Recently in Other places Category
A gift from Jeannette, Native English for Nederlanders is pitched as "A personal, cultural and grammatical guide", written by Ronald van de Krol - an American of Dutch descent with a Dutch wife and family and who has lived and worked in The Netherlands for decades. His book highlights the perils and pitfalls of the English language for native Dutch speakers, and is as a native English speaker, it offers a fascinating perspective on my own language, and insight into the words, phrases and styles that can cause problems for my Dutch colleagues. Topics range from Deference, hierarchy and humour, American or British? to English as a code.
A two stage read, but one I'm glad I persevered with - especially once Peter Fleming and Eva Maillart's journey reached the far west of China, and headed over into the Hunza valley and into what is now Pakistan, what was then British India.
It's a fascinating account of China and the North West Frontier in the mid 1930s, complete with what now read as antiquated spellings and opinions/perspectives. The book tell of the seven months Fleming and Kini spent on the 3500 mile journey from Peking to Kashmir, travelling by camel, donkey, horse and foot during a wartorn time for the far flung provinces of the Chinese world - and with the final rumblings of the Great Game still sounding loudly in this remote part of the world where Russian, British and Chinese empires met. As the intrepid explorers travel further west, they travel through a desert region populated mainly by nomads and warlords who view themselves as having more in common with their fellow Tatar tribes of Central Asia than the Chinese holding power in Peking.
Next: tracking down Forbidden Journey for Ella Maillart's version! Maybe a read for this autumn's Central Asia Overland trip.....
Amazon.co.uk link: News from Tartary - Peter Fleming
A lovely anthology of short stories on the theme of "nowhere", published by Lonely Planet.
Lovely though the collection is, I do have a couple of gripes:
- Most of the pieces are written by professional travel writers, which was a bit disappointing as I'm sure most travellers have tales to tell of their own personal visits to nowhere. And the resounding theme was that one person's nowhere is the centre of another person's universe: not exactly an earth shattering conclusion.
- Why are most of the travelogues written by Americans? Not that I have anything against Americans travelling - in my book, travel can only broaden the mind - but reading the biographies almost all of the contributors were born and/or based in the States, and I know the Americans can't hold the monopoly on independent travel. Perhaps they do have a monopoly on travel magazine article writing, or self conscious self discovery.
Still, a highly readable collection - here's my list of the most memorable six:
- The most disheartening: On the trail
- The one that won in the wanderlust stakes: A picture of a village
- And one that didn't: Postcard from the Edge
- The one that made me well up: Meeting Echo
- The one that triggered nostalgia: North of Perth
- The one I'll remember the most: A visit to Kanasankatan - you need to be reading aloud to appreciate it, and perhaps save that approach for a rapid reread.
Amazon.co.uk: Tales from Nowhere - Don George (Ed)
Sue bought me this for Christmas - an excellent choice from my Amazon Wishlist, even if, as Sue said, it was "about the most unchristmassy title" there.
In Bad Lands, Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler, spurred on to look beyond and behind the "Axis of Evil" label applied by certain powerful Americans, visits nine of the world's less, how shall we put it, 'popular' destinations: Afghanistan, Albania, Burma (Myanmar), Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Saudi Arabia.
His reactions range from the disappointed (Cuba) to openly cynical (North Korea) and are neatly drawn together in his chapter titled The Evil Meter TM. Mine ranged from the "Glad I don't ever envisage needing to go there" (Saudi Arabia) to the "One day, I must get there" (Afghanistan, Libya and North Korea). The only caveat relating to this book, which I've been recommending left, right and centre, is the slight contrivance in including countries on the basis of tyrants of times past - particularly Albania and Iraq. With that forewarning, read it - I'll even lend you my copy provided you promise to give it back.....
Bad Lands: A Tourist on the Axis of Evil - Tony Wheeler
Dad and Jean bought me this as a birthday gift when they were visiting last year, and I've only just got around to reading it. A tricky format for bedtime reading (large, square, hardback), but I persevered, and the bite size biographies of women travellers from the 17th to 20th centuries were fascinating.
The accounts are grouped in themes - from artists to adventurers - and illustrated with portraits and pictures from the National Portrait Gallery. Interestingly, Dea Birkett not only covers British women's travels to far flung parts, but also visits to Britain by women from other countries, from Pocahontas to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.
