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.

An important work for the nineteenth century history of East Africa. It contains a new introduction with a biographical sketch of Krapf.

San Pedro is Bolivia's most notorious prison. Small-time drug smuggler Thomas McFadden found himself on the inside. Marching Powder is the story of how he navigated this dark world of gangs, drugs and corruption to come out on top. Thomas found himself in a bizarre world, the prison reflecting all that is wrong with South American society. Prisoners have to pay an entrance fee and buy their own cells (the alternative is to sleep outside and die of exposure), prisoners' wives and children often live inside too, high quality cocaine is manufactured and sold from the prison. Thomas ended up making a living by giving backpackers tours of the prison - he became a fixture on the backpacking circuit and was named in the Lonely Planet guide to Bolivia. When he was told that for a bribe of $5000 his sentence could be overturned, it was the many backpackers who'd passed through who sent him the money. Written by lawyer Rusty Young, Marching Powder - sometimes shocking, sometimes funny - is a riveting story of survival.

Follow the call of the wild with these incredible true stories from an international group of nature lovers, nomads and adventurers. In these pages, you are invited to share the wisdom they gained on their wild journeys. You will walk across the Australian desert with American explorer Angela Maxwell; live with Hamza Yassin and a family of eagles in Scotland; survive for 10 years in an Australian forest with Gregory Smith; hunt in the wilderness with Miriam Lancewood in New Zealand; chart Karl Bushby's passage through the formidable Darien Gap; and set up a surf school for people of colour in California with David Malana. With beautiful illustrations, a foreword from explorer Belinda Kirk and contributions from leading poets, including David Whyte and Fatimah Asghar, this book will inspire you to get out of your comfort zone and connect to your wild, animal soul.

Airportness takes the reader on a single day's journey through all the routines and stages of an ordinary flight. From curbside to baggage, and pondering the minutes and hours of sitting in between, Christopher Schaberg contemplates the mundane world of commercial aviation to discover "the nature of flight." For Schaberg this means hearing planes in the sky, recognizing airline symbols in unlikely places, and navigating the various zones of transit from sliding doors, to jet bridge, to lavatory. It is an ongoing, swarming ecosystem that unfolds each day as we fly, get stranded, and arrive at our destinations. Airportness turns out to be more than just architecture and design elements-rather, it is all the rumble and buzz of flight, the tedium of travel as well as the feelings of uplift.

'Sometimes you just have to do something, don't you? Sometimes an injustice comes along and you think 'No, this cannot be', and rather than just turn off the TV, you know it's time to act. At sixteen the Dalai Lama became the political leader of Tibet at the very moment it was invaded by Communist China - nine years later, amid terror, brutality and killing, he was forced to abandon his people. I couldn't help noticing, on the same day he was making his epic escape, I was being born.' And so begins Isabel Losada's extraordinary For Tibet With Love in which she explores whether it's possible for an ordinary person to change the world, just a little, and if something so serious can be achieved with joy in one's heart. From visits to Nepal and Tibet, to meetings with the Chinese ambassador and Tibetan awareness-raising groups, Isabel single-handedly hatches a stunning PR coup involving Nelson's Column, a 15 metre banner and a base-jumping parachutist that captured headlines worldwide. And then she meets the Dalai Lama...Warm and funny, moving and thought-provoking, the astonishing For Tibet With Love celebrates the fact that we can make a difference.

When artist, illustrator, writer, and adventurer Rockwell Kent first published N by E in a limited edition in 1930, his account of a voyage on a 33-foot cutter from New York Harbor to the rugged shores of Greenland quickly became a collectors' item. Little wonder, for readers are immediately drawn to Kent's vivid descriptions of the experience; we share "the feeling of wind and wet and cold, of lifting seas and steep descents, of rolling over as the wind gusts hit," and the sound "of wind in the shrouds, of hard spray flung on a drum-tight canvas, of rushing water at the scuppers, of the gale shearing a tormented sea."
When the ship sinks in a storm-swept fjord within 50 miles of its destination, the story turns to the stranding and subsequent rescue of the three-man crew, salvage of the vessel, and life among native Greenlanders. Magnificently illustrated by Kent's wood-block prints and narrated in his poetic and highly entertaining style, this tale of the perils of killer nor'easters, treacherous icebergs, and impenetrable fog -- and the joys of sperm whales breaching or dawn unmasking a longed-for landfall -- is a rare treat for old salts and landlubbers alike.

