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To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa
by Rick AntonsonTimbuktu: the African city known to legend as a land of scholars, splendor and mystery, a golden age in the Sahara Desert. But to many it is a vaguely recognizable name - a flippant tag for "the most remote place on earth." With this fabled city as his goal, author Rick Antonson began a month-long trek. His initial plan? To get a haircut. Aided by an adventuresome spirit, Rick endures a forty-five hour train ride, a swindling travel agent, "Third World, three-lane" roads, rivers, and a flat deck ferry boat before finally reaching Timbuktu. Rick narrates the history of this elusive destination through the teachings of his Malian guide Zak, and encounters with stranded tourists, a camel owner, a riverboat captain, and the people who call Timbuktu home.Antonson's eloquence and quiet wit highlight the city's myths--the centuries old capital and traveler's dream--as well as its realities: A city gripped by poverty, where historic treasures lie close to the sands of destruction. Indeed, some 700,000 ancient manuscripts remain there, endangered. Both a travelogue and a history of a place long forgotten, To Timbuktu for a Haircut emerges as a plea to preserve the past and open cultural dialogues on a global scale.The second edition of this important book outlines the volatile political situations in Timbuktu following the spring 2012 military coup in Mali and the subsequent capture of the city by Islamic extremists. Literally, it is a race against time to save the city's irreplaceable artifacts, mosques, and monuments, and to understand why Timbuktu's past is essential to the future of Africa.
To Try Men's Souls: A Novel (George Washington Series #1)
by Newt Gingrich William R. ForstchenThis biographical novel exploring America’s Revolutionary Era is “surely to become another popular book” for the New York Times–bestselling authors.The story follows three men with three very different roles to play in history: General George Washington, Thomas Paine, and Jonathan Van Dorn, a private in Washington’s army.The action focuses on one of the most iconic events in American history: Washington crossing the Delaware. Unlike the bold, courageous General in Emanuel Leutze’s painting, Washington is full of doubt on the night of December 25, 1776. After five months of defeat, morale is dangerously low. Each morning muster shows that hundreds have deserted in the night.While Washington prepares his weary troops for the attack on Trenton, Thomas Paine is in Philadelphia, overseeing the printing of his newest pamphlet, The Crisis.And Jonathan Van Dorn is about to bring the war to his own doorstep. In the heat of battle, he must decide between staying loyal to the cause and sparing his brother who has joined up with the British. Through the thoughts and private fears of these three men, Gingrich and Forstchen illuminate the darkest days of the Revolution. With detailed research and an incredible depth of military insight, To Try Men’s Souls is a novel that provides a rare and personal perspective of the men who fought for, and founded the United States of America.
To Venice with Love: A Midlife Adventure
by Philip Gwynne Jones'An inspiring, life-affirming story' Reader's Digest Philip and Caroline Jones, a middle-aged couple living in Edinburgh, found themselves facing redundancy and an uncertain future. Until they received some advice from a complete stranger in a pub.Their response was to sell everything in order to move to Venice, in search of a better, simpler life. They were wrong about the 'simpler' bit...To Venice with Love recounts how they arrived in Venice with ten pieces of luggage, no job, no friends and no long-term place to stay. From struggling with the language to battling bureaucracy; the terror of teaching English to Italian teenagers, the company of a modestly friendly cat... and finally, from debugging financial systems on an Edinburgh industrial estate, to building an ordinary life in an extraordinary city, To Venice with Love is a love-letter to a city that changed their lives. It's a story told through the history, music, art, architecture (and, of course, the food) of La Serenissima.
To Venice with Love: A Midlife Adventure
by Philip Gwynne JonesPhilip and Caroline Jones, a middle-aged couple living in Edinburgh, found themselves facing redundancy and an uncertain future. Until they received some advice from a complete stranger in a pub.Their response was to sell everything in order to move to Venice, in search of a better, simpler life. They were wrong about the 'simpler' bit...To Venice with Love recounts how they arrived in Venice with ten pieces of luggage, no job, no friends and no long-term place to stay. From struggling with the language to battling bureaucracy; the terror of teaching English to Italian teenagers, the company of a modestly friendly cat... and finally, from debugging financial systems on an Edinburgh industrial estate, to building an ordinary life in an extraordinary city, To Venice with Love is a love-letter to a city that changed their lives. It's a story told through the history, music, art, architecture (and, of course, the food) of La Serenissima.
