Alive with the mayhem of the present and sparkling with William Dalrymple’s irrepressible wit, 'City of Djinns' is a fascinating portrait of a city.

Watched over and protected by the mischievous, invisible djinns, Delhi has, through their good offices, been saved from destruction many times over the centuries. With an extraordinary array of characters, from elusive eunuchs to the last remnants of the Raj, Dalrymple’s second book is a unique and dazzling feat of research. Over the course of a year he comes to know the bewildering city intimately, and brilliantly conveys its magical nature, peeling back successive layers of history, and interlacing innumerable stories from Delhi’s past and present.

From jazz to the Gettysburg Address to baseball to the White Castle hamburger--here are the 1,000 greatest things about America

The Pilgrims called their new nation "a shining city upon a hill." Abraham Lincoln praised it as "the last, best hope of mankind." In times of boom or bust, this remarkable land we know as America has been a beacon of hope illuminating the world. Now the authors of 1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium have teamed up once again to pay unabashed tribute to the greatness of our country--in a fascinating, fun, and informative celebration of the concepts, inventions, institutions, icons, history, social trends, geographical wonders, and consumer products that have made the U.S.A. such an awesomely amazing place

The Constitution - Mount Rushmore - Backyard Decks - Monopoly Internet Shopping - Duct Tape - Yogi Berra - The Super Bowl Ultimate Frisbee - The Fifth Amendment - The PTA - The Indy 500 Freedom of the Press - Hollywood - Sesame Street - ChapStick Poker - The Wizard of Oz - Fast Food - The Cleveland Orchestra

The Barn Owl - Glacier National Park - Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 Patchwork Quilts - Soap Operas - Joy of Cooking - West Point A Streetcar Named Desire - The Florida Keys - The Red Cross Wikipedia - Deodorant - The Hubble Space Telescope - Grizzly Bears The Beach Boys - The White House - Recycling - Meat Loaf

. . . and many, many more Things to Love About America

In "The Waiting Land" (first published in 1967) Dervla Murphy affectionately portrays the people of Nepal's different tribes, the customs of an ancient, complex civilization and the country's natural grandeur and beauty. This is the third of Dervla Murphy's early travel books: an exploration of Nepal by a feisty, generous-hearted young Irish woman. Yet it can also be seen as the completion of a trilogy of books concerned with her experience of self- sufficient mountain cultures, first tasted in crossing Persia and Afghanistan in "Full Tilt", and deepened with her experience of working with Tibetan refugees in the frontiers of Northern India, as told in "Tibetan Foothold". Having settled in a village in the Pokhara Valley to work at a Tibetan refugee camp, she makes her home in a tiny, vermin-infested room over a stall in the bazaar. In diary form, she describes her various journeys by air, by bicycle and on foot into the remote and mountainous Lantang region on the border of Tibet. Murphy's charm and sensitivity as a writer and traveller reveal not only the vitality of an age-old civilization facing the challenge of Westernisation, but the wonder and excitement of her own remarkable adventures.

Shape of a Boy is a hilarious and eye-opening travel memoir by the mother of three boys as she documents her travels with her family around the world. 'Have kids, will travel' is veteran travel journalist Kate's mantra. Her intrepid spirit is infectious in this warm, engaging account of her family's adventures and misadventures. She shares the life lessons learnt on their travels, from overcoming disappointment in Thailand to saying sorry in Japan, discovering perseverance in Borneo and learning about conservation in Malaysia. From the jungles of southeast Asia to the waterfront in Havana and the blazing heat of Egypt, Shape of a Boy captures the essence of being a parent in the thick of it and learning on the hoof. Inspirational for anyone who has dreaded travelling with a baby, toddler, or teen, it is a life-affirming read for every wannabe-traveller. Kate's vivid evocation of the highs and lows of family time make you belly-laugh and bring a lump to your throat. "Life-affirming and laugh-out-loud funny" - HELEN FIELDING, AUTHOR OF BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY "Hilarious and wonderfully fluent, Shape of A Boy makes you see each corner of the world afresh. I read it in one long, lounging read, which took me away from Covid to a vibrant world of orangutans and elephants and a family growing together." ANDREW CLOVER, best-selling author of Dad Rules This is a must-read for every wannabe-traveller grounded by lockdown and for every parent who has dreaded travelling with a baby.

This beautiful and inspiring book tells the stories of 80 birds around the world: from the Sociable Weaver Bird in Namibia which constructs huge, multi-nest 'apartment blocks' in the desert, to the Bar-headed Goose of China, one of the highest-flying migrants which crosses the Himalayas twice a year. Many birds come steeped in folklore and myth, some are national emblems and a few have inspired scientific revelation or daring conservation projects. Each has a story to tell that sheds a light on our relationship with the natural world and reveals just how deeply birds matter to us.