When Scott Carpenter moves from Minnesota to Paris, little does he suspect the dramas that await: scheming neighbors, police denunciations, surly demonstrators, cooking disasters, medical mishaps-not to mention all those lectures about cheese! It turns out that nothing in the City of Light can be taken for granted, where even trips to the grocery store lead to adventure. In French Like Moi, Carpenter guides us through the merry labyrinth of the everyday, one hilarious faux pas after another. Through it all, he keeps his eye on the central mystery of what makes the French French (and Midwesterners Midwestern).

A major Channel 4 series and a Sunday Times bestseller His journey is 4,250 miles long. He is walking every step of the way, camping in the wild, foraging for food, fending for himself against multiple dangers. He is passing through rainforest, savannah, swamp, desert and lush delta oasis. He will cross seven, very different countries. No one has ever made this journey on foot. In this detailed, thoughtful, inspiring and dramatic book, recounting Levison Wood's walk the length of the Nile, he will uncover the history of the Nile, yet through the people he meets and who will help him with his journey, he will come face-to-face with the great story of a modern Africa emerging out of the past. Exploration and Africa are two of his great passions - they motivate his inquisitiveness and resolution not to fail, yet the challenges of the terrain, the climate, the animals, the people and his own psychological resolution will throw at him are immense. The dangers are very real, but so is the motivation for this ex-army officer. If he can overcome the mental and physical challenges, he will be walking into history...

This work introduced a major modern author to the reading public. Doig's life was formed among the sheepherders and other denizens of small-town saloons and valley ranches as he wandered beside his restless father. New Preface by the Author.

What does it feel like to move through a world designed to limit and exclude you? What are the joys and pains of holidays for people of colour, when guidebooks are never written with them in mind? How are black lives today impacted by the othering legacy of colonial cultures and policies? What can travel tell us about our sense of self, of home, of belonging and identity? Why has the world order become hostile to human mobility, as old as humanity itself, when more people are on the move than ever? Nanjala Nyabola is constantly exploring the world, working with migrants and confronting complex realities challenging common assumptions - both hers and others'. From Nepal to Botswana, Sicily to Haiti, New York to Nairobi, her sharp, humane essays ask tough questions and offer surprising, deeply shocking and sometimes funny answers. It is time we saw the world through her eyes.

Morocco has long been a mythic land, firmly rooted in the European colonial imagination. For more than a century it has been appropriated by travellers, explorers, writers and artists. It is just these images and imaginings that are now being reconstructed for nostalgic consumption. In Moroccan Dreams, Claudio Minca examines this aestheticised re-enactment of the colonial, exploring the ways in which Moroccans themselves have become complicit in the re-writing of their homes and lives. Richly illustrated, the book provides a fascinating journey that will engage and delight all those enamoured of Morocco and its extraordinary geographies.

Paris is the world capital of memory and desire, concludes one of the writers in this intimate and insightful collection of memoirs of the city. Living in Paris changed these writers forever.
In thirty-two personal essays more than half of which are here published for the first time the writers describe how they were seduced by Paris and then began to see things differently. They came to write, to cook, to find love, to study, to raise children, to escape, or to live the way it s done in French movies; they came from the United States, Canada, and England; from Iran, Iraq, and Cuba; and a few from other parts of France. And they stayed, not as tourists, but for a long time; some are still living there. They were outsiders who became insiders, who here share their observations and revelations. Some are well-known writers: Diane Johnson, David Sedaris, Judith Thurman, Joe Queenan, and Edmund White. Others may be lesser known but are no less passionate on the subject.
Together, their reflections add up to an unusually perceptive and multifaceted portrait of a city that is entrancing, at times exasperating, but always fascinating. They remind us that Paris belongs to everyone it has touched, and to each in a different way."

In 1966 Dervla Murphy travelled the length and breadth of Ethopia, first on a mule, Jock, whom she named after her publisher, and later on a recalcitrant donkey. The remarkable achievement was not surviving three armed robberies or the thousand-mile trail, but the gradual growth of affection for and understanding of another race.

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR DOES 'I LOVE YOU' EVEN MEAN THE SAME THING AS 'JE T'AIME'? When Lauren Collins met a Frenchman at a party one night in London, she had no idea that she would one day wake up to find herself married to him, living in Geneva. Feeling almost voiceless in French-speaking Switzerland, Lauren was no longer able to order a salad, let alone talk to her husband's parents. But a language barrier was no match for love... A smart, funny and thoughtful look at how language shapes our lives, When in French shows what happens when two languages, and two very different cultures, collide.

