One summer, writer and musician, Jasper Winn set himself an extraordinary task. He would kayak the whole way round Ireland - a thousand miles - camping on remote headlands and islands, carousing in bars and paddling clockwise until he got back where he started. But in the worst Irish summer in living memory the pleasures of idling among seals, fulmars and fishing boats soon gave way to heroic struggles through storm-tossed seas ... and lock-ins playing music in coastal pubs. Circling the country where he grew up, Jasper reflects on life at the very fringes of Ireland, the nature and lore of its seas, and his own eccentric upbringing - sprung from school at age ten and left free to explore the countryside and its traditional life. Charming, quietly epic, and with an irresistible undertow of wit, Paddle is a low-tech adventure that captures the sheer joy of a misty morning on Ireland's coast. As the sun breaks through, you'll be longing to set off too.

Join John Rogers as he ventures out into an uncharted London like a redbrick Indiana Jones in search of the lost meaning of our metropolitan existence. Nursing two reluctant knees and a can of Stella, he perambulates through the seasons seeking adventure in our city's remote and forgotten reaches. When John Rogers packed away his rucksack to start a family in London he didn't stop travelling. But instead of canoeing up the Rejang River to find retired headhunters in Sarawak, he caught the ferry to Woolwich in search of the edge of the city at Crayford Marshes. This Other London recounts that journey and many others - all on foot and epic in their own cartilage-crunching way. Clutching a samosa and a handful of out-of-date A-Zs, he heads out into the wilderness of isolated luxury apartment blocks in Brentford, the ruins of Lesnes Abbey near Thamesmead, and the ancient Lammas Lands in Leyton. Denounced by his young sons as a 'hippy wizard', Rogers delves into some of the overlooked stories rumbling beneath the tarmac of the city suburbs. Holy wells in Lewisham; wassailing in Clapton; a heretical fresco in West Ham. He encounters the Highwaymen of Hounslow Heath, Viet Cong vets still fighting Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket in Beckton, Dutch sailors marooned at Erith pier; and cyclists - without Bradley Wiggins' sideburns - at Herne Hill Velodrome. He heads out to Uxendon Hill to witness the end of the world, Horsenden Hill to learn its legend, and Tulse Hill to the observatory of the Victorian Brian Cox. This Other London will take you into the hinterland of the city. The London that is lived in; the London where workaday dormitory suburbs sit atop a rich history that could rival Westminster and Tower Bridge. In an age when no corner of the globe has been left untrampled-upon by hordes of tourists, it is time to discover the wonders on our doorstep. This Other London is your gateway through the underexplored nooks of London. As Pathfinder wrote in 1911, 'Adventure begins at home'.

Write guidebooks, make travel TV, lead bus tours? Cameron Hewitt has been Rick Steves’ right hand for more than 20 years, doing just that. The Temporary European is a collection of vivid, entertaining travel tales from across Europe. Cameron zips you into his backpack for engaging and inspiring experiences: sampling spleen sandwiches at a Palermo street market; hiking alone with the cows high in the Swiss Alps; simmering in Budapest’s thermal baths; trekking across an English moor to a stone circle; hand-rolling pasta at a Tuscan agriturismo; shivering through Highland games in a soggy Scottish village; and much more. Along the way, Cameron introduces us to his favorite Europeans. In Mostar, Alma demonstrates how Bosnian coffee isn’t just a drink, but a social ritual. In France, Mathilde explains that the true mastery of a fromager isn’t making cheese, but aging it. In Spain, Fran proudly eats acorns, but never corn on the cob. While personal, the stories also tap into the universal joy of travel. Cameron’s travel motto (inspired by a globetrotting auntie) is "Jams Are Fun"—the fondest memories arrive when your best-laid plans go sideways. And he encourages travelers to stow their phones and guidebooks, slow down, and savor those magic moments that arrive between stops on a busy itinerary. The stories are packed with inspiration and insights for your next trip, including how to find the best gelato in Italy, how to select the best produce at a Provençal market, how to navigate Spain’s confusing tapas scene, and how to survive the experience of driving in Sicily (hint: just go numb). And you’ll get a reality check for every traveler’s "dream job": researching and writing guidebooks; guiding busloads of Americans on tours around Europe; scouting and producing a travel TV show; and working with Rick Steves and his merry band of travelers. It’s a candid account of how the sausage gets made in the travel business—told with warts-and-all honesty and a sense of humor. For Rick Steves fans, or anyone who loves Europe, The Temporary European is inspiring, insightful, and fun.