To Walk It Is To See It: 1 Couple, 98 Days, 1400 Miles on Europe's GR5
by Kathy ElkindIn 2018, Kathy Elkind and her husband decided to take a grown-up “gap year” in Europe and walk the 1,400-mile Grande Randonnée Cinq (GR5) across The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.At fifty-seven, Kathy has chosen comfort over hardship: Unlike the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Coast Trail, the GR5 winds from village to village instead of campsite to campsite. She and Jim get to indulge in warm beds and delicious regional food every night and croissants in the mornings. The GR5 is not all comfort. Walking day after day for ninety-eight days bring sickness, accommodation struggles, language barriers, and storm-shrouded mountains in the Alps. Meanwhile, Kathy finds herself reflecting on difficult topics—primarily, her struggles with dyslexia, overeating, and shame. But she also finds that the walking becomes a moving meditation and the beauty of the landscape heals; she begins to discover her own wise strength; and as the days unfold, she comes to the gratifying realization that a long marriage is like a long trail: there are ups and downs and it takes hard work to keep going, but the beauty along the way is staggering.Written with raw honesty and compassion, and rich with dazzling scenery, To Walk It Is To See It will inspire you to lace up your walking shoes and discover your own path.
To War With the Walkers: One Family's Extraordinary Story of the Second World War
by Annabel Venning'A sensationally good book . . . I see reflections of my own family, and beyond them, like those mirrors tilted slightly into infinity, I can see literally miles of others lined up, inexorably linked forever by a shared experience . . . this is an exceptional book and should be required reading in modern history classes' JOANNA LUMLEY 'An extraordinary, compelling picture of a family entwined in the Second World War . . . at turns funny, sad, redemptive and tragic. Fabulous' JAMES HOLLAND 'A moving book . . . This account of one family's experience takes us to hidden crannies of the war that more official accounts might not bother with . . . Once read, never forgotten' THE TIMES 'Uplifting and enlightening . . . Venning has a good eye for what makes the Walker story both unique and universal' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'Superb . . . With its sweeping narrative, readable style, sense of humanity and breadth of research, the saga casts a highly personal light on some of the most significant episodes of [the Second World War]' DAILY EXPRESS 'A heart-pounding narrative that feels fresh . . . this marvellous book also depicts a world that was soon to vanish' DAILY MAIL 'A loving tribute . . . Brimming with anecdote and rich in fascinating detail' KEGGIE CAREW ~The miraculous story of the Walkers, six siblings who survived Blitz, battle and internment and whose incredible experiences tell a new social history of WW2, told by historian and Walker descendant Annabel Venning. How would it feel if all your sons and daughters were caught up in war? What would it be like to spend six years fearing what a telegram might bring? That was the heart-wrenching reality faced by so many families throughout the Second World War, including the parents of the Walker children. From the Blitz to the battlefields of Europe and the Far East, this is the remarkable story of four brothers and two sisters who were swept along by the momentous events of the war. Harold was a surgeon in a London hospital alongside his sister Ruth, a nurse, when the bombs began to fall in 1940. Peter was captured in the fall of Singapore. Edward fought the Germans in Italy, and Walter the Japanese in Burma, while in London, glamorous Bee hoped for lasting happiness with an American airman. In To War With the Walkers, Annabel Venning, Walter's granddaughter, tells the enthralling and moving tales of her relatives, six ordinary young men and women, who each faced an extraordinary struggle for survival(P) 2019 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
To War with a 4th Hussar: Fighting in Greece, North Africa & The Balkans
by Peter CrichtonThis vivid WWII memoir recounts the exploits of a 4th Queen&’s Own Hussar through the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern theatre of combat. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Peter Crichton was quick to enlist and escape his journalistic job in London. The adventuresome young man transferred to the 4th Queen&’s Own Hussars and soon found himself fighting a desperate and ill-fated rear-guard action in the mountains of Northern Greece. One of the few in his Regiment to be evacuated, Crichton went on to see combat in the battles of Alam Halfa and El Alamein. But he also found time to play polo and fall in love. Crichton was later deployed to Yugoslavia where he was attached to Tito&’s partisans, a guerilla resistance movement that fought their way North, island by island, hurrying the Germans&’ withdrawal. After four and a half years&’ absence, he returned to London on VE Day, 1945, grateful to be alive.
