Newly married, Chris and Susanna Naylor set off for a new life in the Arab world - living first in Kuwait, then Jordan and finally Lebanon. In a region never far from the news, they discovered their expectations - of war, terrorism, desert sand dunes, men in white robes and veiled women, camels and Kalashnikovs, indeed their own reasons for being there - were to be constantly challenged. As they found out, the reality bore little resemblance to their pre-conceptions. Postcards from the Middle East is a tale of love from one family's experiences: a story of work, schooling, friendships, worship and shared family life, lived out in precious communities against a back drop of world-changing events and spectacular scenery. The Naylors had never experienced such hospitality, danger, wildlife spectacles or snow before they moved to the Middle East. Their story provides a multi-coloured window on an extraordinary and rapidly changing Arab world.

Explore the diverse cultural and historical legacy of the world's greatest writers, artists and composers on foot. This unique trans-continental culture trip around the world presents a series of inspiring walks, treks, and hikes that vary between easy one-hour strolls, half day trails, and multi-day expeditions for people who love a walking holiday and are looking for a more immersive experience. The book includes walks in easy to reach countryside areas, national parks, the wild, and the great cities of the world. From an urban Street Art Walking Tour of East London to a traverse through the Georgian melting pot city of Tbilisi to a literary-themed Millennium Tour of Stieg Larsson's Stockholm, Discover the World in 500 Walks with Writers, Artists & Musicians has all the inspiration and information you need to plan your next walking adventure.

The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, and reportage from around the world. Its aim, to break down barriers and introduce the essence of the place. Packed with essays and investigative journalism; original photography and illustrations; charts, and unusual facts and observations, each volume offers a unique insight into a different culture, and how history has shaped the place into what it is today. Since gaining independence from the UK, Nigeria has been in a state of permanent crisis. Dependence on oil is the glue that has kept together a country deeply divided but obsessed with an ideal of "national unity". But this dependence has eroded institutions, compromised socio-economic development, caused corruption, coup d'etats, and environmental disasters. The arrival of democracy in the 90s failed to bring much improvement. It's estimated that over 100 million Nigerians live under the poverty threshold. Violence is widespread: from the Boko Haram terrorists to the armed secessionist movements and the growing scourge of kidnappings. How to live in a country where the state is absent? In these circumstances, Nigerians bring out all their dynamism, entrepreneurial skills, and their inventiveness. As the generation of generals who governed the country for 60 years dies out, and younger citizens refuse to ignore injustice and violence, the hope is born that a new, vibrant generation will take the country's future into their hands. And, as they are accustomed to doing, fix it.

"A mesmerising trip across Central Asia . . . A fascinating travelogue" Financial Times SHORTLISTED FOR EDWARD STANFORD/LONELY PLANET DEBUT TRAVEL WRITER OF THE YEAR 2020 An unforgettable journey through the former Soviet Republics, by a prizewinning author of international reportage Erika Fatland takes the reader on a journey that is unknown to even the most seasoned globetrotter. The five former Soviet Republics' Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan all became independent when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. How have these countries developed since then? In the Kyrgyzstani villages Erika Fatland meets victims of the widely known tradition of bride snatching; she visits the huge and desolate Polygon in Kazakhstan where the Soviet Union tested explosions of nuclear bombs; she meets Chinese shrimp gatherers on the banks of the dried out Aral Sea and she witnesses the fall of a dictator. She travels incognito through Turkmenistan, a country that is closed to journalists. She meets exhausted human rights activists in Kazakhstan, survivors from the massacre in Osh in 2010, German Menonites that found paradise on the Kyrgyzstani plains 200 years ago. During her travels, she observes how ancient customs clash with gas production and she witnesses the underlying conflicts between ethnic Russians and the majority in a country that is slowly building its future in Nationalist colours. In these countries, that used to be the furthest border of the Soviet Union, life follows another pace of time. Amidst the treasures of Samarkand and the bleakness of Soviet architecture, Erika Fatland moves with her openness towards the people and the landscapes around her. A rare and unforgettable travelogue. Translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson

