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The Flaneur
by Edmund WhiteA flâneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles without apparent purpose but is secretly attuned to the history of the streets he walks - and is in covert search of adventure, aesthetic or erotic. Acclaimed writer Edmund White, who lived in Paris for sixteen years, wanders through the avenues and along the quays, into parts of the city virtually unknown to visitors and indeed to many locals, luring the reader into the fascinating and seductive backstreets of his personal Paris.
This Is Not A Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature
by J. M. Coetzee William Sutcliffe Michael Ondaatje Teju Cole Alice Walker Michael Palin Deborah Moggach China Miéville Jeremy Harding Henning Mankell Molly Crabapple Linda Spalding Adam Foulds Gillian Slovo Geoff Dyer Chinua Achebe Mahmoud Darwish Yasmin El-Rifae Suheir Hammad Mercedes Kemp Najwan Darwish Susan Abulhawa Suad Amiry Sabrina Mahfouz John Horner Bridget Keenan Pankaj Mishra Kamila Shamsie Atef Abu Saif Selma Dabbagh Jehan Bseiso Omar El-Khairy Remi Kanazi Maath Musleh Ghada Karmi Ed Pavlic Muiz Ru Freeman Nancy Kricorian Nathalie Handal Mohammed Hanif Victoria Brittain Rachel Holmes Raja Shehadeh Claire Messud Jamal Mahjoub Ahdaf Soueif Omar Robert HamiltonThe Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008. Bringing together writers from all corners of the globe, it aims to help Palestinians break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen their artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, 'the power of culture over the culture of power'.Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems and stories from some of the world's most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and courage in the most desperate of situations.Contributors: Susan Abulhawa, Suad Amiry, Victoria Brittain, Jehan Bseiso, Teju Cole, Molly Crabapple, Selma Dabbagh, Mahmoud Darwish, Najwan Darwish, Geoff Dyer, Yasmin El-Rifae, Adam Foulds, Ru Freeman, Omar Robert Hamilton, Suheir Hammad, Nathalie Handal, Mohammed Hanif, Jeremy Harding, Rachel Holmes, John Horner, Remi Kanazi, Brigid Keenan, Mercedes Kemp, Omar El-Khairy, Nancy Kricorian, Sabrina Mahfouz, Jamal Mahjoub, Henning Mankell, Claire Messud, China Miéville, Pankaj Mishra, Deborah Moggach, Muiz, Maath Musleh, Michael Palin, Ed Pavlic, Atef Abu Saif, Kamila Shamsie, Raja Shehadeh, Gillian Slovo, Ahdaf Soueif, Linda Spalding, Will Sutcliffe, Alice WalkerWith messages from China Achebe, Michael Ondaatje and J. M. Coetzee
The Epic City: The World on the Streets of Calcutta
by Kushanava ChoudhuryA masterful and entirely fresh portrait of great hopes and dashed dreams in a mythical city from a major new literary voiceEverything that could possibly be wrong with a city was wrong with Calcutta.When Kushanava Choudhury arrived in New Jersey at the age of twelve, he had already migrated halfway around the world four times. After graduating from Princeton, he moved back to the world which his immigrant parents had abandoned, to a city built between a river and a swamp, where the moisture-drenched air swarms with mosquitos after sundown. Once the capital of the British Raj, and then India's industrial and cultural hub, by 2001 Calcutta was clearly past its prime. Why, his relatives beseeched him, had he returned? Surely, he could have moved to Delhi, Bombay or Bangalore, where a new Golden Age of consumption was being born. Yet fifteen million people still lived in Calcutta. Working for the Statesman, its leading English newspaper, Kushanava Choudhury found the streets of his childhood unchanged by time. Shouting hawkers still overran the footpaths, fish-sellers squatted on bazaar floors; politics still meant barricades and bus burnings, while Communist ministers travelled in motorcades. Sifting through the chaos for the stories that never make the papers, Kushanava Choudhury paints a soulful, compelling portrait of the everyday lives that make Calcutta. Written with humanity, wit and insight, The Epic City is an unforgettable portrait of an era, and a city which is a world unto itself.
