the present-day inhabitants of these shores. Descended from last-hope Irishmen, outlaws, navy deserters and fishermen from Jersey and Dorset, these outporters are a warm, salty, witty and exuberant breed. They often speak with the accent and idioms of the original colonists, sometimes Shakespearean, sometimes just plain impenetrable. Theirs is a bizarre story; of houses (or "saltboxes") that can be dragged across land or floated over the sea; of eating habits inherited from seventeenth-century sailors (salt beef, rum pease-pudding and molasses) of Labradorians sealed in ice from October to June; of fishing villages that produced a diva to sing with Verdi; and of their own illicit, impromptu dramatics, the Mummers. This part-history-part-travelogue exploration of Newfoundland and Labrador's coast and culture by a well-established travel writer is a glorious read to be enjoyed by both armchair tourist, and anyone contemplating a visit to Canada's far-eastern shores.