This is a year of Sicilian life, its seasons and its sacred festivals, its gorgeous fruits and demanding family life, its casual assassinations and village feasts, its weather and the neighbours. It chronicles a life divided between an apartment in the city of Palermo with the weekends and summer devoted to sustaining life in an old family farm. What makes this journal truly exceptional is that Mary Simeti is both an outsider, (an American who had studied medieval history and worked as a volunteer on a social welfare programme) and an insider. For this journal was written after twenty years of immersion in Sicilian life, as wife to a Sicilian, mother to two Sicilian teenagers, as gardener, cook and carer for a suspicious mother-in- law.

In this thoughtful, informative account of a journey from Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta to Hanoi and Halong Bay, Zoe Schramm-Evans delves behind the cliche-ridden images of Vietnam to discover a country poised on the brink of remarkable social and economic change.

- How I Found My Nepalese Family In Kathmandu, a retired English schoolteacher visits an orphanage where he meets a young man desperate to train as a doctor. After a year's agonizing indecision, the Englishman takes up the challenge and promises to sponsor him. What follows is a life-changing experience in which he himself comes to be adopted into a Nepalese family as brother, uncle, friend and godfather. This book offers a unique and warm-hearted look into the dilemmas of low-caste family life living on the brink in Nepal. Meet the penniless tailor, Kiran, who was saved from suicide; experience the comic informality of house-hunting in Kathmandu; discover a colourful array of characters, cheerful and courageous in spite of the extreme poverty that they face. When Nick Morrice took early retirement, following twelve years as Head of English at Downsend Prep School in Leatherhead, he turned his attention to charity work. He founded the West Surrey Local Support Group for WaterAid. But it was the opportunity to sponsor a Nepalese boy through a local charity, CHANCE for Nepal , which led Nick to venture into the country's capital city, Kathmandu, for the first time in October 2009. Thus began what has become a rewarding, ongoing project to support five Nepalese orphans in fulfilling their hopes and ambitions.

Queen Victoria so liked the Isle of Wight she built a royal residence here. Thousands of people got stoned here at music festivals in the late 1960s. And, in the very un-hippyish Covid summer of 2020, Hunter Davies and his girlfriend escaped locked-down North London for a week’s holiday on the Isle of Wight, fell in love with its sleepy charm – and ended up buying a Grade II-listed love nest in the elegant Victorian seaside resort of Ryde. Love in Old Age tells the story of their first twelve months on the island. It brings together the themes of love in old age; Covid lockdown; rural escape; the anxieties of house-buying; and the history and curiosities of England’s largest and second most populous island – all bound together by Hunter Davies’s inquisitiveness about people and places, and his irrepressible and ironic sense of humour.

Expectation meets Julie and Julia, The Yellow Kitchen is a brilliant exploration of food, belonging and friendship. London E17, 2019. A yellow kitchen stands as a metaphor for the lifelong friendship between three women: Claude, the baker, goal-orientated Sophie and political Giulia. They have the best kind of friendship, chasing life and careers; dating, dreaming and consuming but always returning to be reunited in the yellow kitchen. That is, until a trip to Lisbon unravels unexplored desires between Claude and Sophie. Having sex is one thing, waking up the day after is the beginning of something new. Exploring the complexities of female friendship, The Yellow Kitchen is a hymn to the last year of London as we knew it and a celebration of the culture, the food and the rhythms we live by. Praise for The Yellow Kitchen: 'Rich and thoroughly intoxicating, The Yellow Kitchen is a sensual journey into friendship, food and female sexuality, full of complex, fascinating characters and bold ideas. I loved it' Rosie Walsh 'A heady mix of politics, friendship, sex and food, poignant, provocative and utterly distinctive' Paula Hawkins 'An exquisite novel - beautifully rendered, powerfully told, and so deeply felt. I urge you to read this novel - you will never forget it' Lucia Osborne-Crowley 'Mixing female friendship, romance, loss, redemption, and memorable meals, The Yellow Kitchen is the perfect recipe for a flavorful literary feast. With subtle dashes of wit and generous sprinklings of honesty, Margaux Vialleron has crafted a brave and tender tale' Kim Fay, author of Love & Saffron 'The Yellow Kitchen is so warm and convivial in atmosphere, and its discussion of the politics of the UK and their impact very poignant. It portrayed beautifully the sense of adventure of being a certain age, with its rush and richness and emotional confusion, and I found it such a satisfying read' Emily Itami, author of Fault Lines

