The author recounts her travels in the Hebrides during the 1940s, including some of their most remote areas.

For more than fifty years, Ward travelled remote areas of the Far East looking for beautiful flowers and shrubs likely to thrive in western gardens and for new botanical specimens. His discoveries included new kinds of rhododendrons, lilies, gentians, primulas and the legendary Tibetan blue poppy. This is a narrative of his adventures and discoveries in Tibet in 1933, illustrated with his own photographs. Ward conveys the excitement of exploration, the thrill of danger and the rewards of discovery as, in one precarious situation after another, he discovers new plants and seeds.

The Pilgrimage paved the way to Paulo Coehlo's international bestselling novel The Alchemist. In many ways, these two volumes are companions--to truly comprehend one, you must read the other.

Step inside this captivating account of Paulo Coehlo's pilgrimage along the road to Santiago. This fascinating parable explores the need to find one's own path. In the end, we discover that the extraordinary is always found in the ordinary and simple ways of everyday people. Part adventure story, part guide to self-discovery, this compelling tale delivers the perfect combination of enchantment and insight.

This stunning memoir-cum-travelogue from twice Booker winning author Peter Carey re-evaluates Japan through its attempts to understand the violent and disturbing cartoons which are so inherently concerned with Japan's rich and historic heritage. Accompanied by his son, Charley, father and son attempt to demystify the meanings hidden within magna and anime as they move towards a greater understanding of what they call their own 'real Japan.' Brilliantly reviewed in hardback with more publicity to come One of the warmest and most accessible travelogues of recent times A wonderful exploration of Japanese culture in the vein of Lost in Translation The hardback has gone on to sell extremely well with critics praising the beautiful packaging as well as the wonderful writing

In 2014, a coup d'etat in Sanaa paved the way for a devastating conflict in Yemen. Doctor Andrew Moscrop cancelled plans to return to the country that he had once called home. Instead, he returned to his diaries and delved into memories of a time when he lived in a rambling old tower house in Sanaa. As the war unfolded, he re-read the accounts of past travellers to the country. And while working in Greece, treating refugees from other Middle Eastern war zones, he began writing a book set in Yemen. Both a personal travelogue and a thought-provoking study of past travellers in Yemen, The Camel's Neighbour offers a unique window into the country. Importantly, it delivers a context and a valuable corrective to the dehumanising stories of conflict and crisis that have characterised this corner of Arabia in recent years. Evocative descriptions of Sanaa and its unique cityscape, as well as empathetic portrayals of people encountered and events experienced, all create a narrative by turns contemplative and unexpected. The author finds himself caught up in the fallout of the Danish Cartoon Crisis, is involved in an outbreak of polio, and witnesses close-up the distinctly undemocratic re-election of Yemen's President. Meanwhile, his sense of humour is tested when he gatecrashes the Queen's birthday party at the British Embassy and is urinated upon by a goat during a hair-raising car journey. Examining the impressions of earlier visitors, Moscrop explores how Yemen has been seen and understood by foreigners from Europe and America. These past visitors include blundering missionaries, avaricious merchants, aristocratic Englishmen, and unlikely spies such as Norman Lewis and Freya Stark. Moscrop delivers an intriguing and original perspective on Western encounters with the Islamic world, examining the imagery and cliches by which Yemen has been represented from the sixteenth century to the present. Ultimately, he unravels a story of how Yemen became an 'unknown country' with a 'forgotten war'.

Originally published in 1908, "Two American Women Journey Through East and South Africa" desribes a trip made by two American women to Uganda and the Transvaal in the hopes of inspiring other Americans to do the same. This fascinating tour of Africa opens the eyes of any traveller, in particular those that enjoy a more comfortable journey. Caroline Kirkland points out that it is possible to see the plains of Africa, rich with zebras, gnus, giraffes, and even lions, from a railway carriage window. Though only claiming to have touched the surface of the vast continent, she describes the African landscape as "dark, mysterious, violent and enchanting."

