Cook the simple and flavoursome food of the South of France with acclaimed chef Alex Jackson's Provencal. Provencal is the stunning reissue of Alex Jackson's widely acclaimed first book Sardine. This unique collection of recipes encapsulates the beauty and simplicity of Provencal French cooking and shows you how to recreate the flavours of the South of France at home. Provence and Languedoc are France's window onto the Mediterranean Sea and all that lies beyond, and the culinary influences that converge there make for a cuisine that is varied, rich and deep. The recipes are unpretentious and seasonal, highlighting Alex's belief that cooking the food of Provence is about simplicity, good ingredients and generosity of spirit. Lovingly described, the recipes evoke the South of France with their warmth and flavour; from Bouillabaisse and Autumnal Grand Aioli to a Tomato and Tapenade Tart and Nougat Ice Cream with Fennel Biscuits. The book is divided into seasons and each season contains a 'Grande Bouffe' - a set menu for a feast - so you can really impress your guests and celebrate many wonderful ingredients in one evening's cooking. Provencal promises to reignite a love affair with French provincial cooking, celebrating its multitude of influences, its focus on seasonal eating and, ultimately, an attitude to food which centres around sharing and enjoyment.

When her husband was appointed by President Barack Obama to be U.S. Ambassador to Spain and Andorra, Susan Solomont uprooted herself. She left her career, her friends and family, and a life she loved to join her husband for a three-and-a-half-year tour overseas. Part memoir and part travelogue, Solomont learns the rules of a diplomatic household; goes on a culinary adventure with some of Spain's greatest chefs; finds her place in the Madrid Jewish community; and discovers her own voice to create new meaning in her role as a spouse, a community member, and a 21st century woman.

The topos of the journey is one of the oldest in literature, and even in this age of packaged tours and mediated experience, it still remains one of the most compelling. This volume examines the ways in which the legacy of the Grand Tour is still evident in works of travel and literature. From its aristocratic origins and the permutations of sentimental and romantic travel to the age of tourism and globalization, the Grand Tour still influences the destinations tourists choose and shapes the ideas of culture and sophistication that surround the act of travel. The essays in this collection examine a wide variety of literature-travel, memoir, and fiction-and explore the ways travel and ideas of "culture" have evolved since the heyday of the Grand Tour in the 18th century. The sites of the Grand Tour remain a powerful cultural draw, and they continue to define ideas of taste and learning for those who visit them.

Discover some of the world’s most awe-inspiring and holy places, from Stonehenge to Uluru, and Walden Pond to Angkor Wat. Humans have always searched for and created meaning in the world around them, whether in breathtakingly stunning natural features and phenomena, acknowledging the ancient home of a particular faith or movement, or honouring the location of a significant event. In this beautifully illustrated guide, Alice Peck discusses what makes a place spiritual – whether reaches of time, geography, the provision of sustenance or inspiration, or mystery and magic – and then explores 80 such locations around the globe. Rather than a comprehensive travel guide, the description of each one includes a detail or tip – something beautiful, strange, relatively unknown or unfamiliar – to allow readers to deepen their focus and perhaps experience the place in a different way than they might expect. If you are unable to travel at this time, this book will help you plan your next adventure. And if you are trying to limit your carbon footprint, each destination is accompanied by a related meditation, prayer, practice or quotation to help you connect to the spirit of it from your own home.

If you think McDonald's is the most ubiquitous restaurant experience in America, consider that there are more Chinese restaurants in America than McDonalds, Burger Kings, and Wendys combined. New York Times reporter and Chinese-American (or American-born Chinese). In her search, Jennifer 8 Lee traces the history of Chinese-American experience through the lens of the food. In a compelling blend of sociology and history, Jenny Lee exposes the indentured servitude Chinese restaurants expect from illegal immigrant chefs, investigates the relationship between Jews and Chinese food, and weaves a personal narrative about her own relationship with Chinese food. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles speaks to the immigrant experience as a whole, and the way it has shaped our country.

