Good luck, my friend. Simple words said in passing by a holy man to David Grier on the streets of Mumbai. Grier didn’t know the man; he hardly saw him, in fact, but that encounter was a sign that the madcap idea he was investigating – whether or not it was, in fact, possible to run the length of India - was something he had to do. With his hardy yet comical crew, he set off to run from the northernmost Hindu temple in the Himalayan foothills of Kashmir right down to the southern tip of India. Through mountain ranges and across rich farmlands and forests; dodging traffic, battling through smog-choked cities and across desert salt plains; fjording rivers and running (unwittingly) through a tiger sanctuary, they ran and ran. Armed with GPSs, maps and helpful directions, they got lost in India. But through its beauty, its heaving masses and the remarkable resilience of its people, they found themselves, 93 days and 4 008 km later, emerging a whole lot wiser at their journey’s end.

As a practising mortician, Caitlin Doughty has long been fascinated by our pervasive terror of dead bodies. In From Here to Eternity she sets out in search of cultures unburdened by such fears. With curiosity and morbid humour, Doughty introduces us to inspiring death-care innovators, participates in powerful death practices almost entirely unknown in the West and explores new spaces for mourning - including a futuristic glowing-Buddha columbarium in Japan, a candlelit Mexican cemetery, and America's only open-air pyre. In doing so she expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with 'dignity' and reveals unexpected possibilities for our own death rituals.

In "The Hill of Kronos", Peter Levi paints a radiant portrait of the Greece he came to know through a lifetime of exploration. As a young scholar he sought out its ancient spirit, the keys to its mythology and civilisation, in its ruined cities and majestic mountains. Later, as a priest working as a diplomat and a friend of the oppressed, he lived in Athens through the dark days of the dictatorship. Then the sinews of political life led back to secret alliances made during the civil war and the earlier occupation of Greece, back to murder, starvation and corpse-filled quarries. Lastly, it is seen through the mature eyes of a family man, with the ripened sensibility of an acclaimed poet. This is a precious fusion of experience, a gift of insight from one philhellene to all those who have come to love Greece.

Discover white sandy beaches, fly a Spitfire and tuck in to the perfect fish & chips.

If you want to skydive or swim with sharks, stop reading now. This book is all about achievable adventures that celebrate the very best of Britain. Travel writer Richard Madden has compiled the ultimate bucket list of unique experiences that can be enjoyed in the UK from cheese rolling in Gloucestershire and stargazing in Northumberland, to a cliff- top theatre in Cornwall or an opera with a champagne picnic and magnificent views of the South Downs.

The adventures to be ticked off the list also include glamping, exploring ancient castles and foraging for wild food. And of course (this being Britain) there are plenty of ideas for rainy days.

This volume focuses on how travel writing contributed to cultural and intellectual exchange in and between the Dutch- and German-speaking regions from the 1790s to the twentieth-century interwar period. Drawing on a hitherto largely overlooked body of travelers whose work ranges across what is now Germany and Austria, the Netherlands and Dutch-speaking Belgium, the Dutch East Indies and Suriname, the contributors highlight the interrelations between the regional and the global and the role alterity plays in both spheres. They therefore offer a transnational and transcultural perspective on the ways in which the foreign was mediated to audiences back home. By combining a narrative perspective on travel writing with a socio-historically contextualized approach, essays emphasize the importance of textuality in travel literature as well as the self-positioning of such accounts in their individual historical and political environments. The first sustained analysis to focus specifically on these neighboring cultural and linguistic areas, this collection demonstrates how topographies of knowledge were forged across these regions by an astonishingly diverse range of travelling individuals from professional scholars and writers to art dealers, soldiers, (female) explorers, and scientific collectors. The contributors address cultural, aesthetic, political, and gendered aspects of travel writing, drawing productively on other disciplines and areas of scholarly research that encompass German Studies, Low Countries Studies, comparative literature, aesthetics, the history of science, literary geography, and the history of publishing.