'Bags of fish for cats - 50 pence'. So it was written, on a chalkboard sign outside a fresh fishmonger's, under the arches of the raised promenade along the beachfront of England's newly super trendy and booming seaside City of Brighton and Hove. In Brighton Babylon, PK Heights is a Grade II listed maisonette flat in one of the City's up and coming Regency Squares that provides the elegant base for a series of interlocking true stories about the city's people and their lives. Newly relocated from London, Brighton resident Peter Jarrette combines and intertwines his stories, using a colourful palette that is one part Brokeback Beach and three parts seawater. He vividly portrays a selection of suspect characters and shocking episodes; much like the curious bits and pieces that might be on offer in one of those bags of fish for cats. To the author's consternation, the residents and visitors are a thoroughly peculiar and motley crew. This former string of south coast fishing villages with a royal and decadent past may now be a thoroughly cosmopolitan City and even aspire to being an international hub, but it has not yet lost its renowned and celebrated dark side, far from it. Brighton Babylon is populated by a cast of unsavoury hobos and bother boys; Yardie obsessed golden shower webmasters from nearby Crawley; mistakenly racist London hairdressers; strangely scripted market researchers; extemporised short-haul cabin crew; pushy airline First Officers; politically incorrect new food emporia; a vengeful, crumbling resort Pier and a locally obsessed, cat-mad press pack.

As Suid-Afrikaner wat in Engeland woon, het André Pretorius die geleentheid om plekke te besoek wat vir die meeste van ons net drome bly. Maar met sy uitstekende skryfwerk bring hy in hierdie boek talle van die eksotiese plekke naby sy lesers.

Hy laat ons deel in die soektog na ’n kelim in die mark van Marrakesj, in die nostalgie van Nobelpryswenner Orhan Pamuk se Istanboel, in die verhewe skoonheid van die St. Pieterskerk in Rome en in ’n bootrit op die magtige Irrawaddy-rivier in Birma gedurende die reënseisoen wanneer dit voel asof die waters van hemel en aarde versmelt.

Daar is ook vermaaklike oomblikke, soos wanneer hy aan ’n wynproe-cum-marathon in die Medoc-vallei deelneem (met voorspelbare gevolge) en wanneer hy met net ’n klein lappie as bedekking dit na ’n openbare bad in Boedapest waag.

Amelia Dalton, fresh from touring the Scottish islands, takes on the world and sets up exclusive holidays in remote places for a new cruise ship. As she scopes out her itineraries, she explores inaccessible islands and survives a hotel fire, a bomb in a palace, being stung by a scorpion and thrown into jail. Meanwhile, she’s being wooed from afar by a mysterious stranger who turns up in the most unexpected places.

Martha was the youngest of sixteen, handpicked reporters who filed accurate, confidential reports on the human stories behind the statistics of the Depression directly to Roosevelt's White House. From these pages, we understand the real cost of sudden destitution on a vast scale. We taste the dust in the mouth, smell the disease and feel the hopelessness and the despair. And here, too, we can hear the earliest cadences of a writer who went on to become, arguably, the greatest female war reporter of the 20th century.

'A valuable book and a necessary one. One of the funniest and cleverest voyages on record.' Christopher Hitchens, New Statesman 'The finest writer afloat since Conrad.' Geoffrey Moorhouse, The Guardian 'Unfailingly witty and entertaining.' Salman Rushdie Coasting round Britain single-handed in an antique two-masted sailing boat, Jonathan Raban conducts a masterly exploration of England and the English at the time of Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands War. He moves seamlessly between awkward memories of childhood as the son of a vicar, a vivid chronicle of the shape-shifting sea and incisive descriptions of the people and communities he encounters. As he faces his terror of racing water, eddies, offshore sandbars and ferries on a collision course, so he navigates the complex and turbulent waters of his own middle age. Coasting is a fearless attempt to discover the meaning of belonging and of his English homeland.