'It has been hand-planted by Tsarinas and felled by foresters. It has been celebrated by peasants, worshipped by pagans and painted by artists. It has self-seeded across mountains and rivers and train tracks and steppe and right through the ruined modernity of a nuclear fall-out site. And like all symbols, the story of the birch has its share of horrors (white, straight, native, pure: how could it not?). But, maybe in the end, what I'm really in search of is a birch that means nothing: stripped of symbolism, bereft of use-value . . . A birch that is simply a tree in a land that couldn't give a shit.' The birch, genus Betula, is one of the northern hemisphere's most widespread and easily recognisable trees. A pioneer species, the birch is also Russia's unofficial national emblem, and in The White Birch art critic Tom Jeffreys sets out to grapple with the riddle of Russianness through numerous journeys, encounters, histories and artworks that all share one thing in common: the humble birch tree. We visit Catherine the Great's garden follies and Tolstoy's favourite chair; walk through the Chernobyl exclusion zone and among overgrown concrete bunkers in Vladivostok; explore the world of online Russian brides and spend a drunken night in Moscow with art-activists Pussy Riot, all the time questioning the role played by Russia's vastly diverse landscapes in forming and imposing national identity. And vice-versa: how has Russia's dramatically shifting self-image informed the way its people think about nature, land and belonging? Curious, resonant and idiosyncratic, The White Birch is a unique collection of journeys into Russia and among Russian people.

______________ 'A stylish, deftly erudite and enormously diverting book' - Sunday Telegraph 'An artfully aimless pleasure cruise around Paris' - Guardian 'White's genius as a flaneur is revealed in his affinity for unexpected pleasures, and he includes many for our delectation' - New Yorker ______________ A unique and eclectic view of Paris through the eyes of a fierce and witty intellect. A flaneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles without apparent purpose but is secretly attuned to the history of the streets he walks - and is in covert search of adventure, aesthetic or erotic. Acclaimed writer Edmund White, who lived in Paris for sixteen years, wanders through the avenues and along the quays, into parts of the city virtually unknown to visitors and indeed to many locals, luring the reader into the fascinating and seductive backstreets of his personal Paris. ______________ 'One has the impression of having fallen into the hands of a highly distractible, somewhat eccentric poet and professor who is determined to show you a Paris you wouldn't otherwise see ... White tells such a good story that I'm ready to listen to anything he wants to talk about' - New York Times Book Review

Often hailed as one of the best travel books ever written, Venice is neither a guide nor a history book, but a beautifully written immersion in Venetian life and character, set against the background of the city's past. Analysing the particular temperament of Venetians, as well as its waterways, its architecture, its bridges, its tourists, its curiosities, its smells, sounds, lights and colours, there is scarcely a corner of Venice that Jan Morris has not investigated and brought vividly to life. Jan Morris first visited the city of Venice as young James Morris, during World War II. As she writes in the introduction, 'it is Venice seen through a particular pair of eyes at a particular moment - young eyes at that, responsive above all to the stimuli of youth.' Venice is an impassioned work on this magnificent but often maddening city. Jan Morris's collection of travel writing and reportage spans over five decades and includes such titles as Sydney, Coronation Everest, Hong Kong, Spain and Manhattan '45. Since its first publication, Venice has appeared in many editions, won the W.H. Heinemann award and become an international bestseller. 'The best book about Venice ever written' Sunday Times 'No sensible visitor should visit the place without it . . . Venice stands alone as the essential introduction, and as a work of literature in its own right.' Observer

If you want to know about writing, about how to make others share the horror and intensity of an experience, try the first piece in this collection, Justice at Night. Martha Gellhorn wrote it as a 28-year-old, having just returned home to the States after four years in Europe, in 1936. What follows is a selection of fifty years of peacetime journalism, history caught at the moment of its unfolding, as it looked and felt to those who experienced it. It's about revolutions in the making, guilty acts of state terrorism, poverty, injustice and recovery. It vividly captures the range and intensity of Gellhorn's courageous work and is also a passionate call to arms, not only to remember the wronged and to bear witness to evil, but to stand your ground in the face of it.

Wow your guests this Christmas with big flavours from all over the world

Seema Pankhania is in love with food: food that dazzles and excites; food that spurs memory and recalls a time or place in a single bite; food that allows you to travel the world without leaving your kitchen.

In Craveable, Seema’s first book, she shares joyful, flavour-led dishes, that are sure to satisfy every mood and appetite. Inspired by Seema’s travels and the food cravings we all share, this collection of recipes will make every meal a celebration, and show that you too can unleash your creativity in the kitchen and access a whole world of vibrant flavour.

Seema encourages you to make each dish your own - giving you the freedom to break the rules and, most importantly, play with your food and have fun in the kitchen. With chapters organised by craving, Seema will take you on a journey of fresh, comforting, salty, sweet and celebratory meals, as well as a whole chapter of emergency dishes for when you need to break the glass on something delicious and nourishing, but don’t have the time or energy to spend time shopping or cooking.