In Dana se nuwe bundel vertel hy die stories van ons land se mense, die gewone mense, mense wat sommerso onder die radar leef... Eg, warm en gevul met deernis, soos ons Dana leer ken en leer liefkry het. Hy skryf met groot nederigheid en respek oor die mense wat andersinds ongesiens lewe en in die proses verryk en verruim hy ons. Boonop is hy dikwels skreeusnaaks.

An enthralling, rollicking tour among the storytellers of the American Deep South. The story of the South is not finished. The southeastern states of America, the old Confederacy, bristle with storytellers who refuse to be silent. Many of the tales passed down from generation to generation to be told and re-told continue to change their shape to suit their time, stretching elastically to find new ways of retailing the People's Truth. Travelling back and forth, from the Carolinas to Louisiana, from the Appalachians to Atlantic islands, from Virginian valleys to Florida swamps, and sitting before bewitching storytellers who tell her tales that hold her hard, Pamela Petro gathers up a fistful of history, and sieves out of it the shiny truths that these stories have been polishing over the years. Here is another America altogether, lingering on behind the facade of the ubiquitous strip-mall of anodyne, branded commerce and communication, moving to other rhythms, reaching back into the past to clutch at the shattering events that shaped it and haunt it still.

In June 2016, Rodrigo Duterte won the Philippine presidential election by a landslide. Infamous for his bombastic temper and un-PC wisecracks, he is waging a brutal drug war that has killed more than 12,000 people so far. Over the last nine years, British writer Tom Sykes has travelled extensively in the Philippines in order to understand the Duterte phenomenon, interviewing friends and enemies of 'The Punisher' -- as he is known -- in politics, the media, the arts and civil society. Sykes witnesses anti-government demonstrations in the capital Manila and visits the provincial city of Davao, where Duterte began his crusade against crime using police and vigilante death squads. By delving into Duterte's troubled childhood of violent rebellion, Sykes discovers what motivates the man today in his pursuit of a merciless 'war on the poor' -- as Amnesty has described it -- that has no end in sight. The Realm of the Punisher also examines oppressed and marginalized groups in the modern Philippines through encounters with a transgender rights campaigner, an 86-year-old former sex slave to the Japanese in the Second World War, a public artist who must work while under attack from Maoist rebels, and slum-dwellers resisting violent eviction by a real estate company. The past is never far away from these present-day problems and Sykes' travels to festivals, cemeteries, war memorials and a tomb housing an embalmed corpse reveal the ways in which key figures in Philippine history -- from Jose Rizal to Ferdinand Marcos -- have influenced current affairs. Funny, tragic, enlightening and uncompromising -- and infused with the author's strong sense of social justice -- The Realm of the Punisher is the first major travel book by a Westerner to explore Duterte's Philippines.

This outstanding collection of pieces, illustrated with his own superb photographs, is a unique record of Newby's travels all over the globe - and a lasting tribute to lost and fading worlds. One of the funniest and most entertaining of all travel writers, Eric Newby has been wandering the by-ways of the world for over half a century. Admired for his exceptional powers of observation, Newby's genius is also to capture the unexpected, the curious and the absurd on camera. Since his very first journey in 1938, Newby's quest for the unknown and the unusual has been insatiable. Whether on a dangerous canoe trip down the Wakwayowkastic River, with the pastoral people in the mountainous north of Spain, or visiting the exotic archipelago of Fiji, nothing escapes his eye for unlikely or amusing detail. A rare combination of travel writing and photography, What the Traveller Saw is an exhilarating record of Newby's humourous adventures over the years.