To Win and Die in Dixie: The Birth of the Modern Golf Swing and the Mysterious Death of Its Creator
by Steve EubanksA fascinating biography of a forgotten golf legend, a riveting whodunit of a covered-up killing, a scalding exposeacute; of a closed society-in To Win and Die in Dixie, award-winning writer Steve Eubanks weaves all these elements into a masterly book that resurrects a superb sportsman and reconstructs a startling crime. J. Douglas Edgar was the British-born golfer who broke every record, invented the modern swing, and coached such winners as Bobby Jones, the greatest amateur in history, and Alexa Stirling, the finest female player of her day. But on August 8, 1921, he was a man dead in the middle of the road, the victim, conventional wisdom said, of a hit-and-run. Comer Howell thought otherwise. He was an Atlanta Constitution reporter and heir to the paper’s fortune, a man frustrated by his reputation as the pampered boss’s son. To Howell, the physical evidence didn’t add up to a car accident. As he chronicled Edgar’s life, Howell discovered a working-class striver who had risen in the world through a passion to succeed, a quality the newspaperman admired. And as he investigated Edgar’s death, Howell also found a man whose recklessness may have doomed him to a violent demise. Cutting cinematically between Howell’s present and Edgar’s championship past,To Win and Die in Dixiebrilliantly portrays one man’s quest for excellence and another’s search for redemption and the truth. Their stories meet in a Southern society of plush country-club golf courses, vast wealth, and decadent secrets. Filled with the vivid golf writing for which its author is renowned,To Win and Die in Dixieis a real-life story both shocking and inspiring, a book that propels Steve Eubanks to a new level of literary achievement.
To Write as if Already Dead (Rereadings)
by Kate ZambrenoTo Write As If Already Dead circles around Kate Zambreno’s failed attempts to write a study of Hervé Guibert’s To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life. In this diaristic, transgressive work, the first in a cycle written in the years preceding his death, Guibert documents with speed and intensity his diagnosis and disintegration from AIDS and elegizes a character based on Michel Foucault.The first half of To Write As If Already Dead is a novella in the mode of a detective story, searching after the mysterious disappearance of an online friendship after an intense dialogue on anonymity, names, language, and connection. The second half, a notebook documenting the doubled history of two bodies amid another historical plague, continues the meditation on friendship, solitude, time, mortality, precarity, art, and literature.Throughout this rigorous, mischievous, thrilling not-quite study, Guibert lingers as a ghost companion. Zambreno, who has been pushing the boundaries of literary form for a decade, investigates his methods by adopting them, offering a keen sense of the energy and confessional force of Guibert’s work, an ode to his slippery, scarcely classifiable genre. The book asks, as Foucault once did, “What is an author?” Zambreno infuses this question with new urgency, exploring it through the anxieties of the internet age, the ethics of friendship, and “the facts of the body”: illness, pregnancy, and death.
To be a Gay Man
by Will YoungIn To Be a Gay Man, Will Young speaks out about gay shame, revealing the impact it had on his own life, how he learned to deal with it, and how he can now truthfully say he is gay and happy.We know Will as a multi-platinum recording artist, Olivier-nominee, and the first winner of the Idol franchise. But his story began long before his first audition. Looking back on a world where growing up being called gay was the ultimate insult and coming out after a lifetime of hiding his sexuality, Will explores the long-lasting impact repressing his true self has had.As Will’s own story demonstrates, internalised shame in childhood increases the risk of developing low self-worth, and even self-disgust, leading to destructive behaviours in adult life. Will revisits the darkest extremes he has been to, sharing his vulnerabilities, his regrets, tracing his own navigation through it all and showing the way for others who might have felt alone in the same experience.Here you will find a friend, champion and mentor, breaking taboos with frank honesty, and offering invaluable practical advice on overcoming the difficult issues too often faced within the LGBTQ+ community.
