Travel writing Books

Book SynopsisGoing It Aloneis the story of Tim Hauserman's conflict between wanting to be alone in the wilderness, and finding himself with deep feelings of fear and loneliness once he's gets there. Sure, he revels in the quiet of a dense forest, the soft lines of the shoreline of a shimmering mountain lake and the stark gray beauty of granite peaks, but he also gets the heebie jeebies in the face of a trail with a steep drop off or the sound of a bear crunching sticks next to his tent.After day hiking for years, he decided he wanted to stay in the wilderness when the sun set and be there again for its rising. So he set out on a series of backpack trips by himself. Solo takes the reader along as Tim hikes on the John Muir Trail through rainstorms and challenging climbs while facing stoves that don't work and lonely nights in the tent. Next, he heads out from his driveway onto a 14 day thru-hike of the Tahoe Rim Trail. Despite writing the guidebook to the TRT, he only truly discovers the trail when he thru-hikes it by himself. Finally, he travels to Minnesota to face bugs, drought, and sometimes non-existent trails on a section of the Superior Hiking Trail that he seems to have all to himself.The story combines self-deprecating humor, Stupid Tim Tricks and delightful descriptions of the natural surroundings. While some might call the wilderness the middle of nowhere, or nothingness, Tim believes it is everything. While his love for nature remains undaunted, he also discovers that he has overly high expectations for his capabilities and that just wishing loneliness away doesn't work. He eventually discovers that his long walks in the woods are less about hiking, than about learning how he wants to live his life.Table of Contents Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: What Was I Thinking? 1. Howling at the Half Moon 2. What the Q? 3. Six Days on the John Muir Trail 4. The Tahoe Rim Trail 5. The Superior Hiking Trail...Solo Hiking, Minnesota Style 6. Finding Peace at Fontanillis Epilogue Works Cited About the Author

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Book SynopsisAn engaging account of women’s travels in the early modern period. This book showcases three Frenchwomen who ventured far from home at a time when such traveling was rare. In 1639, Marie de l’Incarnation embarked for New France where she founded the first Ursuline monastery in present-day Canada. In 1750, Madame du Boccage set out at the age of forty on her first “grand tour.” She visited England, the Netherlands, and Italy where she experienced firsthand the intellectual liberty offered there to educated women. As the Reign of Terror gripped France, the Marquise de la Tour du Pin fled to America with her husband and their two young children, where they ran a farm from 1794 to 1796. The writings these women left behind detailing their respective journeys abroad represent significant contributions to early modern travel literature. This book makes available to anglophone readers three texts that are rich in both historical and literary terms. Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction The Other Voice Marie Guyart de l’Incarnation (1599–1672) Anne Marie Fiquet Du Boccage (1710–1802) Henriette-Lucie Dillon, Marquise de La Tour du Pin (1770–1853) Experiencing Otherness It will be there that I find bliss . . . Let us step outside our homeland, there will be a new being . . . The happiest moment of my existence . . . The Journey Narrative: Forms and Content The Missionary Letter The Familiar Letter The Autobiographical Memoir: A Hybrid Form Travel Writing and Gender as a Field of Investigation and a Source for Teaching Note on the Translations Travel NarrativesMarie de l’Incarnation, Correspondence Madame Du Boccage, Letters on England, Holland, and Italy Madame de La Tour du Pin, Journal of a Fifty-Year-Old Woman Appendix 1: Cécile de Sainte-Croix, The Story of Her Crossing and Arrival in Quebec (September 2, 1639) Appendix 2: Glossary of Places Appendix 3: Table of Currencies and Values Appendix 4: Chronology Bibliography Index of Names Thematic Index

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Book SynopsisCelebrated playwright, author and screenwriter Louis Nowra loves King Cross. A long-time resident, he makes us reimagine the most infamous and misunderstood place in Australia, a magnet for bohemianism, cosmopolitanism and organised crime. In a wildly energetic book that walks the streets, sits in bars, chats with the locals, and spends time in clubs and apartments where you wish the walls could talk, Nowra traverses the history and the future of his beloved neighbourhood. He burrows beneath the sensationalist Underbelly ‘sex and sin’ narrative, revealing stories and a cast of characters – some household names, others little-known – that not even a writer could conjure up. Kings Cross is a no-holds barred place where backpackers, prostitutes, strippers, chefs, mad men, poets, beggars, booksellers, doctors, gangsters, sailors, musicians, drug traffickers, eccentrics, judges and artists live side by side. Part flâneur, part historian and part eyewitness, Louis Nowra is the best possible guide to a place that is both real and a state of mind.

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Book SynopsisOutsiders think of South Australia as being different, without really knowing much about it. Combining his own travel across the million-square kilometres of the state with an investigation of its history, Ben Stubbs seeks to find out what South Australia is really like.In the spirit of the best travel writing and literary non-fiction, he lingers in places of quiet beauty and meets some memorable people. Along the way he debunks most of the clichés that plague the state. Travelling to Maralinga, Snowtown, Kangaroo Island, the Flinders Ranges, Coober Pedy, the storied Adelaide suburb of Elizabeth and the once-mighty river that is the Murray, Stubbs brings this diverse state to life. He even addresses head-on the question ‘Is South Australia weird?’Readers will find it hard to resist the book’s implicit invitation to take a look at places much closer to home, to take the time to drink in dramatic landscapes that are slow, deep and speckled with unforgettable characters. Uncovers the state’s fascinating history – the 1960s Maralinga atomic bomb tests, the stories of Marree where the first mosque in Australia was built, and where the long-running relationship between the desert and the Afghan Cameleers began The New York Times and Lonely Planet recently described South Australia as one of the best places in the world to visit