Amazon.co.uk link: Off the Beaten Track: Three Centuries of Women Travellers - Dea Birkett
Superbly readable set of highlights of Tim Mackintosh-Smith's 13 year residency in Yemen, taking you to the highlands and lowlands, oases and deserts, mountains and coast, mainland and islands, cities and villages, and providing historical and cultural insights throughout.
Now, who runs trips there.....?
Amazon.co.uk link: Yemen: Travels in Dictionary Land - Tim Mackintosh-Smith
A great story of Jonny's travels, on horse back as far a possible, from Islamabad to the Caspian via Kashgar and the wilds of Central Asia.
As he acknowledges throughout the book, Jonny brought some of the trials and tribulations on himself, embarking on the trip still raw from the breakup with the girlfriend with whom he'd planned the adventure. Instead he is accompanied by 23 year old Londoner Sarah, who he'd selected at short notice - the TV company funding the trip were doing so on the premise that it would result in video diaries and a documentary featuring Jonny, his girlfriend and the romance of the old Silk Road.
There are great anecdotes and adventures, with vivid descriptions of the characters they meet and the difficulties they all face, but perhaps the biggest story is the fragile relationship between Jonny and Sarah. Inevitably this book shows Jonny's take on things - which makes me want to track down the series that did eventually get broadcast.
Amazon.co.uk link: Silk Dreams, Troubled Road - Jonny Bealby
Occupational Hazards is Rory Stewart's personal account of his time working in the Western teams responsible for governing two provinces in Iraq during 2003 and 2004, a period when the Coalition Provisional Authority sought to bring sufficient stability to the country to allow for a successful handover to an Iraqi government.
I'd been wanting to read this ever since The Places In Between brought about the realisation that the author isn't the traditional Oxbridge generated diplomat, but rather an independent thinker who brings a deep understanding and innate sympathy for the people and cultures he encounters. Not that this makes him a soft touch, as his accounts of political wheeler dealing with the tribes of Marsh Arabs of Maysan, and brushes with death during the attacks at Nasiriyah reveal.
An enlightening read, and a powerful first hand account of events that news reports and government statements made seem anodyne, remote and impersonal; the reality of war rather than the spin and an attempt to show just how complex the political, religious and social landscape in the region was, and is.
Amazon.co.uk link: Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing in Iraq - Rory Stewart
A fascinating account of the Balkans during the 1990s, combining nostalgic accounts of prior holidays in more tranquil times with analysis of the complex political, historical, ethnic and military mix in play in the region at the close of the 20th century, when journalist and writer Simon Winchester travelled from Vienna to Istanbul.
There are no easy answers, but there is plenty of digestible analysis and first hand accounts, from Winchester and the ordinary Serbs, Croats, Bosnians Kosovans, Montenegrans, Albanians, Macedonians, Turks, Slavs, Gypsies, Jews, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Communists ... he meets, as well as his encounters with NATO forces, British military, NGOs and aid groups.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Fracture Zone: A Return to the Balkans - Simon Winchester
Again, another book it's taken me years to pick up, principally because for a long time I thought - incorrectly - that the author was Lord Byron, the 18th century poet. My mistake, my loss.
The Road to Oxiana is an account by Robert Byron, a distant descendant, of his travels through the Middle East to Central Asia in 1933/1934 - close enough in time to Empire for the Great Game still be living memory, and for the key geopolitical units to include Persia and Sinkiang.
Whilst Byron's privileged background means that his accounts of the people he meets is coloured by the social norms of the time (which isn't always bad - there are some fantastic encounters with Governors and Ambassadors), he did get to see and explore some amazing locations and architectural gems that are now either lost or out of reach. That said, I see that Wild Frontiers are running trips to Afghanistan, so perhaps, one day, I too will get to visit Herat.
There are wonderful photos too, some of places I have been lucky enough to visit and it's fascinating to see what has changed in the intervening 80 years, for example in Soltaniyeh Yazd and Isfahan.
For accounts of travels in the region in the last 20th/early 21st century, read:
* Shadow of the Silk Road - Colin Thubron
* The Carpet Wars - Christopher Kremmer
* The Places in Between - Rory Stewart
* Neither East Nor West: One Woman's Journey Through the Islamic Republic of Iran - Christiane Bird
Amazon.co.uk link: The Road to Oxiana - Robert Byron
David Malouf tells the story of one Australian man, Digger Keen, and the people in his life.