A magical, eye-opening account of a journey into a Europe that rarely makes the news and is in danger of being erased altogether. Another Europe. A Europe few people believe exists and many wish didn't. Muslim Europe. Winner of a BGTW Members' Excellence Award: Travel Narrative Book of the Year - The Adele Evans Award. Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2021. Shortlisted in the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2022: Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year. Londoner Tharik Hussain sets off with his wife and young daughters around the Western Balkans, home to the largest indigenous Muslim population in Europe, and explores the regions of Eastern Europe where Islam has shaped places and people for more than half a millennium. Encountering blonde-haired, blue-eyed Muslims, visiting mystical Islamic lodges clinging to the side of mountains, and praying in mosques older than the Sistine Chapel, he paints a picture of a hidden Muslim Europe, a vibrant place with a breathtaking history, spellbinding culture and unique identity. Minarets in The Mountains, the first English travel narrative by a Muslim writer on this subject, also explores the historical roots of European Islamophobia. Tharik and his family learn lessons about themselves and their own identity as Britons, Europeans and Muslims. Following in the footsteps of renowned Ottoman traveller Evliya Celebi, they remind us that Europe is as Muslim as it is Christian, Jewish or pagan. Like William Dalrymple's In Xanadu, this is a vivid reimagining of a region's cultural heritage, unveiling forgotten Muslim communities, empires and their rulers; and like Kapka Kassabova's Border, it is a quest that forces us to consider what makes up our own identities, and more importantly, who decides?

Robert Twigger, poet and travel author, was in search of a new way up England when he stumbled across the Great North Line. From Christchurch on the South Coast to Old Sarum to Stonehenge, to Avebury, to Notgrove barrow, to Meon Hill in the midlands, to Thor's Cave, to Arbor Low stone circle, to Mam Tor, to Ilkley in Yorkshire and its three stone circles and the Swastika Stone, to several forts and camps in Northumberland to Lindisfarne (plus about thirty more sites en route). A single dead straight line following 1 degree 50 West up Britain. No other north-south straight line goes through so many ancient sites of such significance. Was it just a suggestive coincidence or were they built intentionally? Twigger walks the line, which takes him through Birmingham, Halifax and Consett as well as Salisbury Plain, the Peak district, and the Yorkshire moors. With a planning schedule that focused more on reading about shamanism and beat poetry than hardening his feet up, he sets off ever hopeful. He wild-camps along the way, living like a homeless bum, with a heart that starts stifled but ends up soaring with the beauty of life. He sleeps in a prehistoric cave, falls into a river, crosses a 'suicide viaduct' and gets told off by a farmer's wife for trespassing; but in this simple life he finds woven gold. He walks with others and he walks alone, ever alert to the incongruities of the edgelands he is journeying through.

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.

The amazing true story of Julian Smith, who retraced the journey of legendary British explorer Ewart "The Leopard" Grogan, the first man to cross the length of Africa, in hopes of also winning the heart of the woman he loved.

In 1898, the dashing young British explorer Ewart "the Leopard" Grogan was in love. In order to prove his mettle to his beloved--and her aristocratic stepfather--he set out on a quest to become the first person to walk across Africa, "a feat hitherto thought by many explorers to be impossible" (New York Times, 1900).

In 2007, thirty-five-year-old American journalist Julian Smith faced a similar problem with his girlfriend of six years . . . and decided to address it in the same way Grogan had more than a hundred years before: he was going to retrace the Leopard's 4,500-mile journey for love and glory through the lakes, volcanoes, savannas, and crowded modern cities of Africa.

Smith interweaves both adventures into a seamless narrative in Crossing the Heart of Africa the story of two explorers, a century apart, who both traversed the length of Africa to prove themselves . . . and came back changed men.