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the NSW Premier’s History Awards — Australian History Prize 2021 How vast then is forgetting – of language, of places, of the dead? Are these even things that can be measured? They are not – but they can be described. Amnesia Road is a powerful literary consideration of historic violence in two different parts of the world, the seldom-visited mulga plains of south-west Queensland and the backroads of rural Andalusia. It is also an unashamed celebration of the landscapes where this violence – frontier conflict and civil war – has been carried out. Australian Hispanist Luke Stegemann uncovers neglected history and its victims and asks where such forgotten people can find a place in contemporary debates around history, nationality, guilt and identity. Stegemann writes powerfully about these landscapes, finding threads of forgotten history, particularly the brutal murderous Indigenous history that is so often deliberately ignored and the mass killings of civilians in the Spanish Civil War, in Andalusia and Cádiz in particular. Characterised by beautiful, lush writing that remains unflinching, this book prompts us to consider traumatic history and the places where it unfolded in new ways.Trade Review‘This book will come to be regarded as a classic of Australian literature.’ — Nicolas Rothwell

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Book SynopsisDrawing upon his own travel experiences and those of others, Keith Forrester interrelates travel writing, tourism and serious commentary to produce an account of the delights, challenges and excitement of visiting old and new India. Banyan Tree Adventures: Travels in India is not the usual travelogue or tourist guide to India. It is a book that not only discusses the Indian experiences and views of non-domestic travellers in their explorations and adventures, but also a text that helps understand the simple question of why tourists keep returning to the country. What is it about India that prompts the interest and loyalty of returning tourists? Where do they go and why? What areas do tourists visit and what aspects of Indian culture, policy and history interests them? How do overseas tourists cope with and understand the shocking evidence of poverty while travelling around the country? Few countries embody the blending of tradition and the ancient with the new and the modern. So yes, it is a good time to be interested in and thinking about India. It’s an even better time to be travelling around the country.

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the representation of Wales and ‘Welshness’ in texts by French- (including Breton) and German-speaking travellers from 1780 to the present day. Since the emergence of the travel narrative as a popular source of information and entertainment in the mid-18th century, writing about Wales has often been embedded and hidden in accounts of travel to ‘England’. This book locates and presents these largely forgotten texts and broadens perspectives to encompass European perceptions. Works uncovered for the first time include travelogues, private correspondences, travel diaries, articles and blogs which have Wales or Welsh culture as their focus. The ‘travellers’ analysed in this volume include those travelling for the purpose of leisure, scholarship or commerce as well as exiles and refugees. By focusing on Wales, a minoritized nation at the geographical periphery of Europe, the authors are able to problematize notions of hegemony and identity, relating to both the places encountered (the ‘travellee’ culture) and the places of origin (the travellers’ cultures). This book thereby makes an original contribution to studies in travel writing and provides an important case study of a culture often minoritized in the field, but that nevertheless provides a telling illustration of the dynamics of intercultural relations and representation.Trade Review‘This rich, readable book surveys almost 250 years of writing by European travellers to Wales, from private letters to conventionally published works to contemporary digital forms. It broaches a remarkable, original field of research, encompasses a wide historical, linguistic, and critical range, and presents an impressive array of materials previously invisible to scholarship.’ Mererid Puw Davies, Modern Language Review‘This is an innovative book that combines cross-cultural dialogue with the “tourist gaze” in order to explain the gap between fabricated expectations and real destinations. Drawing on a wide literature and on neglected – sometimes anonymous – texts in French, German and Breton that the authors took great effort to uncover and recover, Hidden Texts, Hidden Nation is a substantial book that should be enjoyed not only by cultural historians of the period in question, but also by students, university teaching staff, translators, specialists in travel literature as well as anyone interested in the topic.’ Elena Butoescu, CompLitTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsChapter 1: Introduction: Hidden Texts, Hidden NationChapter 2: Landscape, Industry, Piety: Wales as a Site of Inspiration in Travel Writing in French from 1780 to 1905Chapter 3: Patriotism, Pan-Celticism and the Welsh Cultural Paradigm in Travel Writing in French from 1830 to 1900Chapter 4: Periphery, Modernity and the Discovery of Wales in Travel Writing in German from 1790 to 1850Chapter 5: Identity, Celtomania and the Narrative of Wales in Travel Writing in German from 1850 to 1905Chapter 6: Safe Haven, Literary Paradise and Present-Day Adventureland: Wales in Travel writing in Breton, French and German from 1945 to 2018Chapter 7: Conclusion: The Narrative of Wales: From Blind Spot to Blank CanvasBibliography

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Book SynopsisWhat is the purpose of travel in an age when millions are displaced against their will or have no home to speak of in the first place? How can we travel without being tourists, without erasing the stories of those who live where we visit? These are some of the questions addressed in Cristian Aliaga’s compelling collection of prose poems, Music for Unknown Journeys.This collection contains Aliaga’s “travelling sketches,” in the tradition of Matsuo Bashō, John Berger, or W.G. Sebald. Each prose poem is geographically situated in his travels across Patagonia or his more recent journeys around the edge-lands of Europe. His work is politically acute, exploring struggles over territory, resources, and culture, in the places he visits. There is an intense emotional charge as he records the stories of those who globalization and contemporary capitalism have used and left behind. This volume brings together a generous selection of Aliaga’s prose poems, the majority previously unseen in English, as well as a substantial introduction to the author’s work and its context, both literary and political, by the editor and translator.Cristian Aliaga (b. 1962, Tres Cuervos, Province of Buenos Aires) is one of Argentina’s foremost contemporary poets. His work has been highly praised in the TLS and elsewhere.Trade Review‘Music for Unknown Journeys by Christian Aliaga is the Argentinian poet’s first collection to be translated into English. [The poems] are highly evocative and full of wonderful, sometimes meticulous, details... Ben Bollig has done an effective job of capturing Aliaga’s voice in English. Bollig has also written an illuminating introduction.’ Leo Boix, Resistance and Defiance‘In his observations of ordinary people pursuing their daily bread, [Aliaga] cannot shake off a sense of timeless and universal human trauma... this volume will also be of interest to researchers engaged in work on contemporary poetic forms—and indeed short prose forms—and how they integrate with the tradition of the travelogue.’ Iona Macintyre, Modern Language ReviewTable of ContentsIntroductionThanks and AcknowledgmentsPart One. Unknown Music for Journeys: North and South American TravelsPoemsPart Two. The Foreign Passion (Revised and Expanded): European and African TravelsPoemsTranslator’s NotesIndex of Place Names