Digger's story starts with his mother's arrival from England at the start of the 20th century. Having established a home and a store at Keen's Crossing, children follow, but only Digger and his elder, "simple" sister Jenny survive to adulthood.
Digger's experiences as a soldier and prisoner of war in Malaya and Thailand introduce us to the tales' other key character, Vic Curran - a chap of conflicting characteristics whose life post war bring wealth and happiness, albeit built on slightly dodgy foundations. Having formed during their harsh PoW experience, and not always understood by either of them, the mateship between these two men is strong enough to endure the passing decades and the divergent paths their lives take.
It is a long novel, and the pace is slow - but this slow motion journey allows you to see and appreciate so much more about the characters and the times, places and events they live through. I loved every minute of it.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Great World - David Malouf
My appetite for travel whetted by Colin Thubron's Shadow of the Silk Road, I plunged straight into Henry Hemming's account of his travels through the Middle East in the company of one/two fellow artists and a truck called Yasmine.
Whilst it's not fair to compare the writing of an established author with that of a first timer fresh out of university, the fact that both books featured Iran made this somewhat inevitable. What surprised me was the Henry Hemming didn't come off too badly - helped by two facts:
1. he and his friends were spending time in the region to make art, and this gave them entrees into the artistic communities in those countries, with the result that he encounters views and experiences that rarely feature in British newspaper coverage
2. they were there in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, and Henry and his pal Al still get to Baghdad.
Amazon.co.uk link: Misadventure in the Middle East: Travels as Tramp, Artist and Spy - Henry Hemming
I loved this book. Colin Thubron's reflections on his trip from China to Turkey bring to life the places through which he travels, the people that he meets, and gives well written, well researched context to both. Unlike accounts by some other travel writers, there nothing to cringe at or be embarrassed by, just page after page of observation and analysis that fascinates and enlightens.
An excellent, excellent book.
I'm definitely doing a Silk Road trip next year....
Amazon.co.uk link: Shadow of the Silk Road - Colin Thubron
A spur of the moment purchase at the St Giles Cripplegate summer fete, this book is a gem.
I must confess a general ignorance about Korea, other than random facts such as "It's the sticky out bit between China/Russia and Japan", "It is split into North Korea ("baddies") and South Korea ("goodies")" and "M*A*S*H was set in the Korean War (and not the Vietnam War as a lot of people assume)". Having read Simon Winchester's account of his walk from the island of Cheju in the far south to Panmunjom in the demilitarised zone that forms the frontier between North and South Korea, I feel rather more enlightened, and wondering how best to get my head around developments since 1988 when this book was written.
The route was inspired by the journey made by shipwrecked Dutch sailors in 1688, who became the first Westerners to enter and leave the Kingdom of Korea. As he travels, Winchester provides details of the history, culture and beliefs of the people of Korea since then, and develops insights into how these enabled them to survive the 20th century events of invasion, international, cold and then civil war and to create a thriving economy (Daewoo, Hyundai, Samsung), in the South at least.
Winchester is quite clear that he would have loved to have continued his walk all the way through the demilitarised zone and gained comparable exposure to the people and places of the North. For my part, reading his account has given me the idea of adding another destination(s) to my list (as Catherine observed: going for another country in the Axis of Evil).
Amazon.co.uk link: Korea: A Walk Through the Land of Miracles - Simon Winchester
A whistlestop account of Ted Simon's journey around the world on his trusty Triumph motorbike in the mid-1970s. Fascinating journey, through worlds which have changed much in the intervening thirty years.
Given the scale of Ted Simon's journey, it's not surprising that people and places flash by - apart from his problems with the Brazilian authorities on his arrival in South America which (currently) feel like they are getting more than their fair share of the book. It's also quite hard to find natural breaks in the story; the "chapters" follow the continents, and Africa took up almost all of the first half of the book. Many pages after he leaves South Africa, we're still stuck in northern Brazil, sans bike.
The second half of the book covers ground a lightning speed - zooming down the eastern side of South America and back up the western coast, zipping through Central America in a couple of pages before a chilled out, loved up stay in California. The whole of Australia and Malaysia go in a mere 36 pages (seven of which give his account of a merry time holed up in the outback with a quartet of truck drivers waiting for flash floods to subside) , and whilst India gets more of a look in, the journey on from there back to Ted Simon's home in France takes 10 just pages - and that's for Pakistan -> Afghanistan -> Iran -> Turkey -> Greece -> Yugoslavia -> Germany -> Switzerland -> France.