A revelatory collection of letters written by the author of The Broken Road. Handsome, spirited and erudite, Patrick Leigh Fermor was a war hero and one of the greatest travel writers of his generation. He was also a spectacularly gifted friend. The letters in this collection span almost seventy years, the first written ten days before Paddy's twenty-fifth birthday, the last when he was ninety-four. His correspondents include Deborah Devonshire, Ann Fleming, Nancy Mitford, Lawrence Durrell, Diana Cooper and his lifelong companion, Joan Rayner; he wrote his first letter to her in his cell at the monastery Saint Wandrille, the setting for his reflections on monastic life in A Time to Keep Silence. His letters exhibit many of his most engaging characteristics: his zest for life, his unending curiosity, his lyrical descriptive powers, his love of language, his exuberance and his tendency to get into scrapes - particularly when drinking and, quite separately, driving. Here are plenty of extraordinary stories: the hunt for Byron's slippers in one of the remotest regions of Greece; an ignominious dismissal from Somerset Maugham's Villa Mauresque; hiding behind a bush to dub Dirk Bogarde into Greek during the shooting of Ill Met by Moonlight, the film based on the story of General Kreipe's abduction; his extensive travels. Some letters contain glimpses of the great and the good, while others are included purely for the joy of the jokes.

The book that has captivated millions of Chinese readers, translated into English for the very first time. 'Hypnotic . . . A record of one person's fierce refusal to follow a path laid down for her by the rest of the world' Tash Aw, Paris Review Books of the Year Sanmao: author, adventurer, pioneer. Born in China in 1943, she moved from Chongqing to Taiwan, Spain to Germany, the Canary Islands to Central America, and, for several years in the 1970s, to the Sahara. Stories of the Sahara invites us into Sanmao's extraordinary life in the desert: her experiences of love and loss, freedom and peril, all told with a voice as spirited as it is timeless. At a period when China was beginning to look beyond its borders, Sanmao fired the imagination of millions and inspired a new generation. With an introduction by Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti, this is an essential collection from one of the twentieth century's most iconic figures. 'Every story conveys Sanmao's infectious capacity for wonder' Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti 'Has endured for generations of young Taiwanese and Chinese women' New York Times 'Ground-breaking' Geographical 'A remarkable and brave book. Sanmao was a freewheeling feminist who broke all the rules and did so with a gleeful, mischievous smile' David Eimer, South China Morning Post

He will stop at nothing to uncover the truth.When James Blake discovers his wife murdered in their London home, he is determined to avenge her, and bring her killer to justice. As the prime suspect, he flees England and sets out on a journey that takes him to Florence, Venice and into a shadowy underworld of death and corruption. The trail that will lead him to the killer is filled with terrible danger, and will reveal a shocking conspiracy, behind both her death and a lost fortune. A thrilling, original and fast-paced crime thriller set within the art world, perfect for fans of Ken Follett, Dan Brown and Harlan Coben.

Courland is an entity that no longer exists. With the Gulf of Riga to the north, the Baltic to the west and Lithuania at its southern border, and now part of modern Latvia, the region was occupied by Nazi Germany and returned to Soviet Russia after the war, remaining largely inaccessible until 1991. It is now a nowhere land of wide skies and forests, deserted beaches, ruined castles and ex-KGB prisons. For years Jean-Paul Kauffmann has been irresistibly drawn to this buffer between the Germanic and Slav worlds. His digressive travels at the wheel of a Skoda become an investigation into the whereabouts of a former lover, a search for an excavator of tombs, and a journey in the footsteps of Louis XVIII, for whom Courland was once a place of exile.

The third book in V. S. Naipaul's acclaimed Indian trilogy, with a preface by the author. India: A Million Mutinies Now is a truly perceptive work whose insights continue to inform travellers of all generations to India. Much has changed since V. S. Naipaul's first trip to India and this fascinating account of his return journey focuses on India's development since independence. Taking an anti-clockwise journey around the metropolises of India - including Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, and Delhi - Naipaul offers a kaleidoscopic, layered travelogue, encompassing a wide collage of religions, castes, and classes at a time when the percolating ideas of freedom threatened to shake loose the old ways. The brilliance of the book lies in Naipaul's decision to approach this shifting, changing land from a variety of perspectives: the author humbly recedes, allowing the Indians to tell the stories of their own lives, and a dynamic oral history of India emerges before our eyes. 'With this book he may well have written his own enduring monument, in prose at once stirring and intensely personal, distinguished both by style and critical acumen' - Financial Times

Anne Dixey - a former BBC journalist who is now a highly respected and well-known feature writer for national newspapers - went to Washington DC when her partner was made Washington correspondent for the Times. This book details her journey through the madness of America.