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Book SynopsisWhat is the purpose of travel in an age when millions are displaced against their will or have no home to speak of in the first place? How can we travel without being tourists, without erasing the stories of those who live where we visit? These are some of the questions addressed in Cristian Aliaga’s compelling collection of prose poems, Music for Unknown Journeys.This collection contains Aliaga’s “travelling sketches,” in the tradition of Matsuo Bashō, John Berger, or W.G. Sebald. Each prose poem is geographically situated in his travels across Patagonia or his more recent journeys around the edge-lands of Europe. His work is politically acute, exploring struggles over territory, resources, and culture, in the places he visits. There is an intense emotional charge as he records the stories of those who globalization and contemporary capitalism have used and left behind. This volume brings together a generous selection of Aliaga’s prose poems, the majority previously unseen in English, as well as a substantial introduction to the author’s work and its context, both literary and political, by the editor and translator.Cristian Aliaga (b. 1962, Tres Cuervos, Province of Buenos Aires) is one of Argentina’s foremost contemporary poets. His work has been highly praised in the TLS and elsewhere.Trade Review‘Music for Unknown Journeys by Christian Aliaga is the Argentinian poet’s first collection to be translated into English. [The poems] are highly evocative and full of wonderful, sometimes meticulous, details... Ben Bollig has done an effective job of capturing Aliaga’s voice in English. Bollig has also written an illuminating introduction.’ Leo Boix, Resistance and Defiance‘In his observations of ordinary people pursuing their daily bread, [Aliaga] cannot shake off a sense of timeless and universal human trauma... this volume will also be of interest to researchers engaged in work on contemporary poetic forms—and indeed short prose forms—and how they integrate with the tradition of the travelogue.’ Iona Macintyre, Modern Language ReviewTable of ContentsIntroductionThanks and AcknowledgmentsPart One. Unknown Music for Journeys: North and South American TravelsPoemsPart Two. The Foreign Passion (Revised and Expanded): European and African TravelsPoemsTranslator’s NotesIndex of Place Names

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the representation of Wales and ‘Welshness’ in texts by French- (including Breton) and German-speaking travellers from 1780 to the present day. Since the emergence of the travel narrative as a popular source of information and entertainment in the mid-18th century, writing about Wales has often been embedded and hidden in accounts of travel to ‘England’. This book locates and presents these largely forgotten texts and broadens perspectives to encompass European perceptions. Works uncovered for the first time include travelogues, private correspondences, travel diaries, articles and blogs which have Wales or Welsh culture as their focus. The ‘travellers’ analysed in this volume include those travelling for the purpose of leisure, scholarship or commerce as well as exiles and refugees. By focusing on Wales, a minoritized nation at the geographical periphery of Europe, the authors are able to problematize notions of hegemony and identity, relating to both the places encountered (the ‘travellee’ culture) and the places of origin (the travellers’ cultures). This book thereby makes an original contribution to studies in travel writing and provides an important case study of a culture often minoritized in the field, but that nevertheless provides a telling illustration of the dynamics of intercultural relations and representation.Trade Review‘This rich, readable book surveys almost 250 years of writing by European travellers to Wales, from private letters to conventionally published works to contemporary digital forms. It broaches a remarkable, original field of research, encompasses a wide historical, linguistic, and critical range, and presents an impressive array of materials previously invisible to scholarship.’ Mererid Puw Davies, Modern Language Review‘This is an innovative book that combines cross-cultural dialogue with the “tourist gaze” in order to explain the gap between fabricated expectations and real destinations. Drawing on a wide literature and on neglected – sometimes anonymous – texts in French, German and Breton that the authors took great effort to uncover and recover, Hidden Texts, Hidden Nation is a substantial book that should be enjoyed not only by cultural historians of the period in question, but also by students, university teaching staff, translators, specialists in travel literature as well as anyone interested in the topic.’ Elena Butoescu, CompLitTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsChapter 1: Introduction: Hidden Texts, Hidden NationChapter 2: Landscape, Industry, Piety: Wales as a Site of Inspiration in Travel Writing in French from 1780 to 1905Chapter 3: Patriotism, Pan-Celticism and the Welsh Cultural Paradigm in Travel Writing in French from 1830 to 1900Chapter 4: Periphery, Modernity and the Discovery of Wales in Travel Writing in German from 1790 to 1850Chapter 5: Identity, Celtomania and the Narrative of Wales in Travel Writing in German from 1850 to 1905Chapter 6: Safe Haven, Literary Paradise and Present-Day Adventureland: Wales in Travel writing in Breton, French and German from 1945 to 2018Chapter 7: Conclusion: The Narrative of Wales: From Blind Spot to Blank CanvasBibliography