The Islamic Orient studies the travel accounts of four British travelers during the nineteenth century. Through a critical analysis of these works, the author examines and questions Edward Said's concept of "Orientalism" and "Orientalist" discourse: his argument that the orientalist view had such a strong influence on westerners that they invariably perceived the orient through the lens of orientalism. On the contrary, the author argues, no single factor had an overwhelming influence on them. She shows that westerners often struggled with their own conceptions of the orient, and being away for long periods from their homelands, were in fact able to stand between cultures and view them both as insiders and outsiders. The literary devices used to examine these writings are structure, characterization, satire, landscape description, and word choice, as also the social and political milieu of the writers. The major influences in the author's analysis are Said, Foucault, Abdel-Malek and Marie Louise Pratt.

'An Intrepid Scot' makes an important new contribution to the growing literature on the perceptions of the Islamic world and the 'Orient' in early modern Europe, at the same time as illuminating the attitudes of a Protestant from Northern Europe towards the Catholic South. In this book Edmund Bosworth looks at the life and career of William Lithgow, a tough and opinionated Scots Protestant, who had a seemingly insatiable Wanderlust and who managed to survive various misadventures and near-death experiences in the course of his travels. These took him through a dangerously Catholic Southern Europe to a dangerously Muslim Greece and Istanbul en route for his pilgrimage destination of the Holy Land; on another occasion he went through North Africa and returned circuitously via Central and Eastern Europe; but he was stopped in his tracks whilst endeavouring to reach the court of Prester John in Ethiopia, when he fell into the hands of the Spanish Inquisition and narrowly escaped a horrible death. Lithgow was one of several men of his time who journeyed eastwards, some as far as Persia and India, but unlike many others, he has not been the subject of a special study. Bosworth now places him within the context of the present interest in perceptions of the Islamic world and of the 'Orient' and 'Orientals' in early modern Europe. In addition to the entertainment of the travel narrative, the book shows how one Westerner of the time interpreted the alien East for his readers, and how the Ottoman Empire and its apparently unstoppable might both fascinated and struck fear into the hearts of those outside it.

When thinking of intrepid travelers from past centuries, we don't usually put Muslim women at the top of the list. And yet, the stunning firsthand accounts in this collection completely upend preconceived notions of who was exploring the world. Editors Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Daniel Majchrowicz, and Sunil Sharma recover, translate, annotate, and provide historical and cultural context for the 17th- to 20th-century writings of Muslim women travelers in ten different languages. Queens and captives, pilgrims and provocateurs, these women are diverse. Their connection to Islam is wide-ranging as well, from the devout to those who distanced themselves from religion. What unites these adventurers is a concern for other women they encounter, their willingness to record their experiences, and the constant thoughts they cast homeward even as they traveled a world that was not always prepared to welcome them. Perfect for readers interested in gender, Islam, travel writing, and global history, Three Centuries of Travel Writing by Muslim Women provides invaluable insight into how these daring women experienced the world—in their own voices.

Shortlisted for the SAUK Fage & Oliver Prize 2020 'Honorable Mention' for the ALA First Book Award - Scholarship 2021 A path-breaking contribution to the critical literature on African travel writing. Throughout the twentieth century, Nigerians have been writing about their travels within Nigeria using a variety of media and forms, from serialised newspaper travelogues to personal diaries, autobiographies and online narratives.These works offer important insights into how Nigerians have represented Nigeria to itself and to the world. This is the first book to examine the production of Nigerian travel narratives about Nigeria in the century from colonisation to independence. Rebecca Jones argues that we can read these texts both as the products of a local Nigerian print culture, and through their articulations with global travel writing traditions. Focusing on travel writing published from 1914 to 2014 in the Yoruba-speaking region of southwestern Nigeria, home to a well-established and prolific writing and print culture in both Yoruba and English, this cultural history of Nigerian travel comprisesclose readings of these works, and argues that the production of travel writing in the region can be read not simply as a foreign import, but as a cluster of genres with a cohesive local history. Writers discussed include Samuel Ajayi Crowther, I.B. Thomas, E.A. Akintan, Isaac Delano, D.O. Fagunwa, Amos Tutuola, Ben Okri, Babatunde Shadeko, Damilola Ajenifuja, Chibuzor Mirian Azubuike, Pelu Awofeso, Lape Soetan, Teju Cole, Adewale Maja-Pearce, Noo Saro-Wiwa, and the Invisible Borders collective. Nigeria: Premium Times Books