Jupiter's Travels was not an obvious book for me, but I'd spotted a copy in a bookshop somewhere before the book was republished (to bask in the reflected glory of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman's adventures on more modern motorbikes, albeit not travelling quite so far) and had added it to my wishlist, from whence it was bought by TJBR for my birthday this year. Although I do now seem to have lots of motorbike themed recommended reads....
Amazon.co.uk link: Jupiter's Travels - Ted Simon
If you have any interest in the people, politics and history of Pakistan/Afghanistan/Iran/Iraq, or indeed of "Persian Rugs", then Christopher Kremmer's account of a decade long love affair with the region, its rugs and its people is a must-read.
A fantastic book - and a perfect read on long bus journey around Iran, with a bunch of people that included some fellow travellers to the Hindu Kush and the Khyber Pass.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Carpet Wars - Christopher Kremmer
In The Age of Kali William Dalrymple writes of his encounters - chance meetings and hard won interviews - and his observations of people, places and events across the length and breadth of India and Pakistan - from the Imran Khan in Peshawar to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka - at the close of the 20th century. There are insights into history, religions and politics. A fascinating set of articles
Amazon.co.uk link: The Age of Kali - William Dalrymple
Another of my pre-trip reads, I'd put this on my Amazon wish list for Christmas, and Rachel had come up trumps. What I'd not anticipated was that the two volumes of Marjane Satrapi's autobiography contained in Persepolis come in black and white comic strip form. That made for a speedy read, but one that had more immediate impact than Neither East Nor West, and one that documented and illustrated the experience of an Iranian girl/woman born the same year as I was with a huge amount of honesty.
In The Story of a Childhood, Marjane Satrapi tells how (pre-)teenage years take her from middle class affluence in Tehran through the Revolution and Iran-Iraq war and the impact they had on her life and that of her family and friends, to life in the West - where adolescent Marjane turns to drink and drugs and ends up living rough on the streets of 1980s Vienna.
In The Story of a Return, we see more of Tehran in the 1990s as Marjane matures from her teens to her twenties, studies art and marries, gets a job as an illustrator and divorces finally leaving Iran in 1994 to study in France. All before she was 25.
Amazon.co.uk link: Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
A timely read, in the month (all being well) I head off on my trip to Iran. Christiane Bird's book provides insight and opinion on modern day Iran as well as detail on history and geography, culture and politics, drawn from the experiences Christiane Bird gained and the people she met as she travelled around Iran in 1998.
Whilst naturally taking a female, western (US) perspective Christiane Bird balances gut reactions with conversations and explanations that result from the opportunity afforded to her as a woman (able to meet and freely discourse with other women) and a westerner. The book does not avoid difficult topics, including religious and personal freedoms, and the inevitable conclusion is that mutual misunderstanding results from preconceived ideas, and that all societies and cultures (and countries) merely reflect the people who create and occupy them, and individuals are more complex and varied than the stereotypes allow.
Amazon.co.uk link: Neither East Nor West: One Woman's Journey Through the Islamic Republic of Iran - Christiane Bird
The Places in Between describes Rory Stewart's walk from Herat to Kabul, over the mountains, rather than via the valleys and Khandahar, following in the footsteps of Moghul Emperor and empire builder Babur.
It is a fascinating read about the remote mountainous places and peoples of Afghanistan, in the months after the fall of the Taliban in 2002, and beautifully written. All in all it makes me more inclined to read Occupational Hazards Rory Stewart's account of his time as governer in post-invasion Iraq - I'd not realised he was one and the same, enlightened chap.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Places in Between - Rory Stewart
I found Paul Theroux's account of his travels along the British coastline rather bit hard going. His achievement is undeniable, all the more so as I suspect to repeat his travels 20 or so years later would be a lot harder - in several chapters you're made very aware that even in the early 80s the days of the coast-serving branch lines of Great Britain were numbered and by now many of them will have passed. And it was interesting to read an American (an anglo-friendly one)'s account of British attitudes to the Falklands War as those events unfolded in the North and South Atlantic.