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Book SynopsisEpicentre of the Revolution of 1789, erstwhile bastion of the skilled working-class and centre of radical agitation, along with Pigalle and Montmartre a focus for popular and raffish night-life in the early twentieth century, the Bastille area of Eastern Paris (also known as the Faubourg Saint-Antoine) is now an ethnically and socially mixed quartier which still bears the traces of its previous avatars. In a fascinating tour, Keith Reader charts the history and cultural geography of this unique area of Paris, from the fortress and prison that gave the area its name to the building of the largest and costliest opera house in the world.Trade ReviewWhat is provocative about the text is an underlying argument that Paris cannot yet be consigned as a living museum. It is this spark which catches fire soon into the book and makes it so entertaining and accessible … an important book not only because it illuminates one of the many shadowy places in Parisian history, but because it has an importance for anyone interested in cities and what they might mean. Andrew HusseyA wonderful piece of work that cuts a new path through French studies. Using topography to bring history, anthropology, literature and the arts into a single focus, the book is also a guide or mode d'emploi for each and all who have affection for Paris and, more broadly, gallic culture. Tom Conley, Harvard University'A well-argued, thoroughly-researched and scholarly work, it is vibrant and readable enough to interest a readership from outside the academic community from which Reader comes.' Urban LandfillThe book will be a useful reference work for students of literary and cinematic representations. It also fills a niche as a historical survey of an area that has played major roles in the political, economic, and leisure life of Paris. French HistoryThis in-depth study of the Place de la Bastille and its surroundings is a welcome addition to the study of the cultural history of Paris. The work is made even more appealing by the literary and cinematic depictions of the life in the quartier. The final chapter’s detailed description of present-day streetscapes is useful for visitors, who may now approach the area with a more informed attitude. Alice J. Strange, French Review, 85.4Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: The Place de la Bastille 1. What's that poor creature doing here? : the area and the fortress before the Revolution of 1789 2. 'Thought blew the Bastille apart': the fall of teh fortress and the revolutionary years, 1789- 1815 3. 'The strategy of the generals of Africa shattered': the Restoration, Orleanist and Second Republic Years, 1815-1851 4. 'Where is the noise of the storm that I love?: The Second Empire from Hausmann to the Commune 5. 'Satan's bagpipes' : La Belle Epoque's forty-three years of peace 6. 'Villains, stars and everybody in between': The First War and the 'entre-deux-guerres' 7. 'Slicked hair and splendid sideburns': Occupation and Liberation 8. Let's have some sun!: post- Gaullisma and the Mitterrand years 9. 'A building, not a monument': the construction of the Bastille Opera 10.'A real earthquake': the impact of the Opera on the quartier 11. Flanerie in the archive: the Faubourg/ Bastille today Notes Bibliography Index

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Book Synopsis'A Beard In Nepal 2. Return to the Village' is the story of Fiona and Tod's second visit to the village of Salle, high in the Himalayas of Nepal. They returned to take presents and supplies to the villagers. The book is again full of humour as the couple from Liverpool trek with Kalyani (the village school headmistress) to a remote, hidden valley where her new husband's family live, braving again those incredibly high, dangerous roads through the mountains. This book gives us more detail about the villagers lives, and the lives of the wonderful, happy village children, who live so very differently from their Western counterparts. It also touches on the downside of life in Nepal today; the corruption, the destruction of the forests, lack of electricity, and lack of clean water. 'A Beard In Nepal 2' tells us about Fiona and Tod's encounter with black, poisonous spiders; how they avoided having to eat a cockerel; a water buffalo that snores so loudly it has to sleep in its own specially built shelter; and once again the nightmare of travelling in a local bus through the remote tracks in the high Himalayas. The book also looks at developments in Kathmandu, such as the 'removal' of 10,000 street dogs in the last few months.

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Book SynopsisHoping to rediscover his deeper purpose, Rijumati, an English Buddhist teacher and businessman, embarked on a journey into the unknown: a round-the-world trip by land and sea that became a kind of pilgrimage. Months - and many crises - later he returned with new reverence for ordinary people and places, a sense of veneration for nature's wonders and a profound gratitude for being human. Part travel diary and part record of a spiritual journey, these pages evoke the sacred, remote places encountered in the outer world alongside the 'inner terrain' that unfolded along the way. If you have ever felt the call of the open road, longed to travel as a form of self-discovery, or just wanted to know how to stay sane whilst getting a visa stamp in Kazakhstan, then Pilgrimage to Anywhere is for you.Trade ReviewRijumati's long journey took him through many countries, cultures, and climates, and he writes with veracity and verve about the places he passed through and the diverse people he met. Once you have started on this book you will find it difficult to put it down. (Sangharakshita, author of The Rainbow Road and Facing Mount Kanchenjunga)

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Book Synopsis'The frisky Oss appeared - the dancers and drummers in a kind of shamanic trance (induced by a day of drumming, dancing and beer). They were wilder than ever; the atmosphere was positively Bacchanalian and I felt we had all become lost in a kind of collective folk consciousness.' On two wheels across Britain 'Bard on a Bike' Kevan Manwaring searches out the places and people who mark the seasons and cycles in their own special way - in ceremonies and festivals both private and public, large and intimate, ancient and modern. Along the way, he experiences and relates moments of sacred time found in the unlikeliest of places and circumstances, showing how it is a state of mind that can be experienced not only at sacred sites, but in the everyday. A collection of reflections about being fully alive in the Twenty First century, as much a useful guide for the curious, Turning the Wheel is a wise and witty account of a leather-clad time-traveller.

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Book SynopsisLost city of the Kalahari is the author's hitherto unpublished account of the odd adventure. Recounted by hand-drawn maps, provisions lists, photographs, 8mm film stills and other fascinating memorabilia from the period, this travelogue brings to life the quirky cast of characters, rough discomforts of the journey, tedium of unvarying landscape, vast deserts vistas, and encounters with 'wild Bushmen' and other Kalahari people.

