How I Accidentally Became a Global Stock Photo and Other Strange and Wonderful Stories is part memoir, part travelogue and part love letter. Shubnum Khan takes the reader on a journey around the world. Whether it is teaching children in a remote village in the Himalayas, attending a writers’ residency where the movie The Blair Witch Project was shot, getting pulled out of the ocean in Turkey or becoming a bride on a rooftop in Shanghai, Shubnum is quirky, moving and vulnerable in what she shares.

Shubnum offers an introspective reflection on what it means to be a woman, particularly a single Muslim woman in South Africa, trying to find herself in a modern world. The stories are drawn from her life journey, which has been full of unexpected twists and turns, and are interspersed with reflections on culture and religion as well as musings on family, relationships and love.

The Mindy Project meets Bridget Jones’s Diary with a side of Keeping Up With The Kandasamys, this is a book about holding onto hope and a reminder that once ‘you step off the edge, anything can happen’.

Moving beyond travelogue, V. S. Naipaul's The Masque of Africa considers the effects of belief (in indigenous animisms, the foreign religions of Christianity and Islam, the cults of leaders and mythical history) upon the progress of African civilization. Beginning in Uganda, at the centre of the continent, Naipaul's journey takes in Ghana and Nigeria, the Ivory Coast and Gabon, and ends, as the country does, in South Africa. Focusing upon the theme of belief - though sometimes the political or economical realities are so overwhelming that they have to be taken into account - Naipaul examines the fragile but enduring quality of the old world of magic. To witness the ubiquity of such ancient ritual, to be given some idea of its power, was to be taken far back to the beginning of things. To reach that beginning was the purpose of this book. 'The quality of Naipaul's writing - simple, concise, engaging - rarely varies . . . Above all, Naipaul's latest African journey is eyewitness reporting at its best' Time

At a fateful travel writing workshop, Barbara, Louise, and Janet knew they had to collaborate. Soon, Wendy joined them, and the new writing group got to work.

LOUISE enjoys easy travels, wine, and good food. She takes you deep inside a Hungarian wine cellar and travels from Dawson City in the wild north of Canada, to Guadeloupe and Barbados. JAN adores the sea. She recounts the adventures of flying around Cape Horn, exploring the Galapagos, and learning to jump off a boat near Ireland's wild Aran Islands.

WENDY seeks out those places most of us wouldn't dare to visit. She's been to much of Africa and Asia and calls Pakistan her second home. While sick in Malawi, she found refuge in a tea estate. In Germany, the discovered lost Jewish roots.

BARBARA, the group's hiker, has traveled through Mali, fed hungry children in Kinshasa, and trekked around Mont Blanc and into the Himalayas for a glimpse into the Dragon Kingdom of Bhutan and the Valley of the Flowers in India.

Here, they share adventures and mishaps, frustrations and delights. They invite readers in for intimate reflections on what it means to travel-and why they are so drawn in by the planet's many siren songs.

Craving an escape from everyday life, Gregor Ewing writes a personal account of his 1,000 mile walk over nine weeks with collie Meg that takes them through the central belt of Scotland, literally following in Robert the Bruce's footsteps. From Kintyre, Arran and Ardrossan north to Ayr through Glasgow to Fort William and Elgin, south to Inverurie, Aberdeen and Dundee, over the Forth to Edinburgh and Berwick upon Tweed then east through Roxburghshire to Bannockburn, Gregor frames his expedition with historical background that follows Robert the Bruce's journey to start a campaign which led to his famous victory seven years later.

The years Li Xinfeng spent as a Chinese correspondent in South Africa are evident in the insights he shares in China in Africa: Following Zheng He's Footsteps – the narrative of his research into the traces left by the famed navigator during his travels in and around Africa. Beginning on Kenya's Pate Island, Li's research led him to travel around much of the southern part of the African continent, searching for signs that Zheng He's fleet had been there some six centuries earlier. China in Africa: Following Zheng He's Footsteps is more than just one person's quest to retrace the journey of an alluring historical figure, shrouded in legend: Zheng He has become an important symbol for the Chinese people and the world of peace-loving cultural exchange in general. Li's comprehensive research into the African travels of this iconic figure presents a challenge to the postcolonial world, highlighting the stark contrast between colonising and fair exchange for mutual benefit. A consistent thread in the narrative is how best to respond to the challenge of overturning the exploitation of colonial relationships with friendly collaboration in modern times.