So what didn't I enjoy? I think it was the flip side of that sense of reading history - knowing that the people and places, the attitudes and environment that Paul Theroux talks about no longer exist, at least not as he describes them. And looking back to 1982 really does feel like reading history, and I was keenly aware of how little of it matched with my own memories as a 12 year growing up in the Birmingham suburbs, about as far from the sea as it's possible to be.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Kingdom by the Sea - Paul Theroux
Unlike recent reads, I really enjoyed this Aurelio Zen mystery, although the man himself didn't make an appearance until well past page 40. Set in the independent minded mountain borderlands between Italy and Switzerland, this Zen outing provides a darker by more credible plot stetching back 30 years, and Zen's sleuthing reveals relationships and careers based on lies and deceit. Zen seems at his best when he's an outsider, and when Michale Dibdin keeps Zen's personal life playing a remote second fiddle to his detective work and police force politicking.
Amazon.co.uk link: Medusa - Michael Dibdin
I really wasn't sure about reading Jonny Bealby's account of his first trip to Pakistan/Afghanistan - I'd borrowed it from the library before going on the Wild Frontiers' trip to the Hindu Kush, and not read it for fear of spoiling my own first encounters, or jinxing the long awaited and much looked forward to adventure.
Fortunately I decided to give it a whirl after the event, and I am very glad that I did too. This book is not merely an account of Jonny's trip to a difficult part of the world, but it's also an account of his ongoing personal journey to come to terms with his girlfriend's death many years before. The combination is extremely powerful and I am sure I'm not the only reader who cried at various poignant moments.
It was lovely hearing Jonny describe his first meeting with Saifullah and the Kalash at the end of his journeys, and his descriptions of the arduous route he took there - from Dehli to Peshawar, over the Khyber Pass and into the Afghan side of the North West Frontier - deliberately echo Kipling's tale of The Man Who Would Be King, which first inspired the trip. It provides a fascinating insight into the region in the period preceeding 11 September 2001, and leaves you even more aware of how remote and independent the area is, and its people too.
A fantastic book.
Amazon.co.uk link: For a Pagan Song: In the Footsteps of the Man Who Would Be King - Travels in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan - Jonny Bealby
I really wasn't sure about reading Jonny Bealby's account of his first trip to Pakistan/Afghanistan - I'd borrowed it from the library before going on the Wild Frontiers' trip to the Hindu Kush, and not read it for fear of spoiling my own first encounters, or jinxing the long awaited and much looked forward to adventure.
Fortunately I decided to give it a whirl after the event, and I am very glad that I did too. This book is not merely an account of Jonny's trip to a difficult part of the world, but it's also an account of his ongoing personal journey to come to terms with his girlfriend's death many years before. The combination is extremely powerful and I am sure I'm not the only reader who cried at various poignant moments.
It was lovely hearing Jonny describe his first meeting with Saifullah and the Kalash at the end of his journeys, and his descriptions of the arduous route he took there - from Dehli to Peshawar, over the Khyber Pass and into the Afghan side of the North West Frontier - deliberately echo Kipling's tale of The Man Who Would Be King, which first inspired the trip. It provides a fascinating insight into the region in the period preceeding 11 September 2001, and leaves you even more aware of how remote and independent the area is, and its people too.
A fantastic book.
Amazon.co.uk link: For a Pagan Song: In the Footsteps of the Man Who Would Be King - Travels in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan - Jonny Bealby
Back to history-based travel writing after my recent detours into mediaeval and (almost) modern history, with Andrew Eames' account of the mid-life Middle Eastern travels of Agatha Christie managing to mirror Colm Toibin's biography of a famous author theme.
I thoroughly enjoyed this account of Andrew Eames' journey from Berkshire to Baghdad. Tracing Agatha Christie's own travels on the Orient Express in its heyday (and minus murders), Eames takes us on an increasingly adventurous itinery from British suburbia through continental Europe into the Balkans through Turkey to Syria and finally across the desert and into pre-war Iraq. I realised that his trip to Iraq was with Hinterland Travel - run by a knowledgable and reassuring chap called Geoff, with whom I had an interesting chat at a Destinations travel exhibition years ago.
At the same time he tells the fascinating story of Agatha Christie's life, from her failed first marriage to her happier second marriage and archaeological digs in the then British Mandate of Mesopotamia. I swiftly revised my Miss Marple image ....