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Book SynopsisTwenty thousand copies of the first edition of this book were sold. An attractive and comprehensive guidebook, it has been completely revised and updated by the author. The reader will find an easy-to-use text which details the natural history of the plants and animals found in the Galapagos Islands. Management and conservation of the Galapagos National Park is discussed, and visitor information and notes about the various tourist sites are given. An index and checklist of plants and animals with page references and a glossary of technical terms are provided.Trade Review"Jackson tells delightful little stories through this unusual natural history guide. This is unusual because it's so uplifting. The Galà pagos Islands are a place of wonder, with such rich, abundant wildlife and natural history that readers will yearn to experience them first-hand and not just through a book. But this guide will do for a start. [Here] is the kind of book that belongs in every nature lover's library." -- Margaret Mironiwicz, The Globe and Mail "The book is more than a simple guide, it contains information gleaned from the extensive literature existing on the Galà pagos Islands, combining it with first-hand experience of the author, who worked in the archipelago as a naturalist guide and as a zoologist." -- Marinus HoogmoedThe book is more than a simple guide, it contains information gleaned from the extensive literature existing on the Galápagos Islands, combining it with first-hand experience of the author, who worked in the archipelago as a naturalist guide and as a zoologist. Marinus HoogmoedTable of Contents Preface GalÁpagos National Park Rules Acknowledgements 1. Historical Background 2. Environmental Setting 3. Colonisation, Evolution, and Ecology 4. Plant Life 5. Reptiles 6. Seabirds 7. Coastal Birds and Migrants 8. Land Birds 9. Native Mammals 10. Terrestrial Invertebrates 11. Intertidal and Marine Life 12. Conservation in the Islands 13. Visiting the Islands Selected Bibliography Appendix 1: Checklist of Plants and Animals Appendix 2: Glossary of Terms Appendix 3: Units and Conversions Appendix 4: Information for Supporters of GalÁpagaos Conservation Index

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Book SynopsisMartyn Murray was finding modern life, with all its restrictions and controls, suffocating. Following years of soul-searching, his father's death triggered him into opening the old logbooks and charts to retrace the sailing trips they had once shared together. He determined to revisit those waters and bring home the freedom of the seas. Falling in love with an old ketch in Ireland, he bought and restored her enough to sail back to Scotland. Over the next two summers he cruised Scotland's Western Isles, with one goal: to reach St Kilda - the remotest part of the British Isles, 40 miles from the Outer Hebrides. During his cruising he considered the islanders and their sense of freedom - often restricted by absentee landlords and officialdom. He riled against bureaucracy and commercial enterprise restricting the yachtsman's ability to roam free. For parts of his journey he was joined by the beguiling Kyla; a rare, independent spirit who both excited and frustrated Martyn. But much of Martyn's voyaging was undertaken alone, encountering a variety of places, situations and characters along the way. He attempted his long-awaited sail out to St Kilda through the teeth of a storm, believing that achieving this feat would bring him the freedom and clarity that he craved. What he came up against was far more testing and turbulent than the tides and gales of the North Atlantic. As he sailed back to the mainland things fell into place: a sense of achievement in completing the arduous voyage alone, but - most of all - an understanding of who he is, clarity on his relationship with Kyla and a real sense of his own freedom.Trade Review"What an exhilarating experience, reading those pages! This is a special book, the style and thinking behind it in perfect harmony." (Dervla Murphy). "A terrific read, full of adventure and learning, and will inspire a lot of people who have only thought about major voyages to step on to their boats and actually make them." (Sam Llewellyn). "A Wild Call is one of those all-too-rare books that you just know you are going to remember, a book you can expect to come to mind at odd moments as you encounter the joys and challenges of your own everyday life. It's beautifully written and eminently readable, but those aren't the characteristics that make it stand out and give it such an enduring quality. What really makes this book special is that it is thought-provoking and inspirational. A Wild Call is a book we thoroughly enjoyed and are glad to have read. " (Undiscovered Scotland website) "Grand tale....... really enjoyed it!" (Tom Cunliffe, Yachting Journalist, Author and Broadcaster). "wonderful heart-warming tale, looking at the bonds of family and freedom of adventure... This book is truly a treat for anyone who loves sailing, Scotland, adventure, or just a good story. Highly recommended." (Sailing Today) "Thought-provoking account of one man's Scottish cruise north towards St Kilda and much more." (Classic Boat). "When packing for your next cruise, I suggest that you slip a copy of A Wild Call into your bag." (Clyde Cruising Club) "... wonderfully heart-warming tale, looking at the bonds of family and freedom of adventure... This book is truly a treat for anyone who loves sailing, Scotland, or just a good story. Highly recommended." (Sailing Today, Nov 2017) "A Wild Call comes out in a series devoted to sailing... but even if you don't know your keel for your burgee, it has the universal appeal of a love story... The yacht and dinghy crowd might well wish that Murray had dumped a lot of the romantic stuff, but the real heart of the book, and by no means the smoothly beating heart, is the story of his relationship to the red-haired woman he calls Kyla. I've rarely encountered such a compelling but troubling character in a real-life book... It's certainly not just a book for sailors, because it speaks to something in all of us." (The National, Oct 2017) "... the journey of self-discovery of an intelligent, sensitive man sailing again the seas of his early life off the coast of Scotland. The waters may be familiar to many a yachtsman, but his perspective enriches our understanding of these well-travelled seaways." (Tom Cunliffe, Yachting World, Nov 2017) "A fascinating account of one man's rediscovery of the joy of sailing in the Western Isles and his search for freedom for himself, for yachtsmen and for the Scottish islanders." (Yachting Life, Jan 2018) "For readers who have sailed these waters, or are yearning to do so, the detailed descriptive text will do wonders!... His harrowing journey to reach his destination makes the reader admire and respect his considerable courage and ingenuity... an interesting read of sailors and landspeople alike." (Cruising Association, 2017) "well written. The slight edge of panic at the cost of each repair has a very familiar ring. His satisfaction at each challenge overcome is shared. The description of the anchorages and moorings of the Inner and Outer Hebridean Islands is highly evocative and anyone who has been there will enjoy revisiting them." (Little Ship Club, Jan 2018) "A very enjoyable read." (Royal Cruising Club, March 2018) "A Wild Call would be a good read for many, especially those with an interest in sailing and the Scottish waters. The book also covers themes such as love and friendship throughout, making it heart-warming and enjoyable to read. Overall, A Wild Call is a very gentle and satisfying book." (Scottish Field, March 2018) “Tales of people who find aspects of modern life suffocating are not uncommon. However, Martyn Murray goes the distance, so to speak, in setting his target, St Kilda, quitting work, restoring and equipping an old ketch as well as sailing from Cork to the Crinan Canal and out into the Atlantic. The challenges he faced were more than just maritime.” (Scottish Islands Explorer, Nov 2017)Table of ContentsPreface; PART ONE: 1. Wild Boat Chase, 2. Dog Watch, 3. Did We Mean To Go To Sea?, 4. Fatal Flaw, 5. In the Wake of Saints; PART TWO: 6. Glorious Day of Salvage, 7. The Sea Gypsy, 8. Molio's Cave, 9. Mull of Kintyre, 10. Fiddler's Green, 11. Ring of Bright Bubbles, 12. Stormbound, 13. Wild Mountain Thyme; PART THREE: 14. Cup and Ring, 15. Wolf Island, 16. Isle of The Great Women, 17. Battle of Dreams, 18. The Dark Laird, 19. Piloting a Craft Called Freedom, 20. Flight of the Fulmar, 21. Abode of Ancestors, 22. Running Free