This is an adventure-filled and thought-provoking travelogue along Hunter S. Thompson's forgotten journey through South America. In 1963, twenty-five-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, who would become America's bestselling 'gonzo journalist, ' completed a year-long journey across South America, filing a series of dispatches for a now-defunct paper called the National Observer. With the gritty humour and keen political observations for which he later became known, correspondent Thompson reflected on topics that continue to make headlines today: the rise of leftist populism, struggles over resource extraction, the marginalization of indigenous peoples

Theroux is at his best when he tells people's] stories, happy and sad . . . Theroux's great mission had always been to transport us beyond that reading chair, to challenge himself--and thus, to challenge us. -- Boston Globe
A decade ago, Paul Theroux's best-selling Dark Star Safari chronicled his epic overland voyage from Cairo to Cape Town, providing an insider's look at modern Africa. Now, with The Last Train to Zona Verde, he returns to discover how both he and Africa have changed in the ensuing years.
Traveling alone, Theroux sets out from Cape Town, going north through South Africa, Namibia, then into Angola, encountering a world increasingly removed from tourists' itineraries and the hopes of postcolonial independence movements. After covering nearly 2,500 arduous miles, he cuts short his journey, a decision he chronicles with unsparing honesty in a chapter titled What Am I Doing Here? Vivid, witty, and beautifully evocative, The Last Train to Zona Verde is a fitting final African adventure from the writer whose gimlet eye and effortless prose have brought the world to generations of readers.
Everything is under scrutiny in Paul Theroux's latest travel book--not just the people, landscapes and sociopolitical realities of the countries he visits, but his own motivations for going where he goes . . . His readers can only be grateful. -- Seattle Times
If this book is proof, age has not slowed Theroux or encouraged him to rest on his achievements . . . Gutsy, alert to Africa's struggles, its injustices and history. -- San Francisco Chronicle

Travel is the opposite of prejudice; it is curiosity, openness, and connection. In a world where politicians demand that we build walls, a traveller seeks to find out what we are really being taught to fear. But with travel becoming more accessible than ever, the benefits we associate with it - increased understanding of the world, greater courage, better connection between cultures - no longer come automatically. In a world where people can fly hundreds of miles to have a wild stag do in a city that may as well be anywhere, truly experiencing foreign cultures is something we need to work at. From advice on how to accurately understand new places to practical tips on meeting with locals, overcoming the language barrier, and asking the right questions, Travel Your Way shows you how to discover the world on your own terms. The result is a more rewarding journey and a greater sense of connection to everywhere you go, whether you're on a business trip, or backpacking across the globe. With the right techniques and attitude, travel can open our eyes to new cultures and dispel stereotypes. It can force us out of our comfort zone. Learn how to make the most of every place you go by seeing the world with open, curious eyes. Look through the false narratives and fear-mongering that are fed to us on a daily basis by politicians and the media, and see the world as it really is.

Die ikoniese en geliefde skrywer Dana Snyman deel sy 100 gunstelingstories in ’n buksie van ’n bundel, net betyds vir Kersfees. Die stories strek van ou familiestories, reisverhale uit Dana se Weg!- dae en ware lewensdrama uit sy Huisgenoot­dae, tot intieme verhale uit sy meer onlangse werk, waar hy self­ondersoekend en met ’n skerp waarnemingsin ons land en sy mense betrag. Daar is ook 20 nuwe stories, oor die pandemie en oor rugby. Wat al die stories in gemeen het, is die meelewendheid en waardering vir gewone mense wat Dana se werk kenmerk, saam met sy soms skokkende eerlike insigte in sy eie psige, as kind van Suid­Afrika. Soos Sarie se resensent opgemerk het: “Hy laat jou met nuwe oë na alledaagse gebeure en mense om jou kyk.”