Dishes include:

• Bombay Fish Finger Sandwich
• Pickled Jalapeno Mac & Cheese
• Aubergine & Mushroom Iskender
• Indian Fried Chicken
• Spiced Chipotle Short Rib Ragù
• Sticky Umami Mushroom Rice Bowl
• Glass-Shatteringly Crispy Kimchi & Potato Pancakes
• Caramelized Honey & Za'atar Cheese Toastie
• Spiced Rum Sticky Toffee Pudding …
• …and even a 30-minute Emergency Birthday Cake

The ketch, "Queequeg" is a one of a kind, handcrafted, wooden piece of sculpture, the culmination of 3000 years of seafaring experience. In these days of lookalike fiber glass boats she is unique. If you once see her, you do not soon forget her This book tells the story of a five year voyage from Maine to Mexico on the Intercoastal Waterway,the Florida Keys and the Bahamas. It documents day by day experiences,including the wonderful people we met, the sights we saw, and several near fatal occurences; the joy ,monotony anxiety and fear that are the lot of the smallboat cruiser. The anxiety and fear overpower the joy for some people and many sailboat owners never get more than a day's sail from their home port All Hail! to those early adventurers and circumnavigators sailing the the uncharted oceans with the most primitive navigation instruments.

A NEW YORK TIMES "SUMMER READING" PICK! From the incomparable John Baxter, award-winning author of the bestselling The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, a sumptuous and definitive portrait of Paris through the seasons, highlighting the unique tastes, sights, and changing personality of the city in spring, summer, fall, and winter. When the common people of France revolted in 1789, one of the first ways they chose to correct the excesses of the monarchy and the church was to rename the months of the year. Selected by poet and playwright Philippe-Francois-Nazaire Fabre, these new names reflected what took place at that season in the natural world; Fructidor was the month of fruit, Floreal that of flowers, while the winter wind (vent) dominated Ventose. Though the names didn't stick, these seasonal rhythms of the year continue to define Parisians, as well as travelers to the city. As acclaimed author and long-time Paris resident John Baxter himself recollects, "My own arrival in France took place in Nivose, the month of snow, and continued in Pluviose, the season of rain. To someone coming from Los Angeles, where seasons barely existed, the shock was visceral. Struggling to adjust, I found reassurance in the literature, music, even the cuisine of my adoptive country, all of which marched to the inaudible drummer of the seasons." Devoting a section of the book to each of Fabre's months, Baxter draws upon Paris's literary, cultural and artistic past to paint an affecting, unforgettable portrait of the city. Touching upon the various ghosts of Paris past, from Hemingway and Zelda Fitzgerald, to Claude Debussy to MFK Fisher to Francois Mitterrand, Baxter evokes the rhythms of the seasons in the City of Light, and the sense of wonder they can arouse for all who visit and live there. A melange of history, travel reportage, and myth, of high culture and low, A Year in Paris is vintage John Baxter: a vicarious thrill ride for anyone who loves Paris.

The river of life has followed an unusual course for Mary Stickney. World traveler, artist and writer, she became familiar with American embassies and diplomatic outposts abroad while the wife of a U.S. Foreign Service agricultural scientist. In River of Pearls, she recounts adventures and family life in Southeast Asia during the Viet Nam War era. The story begins in exotic Bangkok, Thailand, and continues to Manila, Bataan, Corregidor and remote mountain villages of the Philippines. The journey also travels to Saigon and Danang, South Viet Nam, as the author spent time there as a civilian with her husband, who was working in a pacification program of the U.S. Agency for International Development. After retuning to America, she found herself suddenly alone, went back to college and shaped a new life and a new career for herself. the wonders, excitement, the sorrows and the surprising joys of exploring far corners of the globe with an open heart and mind. River of Pearls is her second book, following Jungle Paths and Palace Treasures (2001). The danger and romance of the lands comes alive in the book. --The Florida Times-Union ...the adventure of a lifetime, told here in lively, highly readable detail. This book will appeal to a wide audience, both young and old, travel-buffs and armchair globetrotters. --Foreign Service Journal