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Book SynopsisIn Bed with the Atlantic is a travel memoir of a young woman, Kit Pascoe, as she goes from never having stepped on a yacht, to sailing over 18,000 miles - across the Atlantic, around the Caribbean and then back - in three years with her partner. At first, she was dogged by doubt, a belief that she wasn't a `sailor', never would be and that she was in no way capable of such an undertaking. She believed that the ocean was out to get her, that weather needed to be battled and that she would forever be ruled by the anxiety that plagued her. Woven into the narrative of the journey's progression are stories from Kit's childhood and life before the voyage, explaining her battles with anxiety and the feelings of being lost as a graduate in post-recession Britain. The book also relays her struggle with reconciling a life of travel with the expectations and experiences of those back home, at an age when most of her contemporaries were starting corporate careers and families. In her courage to leave everything she knows behind, she learns the history of the islands and their people, swims with turtles, explores strange cave systems, and learns to forage for food straight from the sea. But she also encounters hardships like running out of food and water, battling against storms, trying not to be struck by lightning, and discovering the crippling loneliness of sailing an ocean for months on end. Sailing back to the UK after three years Kit realises the colossal difference that sailing has made to her life and understanding of the world. She ponders how easy it is not to do something, to protect ourselves from risks and ridicule and everything that makes us uncomfortable. But now appreciates that it is only when we take the risk, that we get the reward and that we connect not just with the world at large, but also with ourselves.Trade Review“Pascoe is a fine travel writer, fascinated by all that she sees as well as by the changes she experiences in her understanding of the world. She is also a fearless risk taker who battles persistent anxiety with impressive success.” (Yachting Monthly, December 2018)Table of ContentsList of Stopovers; I Bought a Boat; Spanish Horizons; Columbus' Island; An Unfamiliar Ocean; Racing Grenada; Tropical France; A Caribbean Crossing; Sloth Hunting; Beating Through Rainbows to Paradise; The Sky, the Sea and the Waves; Northern Bahamas; Riding the Gulf Stream Home; The Outpost Islands; A Circle has No End; Sources; Glossary of Nautical Terms

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Book SynopsisAfter unearthing her great-grandparents’ diaries, Mary Ann Hooper set out on a journey to retrace their 1871 trip across the United States on the newly-opened Transcontinental Railroad—via Chicago, just destroyed by the Great Fire, then across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains to the Golden City of San Francisco. Filled with rich details of time, place, and culture, Mary Ann’s thoughtful and compelling narrative is both a re-creation of a family journey and a thoughtful account of how the American West has changed over the last 150 years. Using the common thread of the same train trip across the American landscape, she weaves together the two stories—her great grandparents, Charles and Fannie Crosby’s leisurely Victorian tourist trip described in both their diaries—and her own trip. Mary Ann’s adventurous and determined voice fills the pages with entertaining encounters on the train, escapades on her folding bike, and her reflections on her birth country and her own life story.During her journey, she discovers the stories of her 1950s childhood reflect a “Wild West” at odds with the West her great-grandparents record in their diaries, leading her to uncover more of the real and meatier history of the American West—going through conquest, rapid settlement, and economic development. As Mary Ann fulfills her quest to understand better why glorified myths were created to describe the Wild West of her childhood, and reflects on the pitfalls of what “progress” is doing to the environment, she is left with a much bigger question: Can we transform our way of doing things quickly enough to stop our much-loved West becoming an uninhabitable desert?Trade ReviewWith her humor and inquisitive spirit, Mary Ann Hooper proves that she is an earnest and likeable storyteller. Blending deep introspection with no-nonsense matter-of-fact commentary, Across America and Back is a story that both teaches and inspires. There is a bittersweet quality to her transcontinental journey retracing her great-grandparents' migration more than a century before. It is vital to carry forward these great American West stories. Anyone interested in history, travel by rail, the American West, and family narratives will be enchanted by Hooper's story."" - Melissa Cistaro, author of Pieces of My Mother: A Memoir

