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TALES OF THE ALHAMBRA
WASHINGTON IRVING
The celebrated American storyteller visited Granada's medieval Moorish palace, the Alhambra, in 1828. He set up shop to mine the location for material, producing this hybrid of travelogue and legend. In addition to his impressions of Spain, Irving treats the reader to fantastic stories of imprisoned princes, ghosts, genies, and even a headless horse. |
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TO HULL AND BACK
Tom Chesshyre
... one of the best ways to get to know a country is to take yourself to the less touristy, less obvious destinations. And let's face it: things don't get much less touristy than Slough... As staff travel writer on "The Times" since 1997, Tom Chesshyre had visited over 80 countries on assignment, and wondered: what is left to be discovered? He realised that the answer might be very close to home. In a mad adventure that took him from Hull to Hell (actually a rather nice holiday location in the Isles of Scilly), Tom visited secret spots of Unsung Britain in search of the least likely holiday destinations.
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ALMOST FRENCH
Sarah Turnbull
In the bestselling tradition of Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun, Chris Stewart's A Parrot in the Pepper Tree or Peter Mayle, but without the pile of stones! A funny, perceptive and poignant memoir of one woman's personal journey to Paris, and of the life that she makes there as a woman straight from Australia. A true story of a fish out of water in the most magical city in the world. A spectacular example of culture clash and a happy ending.
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REUNION IN BARSALOI
HOFMANN Corinne
Fourteen years after fleeing Kenya with her baby daughter, Corinne returned in the summer of 2004 to meet Lketinga and his family again in their village, Barsaloi. Nervous as she was, and uncertain as to how he would react on seeing her again, she found to her relief that she was welcomed unreservedly by all those who remembered her - by Lketinga, who still thought of her as his 'wife number one', by his brother, James, now a schoolteacher and especially by Lketinga's mother, who had looked after Corinne with such care all those years before. Corinne Hofmann revisits an area of a country which she cares about passionately, describing in her immensely readable style the changes she saw after her time away, and once again bringing to life the atmosphere and characters in the Masai village
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THE HEART OF THE WORLD
Ian Baker
A pilgrimage, as much as an exploration, this is a brilliant, magically written account of a journey that is physical and spiritual. "The Heart of the World" is the story of the most captivating story of exploration of recent memory, an extraordinary journey into one of the most inaccessible places on earth, a mediation on our place in nature and a pilgrimage into the Tibetan Buddhist faith. Ian Baker travels into the Tsangpo gorge, the world's deepest and impenetrable chasm, searching for a mythical waterfall that ancient Tibetan tradition believes to the gateway to a mystical paradise, Shangri-La.;The heart of the Tsangpo gorge was fully explored only recently by Ian Baker, after years of interviewing lamas, deciphering obscure Buddhist texts and making pilgrimages to the gorge. He descended into the gorge and made international news by finding a 108-foot-high waterfall.
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MUMBAI TO MECCA
Ilija Trojanow
In 2003, Ilija Trojanow traveled from Mumbai to Mecca. His travelogue, in the tradition of the rihla, one of the oldest genres of classical Arabic literature, describes the Hajj, the pilgrimage to the holy sites of Islam, through the eyes of a Westerner, but with the heart of a Muslim. "From the very first moment they realize that the Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca) is among the duties of each and every Muslim, the faithful long to go." So one January morning Trojanow, with the help of his friends donned the ihram, the traditional garb of the pilgrim, and boarded a plane in Mumbai to fly to Dhiba. He joined hundreds of thousands of Muslims, who go each year on the Hajj, the greatest demonstration of the Muslim faith. A few hours later he arrived in Mecca, and just three weeks later he was back in India. In those three short weeks he experienced a tradition dating back over one thousand years and completed a personal pilgrimage. This is his account; personal and yet enlightening for the interested that are barred as a non-Muslim from the holy sites of Islam.
Ilija Trojanov was born in Bulgaria in 1965. After fleeing his homeland via Yugoslavia and Italy, he was granted political asylum in Germany. He spent ten years in Kenya and five years in Mumbai, before moving to Capetown in 2003. He is a writer who sees himself as a traveler between worlds, journeying on a quest that leads him through different cultures and religions.
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AN ENGLISHMAN AMOUREUX
Michael Sadler
Love in deepest France ...After the romantic encounter in the Loire Valley bathroom at the end of AN ENGLISHMAN A LA CAMPAGNE Sadler dumps the University of Swindon and returns to France intent on winning the heart of Lou Charpin, his belle francaise. Easier said than done. Unsure of his credentials he decides to woo her family at the same time ...playing Scrabble with the fiesty, Craven A-smoking grandmother; lending his farmhouse to his future chaud lapin (hot rabbit?) of a brother-in-law; explaining King Lear to an adolescent more intent on sowing birdseed in his window boxes; surviving a Greek Tragedy-style family Christmas, at which he foolishly translates jokes from crackers, and - le comble de l'arrogance - weening Lou Charpin away from her French copain, a plutocratic optician who is less than appreciative of rivalry from the barbaric north ...How do you love a la francaise? Are they better at it than us? That is the question.
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BRIEF
ENCOUNTERS
Michelle De Kretser (Editor)
This collection of stories from 22 authors from
around the world concerns travel romances.
A tourist in Peru falls for her handsome guide;
a writer explores the ambiguities of his relationship
with a Japanese woman; and a beautiful Italian
on a train proposes marriage
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