To the Barricades: The Anarchist Life of Emma Goldman
by Alix Kates Shulman&“A respectful and relevant biography of the fiery crusader&” from the feminist activist and author of Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen (The New York Times Book Review). Writer, anarchist, revolutionary, feminist—Emma Goldman was all these things and more. She was a fiery advocate, taking bold stands on a wide range of issues including women&’s rights, homosexuality, capitalism, and the military draft. Her tumultuous childhood in Tsarist Russia fostered her rebelliousness and emboldened her opposition to violent authority. Upon arriving in New York in 1885, Goldman found a home in the anarchist movement in the United States. She traveled the country to deliver lectures on anarchism, and was jailed for urging unemployed workers to demand the food they needed. Goldman also aggressively supported Margaret Sanger&’s effort to educate women about birth control. Goldman was deported to Russia as fears of an anarchist revolution in the US grew. But back in her homeland, she didn&’t find the socialist paradise of worker equality and empowerment she had hoped would take root after the Bolshevik Revolution. Disillusioned, she left the Soviet Union and traveled the world to write and agitate on behalf of her causes. Goldman&’s radical legacy endures, revived during the Women&’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s. Her story provides inspiration for any woman who ever wanted to make a difference in the world.
To the Best of my Ability: The American Presidents
by James M. Mcpherson David RubelIn this book the members of the prestigious Society of American Historians deliver engaging, thoughtful analyses of the forty-one men who have led America - some, of course, more successfully than others.
To the Bomb and Back: Finnish War Children Tell Their World War II Stories
by Sue SaffleBetween 1939 and 1945, some 80,000 Finnish children were sent to Sweden, Denmark, and elsewhere, ostensibly to protect them from danger while their nation’s soldiers fought superior Soviet and German forces. This was the largest of all of World War II children’s transports, and although acknowledged today as “a great social-historical mistake,” it has received surprisingly little attention. This is the first English-language account of Finland’s war children and their experiences, told through the survivors’ own words. Supported by an extensive introduction, a bibliography of secondary sources, and over two dozen photographs, this book testifies to the often-lifelong traumas endured by youthful survivors of war.
To the Bone
by Andrew Friedman Paul Liebrandt Heston BlumenthalWhat defines a chef?Despite the glamour attached to the profession today, a successful life in the kitchen is determined more by sacrifice than stardom, demanding a dedication bordering on obsession, all in pursuit of The Food. In this meditation on the culinary life that blends elements of memoir and cookbook, Paul Liebrandt shares the story of his own struggle to become a chef and define his personal style.To the Bone is Liebrandt's exploration of his culinary roots and creative development. At fifteen, he began his foray into the restaurant world and soon found himself cooking in the finest dining temples of London, Paris, and ultimately, New York. Taking inspiration from the methods and menus of Marco Pierre White, Raymond Blanc, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and Pierre Gagnaire, Liebrandt dedicated himself to learning his craft for close to a decade. Then, at New York City's Atlas, he announced himself as a worldclass talent, putting his hard-earned technique to the test with a startlingly personal cuisine. He continued to further his reputation at restaurants such as Gilt, Corton, and now the Elm, becoming known for a singular, graphic style that has captured the public's imagination and earned him the respect of his peers.Punctuated throughout with dishes that mark the stages of his personal and professional life, all of them captured in breathtaking color photography, this is Liebrandt's literary tasting menu, a portrait of a chef putting it together and constantly pushing himself to challenge the way he, and we, think about the possibilities of food.From the Hardcover edition.