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Book SynopsisHave you ever wondered about society’s desire to cultivate the perfect lawn, why we view some animals as “good” and some as “bad,” or even thought about the bits of nature inside everyday items—toothbrushes, cell phones, and coffee mugs? In this fresh and introspective collection of essays, Julia Corbett examines nature in our lives with all of its ironies and contradictions by seamlessly integrating personal narratives with morsels of highly digestible science and research. Each story delves into an overlooked aspect of our relationship with nature—insects, garbage, backyards, noise, open doors, animals, and language—and how we cover our tracks.With a keen sense of irony and humor and an awareness of the miraculous in the mundane, Corbett recognizes the contradictions of contemporary life. She confronts the owner of a high-end market who insists on keeping his doors open in all temperatures, and takes us on a trip to a new mall with a replica of a trout stream that once flowed nearby. The phrase “out of the woods” guides us through layers of meaning to a contemplation of grief, remembrance, and resilience.Out of the Woods leads to surprising insights into the products, practices, and phrases we take for granted in our everyday encounters with nature and encourages us all to consider how we might revalue or reimagine our relationships with nature in our everyday lives.Trade Review“An engaging, accessible, beautifully written celebration of our frayed relationship with the more-than-human world and the animals who are our kin . . . Julia Corbett explores the richness of nearby nature, reminding us that nurturing our bond with local landscapes is essential to the survival of the natural world and key to our own health and happiness.”—Michael P. Branch, author of Rants from the Hill and Raising Wild“This exceptional, eclectic book is the brave future of nature writing.”—Richard Louv, author of The Nature Principle and Last Child in the Woods."Corbett’s complex relationship with the environment comes across as genuine and authentic. Her provocative, timely message suggests we are not “out of the woods” quite yet." — Foreword Reviews

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Book SynopsisIn this often-surprising book of essays, Krista Eastman explores the myths we make about who we are and where we’re from. The Painted Forest uncovers strange and little-known "home places" —not only the picturesque hills and valleys of the author's childhood in rural Wisconsin, but also tourist towns, the "under-imagined and overly caricatured" Midwest, and a far-flung station in Antarctica where the filmmaker Werner Herzog makes an unexpected appearance.The Painted Forest upends easy narratives of place, embracing tentativeness and erasing boundaries. But it is Eastman's willingness to play—to follow her curiosity down every odd path, to exude a skeptical wonder—that gives this book depth and distinction. An unlikely array of people, places, and texts meet for close conversation, and tension is diffused with art, imagination, and a strong sense of there being some other way forward. Eastman offers a smart and contemporary take on how we wander and how we belong.Trade ReviewThe Painted Forest is a surprising and tender book in which a reader might be reminded of the considered natural observations of Annie Dillard, the unrelenting gaze of Lia Purpura, or the masterful storytelling of Jo Ann Beard. Eastman is interested in interrogating the history and ethos of several specific places, including her own home state of Wisconsin, as well as elegantly demonstrating the ways in which landscapes shift and morph through generations and recall.”- Caryl Pagel, author of Twice Told “In this shimmering collection, Krista Eastman blends imagined scene with researched fact to bring us fresh visions of places we thought we knew. From examinations of home to 'laughter from nowhere,' from the Wisconsin Dells to Antarctica’s McMurdo Station, from an itinerant painter’s elliptical masterwork to gestation’s feral undertow, Eastman casts a spell that renders us 'still captive to the mystery in distance, still loyal to the pledge found in story.”- Joni Tevis, author of The World Is On Fire: Scrap, Treasure, and Songs of ApocalypseTable of Contents Scrap Metal (A Prologue) Insider’s Almanac Wonder Spot Middle West The Painted Forest Everybody Comes Round Here Animals My Youth Layers of Ice Notes Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisThis 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.

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Book SynopsisTravelling is one of the most fascinating phenomena that has inspired writers and scholars from Antiquity to our postmodern age. The father of history, Herodotus, was also a traveller, whose Histories can easily be considered a travel account. The first volume of this book is dedicated to the period starting from Herodotus himself until the end of the Middle Ages with focus on the Balkans, the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic world, and South-Eastern Europe. Research on travellers who connected civilizations; manuscript and literary traditions; musicology; geography; flora and fauna as reflected in travel accounts, are all part of this thought-provoking collected volume dedicated to detailed aspects of voyages and travel accounts up to the end of the sixteenth century.The second volume of this book is dedicated to the period between Early Modernity and today, including modern receptions of travelling in historiography and literature. South-Eastern Europe and Serbia; the Chinese, Ottoman, and British perception of travelling; pilgrimages to the Holy land and other sacred sites; Serbian, Arabic, and English literature; legal history and travelling, and other engaging topics are all part of the second volume dedicated to aspects of voyages and travel accounts up to the contemporary era.Table of Contents Introduction, Boris Stojovski CHAPTER 1. Svetozar Boškov, Herodotus as a Travel Writer CHAPTER 2. Konstantinos Karatolios, Travelling as a Hostage: The Testimony of Kaminiates's Capture of Thessalonike CHAPTER 3. Yanko Hristov, Travelling and Travellers: Persons, Reasons, and Destinations According to A Tale of the Iron Cross CHAPTER 4. Paulo Catarino Lopes, Medieval Travels and the Ensuing Texts as Mirrors of a Society, a Culture, and a World View CHAPTER 5. Boris Stojkovski, Southern Hungary and Serbia in al-Idrisi's Geography CHAPTER 6. Nebojša Kartalija, The Perception of the Balkans in Western Travel Literature from the Eleventh to the Fourteenth Century CHAPTER 7. Djura Hardi, From Ma?va to Tarnovo: On the Roads of the Balkan Politics of Prince Rostislav Mikhailovich CHAPTER 8. Marie-Emmanuelle Torres, Echoes of Constantinople: Rewriting the Byzantine Soundscape in Travel Accounts CHAPTER 9. Radivoj Radi?, The Temptations of the Night Journey: An Image from the Voyage of Nicephorus Gregoras through Serbia CHAPTER 10. Sandra Du?i? Collette, Dante (1265-1321): The Exile and Birth of a Pilgrim CHAPTER 11. Shiva Mihan, The Journey of The Gift of the Noble CHAPTER 12. Stanoje Bojanin, The South Slavic Parish in Light of Stephen Gerlach's Travel Diary CHAPTER 13. Aleksandar Krsti?, Vegetation in the Territories of Serbia and Southern Hungary in Travel Accounts (Fifteenth–Seventeenth Centuries)