Wit, wisdom, adventure, and revelations from sixty years on the road. They say that only truck drivers experience the true grandeur and landscape of America: the winding mountainsides at sunrise, the first frosts of winter descending on apple orchards, the call of the rising roosters. In A Trucker's Tale, Ed Miller gives an inside look at the allure of the work and the colorful characters who haul our goods on the open road. He shares what it was like to grow up in a boisterous trucking family, his experience as an equipment officer in Vietnam, the wide range of vehicles he's mounted, and the daily trials, tribulations, risks, and exploits that define life as a trucker. Ed's vibrant, no-holds-barred tales are hilarious and heartwarming, sometimes cringeworthy or unbelievable-recollections of heroic feels as well as the "fishing stories" that have stretched and shifted from CB radio to CB radio. Many are the results of what he calls, "just plain stupidity." Others bring to light the small acts of kindness and grand gestures that these Knights of the Highway perform each day, as well as the safety risks and continual danger that these essential workers endure. Together they paint a compelling portrait of one of the most important, but least-known industries, and reveal why Ed, and so many like him, just kept on truckin'.

Following his dismissal from a job he never should have had, the author packs a tent, some snacks, and a suit, and sets out on a two-wheeled adventure across Europe. With no idea where he's going, and only two very large and confusing maps to rely on, he heads out to prove that planning and forethought are the very antithesis of a motorcycle adventure. Is This Italy? offers a unique and often hilarious insight into the challenges and excitement afforded by a lone motorcycle journey though Europe. In his quest to escape the frantic nature of London life, Kevin Turner heads south across France, crossing the Alps into Italy, and onto Rome, before returning via Germany - and the treacherous Nurburgring - in the hope of rendezvousing with the beautiful Nina. Throughout, the author provides valuable advice to those considering a similar journey, noting the best and most scenic routes, where to stay, and what to see. This is interspersed with a raft of comic anecdotes that demonstrate exactly what NOT to do when lost on a motorbike in Europe.

'Eric Newby still holds the laurels as the country's wittiest travel writer . . . "A Merry Dance Around the World" is a collection of all the master's best traveller's tales extracted from a lifetime's travel writing. It is an astonishing catalogue of disasters and misunderstandings, but it had me laughing so uncontrollably my wife eventually forbade me from reading it in public' "Sunday Times"

'In the increasingly populous realm of travel writing, Eric Newby has acquired Homeric status . . . The extract from "Love and War in the Apennines," arguably one of the best travel books ever written, shows Eric Newby at his most scintillating, and the chapter from "A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush" includes the most luminous moment in modern travelling history' "Daily Telegraph"

'Whatever Eric Newby writes I read with uncritical pleasure. The Newby travels are classics of their time' "Financial Times"

'Keeping up with Eric Newby, every breathless puff and pant of it, is worth it all the way. His vitality, which was always more than most people's, gets bigger and his writing richer and funnier' " Observer"

'Newby is an incomparable, shrewd and witty travel writer . . . Immensely enjoyable' John Mortimer, "Mail on Sunday"

'Newby has quite rightly established himself as one of the sharpest, funniest and most boisterously entertaining of all travel writers' " Sunday Telegraph"

The hilarious new collection of stories and observations from Jeremy Clarkson - setting our off-kilter world to rights with thigh-slapping wit once again. Who is that tractor-driving Gentleman Farmer? Has Jeremy turned into a horny-handed son of the soil? These and other perplexing questions may or may not be answered in the latest volume of Clarkson's utterly unbiased musings on life, the universe and everything in between (except cars - this isn't one of his four-wheel drive books). Inside you'll also discover why: * Bathing in crude oil isn't for everyone * People who go fishing hate their kids * Noise-cancelling headphones will never silence James May * The rambler who stole his marrow is in for it Full of fact-checked opinions and ideas so good they're no longer following the science but chasing it up a tree, Can You Make This Thing Go Faster? is one hundred per cent guaranteed Clarkson . . . Praise for Clarkson: 'Brilliant . . . laugh-out-loud' Daily Telegraph 'Outrageously funny . . . will have you in stitches' Time Out 'Very funny . . . I cracked up laughing on the tube' Evening Standard