A Financial Times Travel Book of the Year 2021 Where can travel writing go in the twenty-first century? Author and lifelong travel writing aficionado Tim Hannigan sets out in search of this most venerable of genres, hunting down its legendary practitioners and confronting its greatest controversies. Is it ever okay for travel writers to make things up, and just where does the frontier between fact and fiction lie? What actually is travel writing, and is it just a genre dominated by posh white men? What of travel writing's queasy colonial connections? Travelling from Monaco to Eton, from wintry Scotland to sun-scorched Greek hillsides, Hannigan swills beer with the indomitable Dervla Murphy, sips tea with the doyen of British explorers, delves into the diaries of Wilfred Thesiger and Patrick Leigh Fermor, and gains unexpected insights from Colin Thubron, Samanth Subramanian, Kapka Kassabova, William Dalrymple and many others. But along the way he realises how much is at stake: can his own love of travel writing survive this journey? The Travel Writing Tribe tackles head on the fierce critical debates usually confined to strictly academic discussions of the genre. This highly original book compels readers and travellers of all kinds to think about travel writing in new ways.

Bruce Springsteen -- 'The Boss' -- has towered over the rock world since he shot to international fame with 'Born to Run' and other classics in the early 1970s. He has always been an outspoken advocate of his home state of New Jersey, which has produced many stars of stage, screen and the musical world, and was the backdrop for the international success of award-winning The Sopranos TV series. In this remarkable narrative of travel and cultural history, Oxford historian and author James Pettifer makes his own philosophical journey as a visiting scholar at Princeton University, where Springsteen's music becomes a metaphor for the nature of New Jersey society. Set within the kaleidoscope of life in the state with its rich and complex history, it takes place in the key year of 2007 with the release of the brilliant Magic album at the height of the Bush Administration and against the background of the intensifying Iraq War. This book explores the extraordinary loyalty New Jersey inspires among its cognoscenti as well as derision from its detractors. In a place of acute social contradictions, driving energy and vast differences in wealth, the glittering intellectual world of Princeton is a short Turnpike drive away from some of the most dangerous urban areas in the United States. The Jersey Shore is also a recurrent theme, with its romantic history, sinister marshlands, vast and beautiful sand dunes, and violent winter storms. In Meet You in Atlantic City James Pettifer has written a unique cultural history that will appeal to rock fans with its literary analysis of the 2007/8 Magic album tour, the last to include founder E Street Band members Danny Federici and Clarence Clemons. It is also a guide to the central role of New Jersey in American history generally, where decisive battles in the War of Independence were fought in and near Princeton, and where more recently the influence of crime and gambling on the social and economic forces that led to the Trump presidency was already in evidence.

Bruce Springsteen -- 'The Boss' -- has towered over the rock world since he shot to international fame with 'Born to Run' and other classics in the early 1970s. He has always been an outspoken advocate of his home state of New Jersey, which has produced many stars of stage, screen and the musical world, and was the backdrop for the international success of award-winning The Sopranos TV series. In this remarkable narrative of travel and cultural history, Oxford historian and author James Pettifer makes his own philosophical journey as a visiting scholar at Princeton University, where Springsteen's music becomes a metaphor for the nature of New Jersey society. Set within the kaleidoscope of life in the state with its rich and complex history, it takes place in the key year of 2007 with the release of the brilliant Magic album at the height of the Bush Administration and against the background of the intensifying Iraq War. This book explores the extraordinary loyalty New Jersey inspires among its cognoscenti as well as derision from its detractors. In a place of acute social contradictions, driving energy and vast differences in wealth, the glittering intellectual world of Princeton is a short Turnpike drive away from some of the most dangerous urban areas in the United States. The Jersey Shore is also a recurrent theme, with its romantic history, sinister marshlands, vast and beautiful sand dunes, and violent winter storms. In Meet You in Atlantic City James Pettifer has written a unique cultural history that will appeal to rock fans with its literary analysis of the 2007/8 Magic album tour, the last to include founder E Street Band members Danny Federici and Clarence Clemons. It is also a guide to the central role of New Jersey in American history generally, where decisive battles in the War of Independence were fought in and near Princeton, and where more recently the influence of crime and gambling on the social and economic forces that led to the Trump presidency was already in evidence.

This summer, here are the only recipes you need...