________________ 'This anthology will help turn your intellectual understanding of oppression into an emotional one' - New Statesman 'Thanks for being who you are and for giving us such exposure to wonderful people. Palestine is proud of you' - Suad Amiry ________________ The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008. Bringing together writers from all corners of the globe, it aims to help Palestinians break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen their artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, 'the power of culture over the culture of power'. Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems and stories from some of the world's most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and courage in the most desperate of situations. Contributors: Susan Abulhawa, Suad Amiry, Victoria Brittain, Jehan Bseiso, Teju Cole, Molly Crabapple, Selma Dabbagh, Mahmoud Darwish, Najwan Darwish, Geoff Dyer, Yasmin El-Rifae, Adam Foulds, Ru Freeman, Omar Robert Hamilton, Suheir Hammad, Nathalie Handal, Mohammed Hanif, Jeremy Harding, Rachel Holmes, John Horner, Remi Kanazi, Brigid Keenan, Mercedes Kemp, Omar El-Khairy, Nancy Kricorian, Sabrina Mahfouz, Jamal Mahjoub, Henning Mankell, Claire Messud, China Mieville, Pankaj Mishra, Deborah Moggach, Muiz, Maath Musleh, Michael Palin, Ed Pavlic, Atef Abu Saif, Kamila Shamsie, Raja Shehadeh, Gillian Slovo, Ahdaf Soueif, Linda Spalding, Will Sutcliffe, Alice Walker With messages from China Achebe, Michael Ondaatje and J. M. Coetzee ________________ 'Every literary act, whether it is a great epic poem or an honest piece of journalism or a simple nonsense tale for children is a blow against the forces of stupidity and ignorance and darkness ... The Palestine Festival of Literature exists to do just that - and I salute it for its work. Not only this year but for as long as it is necessary' - Philip Pullman

This distinguished anthology presents for the first time in English travel essays by Arabic writers who have visited America in the second half of the century. The view of America which emerges from these accounts is at once fascinating and illuminating, but never monolithic. The writers hail from a variety of viewpoints, regions, and backgrounds, so their descriptions of America differently engage and revise Arab pre-conceptions of Americans and the West. The country figures as everything from the unchanging Other, the very antithesis of the Arab self, to the seductive female, to the Other who is both praiseworthy and reprehensible.

In writings about travel, the Balkans appear most often as a place traveled to. Western accounts of the Balkans revel in the different and the exotic, the violent and the primitive - traits that serve (according to many commentators) as a foil to self-congratulatory definitions of the West as modern, progressive, and rational. However, the Balkans have also long been traveled from. The region's writers have offered accounts of their travels in the West and elsewhere, saying something in the process about themselves and their place in the world. The analyses presented here, ranging from those of 16th-century Greek humanists to 19th-century Romanian reformers to 20th-century writers, socialists and men-of-the-world, suggest that travelers from the region have also created their own identities through their encounters with Europe. Consequently, this book challenges assumptions of Western discursive hegemony, while at the same time exploring Balkan 'Occidentalisms.'

