This handbook offers a systematic exploration of current key topics in travel writing studies. It addresses the history, impact, and unique discursive variety of British travel writing by covering some of the most celebrated and canonical authors of the genre as well as lesser known ones in more than thirty close-reading chapters. Combining theoretically informed, astute literary criticism of single texts with the analysis of the circumstances of their production and reception, these chapters offer excellent possibilities for understanding the complexity and cultural relevance of British travel writing.

Paul Theroux, the author of the train travel classics The Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express, takes to the rails once again in this account of his epic journey through China. He hops aboard as part of a tour group in London and sets out for China's border. He then spends a year traversing the country, where he pieces together a fascinating snapshot of a unique moment in history. From the barren deserts of Xinjiang to the ice forests of Manchuria, from the dense metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing, and Canton to the dry hills of Tibet, Theroux offers an unforgettable portrait of a magnificent land and an extraordinary people.

In 2002 Guillermo Fesser quit his morning radio talk show in Madrid, and moved with his family to Rhinebeck, N.Y., for a sabbatical year. Finding himself in a rural community 6,000 miles from home and 100 miles from New York City, Fesser began to discover an America he had never imagined existed.

"One Hundred Miles from Manhattan" is a fresh, funny, positive and affectionate portrait of life in small-town America and beyond. This book is filled with the stories of the people Fesser met, the places he visited and the things he learned during his year in Rhinebeck. From the German neighbors who welcome in the New Year by jumping back and forth from the couch to the coffee table to a Texan rancher who follows Native American traditions in the raising of bison. From a guide who leads fishing expeditions into Alaska s Kuskokwim Mountains to the engineer responsible for the steam conduction system in Manhattan s underbelly. And from a former follower of Reverend Moon-turned-track coach to the man who created Big Bird.

" One Hundred Miles from Manhattan" is a book that Jon Stewart should have written. But he couldn t have since he rarely leaves Manhattan. Thankfully Guillermo Fesser did. This famous Spanish wit dispels pre-conceived notions about America by using good old wanderlust and fresh eyes to document what a rich country we are. Not materially; but in spirit, history and character. Guillermo should sit back down and try his hand at the great American novel. Bill Owens, Executive Editor, 60 Minutes, CBS

Fesser looks at daily life through a unique lens. "One Hundred Miles from Manhattan" is wacky, funny and full of characters I would like to meet. Bravo Pedro Almodovar, Filmmaker

With fast-paced and witty storytelling, going well beyond the stereotypes and cliches we are so used to hearing about America, Fesser captures the true essence of this country and its people, their vast cultural wealth and exhilarating complexity. Juan Manuel Benitez, Anchor, NY1, New York City

As he struggled to reconcile what he learned from the people he met with his preconceptions about the U.S., their tales became fodder for a bestseller in Spain: "A Cien Millas de Manhattan." Now the book has just been translated into English, giving Guillermo a crack at surprising you about a place you know. You should let him. Nick Leiber, Editor, Bloomberg Businessweek, New York City

About the author: Guillermo Fesser is a Spanish journalist mostly known in his country for his innovative morning radio talk show, Gomaespuma, which ran 25 years and had over 1 million listeners.

Fesser studied journalism at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid and filmmaking at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles via a Fulbright scholarship. He has written and directed films; edited and hosted television news programs; and published articles in the major Spanish newspapers "El Pais" and "El Mundo."

Fesser lives with his family in Rhinebeck, New York, where he broadcasts weekly stories on life in small-town America to Onda Cero Radio in Spain and blogs for "The Huffington Post.""