Eat Like a Local LONDON
by BloomsburyFood-focused travel guides for the world's most exciting citiesThis book is a food tour in your pocket, featuring more than 100 of the best restaurants, cafes, bars and markets recommended by a team of in-the-know Londoners. You'll also find insights into the city's idiosyncratic food culture, and a handful of iconic recipes to cook in the holiday kitchen or once you've returned home. It's the inside knowledge that allows you to Drink, Shop, Cook and Eat Like a Local.
Eat Like a Local PARIS
by BloomsburyFood-focused travel guides for the world's most exciting citiesThis book is a food tour in your pocket, featuring more than 100 of the best restaurants, cafes, bars and markets recommended by a team of in-the-know Parisians. You'll also find insights into the city's idiosyncratic food culture, and a handful of iconic recipes to cook in the holiday kitchen or once you've returned home. It's the inside knowledge that allows you to Drink, Shop, Cook and Eat Like a Local.
Zaitoun: Recipes and Stories from the Palestinian Kitchen
by Yasmin KhanA dazzling cookbook with vibrant recipes, captivating stories and stunning photography from Palestine 'A moving, hugely knowledgeable and utterly delicious book' Anthony Bourdain'A big bowl-full of delicious Palestinian recipes, plus lots of insightful and moving stories... Great stuff' Yotam Ottolenghi'A zingingly evocative collection of personal stories... Calling it a cookbook does it a disservice. Zaitoun deserves to be read as much as cooked from' Observer Food Monthly Bursting with the freshness and brightness that is characteristic of all Levantine cuisine, Palestinian food is fragrant, healthy and delicious. From a colourful array of bountiful mezze dishes to rich slow-cooked stews flavoured with aromatic spice blends, it's a cuisine that represents the very best of modern Middle Eastern cookery. In this beautiful Palestinian cookbook, food writer Yasmin Khan shares recipes and stories from her travels through the region. On her journey she harvests black olives from the groves of Burquin in the West Bank, hand-rolls maftool – the plump Palestinian couscous – in home kitchens in Jenin and even finds time to enjoy a pint with workers at the Taybeh brewery, which is producing the first Palestinian craft beer. As she feasts and cooks with Palestinians of all ages and backgrounds, she learns about the realities of their everyday lives. Zaitoun includes herb-filled salads, quick pickles, fragrant soups, tender roasted meats and rich desserts, and has a special focus on vegetarian versions of Palestinian classics. It has recipes for olive, fig and honey tapenade, roast chicken stuffed with pine nuts and raisins, and pomegranate passion cake, among many others. And surrounding the recipes, there is a chorus of stories from those who love, live and cook with Palestine in their hearts.
The Train in Spain
by Christopher HowseThis is not a book about trains but about the variety of Spain. The bestselling author Christopher Howse makes ten great railway journeys that explore the interior of the peninsula, its astonishing landscapes and ancient buildings. The focus is the way the Spanish live now: their habits, streets, characters, stories – and quite a bit about their eating and drinking.Christopher Howse has been travelling around Spain for 25 years, and has now made a 3,000 mile circumnavigation by train from the top of the Pyrenees – through the vulture-haunted wilds of Extremadura and the Spaghetti Western deserts of the south, to the ancient hilltop city of Cuenca and beyond. On the way he meets troglodytes, visits a city ruined by an earthquake, runs into a dancing lion, stumbles across a body-snatching plot and tries out a recipe for acorn pie. An entertaining exploration of a much-loved country, The Train in Spain gives a fascinating and entirely original portrait of a strange land at a time of great change.
Hot Countries: A Travel Book (Armchair Traveller Ser.)
by Alec WaughFirst published in 1930, this discursive and absorbing travel-book offers, as the author says in his new Foreword, "a picture of a way of living that exists no longer." Hot Countries tells of a series of journeys in the Far East, the West Indies and the South Sea Islands when he was a young and light-hearted novelist seeking colour, romance and adventure.
Dublin: A Portrait
by V. S. PritchettVS. Pritchett, master of the short story, is also the most evocative of travel writers. First published in 1967, his portrait of Dublin - its past, politics and people, its grand mansions and curious corners - is as beguiling and eloquent as the city itself, as he writes of the Dublin he knew in the 1920s, of visits to Sean O'Casey and Yeats (brandishing a teapot in his rage at Shaw) and of the changing city forty years later, facing the future but still as eccentric and engaging as ever.