Amazon.co.uk link: The 8.55 to Baghdad - Andrew Eames
A hefty hardback which contains a great tale of two chaps on the trail of Prester John, the mythical and mystical mediaeval priest-king who, legend had it, ruled over a Christian kingdom located somewhere in the mysterious orient, beyond the muslim-controlled lands of the Middle East and North Africa, and with wealth beyond compare.
In 2000 Nicholas Jubber persuaded his mate Mike to accompany him on a mission to follow in the footsteps of Master Philip, a mediaeval physician, who in 1177 was instructed by Pope Alexander III to carry a letter to Prester John asking for help in Christendom's Crusade in the Holy Land.
We follow Nick and Mike's journey from Venice around the Eastern Mediterranean and the still-troubled lands of the Middle East and thence into North Africa and south, through the Sudan and into Ethiopia. En route we learn how history, religion and current affairs continue to combine in much the same way as they did over 800 years ago when Master Philip and Pope Alexander were exchanging letters and progress reports.
A very readable book that ticks the boxes for travel writing and mediaeval+modern history. If you like William Dalrymple, you'll like this (and vice versa).
Buy it: Amazon link
My first taste of Dervla Murphy, although I've looked at her travel books many times. I'm not sure I'll be trying any others - I didn't like the style or the subjective opinions in this record of her travels in the north of Pakistan over the winter of 1974/1975, taking her 6 year old daughter with her. That said, it was interesting to read about places visited on the Hindu Kush Adventure, and Skardu and environs which Rob, who lent me this book, has been exploring on his own (well, with a guide, jeep driver and cook!), and in particular details of the area's transport/infrstructure, society and culture thirty years ago.
Amazon.co.uk link: Where the Indus Is Young: Walking to Baltistan - Dervla Murphy
In Xanadu turned out to be an excellent choice as my sole LHR departure lounge purchase. Having finished In the Company of Cheerful Ladies in Peshawar, I moved on to William Dalrymple's account of his journey from Cambridge to China, accompanied by the no nonsense Laura as far as Lahore, and subsequently by ex-girlfriend Louisa.
Following as far as possible in the footsteps of Marco Polo, William and his ladies travelled from Cyprus to Israel to Syria to Turkey to Iran to Pakistan and thence across China to Beijing. Fascinating, with history and architecture interwoven with pen portraits of people they meet en route - and interesting to see/hear the young William Dalrymple. My undergraduate summer holiday activities were nowhere near so adventurous.
Buy it: Amazon link
Foreign Babes in Beijing portrays Rachel DeWoskin's time in 1990s Beijing, working both as an actress on a soap and in the equally superficial world (some would say) of PR. The people this American graduate meets and befriends over the years she spends in China never really come alive, and I got the end of the book feeling that DeWoskin hadn't really managed to do them justice. On the other hand, she provides an amusing insider (of sorts)'s view of the workings of Chinese TV production, and her early struggles to settle and succeed in a country and a culture very different from her own.
Buy it: Amazon link
Luckily Katie had brought in Tears of the Giraffe as well as No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency for me to borrow, so I was able to carry on reading about the sleuthing and romancing of Mma. Ramotswe, Bostwana's only lady private eye. In this, the second novel in the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Alexander McCall Smith again creates a cast and a plot that balance the good and the bad of Botswana - ranging from fostering orphans to solving the long-ago murder of an idealistic young american to out-witting lazy and dishonest house-keepers.
Precious Ramotswe is a good woman, and in Alexander McCall Smith's novels (so far at least) decency, kindness, optimism and common sense win out.
Buy it: Amazon link
Lent to me by Katie Carter, I raced through No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency in one cool, wet Bank Holiday Saturday spent in the caravan at Walton-on-the-Naze.
Like many others (I'm sure), I'd picked up the first of Alexander McCall Smith's tales featuring ("starring", surely?) Precious Ramotswe many a time, in the library, at the airport, in bookshops... but I'd never actually bought it - the blurb just didn't sound enticing enough.
My mistake! Yes, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency reads like a gentle, calm tale, but it's one that carries many a sting: death and abandonment, murder and witchcraft; but Mma. Ramotswe and her merry men and women steer a safe, thoughtful and overwhelmingly positive path through it all to the happiness and contentment you can't but help feel they deserve.
A modern day Aesop's fable - I'm amazed this book hasn't got more Amazon reviews.