To the Castle and Back
by Paul Wilson Vaclav HavelAn astonishingly candid memoir from the acclaimed, dissident playwright elected President after the dramatic Czechoslovakian Velvet Revolution -- one of the most respected political figures of our time.As writer and statesman, Václav Havel played an essential part in the profound changes that occurred in Central Europe in the last decades of the twentieth century. In this most intimate memoir, he writes about his transition from outspoken dissident and political prisoner to a player on the international stage in 1989 as newly elected president of Czechoslovakia after the ousting of the Soviet Union, and, in l993, as president of the newly formed Czech Republic.Havel gives full rein to his impassioned stance against the devastation wrought by communism, but the scope of his concern in this engrossing memoir extends far beyond the circumstances he faced in his own country. The book is full of anecdotes of his interactions with world figures: offering a peace pipe to Mikhail Gorbachev, meditating with the Dali Lama, confessing to Pope John Paul II and partying with Bill and Hilary Clinton. Havel shares his thoughts on the future of the European Union and the role of national identity in today's world. He explains why he has come to change his mind about the war in Iraq, and he discusses the political and personal reverberations he faces because of his initial support of the invasion. He writes with equal intelligence and candour about subjects as diverse as the arrogance of western power politics, the death of his first wife and his own battle with lung cancer.Woven through are internal memos he wrote during his presidency that take us behind the scenes of the Prague Castle - the government's seat of power - showing the internal workings of the office and revealing Havel's mission to act as his country's conscience, and even, at times, its chief social convenor. Written with characteristic eloquence, wit and well-honed irony combined with an unfailing sense of wonder at the course his life has taken, To the Castle and Back is a revelation of one of the most important political figures of our time.From the Hardcover edition.
To the Castle and Back
by Václav HavelThe first president of the post-Soviet Czech Republic combines impressions of his time in office with contents of memos in a recollection of his rise to power.
To the Edge and Back: My Story from Organ Transplant Survivor to Olympic Snowboarder
by Steve Jackson Chris KlugStory of Chris Klug, Olympic snowboarder. His life, dreams, and organ transplant survival.
To the Edge of Sorrow: A Novel (G - Reference, Information And Interdisciplinary Subjects Ser.)
by Aharon AppelfeldFrom "fiction's foremost chronicler of the Holocaust" (Philip Roth), here is a haunting novel about an unforgettable group of Jewish partisans fighting the Nazis during World War II.Battling numbing cold, ever-present hunger, and German soldiers determined to hunt them down, four dozen resistance fighters—escapees from a nearby ghetto—hide in a Ukrainian forest, determined to survive the war, sabotage the German war effort, and rescue as many Jews as they can from the trains taking them to concentration camps. Their leader is relentless in his efforts to turn his ragtag band of men and boys into a disciplined force that accomplishes its goals without losing its moral compass. And so when they're not raiding peasants' homes for food and supplies, or training with the weapons taken from the soldiers they have ambushed and killed, the partisans read books of faith and philosophy that they have rescued from abandoned Jewish homes, and they draw strength from the women, the elderly, and the remarkably resilient orphaned children they are protecting. When they hear about the advances being made by the Soviet Army, the partisans prepare for what they know will be a furious attack on their compound by the retreating Germans. In the heartbreaking aftermath, the survivors emerge from the forest to bury their dead, care for their wounded, and grimly confront a world that is surprised by their existence—and profoundly unwelcoming.Narrated by seventeen-year-old Edmund—a member of the group who maintains his own inner resolve with memories of his parents and their life before the war—this powerful story of Jews who fought back is suffused with the riveting detail that Aharon Appelfeld was uniquely able to bring to his award-winning novels.
To the Edge: A Man, Death Valley, and the Mystery of Endurance
by Kirk JohnsonFor as long as she can remember, they were Cam and Lilly--happily married, totally in love with each other, parents of a beautiful family, and partners in life. Then, after decades of marriage, it ended as every great love story does...in loss. After Cam's death, Lilly takes a lone road trip to her and Cam's favorite spot on the remote coast of Maine, the place where they fell in love over and over again, where their ghosts still dance. There, she looks hard to her past--to a first love that ended in tragedy; to falling in love with Cam; to a marriage filled with exuberance, sheer life, and safety-- to try to figure out her future. It is a journey begun with tender memories and culminating in a revelation that will make Lilly re-evaluate everything she thought was true about her husband and her marriage.