Much has been written on how temples are constructed or reconstructed for reviving local religious and communal life or for recycling tradition after the market reforms in China. The dynamics between the state and society that lie behind the revival of temples and religious practices initiated by the locals have been well-analysed. However, there is a gap in the literature when it comes to understanding religious revivals that were instead led by local governments. This book examines the revival of worship of the Chinese Deity Huang Daxian and the building of many new temples to the god in mainland China over the last 20 years. It analyses the role of local governments in initiating temple construction projects in China, and how development-oriented temple-building activities in Mainland China reveal the forces of transnational ties, capital, markets and identities, as temples were built with the hope of developing tourism, boosting the local economy, and enhancing Chinese identities for Hong Kong worshippers and Taiwanese in response to the reunification of Hong Kong to China. Including chapters on local religious memory awakening, pilgrimage as a form of tourism, women temple managers, entrepreneurialism and the religious economy, and based on extensive fieldwork, Chan and Lang have produced a truly interdisciplinary follow up to The Rise of a Refugee God which will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese religion, Chinese culture, Asian anthropology, cultural heritage and Daoism alike.

Most travel memoirs involve a button-nosed protagonist nursing a broken heart who, rather than tearfully watching The Princess Bride while eating an entire 5-gallon vat of ice cream directly out of the container (like a normal person), instead decides to travel the world, inevitably falling for some chiseled stranger with bulging pectoral muscles and a disdain for wearing clothing above the waist. This is not that kind of book. Geraldine met the love of her life long before this story began, on a bus in Seattle surrounded by drunk college kids. She gets lost constantly, wherever she goes. And her nose would never, ever be considered "button-like." Hilarious, irreverent and heartfelt, All Over the Place chronicles the five-year period that kicked off when Geraldine got laid off from a job she loved and took off to travel the world. Those years taught her a great number of things, though the ability to read a map was not one of them. She has only a vague idea of where Russia is, but she understands her Russian father now better than ever before. She learned that at least half of what she thought was her mother's functional insanity was actually an equally incurable condition called "being Italian." She learned about unemployment and brain tumors and lost luggage and lost opportunities and just getting lost, in countless terminals and cabs and hotel lobbies across the globe. And she learned what it's like to travel the world with someone you already know and love. How that person can help you make sense of things, and can, by some sort of alchemy, make foreign cities and far-off places feel like home. In All Over the Place, Geraldine imparts the insight she gained while being far from home--wry, surprising, but always sincere, advice about marriage, family, health, and happiness that come from getting lost and finding the unexpected.

Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (1784-1817), the great Swiss Orientalist, devoted his regrettably short life to travels and explorations in Africa and the near east, under the aegis of the African association. Under the name of Shaikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdullah and wearing local dress, he gained a profound knowledge of Islamic Law and Customs, and a mastery of both contemporary and classical Arabic of the Qur'an seldom equalled by a European. Burckhardt arrived in Cairo from Syria in 1812. Later he travelled up the Nile and thence eastward through Shendi and Suakin to make the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, returning across the Red sea to Suez in 1815. He visited Mt Sinai the next year, but while waiting in Cairo, planning an epic journey across the Sahara, he contracted dysentry and died. He had a deep empathy for Islam, and was buried as a holy pilgrim in the muslim cemetery there.The African Society undertook the publishing of his Journals, and these valuable works are being meticulously republished in facsimile edition by Darf publishers, so they are once more accessible to both scholars and travellers as well as the informed reader.

Raised on its banks and an avid sailor, Caroline Crampton sets out to rediscover the enigmatic pull of the Thames by following its course from the river's source in a small village in Gloucestershire, through the short central stretch beloved of Londoners and tourists alike, to the point where it merges with the North Sea. As she navigates the river's ever-shifting tidal waters, she seeks out the stories behind its unique landmarks, from the vast Victorian pumping stations that carried away the capital's waste and the shiny barrier that holds the sea at bay, to the Napoleonic-era forts that stand on marshy ground as eerie relics of past invasions. In spellbinding prose, she reveals the histories of its empty warehouses and arsenals; its riverbanks layered with Anglo-Saxon treasures; and its shipwrecks, still inhabited by the ghosts of the drowned. The Way to the Sea is at once a fascinating portrait of an iconic stretch of water and a captivating introduction to a new voice in British non-fiction.