A Financial Times Travel Book of the Year 2021 Where can travel writing go in the twenty-first century? Author and lifelong travel writing aficionado Tim Hannigan sets out in search of this most venerable of genres, hunting down its legendary practitioners and confronting its greatest controversies. Is it ever okay for travel writers to make things up, and just where does the frontier between fact and fiction lie? What actually is travel writing, and is it just a genre dominated by posh white men? What of travel writing's queasy colonial connections? Travelling from Monaco to Eton, from wintry Scotland to sun-scorched Greek hillsides, Hannigan swills beer with the indomitable Dervla Murphy, sips tea with the doyen of British explorers, delves into the diaries of Wilfred Thesiger and Patrick Leigh Fermor, and gains unexpected insights from Colin Thubron, Samanth Subramanian, Kapka Kassabova, William Dalrymple and many others. But along the way he realises how much is at stake: can his own love of travel writing survive this journey? The Travel Writing Tribe tackles head on the fierce critical debates usually confined to strictly academic discussions of the genre. This highly original book compels readers and travellers of all kinds to think about travel writing in new ways.

The Inuit Way is a mesmerising take on Polar travel by explorer and award-winning researcher Edward Cooper. It is a gripping account of the author's travels across northwest Greenland, where he spent several months living and hunting with the Inuit. From there, Cooper and teammate venture across the sea ice on to the Canadian Arctic islands. Here, Cooper's quest is to track down a note left by David Haig-Thomas, a British Arctic explorer, nearly a hundred years previously. Suffering from snow blindness and frostbite, Fighting off hungry polar bears, surrounded by the white wolves of Ellesmere Island, Edward Cooper and teammate, who was suffering from snow blindness and frostbite, discover a land steeped in culture and history. Part travelogue, part adventure and part history, this is a thrilling Polar travel narrative that offers insights into the people that live in the Arctic year-round. Meet Mikael, a young Inuit hunter who sleeps in a small tent on the sea ice, and fishes for halibut during the winter months. Join Cooper in watching Inuit hunters coach crack teams of dogs across the ice in the year's first dog race. Get to know a former Danish drug smuggler turned hunter. Experience the realities of Arctic life - drinking water carved from icebergs by giant trucks, and the constraints imposed on sanitation by permafrost and freezing temperatures. And journey with Cooper on a life-endangering expedition, where he falls through a crack in the ice into icy waters while watching his teammate continue onwards, oblivious to danger. Reflecting on his experience, Cooper appraises Haig-Thomas's legacy from his time in Greenland, and considers how life has evolved for Inuit families across the following century. Above all, Cooper sensitively discusses Greenland as a litmus test for a world that is evolving geopolitically and through climate change. The Inuit Way is a fascinating book that will be enjoyed by intrepid travellers, adventure junkies, Polar enthusiasts, and armchair or real-life explorers as well as people interested in the environment, fishing or indigenous communities.

In 1986, Charles Nicholl travels through Thailand to learn about the spiritual traditions of forest Buddhism in the north of the country. But interesting things have a habit of getting in the way. When Nicholl meets Harry, an old French Indochina hand, on the night train north with his tales of Kachin jade and Shan opium it leads to a journey along the banks of the Mekong, into the Golden Triangle and then across the border into Burma, in the company of the book s Thai heroine, Kitai.

"Polished, poignant... an inspiring story of true love."-Entertainment Weekly A BEST BOOK OF 2019, NPR's Book Concierge SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BOOK AWARD OVER 400,000 COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE The true story of a couple who lost everything and embarked on a transformative journey walking the South West Coast Path in England Just days after Raynor Winn learns that Moth, her husband of thirty-two years, is terminally ill, their house and farm are taken away, along with their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, through Devon and Cornwall. Carrying only the essentials for survival on their backs, they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea, and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable and life-affirming journey. Powerfully written and unflinchingly honest, The Salt Path is ultimately a portrayal of home-how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.