Artist and photographer Clare Newton rediscovers and records the faint remnants of old London, only made visible when lit by a fleeting low winter's sun. These images are the conduits through time, analysing the sometimes uncomfortable balance between a struggling heritage to exist and the insatiable appetite of modern regeneration. But deep inside East London also lies a Victorian era. The mother of inventions, which not only stimulated change across the world then but even now their lingering artefacts and sayings effect us even in today's hi-tech social world. Strange but true stories that explain how and where artefacts have come from. Including the roots of 'Sarcasm' or the colour purple, both invented in the east end. Or how Shoreditch got its name. This book arose after many previous years exploration for a large exhibition displayed before the Olympics in London, called Riches Uncovered. The facts of which will be made into a series of photographic studies for all to enjoy and smile over. About Clare Newton In 2001 Clare Newton was awarded the British Female Inventor of the Year, and she has received 5 international awards for innovation. Born in London, her creative talents were expressed at a young age, first painting her bedroom to building wooden aeroplanes. But when she was given her first camera, a little Minolta, at the age of 14, it inspired her to build a dark room in the roof of her parents' house, where she taught herself how to shoot and develop photographs, with neighbours encouraging her with small commissions. She took a degree in art and design in East London and worked as a Graphic & Interior Designer for many years. Photography really took off for her when the Olympics came to London. She made her first large photographic installation in 2009, 'Riches Uncovered', a collection of photographic montages to explain and document East London's disappearing heritage. After this first project she went on to produce numerous extraordinary community art projects, involving hundreds of children and adults. The resulting photographic montages were displayed outdoors in unexpected public places, encouraging all to take part, share and learn about local heritage. Clare believes that it is through the passion of creating participatory public projects, that art can positively affect people in different and personal ways, even drawing communities together. Clare's next endeavour was to create Jump4London - the World's Longest Photograph, with 5,000 people taking part, who appeared to jump simultaneously. Two meters high and one kilometre in length, it was printed on 2.5 tons of specialist photographic material, and documented an important piece of London's history as people celebrated the 2012 Olympic Games. It made a Double Guinness World Record as part of the Cultural Olympiad's World Record London.

Living in an old, unheated T25 campervan for fourteen months, including the coldest winter for thirty years, Jonathan Bennett travelled clockwise round Britain, surfing every beach he could catch a wave. From the Isle of Harris to the Lizard Peninsula, from Orkney to Anglesey, from Sandwood Bay to Sussex, he shared the waves with seals, sewage and fellow surfers, meeting friendly and not-so-friendly locals, often alone and miles from civilisation. Without going near a campsite, he slept with the sound of the waves whispering in his ears.

This unique book is the first to bring together a group of influential China experts to reflect on their cultural and social encounters while travelling and living in the People's Republic. Filling an important gap, it allows scholars, journalists, and businesspeople to reflect on their personal memories of China. Private experiences-vivid and often entirely unanticipated-often teach more about how a society actually works than a planned course of study can. Such experiences can also expose the sometimes naive misconceptions visitors often bring with them to China. China experts relate stories that are always interesting but also more: they tell not just anecdotes but telling anecdotes. Why are there no campus maps? (Because, if you don't know where you're going and why, you don't need to be here.) What's the allure of Mickey Mouse? (He could break all sorts of rules and get away with it.) What's a sworn brother in China? (Somebody who fights for your honor even when you're not looking.) Covering nearly a half-century from 1971 to the present, these stories open a vivid window on a rapidly evolving China and on the zigzag learning curve of the China trippers themselves.

"Erika Fatland [is] shaping up to be one of the Nordics' most exciting new travel writers" National Geographic **SHORTLISTED FOR THE STANFORDS DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020** "A hauntingly lyrical meditation to the contingencies of history" Wall Street Journal "[An] impressive mix of history, reportage and travel memoir" Washington Post The Border is a book about Russia and Russian history without its author ever entering Russia itself; a book about being the neighbour of that mighty, expanding empire throughout history. It is a chronicle of the colourful, exciting, tragic and often unbelievable histories of these bordering nations, their cultures, their people, their landscapes. Through her last three documentary books - one about terrorism in Beslan, one about the 2011 terror attacks in Norway and one about post-Soviet Central Asia - social anthropologist Erika Fatland has established herself as a sharp observer and an outstanding interviewer at the forefront of Nordic non-fiction. Translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson

Bill Bryson's first travel book, The Lost Continent, was unanimously acclaimed as one of the funniest books in years. In Neither Here nor There he brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia. Fluent in, oh, at least one language, he retraces his travels as a student twenty years before. Whether braving the homicidal motorists of Paris, being robbed by gypsies in Florence, attempting not to order tripe and eyeballs in a German restaurant or window-shopping in the sex shops of the Reeperbahn, Bryson takes in the sights, dissects the culture and illuminates each place and person with his hilariously caustic observations. He even goes to Liechtenstein.