In To the Island of Tides, Alistair Moffat travels to - and through the history of - the fated island of Lindisfarne. Known by the Romans as Insula Medicata and famous for its monastery, it even survived Viking raids. Today the isle maintains its position as a space for retreat and spiritual renewal. Walking from his home in the Borders, through the historical landscape of Scotland and northern England, Moffat takes us on a pilgrimage in the footsteps of saints and scholars, before arriving for a secular retreat on the Holy Isle. To the Island of Tides is a walk through history, a meditation on the power of place, but also a more personal journey; and a reflection on where life leads us.

'Jonathan Raban is the only person I listen to in matters of travel and books and writing in general. Reading him, talking to him as I have over fifty years, he has made my work better and me happier.' Paul Theroux 'For Love and Money ... is as good a book as there is about the writing life. Delighted that it will be safeguarded in print by Eland.' Tim Hannigan This collection of writing undertaken for love and money is about books and travel, and makes for an engrossing and candid exploration of what it means to live from writing. Jonathan Raban weighs up the advantages of maintaining an independent spirit against problems of insolvency and self-worth, confesses to travel as an escape from the blank page, ponders the true art of the book review, admires the role of the literary editor and remembers with affection and hilarity events from his eccentric life at the heart of literary London. Reading it is like embarking on a humane, rigorous and witty conversation.

Years ago, Steve Hannah's chance detour through the Midwest cut short a planned cross-country trip. He found himself in Wisconsin, a distinctly different place from the east coast where he was born and raised. Charmingly beautiful and full of welcoming people, America's dairyland would soon become his home. Dairylandia recounts Steve Hannah's burgeoning love for his adopted state through the writings of his long-lived column, "State of Mind." He profiles the lives of the seemingly ordinary, yet quite (and quietly) extraordinary folks he met and befriended on his travels. From Norwegian farmers to rattlesnake hunters to a woman who kept her favorite dead bird in the freezer, Hannah was charmed and fascinated by practically everyone he met. These captivating vignettes are by turns humorous, tragic, and remarkable-and remind us of our shared humanity.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2017 SHORTLISTED FOR THE LONDON HELLENIC PRIZE 2017 WINNER OF THE PRIX MEDITERRANEE 2018 From the award-winning, best-selling writer: a deeply moving tale of a father and son's transformative journey in reading - and reliving - Homer's epic masterpiece. When eighty-one-year-old retired scientist Jay unexpectedly enrols in his estranged classicist son Daniel's course on the Odyssey, the journey of a lifetime commences. Professor and student glean life lessons from the page over a semester and, that summer, son and father take to the sea to follow Odysseus's epic trail. Reading Homer becomes their chance to understand each other before it's too late. Theirs is a moving and erudite story of filial love and the importance of the classics. Rich with literary and emotional insight and weaving themes of deception and recognition, marriage and children, the pleasures of travel and the meaning of home, this is memoir writing at its finest.

After a decade of making documentaries about offbeat characters on the fringes of US society, Louis had the urge to return to America and track down the people who most fascinated him. It would be a reunion tour, but this time without the cameras and the sense of performance being filmed inevitably brings. It would allow him to get closer to people, to discover what really motivated them and what had happened to the assorted dreamers, outlaws and eccentrics since he last saw them. On a journey that took him from the porn sets of Los Angeles to the gangsta rappers of Memphis, from a convention of UFO contactees in Arizona to Northern Idaho for a festive get-together of neo-Nazis, he asked what 'weird people' have to tell us about our own secret natures. Had he learned anything about himself by being among them? Do we choose our beliefs or do our beliefs choose us? Louis Theroux's first book is a hilarious, thought-provoking and at times surreal voyage into the heart of weirdness.

Travel writing has, for centuries, composed an essential historical record and wide-ranging literary form, reflecting the rich diversity of travel as a social and cultural practice, metaphorical process, and driver of globalization. This interdisciplinary volume brings together anthropologists, literary scholars, social historians, and other scholars to illuminate travel writing in all its forms. With studies ranging from colonial adventurism to the legacies of the Holocaust, The Long Journey offers a unique dual focus on experience and genre as it applies to three key realms: memory and trauma, confrontations with the Other, and the cultivation of cultural perspective.