'An entertaining book, written with Fort's characteristic conversational style... A real pleasure to read' - BBC Countryfile 'A wide-ranging, intelligent and bracingly enjoyable book' - The Literary Review 'Meticulously researched and seasoned with wry humour, this is a perceptive and richly rewarding read' - Mail on Sunday We have lived in villages a long time. The village was the first model for communal living. Towns came much later, then cities. Later still came suburbs, neighbourhoods, townships, communes, kibbutzes. But the village has endured. Across England, modernity creeps up to the boundaries of many, breaking the connection the village has with the land. With others, they can be as quiet as the graveyard as their housing is bought up by city 'weekenders', or commuters. The ideal chocolate box image many holidaying to our Sceptred Isle have in their minds eye may be true in some cases, but across the country the heartbeat of the real English village is still beating strongly - if you can find it. To this mission our intrepid historian and travel writer Tom Fort willingly gets on his trusty bicycle and covers the length and breadth of England to discover the essence of village life. His journeys will travel over six thousand years of communal existence for the peoples that eventually became the English. Littered between the historical analysis, are personal memories from Tom of the village life he remembers and enjoys today in rural Oxfordshire.

Beautiful, empowering and exhilarating: She Explores is a spirited celebration of female bravery and courage, and an inspirational companion for any woman who wants to travel the world on her own terms. Combining breathtaking travel photography with compelling personal narratives, She Explores shares the stories of 40 diverse women on unforgettable journeys in nature: women who live out of vans, trucks, and vintage trailers, hiking the wild, cooking meals over campfires, and sleeping under the stars. Women biking through the countryside, embarking on an unknown road trip, or backpacking through the outdoors with their young children in tow. Complementing the narratives are practical tips and advice for women planning their own trips, including preparing for a solo hike, must-haves for a road-trip kitchen, planning ahead for unknown territory, and telling your own story. A visually stunning and emotionally satisfying collection for any woman craving new landscapes and adventure. Gale Straub is the founder of She-Explores.com, a media platform for curious, creative women who love travel and outdoor adventure. For any woman who has ever been called outdoorsy... or who wants to be. Beautiful, empowering, and exhilarating, She Explores will inspire even the most outdoor-averse woman to connect with the landscape, take a leap of faith and find her community. Makes a wonderful birthday, graduation, or new going away gift for an adventurous woman. Great coffee table book to spark conversation about travel and exploration.

The companion guide to the hysterical television show of the same name, in which Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant force their arrestingly simple pal Karl Pilkington on a global journey ""He'd have been happier in medieval times in a village where you didn't travel beyond the local community." --Stephen Merchant" A cult celebrity due to his role in "The Ricky Gervais Show," the most-downloaded podcast ever, Karl Pilkington has been accused of being a comic creation, so unburdened is he by complex thought--but that is truly just him. The trio's newest project mines Karl massive provinciality: put simply, Karl is not big on traveling. Given the choice, he'll go on vacation to Devon or Wales or, if pushed, eat English food on a package tour of the Mediterranean. So what happened when he was convinced by Gervais and Merchant to go on an epic adventure to see the Seven Wonders of the World? Does travel truly broaden the mind? Find out in Karl Pilkington's hilarious travel diaries.

The gripping true story of one man's ten year expedition from a village in West Africa to the Arctic Circle WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR Scorching heat, rich, fertile soil, and treacherous snakes marked the landscape in which Tete-Michel grew up in 1950s Togo, West Africa. When he discovered a book on Greenland as a teen, this distant land became an instant obsession - he was determined to journey to the place these pages had revealed to him and embarked on the adventure of a lifetime. A book of rich and immersive travel writing, Michel the Giant invites the reader to journey alongside an audacious Kpomassie as he makes his way from the equator to the bitter cold of the artic and settles into life with the Inuit peoples, adapting to their foods and customs. Part memoir, part anthropological observation this captivating narrative teems with nuanced observations on community, belonging and the universality of human experience. This title has been previously published as An African in Greenland

A unique take on modern life in Japan's capital city. A Japan of trains, every day to and fro, carriage scenes and theatre, vistas from the window, advertising posters. Each to be savoured through a specific Tokyo line - the Odakyu. Pitched as creative text and line-graphics, Tokyo Commute: Japanese Customs and Way of Life Viewed from the Odakyu Line offers on-track and off-track observations. A gallery of mirrors, musings, memories. This is less documentary than iconography, a poetics of Japanese routine and etiquette. It offers a wry diary of month-and-weekday observations, a 'map' of Shinjuku as key station and gathering-place, a run of notable Tokyo locations - from the National bunraku theatre to a Kawasaki sludge recycling centre. Other Odakyu travel involves the Hakone open air art gallery, Narita as both airport and temple complex, Yokohama as history and Chinatown. Essential reading for first-time, and second-time visitors, and even regular commuters.