Back in Paperback, with a new afterword by the author Of the thru-hikers who set out to walk the entire Appalachian Trail, most don't make it. Robert Rubin's chances didn't look good. Thirty-eight years old, dispirited, and burned out by a job he no longer loved, he decided to leave mortgage and wife and cul-de-sac life behind for a journey that could take half a year--or perhaps never end. On the trail's wooded ridges, Rubin found himself part of a strange vagrant culture of pilgrims and dropouts, a world with its own rules and rituals. With eloquence and humor, he recounts his trek--the people he met, the landscapes he passed through, the spiritual and physical endurance involved (despite a diet heavy in Snickers bars and macaroni & cheese, he lost seventy-five pounds along the way). "On the Beaten Path" is a wise, witty look at one of the few remaining pilgrimages in our disillusioned age.

In the fall of 1964, sinologist Erik Zurcher travelled to China for the first time, a country he had been studying since 1947. A collection of Zurcher's personal writings from his trip, including letters and diary entries, Three Months in Mao's China offers not only new insights about the great scholar, but also a rich picture of communist China, which was in those days still almost completely inaccessible to Westerners. During a tumultuous time in world politics, as Nikita Khrushchev was deposed, Lyndon Johnson won the US presidential election against Barry Goldwater, and China became a nuclear power, Zurcher experienced the reality of China under Mao Zedong. Only recently discovered, these documents portray, viewed through an expert's eye, a land in the midst of its own massive political, social, and economic change. Both a fascinating account by an informed outsider and a reminder of just how much China and the rest of the world have changed over the last fifty years, this is essential reading for anyone interested in East Asia and Asian history as a whole.

The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: United States; Social Science / Customs

In the early decades of the nineteenth century European interest in Africa was reaching its height. Places such as Timbuctoo, seemingly as remote as the moon, were seen as vital links in the establishment of new trade routes to the African interior. In 1822 the Scottish explorer, Alexander Gordon Laing, was successful in reaching Timbuctoo but was murdered by Arabs, a fate awaiting any discovered Christian, infidel, traveller. In 1826 the Geographical Society of Paris offered a large prie for the first person to erach and successfully return from Timbuctoo. Rene Caillie, already familiar with trade in North Africa, took up the challenge and embarked upon a hazardous year-long journey, reaching the mysterious desert kingdom in April 1828. On his triumphant return Caillie published an account of his travels, a vivid picture of desert life, and of the Arabs and their customs. Originally published in 1830, and here republished in facsimile, this two-volume work is a classic among the works of early travellers. Caillie's eye for detail, along with his description of the perils of travel in a hostile world, provides a fascinating and exciting account of early exploration.

200 countries; one street each; seven years of travelling and collecting photos, stories, facts and figures about each country. This is not just another photography book. It reveals everything that a street means to society: education, wisdom, youth, experience, happiness, stories, food, and so much more. This is the raw material of life, drawn directly from the experiences of the Belgian photographer Jeroen Swolfs. Seeing the street as a unifying theme, he travelled in search of that one street in each place - sometimes by a harbour or a railway station - that comprised the country as a whole. Each stunning image conveys culture, colours, rituals, even the history of the city and country where he found them. Swolfs sees the street as a universal meeting place, a platform of crowds, a centre of news and gossip, a place of work, and a playground for children. Swolfs's streets are a matrix for community; his photographs are published at a time when the unique insularity of local communities everywhere has never been more under threat.

This volume focuses on how travel writing contributed to cultural and intellectual exchange in and between the Dutch- and German-speaking regions from the 1790s to the twentieth-century interwar period. Drawing on a hitherto largely overlooked body of travelers whose work ranges across what is now Germany and Austria, the Netherlands and Dutch-speaking Belgium, the Dutch East Indies and Suriname, the contributors highlight the interrelations between the regional and the global and the role alterity plays in both spheres. They therefore offer a transnational and transcultural perspective on the ways in which the foreign was mediated to audiences back home. By combining a narrative perspective on travel writing with a socio-historically contextualized approach, essays emphasize the importance of textuality in travel literature as well as the self-positioning of such accounts in their individual historical and political environments. The first sustained analysis to focus specifically on these neighboring cultural and linguistic areas, this collection demonstrates how topographies of knowledge were forged across these regions by an astonishingly diverse range of travelling individuals from professional scholars and writers to art dealers, soldiers, (female) explorers, and scientific collectors. The contributors address cultural, aesthetic, political, and gendered aspects of travel writing, drawing productively on other disciplines and areas of scholarly research that encompass German Studies, Low Countries Studies, comparative literature, aesthetics, the history of science, literary geography, and the history of publishing.