On 4 August 2020 a massive explosion in the port area obliterated parts of Beirut and damaged many others, bringing fresh international attention to a city already recovering from civil war and weakened by economic instability. This book contributes to the rediscovery of Beirut by inviting the visitor and reader to explore a city that is unique in the region for its multicultural heritage, where antiquity jostles with Ottoman and French colonial influence as well as with striking expressions of modernity. The history of Beirut, as with so many other cities, is multi-layered; but this is exceptionally conspicuous in the cultural, denominational and economic diversity of its neighbourhoods. These are best investigated slowly and on foot, a strategy both practicable and pleasurable despite a tyrannical car culture. Between 2019 and 2021, in the aftermath of the explosion, Beatrice Teissier walked through the city's streets and recorded her impressions as a record of Beirut's architectural fabric and turbulent recent history. Beirut: Scarred City offers twelve itineraries in parts of west, central and east Beirut, with a foray south, which take the reader to easily accessible areas of the city. From crumbling mansions to brutalist high-rises, from seascapes to inner-city parks and cemeteries, from ancient ruins to the latest reconstruction, from graffiti to international street art and contemporary art galleries, each area tells its story. The present crisis is not avoided, and the author discusses Lebanon's economic crisis, the political problems that have beset the city since the civil war and the controversies surrounding reconstruction. References to contemporary Arab literature on Beirut and, more personally, private insights and conversations give voice to the spirit of the city and to the resilience and creativity of its citizens.

Norman Lewis was eighty-three years old when in 1991 he embarked on a series of three arduous journeys into the most contentious corners of Indonesia: into the extreme western edge of Sumatra, into East Timor and Irian Jaya. He never drops his guard, reporting only on what he can observe, and using his well-honed tools of irony, humour and restraint to assess the power of the ruling Javanese generals who for better or worse took over the 300-year old dominion of the exploitative Dutch colonial regime. An Empire of the East is the magnificent swan-song of Britain's greatest travel writer: unearthing the decimation of the tropical rain forests in Sumatra, the all but forgotten Balinese massacre of the communists in 1965, the shell-shocked destruction of East Timor, the stone-age hunter-gathering culture of the Yali tribe (in western Papua New Guinea) and perhaps most chilling of all, his visit to the Freeport Copper mine in the sky - which is like a foretaste of the film Avatar - but this time the bad guys, complete with a well-oiled publicity department, triumph. He left us with a brilliant book, that reveals his passion for justice and his delight in every form of human society and still challenges our complacency and indifference.

In sy nuutste boek het Dana van sy ware ontmoetings geboekstaaf – ontmoetings met mense, maar soms ook met dinge – die vleispastei, of tuisgemaakte braai-apparate. Die stories het hy aanvanklik op Facebook gepos. Die wat die grootste reaksie gekry het is hierin verwerk. 'n Ware interaktiewe Suid-Afrikaanse boek.

Washed by the surging waves of the Atlantic Ocean, the island chain of Scotland's Outer Hebrides lies at the very edge of Europe. From white shell sands, peaty moors and gnarly mountains to heather hills, sea-green lochs and mysterious ancient monuments, these are places of unrivalled beauty. This book is a fabulous invitation to discover the unique magic of Lewis and Harris, Berneray, North Uist, Grimsay, Benbecula, South Uist, Eriskay, Bara and Vatersay, as well as the vibrant Gaelic culture of the islanders. Packed with fascinating insights, hidden gems and helpful information, it offers the uplifting opportunity for meaningful travels and life-affirming experiences in these extraordinary islands.

The Oxus in Afghanistan's High Pamir is one of the greatest rivers of the world, and also one of the least known. Running through the core of Central Asia, it is unusual in a myriad of ways--the most surprising of which is that it never reaches the sea. Through the centuries, the majestic Oxus has been the source of legends. For explorers and travelers in Central Asia, the Oxus provided an enduring mystery--where exactly was its source? In 2008 Bill Colegrave and two colleagues set out to find the true source and settle the argument for once and all. No easy task, but they succeeded. This is a vivid account of this quest, and also tells of the author's previous precarious visits to one of the most unstable regions of the world. Bill Colegrave brings to life an extraordinary cast of characters--including those Victorian adventurers, soldiers, and statesmen who traveled before him, as well as his fellow explorers and guides on his own extraordinary adventure.