Buy it: Amazon link
Another great book about another culture and another part of the world. Chris Bird's book tells the twin tales of his family's experiences of living in the Caucasus and his experiences reporting on current affairs in the region over the course of 3 (4?) years at the end of the 20th century - notably the various wars in and about Chechnya. The personal descriptions are supplemented by Chris Bird's own account and analysis of the region's history, and the complexities of Chechnya, the Caucasus, and indeed many of the republics that formed the USSR, Russia in particular.
I'd love to know how Chris Bird is getting on with his career change - the book says that he was studying medicine in London at the time of publication.
Buy it: Amazon link
I thoroughly enjoyed this account of the various Christian communities that live(d) in the Middle East. It's fascinating to learn how many of the regions we think of as muslim have older Christian cultures (plural), and for how long these societies have lived together in the Middle East. William Dalrymple does not shy away from looking at why many of the Christian cultures are slowly but surely disappearing, but neither does he lay blame in an indiscriminate fashion as he travels around the countries that form the eastern and southern borders of the Mediterranean Sea.
A bit strange reading it on a small island in the middle of the South Atlantic.
Buy it: Amazon link
I went for something completely different (see musings at close of previous post). In Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose (8): A Memoir of Love, Exile and Crosswords Sandy Balfour combines travel and autobiography with an explanation of how crosswords 'work', how to decode clues and encounters with the crossword setting cognoscenti. Fascinating.
Buy it: Amazon link
I chanced upon this in one of Hereford's second hand bookshops (Hay doesn't have them all!!) and took it with me to Yalta, which is in the Crimea where Neal Ascherson's excellent anthropological, historical and politcal account of the Black Sea begins.
As Hazel and I visited the greek ruins at Chersonesus (now a seaside surburb of Sevastopol), the Khan's Palace at Bakchisarai, and the Genoese fortress and Soviet submarine base at Balaclava, and the harbours and hills of Sevastopol, the book offered additional backstory to the excellent information provided by Voyages Jules Verne's local guides.
The book is broader in the context than simply the Crimea; Neal Ascherson considers the majority of the Black Sea coast, and it is a fascinating part of the world, a real melting pot of peoples for millennia, and only in very recent history has it become perceived as a frontier between 'east' and 'west', 'barbarian' and 'civilisation'.
Buy it: Amazon link
The first of my post-holiday reading (so watch the rate of consumption drop off!), and I decided to continue the travel theme. I've long been interested in the life, times and travels of Ibn Battutah, but I was put off by the rather dry academic texts which were all I could find....... until I discovered Tim Mackintosh-Smith's tales his own 20th century travels in the footsteps of this travel-bug from Tangiers.
Starting from IB's Moroccan homeland, in the far west of the arabian, muslim lands, Tim follows his trail to Mecca, with a short excursion to the Crimea. This sidetrip within the then muslim world made for interesting reading as H and I head off to Yalta at the end of September. In particular it highlighted the fact that the Crimea spent a substantial chunk of time as a Khanate, having been settled by a segment of the Mongol Hordes that converted to Islam. Not what you expect of part of the Ukraine....
Fascinating stuff, told with human insight by Yemen-based Tim Mackintosh-Smith. I'm very glad I've got Norton Rose's leaving gift, Hall of a Thousand Columns: Hindustan to Malabar with Ibn Battutah , ready and waiting on the bookshelf to provide coverage of further voyages, ever eastwards.
Buy it:
Amazon link
I thought that I might find this heavy going, but after the froth and insubstantial fare of The Colour of Heaven I felt in need of something a bit meatier.
And Christian Tyler provided that in his (her?) history and analysis of Xinjiang, the region of steppe, desert and mountain that sits as the buffer between China and the Central Asian republics, and which now is becoming increasingly dominated by Han Chinese at the expense of the Uighur people - whose language is Turkic and religion is Islam.
A really stimulating and easy to digest read, on a topic which has made me all the more determined to make that trip from Beijing to Kashgar, and if possible onwards along the Silk Route to the West. In fact, this journey, perhaps?
Buy it: Amazon link
Finished this off this morning, after starting it last weekend - it's been sitting on the bookshelf in the Gyford Family caravan ever since I've had the joy to go there. A gem of a travel book - partly because I'd not appreciated how inhabited Siberia is, partly because the region is so vast, partly because of the heavy-handed impact relatively recent history has had on the long-standing cultures and societies that had developed there, and partly because Colin Thubron makes the effort to engage and to be engaging as he travels through Siberia eastwards from Russia to the Pacific, mostly by train, but also by bus and car, boat and aeroplane.