To the Edges of the Earth: 1909, the Race for the Three Poles, and the Climax of the Age of Exploration
by Edward J. LarsonWinner of the National Outdoor Book Award From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, a "suspenseful" (WSJ) and "adrenaline-fueled" (Outside) entwined narrative of the most adventurous year of all time, when three expeditions simultaneously raced to the top, bottom, and heights of the world. As 1909 dawned, the greatest jewels of exploration—set at the world’s frozen extremes—lay unclaimed: the North and South Poles and the so-called “Third Pole,” the pole of altitude, located in unexplored heights of the Himalaya. Before the calendar turned, three expeditions had faced death, mutiny, and the harshest conditions on the planet to plant flags at the furthest edges of the Earth.In the course of one extraordinary year, Americans Robert Peary and Matthew Henson were hailed worldwide at the discovers of the North Pole; Britain’s Ernest Shackleton had set a new geographic “Furthest South” record, while his expedition mate, Australian Douglas Mawson, had reached the Magnetic South Pole; and at the roof of the world, Italy’s Duke of the Abruzzi had attained an altitude record that would stand for a generation, the result of the first major mountaineering expedition to the Himalaya's eastern Karakoram, where the daring aristocrat attempted K2 and established the standard route up the most notorious mountain on the planet. Based on extensive archival and on-the-ground research, Edward J. Larson weaves these narratives into one thrilling adventure story. Larson, author of the acclaimed polar history Empire of Ice, draws on his own voyages to the Himalaya, the arctic, and the ice sheets of the Antarctic, where he himself reached the South Pole and lived in Shackleton’s Cape Royds hut as a fellow in the National Science Foundations’ Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. These three legendary expeditions, overlapping in time, danger, and stakes, were glorified upon their return, their leaders celebrated as the preeminent heroes of their day. Stripping away the myth, Larson, a master historian, illuminates one of the great, overlooked tales of exploration, revealing the extraordinary human achievement at the heart of these journeys.
To the End of the Earth: The US Army and the Downfall of Japan, 1945
by John C. McManusFrom the liberation of the Philippines to the Japanese surrender, the final volume of John C. McManus's trilogy on the US Army in the Pacific War The dawn of 1945 finds a US Army at its peak in the Pacific. Allied victory over Japan is all but assured. The only question is how many more months—or years—of fight does the enemy have left. John C. McManus&’s magisterial series, described by the Wall Street Journal as being &“as vast and splendid as Rick Atkinson&’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Liberation Trilogy,&” returns with this brilliant final volume. On the island of Luzon, a months-long stand-off between US and Japanese troops finally breaks open, as American soldiers push into Manila, while paratroopers and amphibious invaders capture nearby Corregidor. The Philippines are soon liberated, and Allied strategists turn their eyes to China, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the Japanese home islands themselves. Readers will walk in the boots of American soldiers and officers, braving intense heat, rampant disease, and a by-now suicidal enemy, determined to kill as many opponents as possible before defeat, and they will encounter Japanese soldiers faced with the terrible choice between capitulation or doom. At the same time, this outstanding narrative lays bare the titanic ego and ambition of the Pacific War&’s most prominent general, Douglas MacArthur, and the complex challenges he faced in Japan&’s unconditional surrender and America&’s lengthy occupation.