We get to share in his personal discoveries through the humour and good fellowship of the road, full of entertaining misadventures. But there is never any doubt that there is an ultimate purpose to these journeys: a passionate need to bear witness to the truth about the past, after centuries of persecution by an alien ruling class. So through the dense clouds of historical tragedy, Wright exchavates hope that a revival of pride and dignity in Andean culture is possible.

A fascinating, lyrical account of an east-west walk across Britain's westernmost and most mysterious region. A distant and exotic Celtic land, domain of tin-miners, pirates, smugglers and evocatively named saints, somehow separate from the rest of our island... Few regions of Britain are as holidayed in, as well-loved or as mythologized as Cornwall. From the woodlands of the Tamar Valley to the remote peninsula of Penwith – via the wilderness of Bodmin Moor and coastal villages where tourism and fishing find an uneasy coexistence – Tim Hannigan undertakes a zigzagging journey on foot across Britain's westernmost region to discover how the real Cornwall, its landscapes, histories, communities and sense of identity, intersect with the many projections and tropes that writers, artists and others have placed upon it. Combining landscape and nature writing with deep cultural inquiry, The Granite Kingdom is a probing but highly accessible tour of one of Britain's most popular regions, juxtaposing history, myth, folklore and literary representation with the geographical and social reality of contemporary Cornwall.

In Bed with the Atlantic is a travel memoir of a young woman, Kit Pascoe, as she goes from never having stepped on a yacht, to sailing over 18,000 miles - across the Atlantic, around the Caribbean and then back - in three years with her partner. At first, she was dogged by doubt, a belief that she wasn't a `sailor', never would be and that she was in no way capable of such an undertaking. She believed that the ocean was out to get her, that weather needed to be battled and that she would forever be ruled by the anxiety that plagued her. Woven into the narrative of the journey's progression are stories from Kit's childhood and life before the voyage, explaining her battles with anxiety and the feelings of being lost as a graduate in post-recession Britain. The book also relays her struggle with reconciling a life of travel with the expectations and experiences of those back home, at an age when most of her contemporaries were starting corporate careers and families. In her courage to leave everything she knows behind, she learns the history of the islands and their people, swims with turtles, explores strange cave systems, and learns to forage for food straight from the sea. But she also encounters hardships like running out of food and water, battling against storms, trying not to be struck by lightning, and discovering the crippling loneliness of sailing an ocean for months on end. Sailing back to the UK after three years Kit realises the colossal difference that sailing has made to her life and understanding of the world. She ponders how easy it is not to do something, to protect ourselves from risks and ridicule and everything that makes us uncomfortable. But now appreciates that it is only when we take the risk, that we get the reward and that we connect not just with the world at large, but also with ourselves.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Geography of Bliss embarks on a rollicking intellectual journey, following in the footsteps of history's greatest thinkers and showing us how each-from Epicurus to Gandhi, Thoreau to Beauvoir-offers practical and spiritual lessons for today's unsettled times. We turn to philosophy for the same reasons we travel: to see the world from a dif ferent perspective, to unearth hidden beauty, and to find new ways of being. We want to learn how to embrace wonder. Face regrets. Sustain hope. Eric Weiner combines his twin passions for philosophy and travel in a globe-trotting pil grimage that uncovers surprising life lessons from great thinkers around the world, from Rousseau to Nietzsche, Confucius to Simone Weil. Traveling by train (the most thoughtful mode of transport), he journeys thousands of miles, making stops in Athens, Delhi, Wyoming, Coney Island, Frankfurt, and points in between to recon nect with philosophy's original purpose: teaching us how to lead wiser, more meaningful lives. From Socrates and ancient Athens to Beauvoir and 20th-century Paris, Weiner's chosen philosophers and places provide important practical and spiritual lessons as we navigate today's chaotic times. In a "delightful" odyssey that "will take you places intellectually and humorously" (San Francisco Book Review), Weiner invites us to voyage alongside him on his life-changing pursuit of wisdom and discovery as he attempts to find answers to our most vital questions. The Socrates Express is "full of valuable lessons...a fun, sharp book that draws readers in with its apparent simplicity and bubble-gum philosophy approach and gradually pulls them in deeper and deeper" (NPR).