The Seven Seas is a celebration of the sea, and of the seven oceans on earth, in poetry and painting. The land, the seven continents of our planet, usually takes centre stage with its diverse populations of flora and fauna, and humanity - ourselves. But this book gives first place to the water, the element that covers some seventy per cent of the earth's surface, and the life above and within it. The volume is organised to reveal the nature and character of the seven oceans ('the seven seas', as poets have traditionally called them) and the principal ports that link them as one vast waterway. It contains a series of seven voyages which together comprise one extensive and imaginary tour of the world, encircling the globe three times at different latitudes and visiting both the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans at the northern and southern extremes. After a lively Foreword and a learned Introduction, describing the ocean today and its history, the sea-routes and landfalls of the voyage - and also providing a short account of the arts of poetry and painting - the book is arranged in seven chapters representing each of 'the seven seas' in turn, beginning and ending at Greenwich. The imaginary voyage explores the North Atlantic first, followed by the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, then the Antarctic, before turning northwards again to tour the South Atlantic, passing through the Panama Canal to reach the South and North Pacific, and finally the Arctic Ocean, the Baltic and North Sea, before returning home. Each port of call is characterised in Sandra Lello's delightful illustrations and thoughtful verses from the pen of John Elinger, who are each experienced travellers and cruise-lecturers.

A facsimile edition of Bradshaw's Handbook of 1863, the book that inspired the BBC television series 'Great British Railway Journeys'. When Michael Portillo began the series 'Great British Railway Journeys', a well-thumbed 150-year-old book shot back to fame. The original Bradshaw's guides had been well known to Victorian travellers and were produced when the British railway network was at its peak and as tourism by rail became essential. It was the first national tourist guide specifically organized around railway journeys, and this beautifully illustrated facsimile edition offers a glimpse through the carriage window at a Britain long past.

Memories of Chinatown is a Singapore classic and is now republished with a new visual interpretation by watercolour artist Graham Byfield. Both a memoir and a narrative guide to the vibrant spirit of a bygone Singapore, it is written by much loved 'walking treasure' and heritage tour pioneer Geraldene Lowe-Ismail. Blessed with a rich trove of stories and personal knowledge stretching over 50 years, Geraldene delivers a unique insight into the glory and past of one of Southeast Asia's truly original Chinatowns. For anyone interested in heritage architecture and culture, this is a fascinating read.

In Wild Winter, John D. Burns, bestselling author of The Last Hillwalker and Bothy Tales, sets out to rediscover Scotland's mountains, remote places and wildlife in the darkest and stormiest months. He traverses the country from the mouth of the River Ness to the Isle of Mull, from remote Sutherland to the Cairngorms, in search of rutting red deer, pupping seals, minke whales, beavers, pine martens, mountain hares and otters. In the midst of the fierce weather, John's travels reveal a habitat in crisis, and many of these wild creatures prove elusive as they cling on to life in the challenging Highland landscape. As John heads deeper into the winter, he notices the land fighting back with signs of regeneration. He finds lost bothies, old friendships and innovative rewilding projects, and - as Covid locks down the nation - reflects on what the outdoors means to hillwalkers, naturalists and the folk who make their home in the Highlands. Wild Winter is a reminder of the wonder of nature and the importance of caring for our environment. In his winter journey through the mountains and bothies of the Highlands, John finds adventure, humour and a deep sense of connection with this wild land.

Bookshop Tours of Britain is a slow-travel guide to Britain, navigating bookshop to bookshop. Across 18 bookshop tours, the reader journeys from the Jurassic Coast of southwest England, over the mountains of Wales, through England's industrial heartland, up to the Scottish Highlands and back via Whitby, the Norfolk Broads, central London, the South Downs and Hardy's Wessex. On their way, the tours visit beaches, castles, head down coal mines, go to whiskey distilleries, bird watching, hiking, canoeing, to stately homes and the houses of some of Britain's best-loved historic writers - and last but not least, a host of fantastic bookshops.

HEARD ISLAND, an improbably remote speck in the far Southern Ocean, lies four thousand kilometres to the south-west of Australia - with Antarctica its nearest continent. By 1964 it had been the object of a number of expeditions, but none reaching the summit of its 9000-foot volcanic peak "Big Ben'. In that year Warwick Deacock resolved to rectify this omission, and assembled a party of nine with impressive credentials embracing mountaineering, exploration, science and medicine, plus his own organisation and leadership skills as a former Major in the British Army. But first they had to get there. Heard had no airstrip and was on no steamer route; the only way was by sea in their own vessel. Approached from Australia, the island lay in the teeth of the 'Roaring Forties'and 'Furious Fifties'. One name, only, came to mind as the skipper to navigate them safely to their destination, and safely home - the veteran mountaineer turned high-latitude sailor H. W. 'Bill' Tilman, already renowned for his 'sailing to climb' expeditions to Patagonia, Greenland and Arctic Canada, and the sub-Antarctic archipelagos of Crozet and Kerguelen, to the north-west of Heard Island. He readily 'signed on' to Warwick Deacock's team of proven individuals and their well-found sailing vessel Patanela. In this first-hand account, as fresh today as on its first publication fifty years ago, Philip Temple invites us all on this superbly conducted, happy and successful expedition, aided by many previously unpublished photographs by Warwick Deacock. 'The Skipper' - a man not free with his praise - described the enterprise as 'a complete thing'. photographs, maps, drawings