At Home and Abroad
by V. S. PritchettAdmirers of The Spanish Temper, Marching Spain and his wonderfully evocative books on London, Dublin and New York will need no reminding that V.S. Pritchett is one of the very great travel writers of our time, possessed of an astonishingly accurate eye and a marvellous ability to conjure up the essence of a place, and of the people who live there. Written for the most part in the 1950s and 1960s, the essays brought together in At Home and Abroad cover South and North America, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, London, Greece, the Pyrenees, Germany, the English countryside and, above all, the Mediterranean: first published in book form in 1990, the year of Sir Victor's ninetieth birthday, they are a delight in themselves and a timely reminder of - or introduction to - this most subtle and perceptive of writers.
The Spanish Temper
by V. S. PritchettEliciting comparisons to Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, Pritchett's meditative work on Spain is comprised of a string of sketches, woven around the author's musings on the Spanish character.Having lived in Spain for four years during the 1920s, Pritchett is well placed to deliver such a report, and his resulting narrative is both well informed and delightfully written.
The Sugar Islands: A Collection of Pieces Written About the West Indies Between 1928 and 1953
by Alec WaughAlec Waugh first saw the West Indies on a trip round the world in 1926 when his ship called in at Guadeloupe. Fifteen months later he returned for a long stay at Martinique; it was the beginning of a lifelong interest in these fascinating islands that were to provide him with the material for many books and articles. In The Sugar Islands, a book to be dipped into at leisure, Mr. Waugh has selected pieces from his writings, with the intention of compiling both a travelogue (there is a wealth of interesting information for the would-be traveller about the ways of life and customs of each island) and a chronological commentary on the development of the islands during the last thirty years.The book is divided into four parts. In the first, the author gives an idea of the background of the West Indies by drawing a detailed picture of the colourful life of Martinique. He tells the story of a 17th-century Frenchman who joined the famous pirates of Tortugja and the history of the long bloodbath that preceeded the declaration of independence of Haiti, the Black Republic. The second part of the book comprises four character sketches, including three stories of black magic, and two sections deal with the individual charm and interest of each of the islands: Montserrat, Barbados, Anguilla, Trinidad, St. Vincent, Tortola, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Saba, Antigua, Dominica and Puerto Rico.
Denmark
by Sacheverell SitwellA narrative of his time in Denmark, this work is largely concerned with the topography of the country, telling the intending visitor about all those features of the country's buildings, landscape and people which are most characteristic and best worth seeing.First published in 1956, this is a comprehensive study on Denmark, including the history and culture. To read a travel book by this author is to visit a country with a new pair of eyes.
Return to the Baltic
by Hilaire BellocHere, Belloc writes of a trip through Sweden and Denmark in 1938, a nostalgic trip taken forty-three years after his first Scandanvian trip in 1895.This volume includes Belloc's history and topography of the area.
The Netherlands: A Study of Some Aspects of Art, Costume and Social Life
by Sacheverell SitwellSacheverell Sitwell goes beyond the generic images of Holland as all museums, windmills, canals, tulips and clogs. Sitwell leads us out of museums and away from the great cities, where tourist, and their guidebooks, usually remain cloistered. By traveling outside the usual, Sitwell has discovered a new and beautiful Holland in which 18th century architecture, strange villages and costumes of Friesland, and undiscovered artists. Sitwell's account of the Netherlands awakens anew our curiosity in this well trod country.
Roumanian Journey
by Sacheverell Sitwell'At the first mention of going to Roumania, a great many people, as I did myself, would take down their atlas and open the map. For Roumania, there can be no question, is among the lesser known lands of Europe.'So begins Sir Sacheverell Sitwell's account of his Roumanian journey, made in the 1930s, when Bucharest was still eight days overland from London.His four-week trip brings him into contact with longhaired gypsies at country fairs as well as the aristocracy in their medieval castles. The natural richness and variety of the landscape-from Transylvania to the Wallachian plains, the Carpathian peaks to the Danube Delta-delight him, as does the diversity of humanity he encounters, while his deep knowledge of European art and architecture makes him the ideal guide to the paintings, frescos, and buildings of Roumania.It is impossible, of course, to read of Roumania in the 1930s without thinking of what lay ahead for that country, but the abiding impression left by the book is of the freshness of Sitwell's perceptions and his unquenchable curiosity in everything he saw.