'A book that'll change your perspective on life. You'll not be able to put it down.' Fearne Cotton 'Everyone should read this book. Sophie Morgan is the epitome of grit and determination. Her writing is thought provoking, honest and in parts hilarious.' Katie Piper OBE 'Wrenchingly honest...eye-opening and deeply moving. *****' Mail on Sunday As seen on 'Living Wild; How to Change your Life' a two-part prime-time series on Channel 4, Loose Women and The Great Celebrity Bake Off for SU2C On the precipice of starting her adult life, aged eighteen, Sophie, a rebellious and incorrigible wild child, crashed her car and was instantly paralysed from the chest down. Rushed to hospital, everything she had dreamed for her life was instantly forgotten and her journey to rediscover herself and build a different life began. But being told she would never walk again would come to be the least of her concerns. Over the next eighteen years, as she strived to come to terms with the change in her body, her relationships were put to the test; she has had to learn to cope with the many unexpected and unpredictable setbacks of living with paralysis; she has had to overcome her own and other people's perceptions of disability and explore the limits of her abilities, all whilst searching for love, acceptance, meaning, identity, and purpose. Driving Forwards is a remarkable and powerful memoir, detailing Sophie's life-changing injury, her recovery, and her life since. Strikingly honest, her story is unusual and yet relatable, inspiring us to see how adversity can be channelled into opportunity and how ongoing resilience can ultimately lead to empowerment. 'Raw, life affirming and gorgeously written - this book is filled with extraordinary honesty, courage and warmth. Sophie's words will make us all braver and more hopeful.' Daisy Buchanan 'A truly astonishing read about the power of never giving up.' Sun 'F***king hell!! This book is absolutely brilliant . . . One of the best memoirs I've ever read. Honest and so blooming human, it's fantastic.' Kathy Burke

"This is a book ripped from the headlines, from Black Lives Matter to recently thriving downtowns stripped of office workers and service workers. Those catching the brunt of it all, those with the steepest hills to climb, may have been fucked at birth. But for everyone, as Maharidge observes, the feeling of safety is folly. A sharp wake-up call to heed the new Depression and to recognize the humanity of those hit hardest." -Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW "Dale Maharidge takes us coast to coast in 2020, down highways along which he first reported decades ago. His honed class awareness-unrivaled among contemporary journalists-reveals that today's confluent health, economic and social crises are the logical conclusion to generations of unvalidated, untreated despair in a wealthy nation. Forget hollow commentary from detached television news studios in New York City. Fucked at Birth is the truth." -Sarah Smarsh, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Dale Maharidge has spent his career documenting the downward spiral of the American working class. Poverty is both reality and destiny for increasing numbers of people in the 2020s and, as Maharidge discovers spray-painted inside an abandoned gas station in the California desert, it is a fate often handed down from birth. Motivated by this haunting phrase-"Fucked at Birth"-Maharidge explores the realities of being poor in America in the coming decade, as pandemic, economic crisis and social revolution up-end the country. Part raw memoir, part dogged, investigative journalism, Fucked At Birth channels the history of poverty in America to help inform the voices Maharidge encounters daily. In an unprecedented time of social activism amid economic crisis, when voices everywhere are rising up for change, Maharidge's journey channels the spirits of George Orwell and James Agee, raising questions about class, privilege, and the very concept of "upward mobility," while serving as a final call to action. From Sacramento to Denver, Youngstown to New York City, Fucked At Birth dares readers to see themselves in those suffering most, and to finally-after decades of refusal-recalibrate what we are going to do about it.

Following on from her hugely popular books, My Good Life in France and My Four Seasons in France, ex-pat Janine Marsh shares more heart-warming and entertaining stories of her new life in rural France. Since giving up their city jobs in London and moving to rural France over ten years ago, Janine and husband Mark have renovated their dream home and built a new life for themselves, adjusting to the delights and the peculiarities of life in a small French village. Including much-loved village characters such as Mr and Mrs Pepperpot, Jean-Claude, Claudette and the infamous Bread Man, in Toujours la France! Janine also introduces readers to some new faces and funny stories, as she and Mark continue their lives in this special part of northern France. With fantastic food, birthday parties, rural traditions old and new - Jean-Claude introduces snail racing to the village - and trouble with uninvited animals, there is never a quiet moment in the Seven Valleys.