First Published in 1968. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A New York Times Bestseller To some people, Florida is a paradise; to others, a punch line. As Oh, Florida! shows, it's both of these and, more important, it's a Petri dish, producing trends that end up influencing the rest of the country. Without Florida there would be no NASCAR, no Bettie Page pinups, no Glenn Beck radio rants, no USA Today, no "Stand Your Ground," ...You get the idea. To outsiders, Florida seems baffling. It's a state where the voters went for Barack Obama twice, yet elected a Tea Party candidate as governor. Florida is touted as a carefree paradise, yet it's also known for its perils--alligators, sinkholes, pythons, hurricanes, and sharks, to name a few. It attracts 90 million visitors a year, some drawn by its impressive natural beauty, others bewitched by its manmade fantasies. Oh, Florida! explores those contradictions and shows how they fit together to make this the most interesting state. It is the first book to explore the reasons why Florida is so wild and weird--and why that's okay. But there is far more to Florida than its sideshow freakiness. Oh, Florida! explains how Florida secretly, subtly influences all the other states in the Union, both for good and for ill.

By a winner of the Stanford Dolman Award for Travel Writing "Sayarer is a precise and passionate writer . . . We need writers who will go all the way for a story, and tell it with fire. Sayarer is a marvellous example" HORATIO CLARE On the eve of its centenary year and elections that will shape the coming generations, Julian Emre Sayarer sets out to cycle across Türkiye, from the Aegean coast to the Armenian border. Meeting Turkish farmers and workers, Syrian refugees and Russians avoiding conscription, the journey brings to life a living, breathing, cultural tapestry of the place where Asia, Africa and Europe converge. The result is a love letter to a country and its neighbours - one that offers a clear-eyed view of Türkiye and its place in a changing world. Yet the route is also marked by tragedy, as Sayarer cycles along a major fault line just months before one of the most devastating earthquakes in the region's modern history. Always engaged with the big historical and political questions that inform so much of his writing, Sayarer uses his bicycle and the roadside encounters it allows to bring everything back to the human level. At the end of his journey we are left with a deeper understanding of the country, as well as the essential and universal nature of political power, both in Türkiye and closer to home.

Growing is a portrait of a young man sent straight out from university to help govern Ceylon. It is doubtful that any Empire at any time has been served by such an intelligent, dutiful, hardworking and incorruptible civil servant as the young Leonard Woolf. He was determined to do what was good but discovered for himself that colonial rule, be it ever so high-minded, is fated to do wrong. Growing is also a deeply affectionate account of the mystery, magic and savage beauty of Ceylon at the turn of the century, an island whose diverse beliefs and cultures Woolf had the time and wit to explore in detail.

A Place Apart is a remarkable geographical and psychological travelogue that rises above history, politics, theology and economics. Created by a southern Irishwoman, cycling into the mayhem of Northern Ireland in order to try and sort out her own opinions and emotions about this troubled land. She came equipped with her own childhood experiences of murder and Republican martyrdom, but was otherwise unfettered by sectarian loyalties and armed with a delightful curiosity, a fine ear for anecdote, an ability to stand her own at the bar and penetrating intelligence. She travelled extensively through both town and country, frequently finding herself in horrifying situations, and sometimes among people stiff with hate and grief: but equally, she discovered an unquenchable spirit everywhere that refused to die. Other Dervla Murphy titles published by Eland. Original Hardbacks: A Month by the Sea: Encounters in Gaza, The Island that Dared: Journeys in Cuba, Eland Classics: Wheels within Wheels, Full Tilt: From Ireland to India with a Bicycle, In Ethiopia with a Mule, Where the Indus is Young: A Winter in Baltistan, Tibetan Foothold, The Waiting Land: A Spell in Nepal, On a Shoestring to Coorg.

This is the first travel book that tested the idea that a five-year-old daughter makes for a useful international travelling companion. Together Dervla Murphy and her daughter Rachel with little money, no taste for luxury and few concrete plans meander their way slowly south from Bombay to the southernmost point of India, Cape Comorin. Interested in everything they see, but only truly enchanted by people, they stay in fisherman's huts and no-star hotels, travelling in packed-out buses, on foot and by local boats. Instead of pressing ever onwards, like so many travellers, they double back to the place they liked most, the hill province of Coorg and settle down to live there for two months. Anchored by her daughter's delight in the company of her Indian neighbours, Dervla Murphy creates an extraordinarily affectionate portrait of these cardamon-scented, spiritually and agriculturally self- sufficient Highlands. If travel is underwritten by an unwitting search for a lost paradise, this is a quest that was achieved - made possible with the right sort of travelling companion.