A chronicle of travels, some homely some exotic, from the man who can make a schoolboy holiday in Swanage as colourful as a walk in the Hindu Kush. Eric Newby's life of travel began in 1919, on pram-ride adventures with his mother into the dark streets of Barnes and the chaotic jungles of Harrods, and progressed to solo, school-bound adventures around the slums of darkest Hammersmith. His interest piqued, Newby's wanderlust snowballed, and his adventures multiplied, as he navigated the London sewer system, bicycled to Italy and meandered the wilds of New York's Broadway. Whether travelling abroad as a high-fashion buyer for a British department store or for pure adventure as a travel writer, even when reluctantly participating in a tiger shoot in India, Newby chronicles his adventures with verve, humour and infectious enthusiasm. After nine years as the travel editor for the Observer, Newby reluctantly gave up the post, eschewing the new form of human-as-freight travel. However, this change was certainly no pity for his readers, as the latter-day Newby continued on his unwavering quest for fascinating detail and adventure wherever he roamed, whether on two feet or two wheels. 'A Traveller's Life' chronicles the incredible adventures of one of the best-loved tour guides in the history of travel writing.

Rome Through the Mist: Walks Among the Fountains of the Eternal City invites readers to join Joe Gartman, long-time culture columnist for Italia! Magazine, on a journey among 80 of Rome's celebrated fountains, to find a more intimate way of experiencing the Eternal City. On foot with book in hand, or simply in imagination, each chapter takes readers on a vividly described walk, enhanced with colorful, subtly revealing photographs of Roman life. Every fountain in Rome tells a story; every story is about Rome: her history, her legends, and her extraordinary people, from poets to popes, artists to models, architects to emperors. Every street, piazza, wall and garden that contains a fountain has a past worth knowing. You are invited to follow the paths in this book, with 15 different turn-by-turn walking tours, 17 maps, and 182 photos. There are plenty of hints, too, about things to see and experience along the way, especially the matchless artistic treasures that await behind unexpected doors. In your armchair or on your feet, journey from Trevi's torrents to the Naiad's naughty nymphs; from the quiet basins in Piazza San Simeone to Bernini's mighty Four Rivers in Piazza Navona; from the Dark Fountains in Villa Borghese to the charming lionesses in Piazza del Popolo; and listen to the voices of the waters.

When Rachel Cusk decides to travel to Italy for a summer with her husband and two young children, she has no idea of the trials and wonders that lie in store. Their journey leads them to both the expected and the surprising, all seen through Cusk's sharp and humane perspective.

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

THE TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE Drowned. Buried by sand. Decimated by plague. Plunged off a cliff. This is the forgotten history of Britain's lost cities, ghost towns and vanished villages: our shadowlands. 'A beautiful book, truly original . . . It is a marvellous achievement.' IAN MORTIMER, author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England 'Well researched, beautifully written and packed with interesting detail.' CLAIRE TOMALIN 'An exquisitely written, moving and elegiac exploration.' SUZANNAH LIPSCOMB 'Consistently interesting . . . Green's passion and historical vision bursts from the page, summoning up the past in surround sound and sensual prose.' CAL FLYN, THE TIMES (author of Islands of Abandonment) Historian Matthew Green travels across Britain to tell the forgotten history of our lost cities, ghost towns and vanished villages. Revealing the extraordinary stories of how these places met their fate - and exploring how they have left their mark on our landscape and our imagination - Shadowlands is a deeply evocative and dazzlingly original account of Britain's past. 'An eloquent tour of lost communities.' PD SMITH, GUARDIAN 'A haunting, lyrical tour around the lost places of Britain.' CHARLOTTE HIGGINS, author of Under Another Sky 'A miraculous work of resurrection, stinging in a perpetual present'. IAIN SINCLAIR, author of The Gold Machine 'Beautifully written.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Startling.' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Splendid.' THE HERALD 'Compelling.' HISTORY TODAY 'Excellent.' THE SPECTATOR 'Fascinating.' DAILY MAIL 'Accomplished.' CAUGHT BY THE RIVER 'Outstanding.' MIRROR

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.

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.

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.

In The Story of Scandinavia, political scholar Stein Ringen chronicles more than 1,200 years of drama, economic rise and fall, crises, kings and queens, war, peace, language and culture. Scandinavian history has been one of dramatic discontinuities of collapse and restarts, from the Viking Age to the Age of Perpetual War to the modern age today. For a thousand years, the Scandinavian countries were kingdoms of repression where monarchs played at the game of being European powers, at the expense of their own populations. The brand we now know as "Scandinavia" is a recent invention. During most of its history, Denmark and Sweden, and to some degree Norway, were bloody enemies. These sentiments of enmity have not been fully settled. Under the surface of collaboration remain undercurrents of hatred, envy, contempt and pity. What does it mean today to be Scandinavian? For the author, whose identity is Scandinavian but his life European, this masterly history is a personal exploration as well as a narrative of compelling scope.

______________ '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