The story begins in a public square in New Delhi. On a cold December evening a young European woman of noble descent appears before an Indian street artist known locally as PK and asks him to paint her portrait – it is an encounter that will change their lives irrevocably.

PK was not born in the city. He grew up in a small remote village on the edge of the jungle in East India, and his childhood as an untouchable was one of crushing hardship. He was forced to sit outside the classroom during school, would watch classmates wash themselves if they came into contact with him, and had stones thrown at him when he approached the village temple. According to the priests, PK dirtied everything that was pure and holy. But had PK not been an untouchable, his life would have turned out very differently.

This is the remarkable true story of how love and courage led PK to overcome extreme poverty, caste prejudice and adversity – as well as a 7,000-mile, adventure-filled journey across continents and cultures – to be with the woman he loved.

First published in 2006. Part painting in prose, part delightful narrative, this book is filled with clever observations, memorable characters and the authors' own paintings and drawings. It will prove irresistible to anyone interested in the culture of the French village.

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

In April 2004, Barbara Egbert and Gary Chambers and their precocious 10-year-old daughter Mary embarked on a 2,650-mile hike from Mexico to Canada along the famed Pacific Crest Trail. This the well-told tale of their epic adventure, which required love, perseverance, and the careful rationing of toilet paper. Six months later, Mary would become the youngest person ever to successfully walk the entire trail.The trio weathered the heat of the Mojave, the jagged peaks of the Sierra, the rain of Oregon, and the final cold stretch through the Northern Cascades. They discovered which family values, from love and equality to thrift and cleanliness, could withstand a long, narrow trail and 137 nights together in a 6-by-8-foot tent. Filled with tidbits of wisdom, practical advice, and humor, this story will both entertain and inspire readers to dream about and plan their own epic journey.

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In the early 1960s, travel-writer Simon Gandolfi drove a VW from England to Goa where he rented a bungalow on the beach at Calangute. And it was on Calangute beach that Gandolfi met and loved Vanessa and explored with her much of the subcontinent. The 2008 terrorist attack on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai prompted Gandolfi to re-explore the subcontinent on a small motorcycle. Collecting a Honda 125 from the factory outside Delhi, he rode for six months and 12,000 kilometres. He rediscovers the rented bungalow become a beach bar, his and Vanessa's bedroom a bottle store - and he learns of Vanessa's death soon after their parting. Memories of his travels with Vanessa became his companions as he continued his ride and are the connecting link in this chronicle of two journeys in which Gandolfi explores both the changes in India and in himself.

'Moments in Hell' reveals the conflicting loyalties of the war correspondent, caught between political ideologies and personal suffering, and provides enlightening background to recent conflicts.

'Tenacious, revelatory, and humane.' - Paul Theroux 'The Buried is the kind of book that you don't want to end and won't forget. With the eye of a great storyteller Peter Hessler weaves together history, reporting, memoir, and above all the lives of ordinary people in a beautiful and haunting portrait of Egypt and its Revolution.' - Ben Rhodes In 2011, while revolution swept across Egypt, Peter Hessler was reporting on the everyday lives and ancient secrets of a country in turmoil. The result is this unforgettable work of literary and documentary brilliance. In The Buried, Hessler traces the human stories alongside the broader sweep of historic events: Tahrir Square, the massacres and the coup form the background, but so too do ancient cults, buried cities in the desert and dead pharaohs with huge ambitions. Most important are the people forging their lives in this world. We follow rubbish collector Sayyid; Arabic teacher Rifaat; and Manu, a translator. There are also the Chinese immigrants who have built a lingerie empire, politicians and ingenious archaeologists. Together, they raise the question: is revolution just repetition, or can things ever really change?