To the End of the World: Travels with Oscar Wilde
by Rupert EverettA Times, Telegraph and Guardian Book of the Year 2020 'Quivers with honesty, A-list gossip and sardonic prose' The Times'Everett is a deliciously gifted writer. Nothing and no one escapes his attention' ObserverIn his highly anticipated third memoir, Rupert Everett tells the story of how he set out to make a film of Oscar Wilde's last days, and how that ten-year quest almost destroyed him. (And everyone else.)Travelling across Europe for the film, he weaves in extraordinary tales from his past, remembering wild times, freak encounters and lost friends. There are celebrities, of course. But we also meet glamorous but doomed Aunt Peta, who introduces Rupert (aged three) to the joys of make-up. In '90s Paris, his great friend Lychee burns bright, and is gone. While in '70s London, a 'weirdly tall, beyond size zero' teenage Rupert is expelled from the Central School of Speech and Drama. Unflinchingly honest and hugely entertaining, To the End of the World offers a unique insight into the 'snakes and ladders' of filmmaking. It is also a soulful and thought-provoking autobiography from one of our best-loved and most talented actors and writers.
To the Far North: Diary of a Russian World Traveler (NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies)
by Ivan Nikolaevich Akif’ëvThis annotated translation of To the Far North presents the diary of a twenty-seven-year-old Russian physician who was part of the 1900 expedition to the Chukotka Peninsula to find gold. No other account so richly details life along the North Pacific Rim before World War I, especially from a Russian perspective. This volume relates the expedition's formation, development, and aftermath and offers unique insights on the region's place in both Russian policymaking and geopolitics. The illustrated diary includes picturesque descriptions of San Francisco, the Nome Gold Rush, Chukchi culture, Petropavlovsk, Vladivostok, and Nagasaki, Japan.Andrew A. Gentes's translation is based on an edition of Akifëv's book that was published in St. Petersburg in 1904. The diary shows how Russian and American views and cultural values clashed over a territory that is today more geopolitically important than ever. By documenting Akifëv's personal travels outside the expedition, To the Far North also demonstrates, in both human and personal terms, the role Russians played in shaping this region's history.
To the Field of Stars: A Pilgrim's Journey to Santiago de Compostela
by Kevin A. Codd&“I am about to share here a story about stars that dance. . . . If the very thought of seeing stars dance piques your curiosity at some deep level of your soul, then pay attention to what follows, for the walk to the Field of Stars, to Santiago de Compostela, is a journey that has the power to change lives forever.&” -- from the introduction &“Pilgrimage&” is a strange notion to our modern, practical minds. How many of us have walked to a distant holy place in order to draw nearer to God? Yet the pilgrimage experience is growing these days in various parts of the world. Seeking to take stock of his life, Kevin Codd set out in July 2003 on a pilgrimage that would profoundly change his life. To the Field of Stars tells the fascinating story of his unusual spiritual and physical journey on foot across Spain to Santiago de Compostela, the traditional burial place of the apostle James the Greater. Each brief chapter chronicling Codd's thirty-five-day trek is dedicated to one or two days on the road. Codd shares tales of other pilgrims, his own changes of perspective, and his challenges and triumphs along the way -- all told with a disarming candor. Seen through the eyes of a Catholic priest who honors the religious worldview that originally gave rise to these medieval odysseys, &“pilgrimage&” comes to life and takes on new meaning in these pages.
To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents)
by Herve GuibertA novel that describes, with devastating, darkly comic clarity, its narrator's experience of being diagnosed with AIDS.First published by Gallimard in 1990, To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life describes, with devastating, darkly comic clarity, its narrator's experience of being diagnosed with AIDS. Guibert chronicles three months in the penultimate year of the narrator's life as, in the wake of his friend Muzil's death, he goes from one quack doctor to another, describing the progression of the disease and recording the reactions of his many friends. The novel scandalized the French media, which quickly identified Muzil as Guibert's close friend Michel Foucault. To the Friend became a bestseller, and Guibert a celebrity. Guibert continued to document the daily experiences of his body in a series of novels and diaries, mostly published posthumously. To the Friend has since attained a cult following for its intimate and candid tone, its fragmented and slippery form. As Edmund White observed, “[Guibert's] very taste for the grotesque, this compulsion to offend, finally affords him the necessary rhetorical panache to convey the full, exhilarating horror of his predicament.” In his struggle to piece together a language suited to his suffering, Hervé Guibert catapulted himself into notoriety and sealed his reputation for uncompromising, transgressive prose.