Having been busy satisfying my desire to visit Central Asia via litery stand-ins, these tales from the lands to the north of the 'Stans, Mongolia and China show just how artifical political borders are for the societies that have always lived there, and yet how intrusive, restrictive and destructive the political and powerful can be. The book is full of fascinating facts, and a cast of characters whose lifestories post-Thubron I'd love to learn.
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Set in 9th century China at the twilight of the Tang Dynasty and their Empire, Justin Hill's novel is a gem. It tells the tale of the doomed lives and loves of Minsiter Li, a Government Official from a powerful family, who buys as his concubine Little Flower/Lily, a beautiful and educated orphan from the northerm fringes of the Empire. When their love thwarted by pride, custom and family, Lily turns to poetry and becomes a courtesan to the rich and powerful.... so far, so clich
Monica Whitlock is/was the BBC's Central Asian correspondent throughout the 1990s, and in this book she explains the region's historical, social and political background from the turn of the 19th/20th century through to the early years of the 21st century, a 100+ years that saw external forces that changed the area from post-Ottoman Khan/Caliph-ates, to Soviet Republics to Independent states.... even though the cultural, social and religious ties that determine political events in the regions are largely based in tribal groupings that have existed for centuries.
Monica Whitlock provides Western readers with an explanation not only of the 'Stans of Central Asia with which we are familiar through news reports, but also background to the rise and fall of the Taleban in Afghanistan and an insight into the melting pot of peoples, tribes and cultures that fled to Afghanistan, before, during and after the Soviet era.
A fascinating and rewarding book for anyone who wants a better understanding of Central Asia - the people of the region, their histories, religions, politics and societies. It will serve you well for past, present and future of this important and misunderstood region,
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It took me a while to get into this after the easy reading served up by Sue Grafton. Mind you, there is quite a contrast between 1980s California and 19th century Syria...
In the Grandfather's Tale, we hear the story, told by a mother to her children, of her grandfather's lifelong quest to be re-united with his mother left behind in the central Asian country of Dagestan when father and son travel to Damascus.
I'm no expert on arabian fiction, but the story telling seems classicially arabian, with a new chapter each night a bit like the princess in 1001 Nights. The book is not long, and it was an easy way to learn more about the common history and society of central asia and the middle east, which have shared so much for so long. It is clear that although Dagestan is many weeks travel away from Damascus, the common culture and religion remove any barriers that might exist. You also learn about Imperial Russia's invasion of the Caucasus, two centuries before the current strife in Chechnya, which is surely not unrelated.
Whilst Islam and pilgrimmage are ever present in the book, it is a backdrop to a muslim society with does not demonstrate any elements of the Axis of Evil. Away from the struggles for independence, the world we see is peaceful and content - it is only really the modern world that equates the region with militant, fundamentalist Islam. I can't help thinking that there must be many mirrored parallels between the relationship between Middle East and West in the 20th and 21st centuries, and the same relationship during the centuries of Christianity's Crusades.
That said, it's not a dry, deliberately educational novel. The story is of a boy's love for his family, and the mother he left behind aged 10.
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Bought for me by dad and Jean for Christmas 2004, this collection tells the real life stories of a range of 20th century chinese women, some of whom are living lives that sound, to a Western woman, like they are set centuries ago. I can't remember where I read the review that prompted me to add this book to my Wishlist, but I'm very glad that I did. In each chapter, radio presenter and journalist Xinran, tells us about the listener's life, and in each case highlights an issue that affects women in China, and elsewhere. In translation, the narrative sounds a little stilted, but the stories are hugely powerful, and provide an amazing insight into female chinese society and the changes China and her people have seen in the 20th century.
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A Christmas gift from TJBR, purchased from my Wishlist, this is John Simpson's earliest-written autobiography, and the last one for me to read to get up-to-date with with what's available in paperback. Just the thing for a holiday 'blockbuster', it makes me what to re-read the subsequent books where he revisits some of the narrative in this one, which covers his childhood and first marriage, both of which provide interesting backdrop to his the early days of his career.
In the later chapters, John Simpson moves on to talk about