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Books > Travel > Travel writing
A Cult Classic, "The Way of the World" is one of the most beguiling
travel books ever written. Reborn from the ashes of a Pakistan
rubbish heap, it tells of a friendship between a writer and an
artist, forged on an impecunious, life-enhancing journey from
Serbia to Afghanistan in the 1950s. On one level it is a candid
description of a road journey, on another a meditation on travel as
a journey towards the self, all written by a sage with a golden pen
and a wide infectious smile. It is published here for the first
time in English with the Vernet drawings which are such a dynamic
part of its whole.
- 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.
Peter Mayne (1908-1979) is to Morocco what Peter Mayle is to
Provence or Lawrence Durrell to Greece. This 1953 classic in a new
edition captures the very essence of the people and place. Having
already learned to appreciate Muslim life when he was in Pakistan,
Mayne bought a house in the labyrinthine back streets of Marrakesh.
He wanted to settle there, not as a privileged visitor in a hotel
or grand villa, but as one of the inhabitants. He learned their
language, made friends, took part in their festivals, and wrote
their letters. This is not a travel book in the accepted sense of
the word - it is a record of personal experience in a region of
foreign life well beyond the tourist's eye. Mayne contrives in a
deceptively simple prose to disseminate in the air of an English
November the spicy odors of North Africa; he has turned, for an
hour, smog to shimmering sunlight, woven a texture of extraordinary
charm.
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.
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.
In 1934, at the peak of the Great Depression, A. G. Macdonell
embarked on a journey across America. This travelogue is the
deliciously scathing product of that adventure: a vivid and
unflinchingly honest record of life in the cities and the slums, on
the roads, railways, and the vast open plains. "The hot breath of
the Apocalyptic Horsemen is on my neck, and I still wake up on
occasions in peaceful England, cold with terror from the dream that
I am once again upon the road." By the time he departed for
America, Macdonell was an international celebrity, and as such, he
was afforded a privileged glimpse into both the glamour and the
gritty reality of 1930s America. With brutal humour he glides
effortlessly between lavish dinners and dances at the Plaza Hotel,
passionate football games comparable to the 'less pleasing
features' of the First World War, and the humbling 'Spirit of the
Pioneers' buried deep within the poverty-stricken cattle ranges of
Montana. While his descriptions can be savage and mocking,
Macdonell is also affectionate, compassionate, and startlingly
insightful.In A Visit to America, he gamely captures all that is
beautiful and repulsive about a country gripped in economic
turmoil; fascinating and timeless, it is an indulgence not to be
missed.
Seeking a temporary escape from the city and a world gone mad, Alan
Brown plots out a personal challenge: an epic coast-to-coast trip
through the lonely interior of the Highlands. He traverses paths
historic and new, eschewing creature comforts and high-tech gear,
trusting his (mostly) serviceable bike and his own skills. Armed
with the essentials and a sense of curiosity, he discovers more
about nature, people, our country, risk and himself than he ever
thought possible. Alan traces a route from Argyllshire's Loch Etive
across remote Rannoch moors, dramatic Grampian terrain and the
beautiful glens of Strathspey to reach the Moray Firth at Findhorn.
Ready for all weathers and obstacles, he succumbs to the hypnotic
daily routine of ride, eat, sleep, repeat. He's savouring the
landscapes, the wildlife and the solitude, and relishing the
self-reliance. He is also picking up clues to past lives and
discovering how the land has been altered by industry and game
sports or, sometimes, conserved for wildlife and trees.
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Edinburgh
- Picturesque Notes
(Hardcover)
Robert Louis Stevenson; Introduction by Alexander McCall Smith; Illustrated by Iain McIntosh; Cover design or artwork by Iain McIntosh
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R487
R439
Discovery Miles 4 390
Save R48 (10%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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'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.
Morbid, but strangely fascinating accounts In 2015, a group of
seven hikers were killed when a sudden flood struck Keyhole Canyon
in Zion National Park. Prior to that, the steep, narrow route to
Angels Landing led to at least five fatalities. Numerous people
have found that high, exposed places in Zion-such as rim trails-are
bad places to be in lightning storms. Death in Zion National Park
collects some of the most gripping accounts in park history of the
unfortunate events caused by natural forces or human folly.
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