AUTHOR OF INTERSTATE, STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016; "Iberia" is Julian Sayarer's account of his impromptu journey across Portugal and Spain, from Lisbon towards Barcelona, undertaken during a pandemic on an old blue bicycle named Miles.; Finding himself in Lisbon amidst a pandemic, Julian Sayarer decides simply to ride. Through hazy landscapes and on baked roads, he pedals east. During long hours in the saddle, his thoughts traverse matters big and small - hopping from post-colonial culpability to the supremacy of an orange picked at the roadside; Across 900 miles of sun-drenched olive groves, vast mountainscapes, and dormant towns glimpsed through driving rain, Sayarer's journey is punctuated by fleeting, beautiful moments of human connection. Iberia is a celebration of a shared humanity and community found in a uniquely fragile time; Sayarer is a brilliantly thoughtful writer ... One can't help thinking that the future of travel writing lies in this adventurous, post-modern genre -- Sara Wheeler; Sayarer has made something of a specialism of reporting on the world from the roadside. -- Daily Telegraph; On the Road for the Occupy Generation -- Open Democracy; Sayarer's love of the open road and his ability to evoke the beauty of travelling by bike are a potent combination that makes you itch to go cycling -- Cycling Active

Meanwhile don't push and squeeze is an account of the year that writer spent teaching at a university in Hangzhou, China. Filled with puzzlement and discovery, it is enriched by the writings of Berold's enthusiastic students and those of his articulate companion. Berold's passion for literature soon takes him well beyond limits of his contract as a 'foreign expert'. This is a wide-ranging and at times very funny title, filled with fresh, startling images of 21st Century China. Robert Berold spent a year teaching creative writing in China, and this is his poetic and delightful record of that year.

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 frisky Oss appeared - the dancers and drummers in a kind of shamanic trance (induced by a day of drumming, dancing and beer). They were wilder than ever; the atmosphere was positively Bacchanalian and I felt we had all become lost in a kind of collective folk consciousness.' On two wheels across Britain 'Bard on a Bike' Kevan Manwaring searches out the places and people who mark the seasons and cycles in their own special way - in ceremonies and festivals both private and public, large and intimate, ancient and modern. Along the way, he experiences and relates moments of sacred time found in the unlikeliest of places and circumstances, showing how it is a state of mind that can be experienced not only at sacred sites, but in the everyday. A collection of reflections about being fully alive in the Twenty First century, as much a useful guide for the curious, Turning the Wheel is a wise and witty account of a leather-clad time-traveller.

A buoyant, bittersweet and often plaintively gorgeous travel memoir by Raney, writer and founder of the famous Nickelodeon Theatre in Santa Cruz, California. Raney's debut book follows the arc of a year-long expedition around the world, launched in 1967, at the height of "the summer of love in a summer of death". In San Francisco, where the author lived with his wife JoAnne, hippies and beatniks flooded the streets, and new reports arrived every day from the bloody conflict in Vietnam. The couple decided to decamp for Europe, where the dollar was strong and the possibilities seemed endless. Along for the ride is Tarzan, a fiery dachshund, and a baby boy named Eric Xerxes Raney, known as Zerky. For a while, this quirky little family made its way across the Continent, camping in open fields, cavorting on beaches and scrambling through the Swiss Alps. The narrative is built on letters Raney wrote to Zerky who would presumably be too young to remember the breadth of these adventures -- and diary entries by JoAnne, a fastidious chronicler of the far-flung. "That there might be a world beyond Europe, a world you could drive to, was something that never occurred to us until six months later", the author remembers, near the beginning of the book. Soon enough, the Raneys caterwauled through Turkey, Pakistan, India and lran -- a journey that would prove difficult, if not impossible, to duplicate in these pitched political times. In Kabul, Afghanistan, they vividly pick their "way through random passageways and alleyways that were left between buildings at the time of their construction". In Eastern Turkey, they face down a gaggle of armed and angry soldiers. The adventure quotient here is high, but the main ballast of the book is emotional. Shortly after returning from the expedition, JoAnne, pregnant with her second child, died of an aneurism, and within a year, Zerky was killed while playing near his family's home. The book remains as a testament to the power of the human spirit -- to wander, endure and remember. A chronicle of travels through a bygone world.

Beautifully evocative of the music, people, and culture of one of the most fascinating countries in the world, this book is essential reading for Cuba's growing band of supporters and visitors. A travelogue detailing two separate missions for musician and writer Rupert Mould, this explores some of the biggest names in Cuban music while seeking out an increased personal understanding of two of Cuba's most influential revolutionaries, Ernesto Che Guevara and Jose Marti. In the course of this book much of the essential character of Cuba, her people, her music, and history are sensitively portrayed.