Travel Recent Picks

October 2009

The title-underlined links will take you directly to our catalogue.
Some featured items are linked via a book cover to enable you to read more reviews.

Far horizons : unusual journeys and strange encounters from a travelling life, by Frank Gardner ; with a foreword by Michael Palin.
"Lost on a remote Sumatran volcano... pursued through a Tokyo backstreet by a Japanese gangster... picnicking with the French Foreign Legion in the Horn of Africa: Frank Gardner's idea of a holiday is not everyone's. But ever since his student days, the BBC security correspondent has done some epicly hard travelling in a remarkable number of countries. Drawing on the diaries, sketches and photos he kept during his travels, his immaculately observed accounts of these often strange, sometimes daring, adventures in many of the world's most out of the way places form the backbone of his new book. In June 2004, while reporting on what should have been a routine assignment in Riyadh, his life - never mind his ability to travel the world - was nearly brought to a violent end by Islamist gunmen. Incredibly, Frank not only survived being shot six times at point blank range but also, against all the odds and through force of will, has found himself looking towards those far horizons once more.... And he is also reporting once more from far-flung destinations like Afghanistan and Colombia - and this is a man who no longer has the use of his legs...." (Amazon)

Maps of my life, by Guy Browning. (2009)
"Guy Browning, author of the Number 1 bestselling "Never Hit a Jellyfish with a Spade" and popular longstanding "Guardian" columnist, finally turns his unique attention to a rich new comic seam - his own deeply eccentric and far-flung upbringing. Weaned on maps, educated by maps, surrounded by maps and ever so slightly in love with maps, Guy Browning presents a selection of intriguing and quirkily annotated cartographic gems to chart his unsteady progress from pewling toddler to pewling young man via the furthest corners of the Alps, Niagara Falls, the Mediterranean, Central America and darkest Chipping Norton. "Maps of My Life" revisits the richly comic highways, byways and unpaved tracks of Guy's unusually peripatetic early years, peopled with unforgettable relatives, friends and foe such as the Fatted Calf, the Sainted One, Langton Machoko and Marshal LaPoulette ...Beautifully produced with full-colour maps throughout......" (Amazon)

How the world makes love : and what it taught a jilted groom, by Franz Wisner. (2009)
"When you’ve been jilted at the altar and forced to take your pre-paid honeymoon with your brother, it’s fair to say you could learn a thing or two about love. And that’s what Franz Wisner sets out to do - traveling the globe with a mission: to discover the planet’s most important love lessons and see if they can rescue him from the ruins of his own love life. Even after months on the road, he’s still not sure he’s found the secret. But a disastrous date with a Los Angeles actress and single mom keeps popping into Franz’s head. While researching ideal love, could he have missed a bigger truth: that something unplanned and implausible could actually make him happy?" (Amazon)

The media relations department of Hizbollah wishes you a happy birthday : unexpected encounters in the changing Middle East, by Neil MacFarquhar. (2009)
"Since his boyhood in Qadhafi’s Libya, Neil MacFarquhar has developed a counter intuitive sense that the Middle East, despite all the bloodshed in its recent history, is a place of warmth, humanity, and generous eccentricity.
In this book, he introduces a cross-section of unsung, dynamic men and women pioneering political and social change. There is the Kuwaiti sex therapist in a leather suit with matching red headscarf, and the Syrian engineer advocating a less political interpretation of the Koran. MacFarquhar interacts with Arabs and Iranians in their every day lives, removed from the violence we see constantly, yet wrestling with the region’s future. These are people who realize their region is out of step with the world and are determined to do something about it - on their own terms." (Amazon)

Dreaming in Hindi : coming awake in another language, by Katherine Russell Rich. (2009)
"Having miraculously survived a serious illness and now at an impasse in her career as a magazine editor, Rich spontaneously accepted a free-lance writing assignment to go to India, where she found herself thunderstruck by the place and the language. Before she knew it she was on her way to Udaipur, a city in the northwestern state of Rajasthan, in order to learn Hindi.
In this inspirational memoir, Rich documents her experiences in India ranging from the bizarre to the frightening to the unexpectedly exhilarating using Hindi as the lens through which she is given a new perspective not only on India, but on the radical way the country and the language itself were changing her." (Amazon)

Wild spirit : how a year in the African rainforest changed an Australian woman's life, by Annette Henderson. (2009)

Israel is real: Cover subtitle: An obsessive quest to understand the Jewish nation and its history, by Rich Cohen. (2009)

Hawaii, Jeff Campbell ... [et al.]. (2009)

High heels and a head torch : the essential guide for girls who backpack, by Chelsea Duke. (2009)

Europe by Eurail 2009 : touring Europe by train, by written by LaVerne Ferguson-Kosinski ; edited by C. Darren Price ; rail schedules by C. Darren Price, (2009)

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