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Books > Sport & Leisure > Travel & holiday > Travel writing > General
A brilliantly witty and intelligent memoir of the adventures,
discoveries, rescues, and narrow escapes of Martha Gellhorn, one of
America's most important war correspondents and the third wife of
Ernest Hemingway. "Gellhorn is incapable of writing a dull
sentence". The Times (London) "Martha Gellhorn was so fearless in a
male way, and yet utterly capable of making men melt", writes New
Yorker literary editor Bill Buford. As a journalist, Gellhorn
covered every military conflict from the Spanish Civil War to
Vietnam and Nicaragua. She also bewitched Eleanor Roosevelt's
secret love and enraptured Ernest Hemingway with her courage as
they dodged shell fire together. Hemingway is, of course, the
unnamed "other" in the title of this tart memoir, first published
in 1979, in which Gellhorn describes her globe-spanning adventures,
both accompanied and alone. With razor-sharp humor and exceptional
insight into place and character, she tells of a tense week spent
among dissidents in Moscow; long days whiled away in a disused
water tank with hippies clustered at Eilat on the Red Sea; and her
journeys by sampan and horse to the interior of China during the
Sino-Japanese War. Now including a foreward by Bill Buford and
photographs of Gellhorn with Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Madame
Chiang Kai-shek, Gary Cooper, and others, this new edition
rediscovers the voice of an extraordinary woman and brings back
into print an irresistibly entertaining classic.
'Reading Brodsky's essays is like a conversation with an immensely
erudite, hugely entertaining and witty (and often very funny)
interlocutor' Wall Street Journal Watermark is Joseph Brodsky's
witty, intelligent, moving and elegant portrait of Venice. Looking
at every aspect of the city, from its waterways, streets and
architecture to its food, politics and people, Brodsky captures its
magnificence and beauty, and recalls his own memories of the place
he called home for many winters, as he remembers friends, lovers
and enemies he has encountered. Above all, he reflects with great
poetic force on how the rising tide of time affects city and
inhabitants alike. Watermark is an unforgettable piece of writing,
and a wonderful evocation of a remarkable, unique city. Winner of
the Nobel Prize for Literature
One winter, Dervla Murphy, the four-footed Hallam (the mule) and
her six-year-old daughter Rachel explored 'Little Tibet' high up in
the Karakoram Mountains in the frozen heart of the Western
Himalayas - on the Pakistan side of the disputed border with
Kashmir. For three months they travelled along the perilous Indus
Gorge and into nearby valleys. Even when beset by crumbling tracks
over bottomless chasms, an assault by a lascivious dashniri, the
unnerving melancholy of the Balts - the heroic highland farmers who
inhabit the area - and Rachel's continual probing questions, this
formidable traveller retained her enthusiasm for her surroundings
and her sense of humour. First published in 1977, "Where the Indus
is Young" is pure Murphy. 'The grandeur, weirdness, variety and
ferocity of this region cannot be exaggerated,' she writes of the
sub-zero temperatures, harsh winds and whipping sands that they
faced. However much the region may have changed due to current day
political situations her descriptions of the mountain splendour and
cultures she explores are appropriately timeless.
Geoffrey Chaucer might be considered the quintessential English
writer, but he drew much of his inspiration and material from
Italy. Without the tremendous influences of Francesco Petrarch and
Giovanni Boccaccio, the author of The Canterbury Tales might never
have assumed his place as the 'father' of English literature.
Nevertheless, Richard Owen's Chaucer's Italy begins in London,
where the poet dealt with Italian merchants in his roles as court
diplomat and customs official, before his involvement in arranging
the marriage of King Edward III's son Lionel in Milan and
diplomatic missions to Genoa and Florence. Scrutinising his
encounters with Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the mercenary knight John
Hawkwood, Owen reveals the deep influence of Italy's people and
towns on Chaucer's poems and stories. Much writing on Chaucer
depicts a misleadingly parochial figure, but, as Owen's
enlightening short study of Chaucer's Italian years makes clear,
the poet's life was internationally eventful. The consequences have
made the English canon what it is today.
Greece has always had its admirers, though none seems to have
cherished the Athenian tavernas, the murderous traffic and the
jaded prostitutes, the petty bureaucratic tyrannies, the street
noise and the heroic individualists with the irony and detachment
of John Lucas. '92 Acharnon Street' is a gritty portrait of a dirty
city and a wayward country. Yet Lucas' love for the realities of
Greece triumphs- for the Homeric kindness of her people towards
strangers, for the pleasures of her table and for the proximity of
islands in clear blue water as a refuge from the noise and
pollution of her capital city. This is Greece as the Greeks would
recognise it, seen through the eyes of a poet.
The outer world flew open like a door, and I wondered - what is it
that we're just not seeing? In this greatly anticipated sequel to
Findings, prize-winning poet and renowned nature writer Kathleen
Jamie takes a fresh look at her native Scottish landscapes, before
sailing north into iceberg-strewn seas. Her gaze swoops
vertiginously too; from a countryside of cells beneath a hospital
microscope, to killer whales rounding a headland, to the
constellations of satellites that belie our sense of the remote.
Written with her hallmark precision and delicacy, and marked by
moments in her own life, Sightlines offers a rare invitation to
pause and to pay heed to our surroundings.