A Person From England
by Fitzroy MacleanFirst published in 1958, A Person From England tells of how the legendary cities of Turkestan - Merv, Khiva, Bokhara and Samarkand - have long exerted a romantic fascination upon Western travellers. During the last century, men of many nationalities have played what they and their contemporaries have called "The Great Game" - travelling throughout Central Asia. The author revives memories of the agents and travellers - official and unofficial, military and civilian - who have visited the Khanates of Turkestan, relating their adventures and attempting to recreate the atmosphere and flavour of the region. Extremely well written, Fitzroy Maclean captures a way of life that is fast disappearing.
Portrait of Cambridge
by C. R. BensteadThe story of Cambridge is one of curious conflict: an unrelenting struggle for independence by a squalid fenland settlement, which entirely changed its purpose as, down the centuries, a great University grew in its midst. Yet it was this unwelcome intruder, seen today as an island of ancient glory in a surge of modern expansion, that makes the City of Cambridge known to the world. The coming of the "clerks"; the early hostels and colleges; the problem of the King's Ditch; the limitations of a medieval education, and of learning itself until recent years; the "rod" and its application; the tremendous religious emphasis, and compulsion, that endured until the last century; the dissolution of the religious houses; the Reformation and its martyrs; the threats to the University's very existence; Cambridge and Cromwell, himself a pensioner of Sidney Sussex; the seemingly unending strife between town and gown, and the hazardous office of Mayor; the unending procession of poets and scientists, headed by Milton and Newton, and of great men in every walk of life; the colleges, and their independence, in the modern age of reform, not least in architecture; and even the tidal phenomenon of the undergraduates' hair, once restricted by clerical tonsure; it is in terms of these factors, grave and gay, that the story of Cambridge is told.
Alps. The
by Ronald ClarkThe unrivalled scenery of the Alps attracts increasing numbers of visitors every year, while for those who seek the more active and dangerous pursuits of climbing and skiing, the region offers unique opportunities. Ronald Clark, a distinguished historian of mountaineering, who knows the Alps fromend to end, describes the history of the mountains and their most famous peaks. The heroic story of their exploration, first by scientists, then by such early mountaineers as Whymper, Coolidge, Miss Brevoort and their guides, is related with extensive quotations from letters, diaries and contemporary records. With the mountaineers came the pioneer photographers whose cumbersome but fragile equipment had to be manhandled up ice-slopes and across glaciers to enable them to take their photographs, a procedure which necessitated hours of intricate manoeuvring, in freezing weather, to obtain one successful shot. Other chapters discuss the development of the Alps as a mountain health centre, the coming of roads and railways and the growth of the winter sports industry and Mr Clark warns that the mountains, like a Highland deer forest, can carry only a certain number of living creatures without facing disaster.
Beyond The Silver River: South American Encounters
by Jimmy BurnsDuring the five years Jimmy Burns was based in Buenos Aires, which resulted in his award-winning study of the Falklands War and its aftermath, The Land That Lost Its Heroes, he also embarked on further-flung journeys in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile. 'Each South American country is idiosyncratic - it brings out our individual fantasies and forces us to interpret anew,' writes Burns. Certainly to travel with him is to trace the footprints of history - conquest and subjugation, defiance and hope - yet to encounter at each turn a fresh observation, the unexpected. He conducts us by steam train up the Andes and down to the treacherous depths of a Bolivian tin mine. We find a hotbed of Argentine loyalties in Tierra del Fuego, beaches of bodies beautiful in Brazil and Peruvian streets where fanatical Sendero Luminoso guerrillas wage a permanent power struggle with the military. Burns introduces us to Sixto Vazquez, Indian intellectual with an unshakeable faith in legend and animism; to Tina, White Russian Duchess of Platinov, who now presides over an eerie domain of enormous moths in the Ecuadorian rain forest; to Father Renato Hevia, the editor of a Jesuit magazine in Chile who is harassed and detained if he fails to mention Pinochet in even one edition. To this journey of discovery Jimmy Burns brings all the clarity of vision and eloquence of expression for which he was awarded the 1988 Somerset Maugham Award for Non-fiction.