'I am already planning the next adventure. The wanderlust that infected me has no cure.' It all started in Fishguard in the mid-1970s when, aged fifteen, Martyn Howe and a friend set off on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path armed with big rucksacks, borrowed boots, a Primus stove and a pint of paraffin, and a thirst for adventure. After repeating the route almost thirty years later, Martyn was inspired to walk every National Trail in England and Wales, plus the four Long-Distance Routes (now among the Great Trails) in Scotland. His 3,000-mile journey included treks along the South West Coast Path, the Pennine Way, the Cotswold Way and the West Highland Way. He finally achieved his ambition in 2016 when he arrived in Cromer in Norfolk, only to set a new goal of walking the England and Wales Coast Paths and the Scottish National Trail. In Tales from the Big Trails, Martyn vividly describes the diverse landscapes, wildlife, culture and heritage he encounters around the British Isles, and the physical and mental health benefits he derives from walking. He also celebrates the people who enrich his travels, including fellow long-distance hikers, tourists discovering Britain's charm, farmers working the land, and the friendly and eccentric owners of hostels, campsites and B&Bs. And when he is asked 'Why do you do it?', the answer is as simple as placing one foot in front of the other: 'It makes me happy.'

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

A stunningly illustrated history of Venice, from its beginnings as 'La Serenissima' – 'the Most Serene Republic' – to the Italian city that continues to enchant visitors today. 'Everything about Venice,' observed Lord Byron, 'is, or was, extraordinary – her aspect is like a dream, and her history is like a romance.' Dream and romance have conditioned myriad encounters with Venice across the centuries, but the city's story embodies another kind of experience altogether – the hard reality of an independent state built on conquest, profit and entitlement and on the toughness and resilience of a free people. Masters of the sea, the Venetians raised an empire through an ethos of service and loyalty to a republic that lasted a thousand years. In this new and beautifully illustrated study of key moments in Venice's history, from its half-legendary founding amid the collapse of the Roman empire to its modern survival as a fragile city of the arts menaced by saturation tourism and rising sea levels, Jonathan Keates shows us just how much this remarkable place has contributed to world culture and explains how it endures as an object of desire and inspiration for so many.

57 essays, poems, and engaging tales written by fifty-four "characters with character" including artists, news editors, elected officials, restaurateurs, shopkeepers, clergy, students, historians, visitors, and locals with one thing in common...they have all fallen in love with a town called New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Here is your chance to get an insider's view of New Hope. Partake in the history, explore the area's natural beauty, become acquainted with the locals, and discover for yourself why this town holds a special place in so many hearts. When you turn the last page, you will feel as if you have made a host of new friends and that you, too, have become part of the New Hope story.

As one author quipped, "Thanks for embracing me, New Hope-'cause I'm hugging you back with everything I've got." Feel the exuberance and the warmth. Step into the circle. Catch the good vibe in Embraceable You . . . and pass it on!

One of The Economist's Best Books of the Year

From the bestselling author of Oracle Bones and River Town comes the final book in his award-winning trilogy on the human side of the economic revolution in China.

Peter Hessler, whom the Wall Street Journal calls "one of the Western world's most thoughtful writers on modern China," deftly illuminates the vast, shifting landscape of a traditionally rural nation that, having once built walls against foreigners, is now building roads and factory towns that look to the outside world.

Democracy is a living, breathing thing and Erica Benner has spent a lifetime thinking about the role ordinary citizens play in keeping it alive: from her childhood in post-war Japan, where democracy was imposed on a defeated country, to working in post-communist Poland, with its sudden gaps of wealth and security. This book draws on her experiences and the deep history of self-ruling peoples – going back to ancient Greece, the French revolution and Renaissance Florence – to rethink some of the toughest questions that we face today.

What do democratic ideals of equality mean in a world obsessed with competition, wealth, and greatness? How can we hold the powerful to account? Can we find enough common ground to keep sharing democratic power in the future? Challenging well-worn myths of heroic triumph over tyranny, Benner reveals the inescapable vulnerabilities of people power, inviting us to consider why democracy is worth fighting for and the role each of us must play.

Die laaste reis is Karel Schoeman se “reisbriewe” ? mymeringe, gedagtes en herinneringe van sy laaste drie kort reise na Lesotho saam met Jemina Meko en Mamohau Lekula wat hom die afgelope nege jaar versorg het. Dit behels drie kort verslae oor sy besoeke in die maand voor sy dood en is in die vorm van e-posse aan ’n paar “persoonlike korrespondente” gestuur. Vanselfsprekend staan die tema van afskeid sentraal in die briewe.