In Dana se nuwe bundel vertel hy die stories van ons land se mense,
die gewone mense, mense wat sommerso onder die radar leef... Eg,
warm en gevul met deernis, soos ons Dana leer ken en leer liefkry
het. Hy skryf met groot nederigheid en respek oor die mense wat
andersinds ongesiens lewe en in die proses verryk en verruim hy
ons. Boonop is hy dikwels skreeusnaaks.
This second photo essay from Vicki Couchman provides a frank and
honest insight into the many different cultures, tastes, and sights
of South America. Each photograph eavesdrops on Couchman's
experiences and gives insight into places both on and off the
tourist trail. The photographs capture everyday life above and
below the Equator in a relaxed and unobtrusive manner. They also
give an uncensored account of the common thoughts, feelings, and
emotions evoked by long distance travel, as well as the varied
adventures and experiences to be had abroad-whether pleasurable or
problematic, exhilarating or exhausting. This book is an
inspiration to those wanting to take a leap into the unknown, and
serves to soften the culture shock of stepping away from the
developed world.
As a professional travel writer and editor for the past 40 years,
Don George has been paid to explore the world. Through the decades,
his articles have been published in magazines, newspapers, and
websites around the globe and have won more awards than almost any
other travel writer alive, yet his pieces have never been collected
into one volume. The Way of Wanderlust: The Best Travel Writing of
Don George fills this void with a moving and inspiring collection
of tales and reflections from one of America's most acclaimed and
beloved travel writers. From his high-spirited account of climbing
Mount Kilimanjaro on a whim when he was 22 years old to his
heart-plucking description of a home-stay in a muddy compound in
Cambodia as a 61-year-old, this collection ranges widely. As
renowned for his insightful observations as for his poetic prose,
George always absorbs the essence of the places he's visiting.
Other stories here include a moving encounter with Australia's
sacred red rock monolith, Uluru; an immersion in country kindness
on the Japanese island of Shikoku; the trials and triumphs of
ascending Yosemite's Half Dome with his wife and children; and a
magical morning at Machu Picchu.
When Jet McDonald cycled four thousand miles to India and back, he
didn't want to write a straightforward account. He wanted to go on
an imaginative journey. The age of the travelogue is over: today we
need to travel inwardly to see the world with fresh eyes. Mind is
the Ride is that journey, a pedal-powered antidote to the
petrol-driven philosophies of the past. The book takes the reader
on a physical and intellectual adventure from West to East using
the components of the bike as a metaphor for philosophy, which is
woven into the cyclist's experience. Each chapter is based around a
single component, and as Jet travels he adds new parts and new
philosophies until the bike is 'built'; the ride to India is
completed; and the relationship between mind, body and bicycle made
apparent.
Travelogues Collection offers readers a unique glimpse into the
diverse landscape, culture and wildlife of the world from the
perspective of late 19th and early 20th century esteemed travelers.
From the exotic islands of Fiji to the lush jungles of Africa to
the bustling streets of New York City, these picturesque backdrops
set the scene for amusing, and at times prejudiced, anecdotes of
adventure, survival and camaraderie. Photographs and whimsical
illustrations complement the descriptive text, bringing to life the
colorful characters encountered along the way. The Shelf2Life
Travelogues Collection allows readers to embark on a voyage into
the past to experience the world as it once was and meet the people
who inhabited it.
America was a source of fascination to Europeans arriving there
during the course of the nineteenth century. At first glance, the
New World was very similar to the societies they left behind in
their native countries, but in many aspects of politics, culture
and society, the American experience was vastly different - almost
unrecognisably so - from Old World Europe. Europeans were astounded
that America could survive without a monarch, a standing army and
the hierarchical society which still dominated Europe. Some
travellers, such as the actress Fanny Kemble, were truly convinced
America would eventually revert to a monarchy; others, such as
Frances Wright and even Oscar Wilde, took their opinions further,
and attempted to fix aspects of America - described in 1827 by the
young Scottish captain Basil Hall, as 'one of England's "occasional
failures"'. Many prominent visitors to the United States recorded
their responses to this emerging society in their diaries, letters
and journals; and many of them, like the fulminating Frances
Trollope, were brutally and offensively honest in their accounts of
the New World. They provide an insight into an America which is
barely recognizable today whilst their writings set down a diverse
and lively assortment of personal travel accounts. This book
compares the impressions of a group of discerning and prominent
Europeans from the cultural sphere - from the writers Charles
Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray and Oscar Wilde to luminaries
of music and theatre such as Tchaikovsky and Fanny Kemble. Their
reactions to the New World are as revealing of the European and
American worlds as they are colourful and varied, providing a
unique insight into the experiences of nineteenth century travelers
to America.
This book is the culmination of various expeditions made by
well-known artist and bestselling author David Bellamy to his
beloved Arctic. His descriptions of his travels, written from an
artist's point of view, vividly bring to life the challenges he
faced when painting outdoors in one of the harshest environments on
the planet, and make for an exhilarating and captivating read.
Filled with David's watercolour paintings and sketches, made during
his various expeditions, the book provides a fascinating insight
into the wildlife and people that live within the Arctic Circle and
captures perfectly the majesty and breathtaking beauty of the
world's final wilderness.
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