What is a 'summer kitchen'? In Ukraine, it means a small cooking space located in the veg garden, away from the main house. Calling on fond childhood memories and countless conversations and cooking sessions, Olia Hercules shows how you can truly make the most of summery ingredients to create new, inventive and utterly delicious plates of food. Her recipes include burnt aubergine butter on tomato toast, sourdough garlic buns and poppyseed cake with elderflower and strawberries - each bite more delicious than the last.

As you cook your way through generous salads, moreish mains and sweet delights, you'll discover a way of cooking that is both traditional and contemporary, because these techniques and flavour combinations have been handed down through generations, yet reworked for every home kitchen.

Summer Kitchens also has a detailed chapter on fermentation, preserving and pickling (an ancient practice in Ukraine) that will inspire beginners and frequent picklers alike. It's a gorgeous way to discover sustainable, healthy and delicious food for the summer and beyond.

Winner of the Prix Renaudot 2019 A New York Times Best Book of 2021 'Extraordinarily beautiful... a long last loving glance at the planet.' Carl Safina, author of Becoming Wild The Art of Patience sees the renowned French adventurer and writer set off for the high plateaux of remotest Tibet in search of the elusive snow leopard. There, in the company of leading wildlife photographer Vincent Munier and two companions, at 5,000 metres and in temperatures of -25C, the team set up their hides on exposed mountainsides, and occasionally in the luxury of an icy cave, to await a visitation from the almost mythical beast. This tightly focused and tautly written narrative is simultaneously a dazzling account of an exacting journey, an apprenticeship in the art of patience, an acceptance of the ruthlessness of the natural world and, finally, a plea for ecological sanity. A small masterpiece, it is one of those books that demands to be read again and again.

The earliest surviving instance of sustained first-person travel narrative in Arabic Mission to the Volga is a pioneering text of peerless historical and literary value. In its pages, we move north on a diplomatic mission from Baghdad to the upper reaches of the Volga River in what is now central Russia. In this colorful documentary from the tenth century, the enigmatic Ibn Fadlan relates his experiences as part of an embassy sent by Caliph al-Muqtadir to deliver political and religious instruction to the recently-converted King of the Bulghars. During eleven months of grueling travel, Ibn Fadlan records the marvels he witnesses on his journey, including an aurora borealis and the white nights of the North. Crucially, he offers a description of the Viking Rus, including their customs, clothing, body painting, and a striking account of a ship funeral. Together, these anecdotes illuminate a vibrant world of diversity during the heyday of the Abbasid Empire, narrated with as much curiosity and zeal as they were perceived by its observant beholder. An English-only edition.

One woman. One bike. One world. In 2018, over the course of 18,000 miles, amateur cyclist Jenny Graham smashed the round-the-world cycling record by nearly three weeks, finishing in 124 days and 11 hours. But her real achievement was a new relationship with herself and with the world. Alone and unsupported, Jenny left family and friends behind in Scotland to complete her mission: a solo lap of the planet by bike. Her inspiring story swerves from terrifying near collisions on the Russian roads and weather extremes in the southern hemisphere to the beauty of the Mongolian landscape and exhilarating wildlife encounters in North America. As she battles the physical and mental challenge to race against the clock, Jenny gradually opens up to the joy of the adventure itself and all its daily discoveries, and gives in to her impulse to connect with people. With infectious wit and honesty, Jenny recounts her friendships with strangers and the myriad different cultures she comes across that gave her a new perspective on the world. By the time Jenny crosses the finish line at the Brandenburg Gate she is a changed person, thanks to one humble bike, and the entire world. Jenny broke the record, but it was what she discovered about herself and the world around her that truly changed her.

In 1932 Evelyn Waugh left the salons of Mayfair for the savannah and rainforest of what was then British Guiana. The result: classic travel writing.

Like most travelers in Burma, Norman Lewis fell in love with the land and its people. Although much of the countryside was under the control of insurgent armies--the book was originally published in 1952--he managed, by steamboat, decrepit lorry, and dacoit-besieged train, to travel almost everywhere he wanted. This perseverance enabled him to see brilliant spectacles that are still out of our reach, and to meet all types of Burmese, from District officers to the inmates of Rangoon's jail. All the color, gaiety, and charm of the East spring to life with this master storyteller.