It May Never Happen
by V. S. PritchettV.S. Pritchett's Englishness – the dependable Englishness of shabby, bumptious businessmen, shy wives, puritanical suburbanites and vinegar-tongued grandmothers – often came out in surprising ways. Though comfortably set in the dirty brick factories south of the river or the dreary commuter villages on the outskirts of London, a story will show a Russian sense of passing time or a French pertness, glow poetically like a Bruno Schulz, or wound with the terrible detail of a Danilo Kis. The innate knowledge of the insider is registered with the outsider's shocked vividness.The fourteen stories of It May Never Happen show Pritchett's distinctive mastery. A fearful sailor falls into temptation ashore. An evangelist of the Church of the Last Purification arrives in a provincial town to demonstrate the non-existence of evil. A party of cyclists mistakes a private house for a pub. Two business partners fall out over money and a typist called Miss Croft with a 'small waist' and 'big red fingers'. And Aunt Gertrude breaks a mirror and remembers her girlhood.
Tiny Games for Kids: Games To Play While Out In The World (Osprey Games Ser. #2)
by Hide Seek Savanna Ganucheau"Amusing, raucous and inventive†? -The GuardianFrom award winning game designers Hide&Seek come tons of brand new games for real-world play. Tiny Games takes traditional parlour games and adds a touch of modern game design know-how to allow any number of players to have fun whatever they're doing. Games for baths, games for parties, and games for cheeky monkeys. Whether you're feeling creative or competitive, silly or energetic, we've got you covered.Specially designed for parents to play with young children, Tiny Games for Kids will let you find the perfect game for whatever situation you're in. Tiny Games for Kids is a companion piece to Tiny Games for Work, Tiny Games for Home and Tiny Games for Trips, with games specially designed to suit your circumstances. Combine all the Tiny Games books for a more playful existence.
More Tiny Games for Kids: Games to play while out in the world (Osprey Games Ser.)
by Hide Seek Savanna Ganucheau"Amusing, raucous and inventive†? The GuardianFrom award winning game designers Hide&Seek come tons of brand new games for real-world play. Tiny Games takes traditional parlour games and adds a touch of modern game design know-how to allow any number of players to have fun whatever they're doing.More Tiny Games for Kids provides even more games for parents to play with young children, including a special section on games to play while travelling with kids on trains, planes and automobiles. For more play ideas for young children try Tiny Games for Kids, or combine all of the books in the Tiny Games series for a more playful existence.
London’s Statues and Monuments (Shire Library)
by Peter MatthewsThe streets and public spaces of London are rich with statues and monuments commemorating the city's great figures and events – from Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square and Sir Christopher Wren's Great Fire Monument to the charming Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, the range is glorious. Some commemorate events, while others celebrate people real or fictional; some take the form of small reliefs, while others are huge bronzes on pedestals, larger than life-size. Executed in stone, bronze and a range of other materials, London's statues and monuments include work by some of the world's greatest sculptors, and this book is a fully illustrated guide to the pieces and their stories: sometimes surprising and occasionally controversial, but always fascinating.
Contemporary Destination Governance: A Case Study Approach (Bridging Tourism Theory and Practice #6)
by Harald Pechlaner Pietro Beritelli Sabine Pichler Mike Peters Noel R. Scott"Governance is about managing networks". This quote from political scientist Rod A.W. Rhodes pioneered a whole series of governance studies in different disciplines. Accordingly, destination governance describes the collective management of tourism destinations. Promoting collective action in tourism destinations means dealing with a myriad of different actors and applying various instruments. Probably the most basic requirement is to take into account the peculiarities of every single destination. Therefore, this book approaches the issue of contemporary destination governance from a case study point of view focusing on 16 destinations. In contrast to other publications in the field of destination governance, the book concentrates on the discussion of cases and the peculiarities of destinations which influence the destination governance. It demonstrates how different theories from the fields of organizational studies, strategic management, tourism research and sociology can enlighten our understanding of particular real-world situations. Last but not least the bottom-up approach supports practitioners and students by making otherwise complex theories accessible to a broader audience.