This book is not just funny (or sad) stories of campervan trips in Scotland; it is not just 'Zen and the art of campervan maintenance' (with stories of sweetness and light that will entertain or make you cry); and it is not just nature writing (with observations of wildlife in the western Scottish Highlands). But if you enjoy reading about how books are written and about recovery stories from relationship breakdowns, and if you like reading about women travelling alone and all the things that can go wrong (and right), about strategies for facing fear, dealing with creepy crawlies and noises in the night, and about surviving all that life throws at you (especially when you are over a certain age), then you will probably enjoy this book. Writing on the Road is by Sue Reid Sexton, who, while writing two novels (Mavis's Shoe and Rue End Street) over the past six years, needed to escape from her hectic household to create some space to write them. As the mother of two and a step-mum of four, Sue realised her only real option was to get into her campervan and have it function as a mobile office. Whether she camped by a beach overlooking the Atlantic in the Kintyre peninsula with buzzards, golden eagles, deer, seals, surfers, other campervanners and dead fish for company, or in the hills around Glasgow, or on Skye, Morvern, the Cowal peninsula or even in southern France, her main aim was to switch off her phone, get out her laptop and write. Sue has made countless journeys in campervans in the last few years and thanks to her practice of taking notes as she travels, we, too, can enjoy her campervan experiences. In Writing on the Road Sue also writes about the many and varied practical difficulties of campervan life that she has had to overcome. They include locking herself out of the campervan at night miles from home; coping with local byelaws and negative attitudes to campervans and to women travelling solo; driving a hundred miles with a window open before she could empty a cracked toilet; and finding out the wrong (and the right) way to buy a campervan. We hope this book will inspire anyone looking for encouragement in the expressive arts to get creative and persuade any would-be campervanners to get out there and enjoy the campervan life.

'Short of doing it yourself, the best way of escaping into nature is to read a book like A Walk in the Woods.' New York Times In the company of his friend Stephen Katz (last seen in the bestselling Neither Here nor There), Bill Bryson set off to hike the Appalachian Trail, the longest continuous footpath in the world. Ahead lay almost 2,200 miles of remote mountain wilderness filled with bears, moose, bobcats, rattlesnakes, poisonous plants, disease-bearing tics, the occasional chuckling murderer and - perhaps most alarming of all - people whose favourite pastime is discussing the relative merits of the external-frame backpack. Facing savage weather, merciless insects, unreliable maps and a fickle companion whose profoundest wish was to go to a motel and watch The X-Files, Bryson gamely struggled through the wilderness to achieve a lifetime's ambition - not to die outdoors. A Walk in the Woods is now a major feature film starring Robert Redford, Emma Thompson and Nick Offerman.

Visitors from the West look with amazement, and sometimes concern, at Japan’s monolithic social structures and unique, complex culture industry; the gigantic scale of its tech corporations and the resilience of its traditions; the extraordinary diversity of the subcultures that flourish in its “post-human” megacities. The country nonetheless remains an impossibly complicated jigsaw puzzle whose overall design eludes us. Its inscrutability has made the country an inexhaustible source of inspiration for stories, reflections, and reportage. The subjects in this volume range from the Japanese veneration of the dead to the Tokyo music scene, from urban alienation to cinema, from sumo to machismo. Caught between an ageing population and extreme post-modernity, immobile yet futuristic, Japan is an ideal observation point from which to understand our age and the one to come.

*A SCOTSMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR* Stranded at Schiphol airport, Ben Coates called up a friendly Dutch girl he'd met some months earlier. He stayed for dinner. Actually, he stayed for good. In the first book to consider the hidden heart and history of the Netherlands from a modern perspective, the author explores the length and breadth of his adopted homeland and discovers why one of the world's smallest countries is also so significant and so fascinating. It is a self-made country, the Dutch national character shaped by the ongoing battle to keep the water out from the love of dairy and beer to the attitude to nature and the famous tolerance. Ben Coates investigates what makes the Dutch the Dutch, why the Netherlands is much more than Holland and why the colour orange is so important. Along the way he reveals why they are the world's tallest people and have the best carnival outside Brazil. He learns why Amsterdam's brothels are going out of business, who really killed Anne Frank, and how the Dutch manage to be richer than almost everyone else despite working far less. He also discovers a country which is changing fast, with the Dutch now questioning many of the liberal policies which made their nation famous. A personal portrait of a fascinating people, a sideways history and an entertaining travelogue, Why the Dutch are Different is the story of an Englishman who went Dutch. And loved it.