Join Sophie Pavelle on a low-carbon journey around Britain in search of ten animals and habitats threatened by climate change in the 21st century Forget-me-not - a beautiful flower and a plea from our islands' wildlife. When climate change has driven dozens of our most charismatic species to extinction, will they be forgotten? Like many of her generation, Sophie Pavelle is determined to demand action on climate change. In her hilarious and thought-provoking first book, she describes the trips she took to see ten rare native species: species that could disappear by 2050 and be forgotten by the end of the century if their habitats continue to decline. Sophie challenged herself to find them the low-carbon way, travelling the length of Britain on foot, by bicycle, in an electric car, by kayak, on ferries and in a lot of trains. From Bodmin Moor to the Orkney Islands, Sophie encountered species on the frontline of climate change in Britain. Which are going to be seriously affected, and why? Could some bounce back from the brink? Or are we too late to save them? Forget Me Not is a clarion call: we all need to play a part in tackling this most existential of threats. Everyone can see wildlife in the British Isles without contributing to its destruction. With joyful irreverence, Sophie shows us we can dare to hope. Journey with her, and she may even inspire you to take action for nature and head out on your own low-carbon adventure.

In 1910., Dr Hackmann started on a lengthy tour throughout Mongolia, China, Japan, Cambodia, Siam, and India, studying Buddhism and other Eastern Religions, Shintoism and Taoism. He returned to London in the spring of 1911, and published this book.

This summer holiday vintage classic exploring the mystery of a buried Cornish hotel invites us to solve the puzzle as detectives: perfect for Agatha Christie fans, with a dash of Richard Osman ... 'I am loving it!' Nigella Lawson 'Hilarious and perceptive ... Perfect.' Daily Mail 'Entertaining, beautifully written, and profound.' Tracy Chevalier 'Tense, touching, human, dire, and funny ... A feast indeed.' Elizabeth Bowen 'Kennedy is not only a romantic but an anarchist.' Anita Brookner 'Oh boy, what a treat; wonderfully sharp and funny ... Page-turningly good!' Lissa Evans 'So full of pleasure that you could be forgiven for not seeing how clever it is.' Cathy Rentzenbrink (foreword) Cornwall, Midsummer 1947. Pendizack Manor Hotel is buried in the rubble of a collapsed cliff. Seven guests have perished, but is it murder, and what brought this strange assembly together for a moonlit feast before this Act of God - or Man? Over the week before the landslide, we meet the hotel guests in all their eccentric glory: and as friendships form and romances blossom, sins are revealed, and the cliff cracks widen .. Reader Reviews: 'One of the best books I have ever read ... Viva Ms. Kennedy, you were truly marvellous!' ***** 'The best book I've ever read. Yes, I know that's a big statement! Kennedy is quickly becoming my all-time favorite author ... A first-rate literary genius.' ***** 'This is bar none, one of the best books I have ever read.' ***** 'Offers us the chance to solve a very unusual kind of mystery ... An unexpectedly engaging literary game.' **** 'A magnificent rediscovery ... Kennedy's masterpiece is a searing and unflinching look at postwar England ... Elegantly and tartly written, this smart and haunting novel offers one of the most unforgettable endings ... A brilliant and moving literary feast to be enjoyed without any moderation! ***** 'I'm longing to read this again! Clever Kennedy! Is it a thriller? Is it a morality play or an exploration of divine justice? Or is it a family/village saga and maybe even a romance? ... Terrifically readable with a marvellous cast.' ***** 'Such a good idea, and brilliantly executed ... I was unable to stop reading, absorbed completely in the company of the motley group. It's almost like you're eavesdropping on them. After finishing it, I find myself still thinking about it ... A fabulous read.' ***** 'One of my favorite kinds of books: a forgotten treasure..' *****