BLACK TENTS OF ARABIA, by Carl Raswan, has been praised as a love story, as an adventure story, as a travel book, and as an insider's vision of a much-misunderstood people. It is all of those things, and if Raswan had been given a free hand it would also have been a definitive study of the Arabian Horse; but the editors of Little, Brown, and Company were not horsemen, and in 1934 Raswan was not yet famous enough to override them. They made him condense the story of his first year in Arabia to a single chapter, and rearrange the other material to keep the love-story up front. "I suppose it made a better book," Raswan commented wistfully, "though they made me leave out enough for several more." It made a book that has been loved in all its incarnations for sixty-seven years; but horse-lovers have always wished there were more about horses in it, and Mrs. Carl Raswan has expanded this edition to include a selection of her husband's early articles. Readers can learn more about his first trip to Arabia in his adventure book Drinkers of The Wind, and more about Arabian-breeding in The Arab and His Horse and The RASWAN INDEX. All three are available from Mrs. Carl Raswan, 16002 Walnut Creek, San Antonio, TX 78247.

Taken for Wonder focuses on nineteenth century travelogues authored by Iranians in Europe and argues for a methodological shift from the study of travel to that of writing travel. This shift allows for a different interpretive framework that moves away from an over-emphasis on the destinations of travel (particularly in cases where the destination, like Europe, signifies larger meanings such as modernity) and which historicizes the travelogue itself as a rhetorical text in the service of its origin's concerns and developments. Within this framework, this book demonstrates the ways in which travel writings to Europe were used to position Qajar Iran (1917-1925) within a global context, i.e. narration of travel to Europe was also narrating the power of the Qajar court even when political events were tipped against it; and relatedly, how both travel to Europe and also translations of travel narratives into Persian should be included in our understanding of the importance of geography and mapping to the Qajars, especially during the latter half of the nineteenth century. In this process, it also re-examines the notion that Iranian modernity was the chief outcome of Iranians travelling in and writing about Europe.

In 2013, three friends set off on a journey that they had been told was impossible: the north-south crossing of the Congo River Basin, from Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to Juba, in South Sudan.Traversing two and a half thousand miles of the toughest terrain on the planet in a twenty-five year old Land Rover, they faced repeated challenges, from kleptocracy and fire ants to non-existent roads and intense suspicion from local people. Through imagination and teamwork - including building rafts and bridges to cross rivers, conducting makeshift surgery in the jungle and playing tribal politics - they got through. But the Congo is raw, and the journey took an unexpected psychological toll on them all.Crossing the Congo is a story of friendship, what it takes to complete a great journey against tremendous odds, and an intimate look into one of the world's least-developed and most fragile states.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

In 1878 a young man named William Pryer was sent to North Borneo (now Sabah) to 'establish' the British North Borneo Company there. In 1894 his wife Ada published her account of his early years as an administrator along with some sketches of their life together. The memoir has unique value both as a travel narrative in its own right and for understanding the international politics of the British takeover of North Borneo. The new edition will reproduce the text of the original 1894 edition, including an introductory essay as well as annotations to explain and contextualize references of historical and biographical significance.

Cairngorms: A Secret History is a series of journeys exploring barely known human and natural stories of the Cairngorm Mountains. It looks at a unique British landscape, its last great wilderness, with new eyes. History combines with travelogue in a vivid account of this elemental scenery. There have been rare human incursions into the Cairngorm plateau, and Patrick Baker tracks them down. He traces elusive wildlife and relives ghostly sightings on the summit of Ben Macdui. From the search for a long-forgotten climbing shelter and the locating of ancient gem mines, to the discovery of skeletal aircraft remains and the hunt for a mysterious nineteenth-century aristocratic settlement, he seeks out the unlikeliest and most interesting of features in places far off the beaten track. The cultural and human impact of this stunning landscape and reflections on the history of mountaineering are the threads which bind this compelling narrative together.

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.