The world is full of places that inspire and bring us joy: they might be exceptionally beautiful, resonant with history, untouched by civilisation or rich in memory. This is an atlas that gathers together some of the most enchanting and reinvigorating places around the world in order to heal and captivate, including beautiful destinations in Greece, Italy, Japan, America, Chile and Australia, to name but a few. We’re taken to the tops of mountains, solitary cliffs, elegant cities and also some less expected locations: airports, hydroelectric stations and meteorite craters. Great travellers have always known that travelling can broaden the mind; here we see how it can also heal it. A Therapeutic Atlas reminds us that the world is far broader and more inspiring than we tend to appreciate day to day. Tempting images are combined with short essays that discuss the power of particular places to help us with the difficulties of being human. We locate places that are therapeutic because they coax us out of familiar patterns of thought and liberate our minds. This is a book that can be read when travelling, as a real-life atlas, but as importantly, when travel is difficult, it reminds us that there is no place like home and the sanctuary of our own bed.

A SPECTATOR and PROSPECT Book of the Year 'Ceaselessly interesting, knowledgeable and evocative' Spectator 'A fresh way to write history' Alan Johnson 'A quirky, amused, erudite homage to France . . . ambitious and original' The Times _____ France: An Adventure History is a profoundly original and endlessly entertaining history of France, from the first century BC to the present day, based on countless new discoveries and thirty years of exploring France on foot, by bicycle and in the library. Beginning with the Roman army's first recorded encounter with the Gauls and ending with the Gilets Jaunes protests in the era of Emmanuel Macron, each chapter is an adventure in its own right. Along the way, readers will find the usual faces, events and themes of French history - Louis XIV, the French Revolution, the French Resistance, the Tour de France - but all presented in a shining new light. Graham Robb does not offer a standard dry list of facts and dates, but instead a panorama of France, teeming with characters, full of stories, journeys and coincidences, giving readers a thrilling sense of discovery and enlightenment. France: An Adventure History is a vivid, living history of one of the world's most fascinating nations by a ceaselessly entertaining writer in complete command of subject and style. _____ 'A rich and vibrant narrative . . . clear-eyed but imaginative storytelling' Financial Times 'Full of life' Prospect

Following on from the best-selling first volume of his autobiography, Within Whicker's World, Alan Whicker presents a hugely entertaining and characteristically insightful second volume that will delight his army of devoted fans. We've all been around the world many times with Alan Whicker - and every expedition has been fun. Our guide and travelling companion for over forty years, this wry observer has revealed secret worlds and let us eavesdrop on the powerful, the villainous, the exotic...Throughout his years as Foreign Correspondent and then television's Man Around the World, Whicker has covered everything from wars and revolutions to plastic surgery and mudmen. His belief that you can ask anyone anything as long as you do it pleasantly gained him access to the elusive and the secret: voodoo rituals in Haiti, drug squads in Singapore, bank raids in San Francisco, ashrams in India, polar bears in Alaska - even the social fortress of Palm Beach. With instinctive curiosity and a nose for a great story, he has lived a life of adventure, excitement and danger, winning a raft of awards from peers and public. His genius is to make everything that happens in Whicker's World look easy. This lightness of touch encourages the hesitant interviewee, disarms the threatening Dictator. Whicker has influenced a generation of fellow journalists, helped the careers of a gaggle of impersonators and, most important of all, encouraged the rest of us to travel and explore. In this book, we go with him to the palaces of the Sultan of Brunei, watch Luciano Pavarotti make life hell on a paradise island and consider the mysterious death of a colleague on the First Sea Lord's flagship. We learn why India is the best place to murder your husband, and discover the amiable Mexican sponger who was a top state secret policeman. We meet a little old Californian lady who always shot them straight between the eyes and a dolphin who accepts credit cards. In a dusty African game park one cheetah and 156 people struggle to overcome a Masai curse