Alexander Burnes travelled up the Indus to Lahore and to the Khanates of Afghanistan and Central Asia in the 1830s, spying on behalf of the British Government in what was to become known as the 'Great Game'. His account of these travels was a bestseller in its day and this brand new edition brings the heady sense of excitement, risk and zeal bursting from the pages.

** NOW A MAJOR MOVIE STARRING ZAC EFRON, RUSSELL CROWE AND BILL MURRAY THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'An extraordinary story.' - Daily Mail 'An unforgettable, wild ride from start to finish.' - John Bruning 'The astounding true story - from the streets of Manhattan to the jungles of Vietnam.' - Thomas Kelly IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME. As a result of a rowdy night in his local New York bar, ex-Marine and merchant seaman "Chick" Donohue volunteers for a legendary mission. He will sneak into Vietnam to track down his buddies in combat to bring them a cold beer and supportive messages from home. It'll be the greatest beer run ever! Now, decades on from 1968, this is the remarkable true story of how he actually did it. Armed with Irish luck and a backpack full of alcohol, Chick works his passage to Vietnam, lands in Qui Nhon and begins to carry out his quest, tracking down the disbelieving soldiers one by one. But things quickly go awry, and as he talks his way through checkpoints and unwittingly into dangerous situations, Chick sees a lot more of the war than he ever planned - spending a terrifying time in the Demilitarized Zone, and getting caught up in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. With indomitable spirit, Chick survives on his wits, but what he finds in Vietnam comes as a shock. By the end of his epic adventure, battered and exhausted, Chick finds himself questioning why his friends were ever led into the war in the first place.

First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

'Always engaging, charming, funny and often moving . . . It made me want to pull on my stoutest boots and follow in his footsteps' Stephen Fry 'Beautiful, funny, fascinating, impossible-to-categorise . . . Like going on a great ramble with a knowledgeable, witty, engaging friend. Tom Cox brings magic to the most mundane of subjects' Marian Keyes 'Sheer bloody genius . . . I loved it. Then I loved it more' John Lewis-Stempel, author of Meadowland A hill is not a mountain. You climb it for you, then you put it quietly inside you, in a cupboard marked 'Quite A Lot Of Hills' where it makes its infinitesimal mark on who you are.Ring the Hill is a book written around, and about, hills: it includes a northern hill, a hill that never ends and the smallest hill in England. Each chapter takes a type of hill - whether it's a knoll, cap, cliff, tor or even a mere bump - as a starting point for one of Tom's characteristically unpredictable and wide-ranging explorations. Tom's lyrical, candid prose roams from an intimate relationship with a particular cove on the south coast, to meditations on his great-grandmother and a lesson on what goes into the mapping of hills themselves. Because a good walk in the hills is never just about the hills: you never know where it might lead.

Volg Andre Pretorius 500 jaar na die begin van die Kerkhervorming op 31 Oktober 1517, in die spore van die groot Hervormers - Martin Luther en Johannes Calvyn. Hy besoek die plekke waar die sleutelsepisodes van daardie grootse rewolusie afgespeel het en sien hoe daardie plekke nou lyk. Hy gaan na die plekke waar die godsdiensoorloe van die Hervormingsera ondenkbare verwoesting gesaai het, maar ook na die plekke waar die kreatiwiteit gebore uit die Protestantse verstaan van woorde en musiek van die grootste kunswerke van die mensdom geinspireer het. Hy bring dit alles terug na sy eie plattelandse Suid-Afrikaanse, Calvinistiese opvoeding.