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Book SynopsisTravelling is one of the most fascinating phenomena that has inspired writers and scholars from Antiquity to our postmodern age. The father of history, Herodotus, was also a traveller, whose Histories can easily be considered a travel account. The first volume of this book is dedicated to the period starting from Herodotus himself until the end of the Middle Ages with focus on the Balkans, the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic world, and South-Eastern Europe. Research on travellers who connected civilizations; manuscript and literary traditions; musicology; geography; flora and fauna as reflected in travel accounts, are all part of this thought-provoking collected volume dedicated to detailed aspects of voyages and travel accounts up to the end of the sixteenth century.The second volume of this book is dedicated to the period between Early Modernity and today, including modern receptions of travelling in historiography and literature. South-Eastern Europe and Serbia; the Chinese, Ottoman, and British perception of travelling; pilgrimages to the Holy land and other sacred sites; Serbian, Arabic, and English literature; legal history and travelling, and other engaging topics are all part of the second volume dedicated to aspects of voyages and travel accounts up to the contemporary era.Table of Contents Introduction, Boris Stojovski CHAPTER 1. Svetozar Boškov, Herodotus as a Travel Writer CHAPTER 2. Konstantinos Karatolios, Travelling as a Hostage: The Testimony of Kaminiates's Capture of Thessalonike CHAPTER 3. Yanko Hristov, Travelling and Travellers: Persons, Reasons, and Destinations According to A Tale of the Iron Cross CHAPTER 4. Paulo Catarino Lopes, Medieval Travels and the Ensuing Texts as Mirrors of a Society, a Culture, and a World View CHAPTER 5. Boris Stojkovski, Southern Hungary and Serbia in al-Idrisi's Geography CHAPTER 6. Nebojša Kartalija, The Perception of the Balkans in Western Travel Literature from the Eleventh to the Fourteenth Century CHAPTER 7. Djura Hardi, From Ma?va to Tarnovo: On the Roads of the Balkan Politics of Prince Rostislav Mikhailovich CHAPTER 8. Marie-Emmanuelle Torres, Echoes of Constantinople: Rewriting the Byzantine Soundscape in Travel Accounts CHAPTER 9. Radivoj Radi?, The Temptations of the Night Journey: An Image from the Voyage of Nicephorus Gregoras through Serbia CHAPTER 10. Sandra Du?i? Collette, Dante (1265-1321): The Exile and Birth of a Pilgrim CHAPTER 11. Shiva Mihan, The Journey of The Gift of the Noble CHAPTER 12. Stanoje Bojanin, The South Slavic Parish in Light of Stephen Gerlach's Travel Diary CHAPTER 13. Aleksandar Krsti?, Vegetation in the Territories of Serbia and Southern Hungary in Travel Accounts (Fifteenth–Seventeenth Centuries)

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisUno de los libros de viajes más hermosos de todos los tiempos. Edición conmemorativa del séptimo centenario de la muerte de Marco Polo.

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Book SynopsisD. H. Lawrence left England for the first time in May 1912, and began almost immediately to record his reactions to foreign cultures. He wrote a series of travel articles intended for newspapers, two of which are published here for the first time after having been rejected as too anti-German in the tense pre-war atmosphere. In 1915 he amplified some of these essays and wrote others for Twilight in Italy (1916), his first travel book. Profoundly charged by the disorienting anxieties of the War, these essays evince a confidence and intellectual daring which take them well beyond the bounds of the conventional travel sketch. All are published in this first critical edition of his 1912-16 essays, together with his eerily prophetic article, 'With the Guns', written upon the outbreak of war in 1914.Table of ContentsGeneral editor's preface; Acknowledgements; Chronology; Cue-titles; Introduction; Twilight in Italy and Other Essays; Essays of Germany and Tyrol; Italian Essays, 1913 and 'With the Guns' 1914; Twilight in Italy [Italian days]; Appendixes; Explanatory notes; Textual apparatus; A note on currencies.

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Book SynopsisSea and Sardinia records Lawrence's journey to Sardinia and back in January 1921. It reveals his response to a new landscape and people and his ability to transmute the spirit of place into literary art. This 1997 edition restores censored passages and corrects corrupt textual readings.Table of ContentsGeneral editor's preface; Acknowledgements; Chronology; Cue-titles; Introduction; Sea and Sardinia; Appendix; Explanatory notes; Glossary of selected Italian terms; Textual apparatus; A note on pounds, shillings and pence.

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