An enchanting and fascinating insight into Japanese landscape, culture, history and future. Originally written in Japanese, this passionate, vividly personal book draws on the author's experiences in Japan over thirty years. Alex Kerr brings to life the ritualized world of Kabuki, retraces his initiation into Tokyo's boardrooms during the heady Bubble Years, and tells the story of the hidden valley that became his home. But the book is not just a love letter. Haunted throughout by nostalgia for the Japan of old, Kerr's book is part paean to that great country and culture, part epitaph in the face of contemporary Japan's environmental and cultural destruction. Winner of Japan's Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize, and now with a new preface. Alex Kerr is an American writer, antiques collector and Japanologist. Lost Japan is his most famous work. He was the first foreigner to be awarded the Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize for the best work of non-fiction published in Japan.

Ranging from the early modern to the postcolonial, and dealing mainly with encounters in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East, Perspectives on Travel Writing is a collection of new essays by international scholars that examines some of the various contexts of travel writing, as well as its generic characteristics. Contributions examine the similarities between autobiography and memoir, fiction, and travel writing, and attempt to define travel writing as a genre. Utilising a variety of approaches, the essays display a shared concern with what travel writing does and how it does it. The effects of encounter and border-crossing on gender, 'race', and national identity are considered throughout. The collection begins with a review of some of the problems and issues facing the scholar of travel writing and moves on to a detailed discussion of the qualities of travel writing and its related forms. It then presents in chronological order a number of case studies, before closing with a critical discussion of approaches to the subject. An essay collection with broad historical and geographical coverage, this volume should appeal to students and researchers of travel and travel-related literatures from across the Humanities.

A ground-breaking collection of stories, poems and articles about Nepal covering the length and breadth of this enchanting nation and its people. 'If you want a book in English that tells you about Nepalese thinking, and gives a taste of the country's contemporary literature, you could hardly do better than House of Snow' Daily Telegraph 'One of the finest books I have read this year' Nudge Books 'A well-curated sliver of works that highlight the richness and variety of Nepal's literary contribution' Kathmandu Post In 2015, Sagarmatha frowned. Tectonic plates moved. A deadly earthquake devastated Nepal. In the wake of disaster, House of Snow brings together over 50 excerpts of fiction and non-fiction celebrating the breathtaking landscapes and rich cultural heritage of this fascinating country. Here are explorers and mountaineers, poets and political journalists, national treasures and international celebrities. Featuring a diverse cast of writers such as Michael Palin and Jon Krakauer, Lakshmiprasad Devko?a and Lil Bahadur Chettri - all hand-picked by well-known authors and scholars of Nepali literature including Samrat Upadhyay, Michael Hutt, Isabella Tree and Thomas Bell. House of Snow is the biggest, most comprehensive and most beautiful collection of writing about Nepal in print.

'Joseph Hone went to Zaire for the BBC. His aim was a series of talks about crossing Africa from coast to coast, as Stanley had done. That intention began, and ended, in Kinshasha... Having fallen in love in boyhood with the idea of Africa, he had looked for 'great liberating spaces', and found himself in a city from which there was no escape without a private plane.' Guardian 'For those who like to read, in comfort, about uncomfortable journeys, frightful hotels, dreadful meals, and broken-down capitals, I strongly recommend Children of the Country. The section on Kinshasha, in particular, is both alarming and hilarious.' Richard Cobb, Spectactor 'Books of the Year' 'A darkly coloured personal odyssey.... Hone hopes to achieve some kind of perspective on his unraveling marriage here in the landscape of his boyhood fantasies... His ability to articulate his own reactions to the landscape, combined with his precise notation of detail, lend his narrative freshness and vitality.' Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

First published in 1954 as South to Sardinia, this account of a summer journey in the early 1950s sees Alan Ross alternating the past and present of a strange island whose interior, especially, had been only rarely visited at that point. His descriptions of the landscape and local customs and mores (including billiards, 'one of the great Sardinian occupations') are interspersed with tales of a cast of characters who might have come out of Boccaccio, adding up to a memorable evocation. 'An alert and sensitive travel book... Alan Ross has an exceptional descriptive gift.' Listener 'So closely packed with good writing that it requires to be read slowly, as Mr Ross travelled.' Time and Tide 'He is a specialist in the vin triste... a delightful offbeat.' Cyril Connolly, Sunday Times 'An exceptionally good book by any standard.' TLS 'A work of art and imagination.' Times