You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The Indus rises in Tibet, flows west across India, and south through Pakistan. For millennia it has been worshipped as a god; for centuries used as a tool of imperial expansion. Empires of the Indus follows the river upstream and back in time, taking the reader on a voyage through two thousand miles of geography and more than five thousand years of history redolent with contemporary importance.
A revelatory portrait of Britain through its islands, The Britannias weaves history, myth, and travelogue to rewrite the story of this “island nation.” From Neolithic Orkney, Viking Shetland, and Druidical Anglesey to the joys and strangeness of modern Thanet, The Britannias explores the farthest reaches of Britain’s island topography, once known by the collective term “Britanniae” (the Britains). This expansive journey demonstrates how the smaller islands have wielded disproportionate influence on the mainland, becoming the fertile ground of political, cultural, and technological innovations that shaped history throughout the archipelago. In an act of feminist inquiry, personal ad...
'Fantastic - a wonderful book' Lily Cole 'Magical, rich and magnificent' Maxine Peake 'A wild ride! She sees Graves' White Goddess and raises 50 with female magic and transformations' Margaret Atwood 'A rare book, bold and powerful' Xiaolu Guo 'Wild, original...a beautiful work' Neel Mukherjee SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION 2022 NOMINATED FOR THE OTHERWISE AWARD 2022 A storm, a disappearance, a band of women and a remote island where anything is possible. On an unnamed archipelago off the east coast of Britain, Eva Levi has made it her life's work to build a community truly run by women. Now she has disappeared, rumours spread that it will be destroyed. But Cwen will never let that happen. Cwen has been here longer than the civilisation she has returned to haunt. Her name has ancient roots, reaching down into the earth and halfway around the world. The islands she inhabits have always belonged to women. And she will do anything she can to protect them. This remarkable novel is a portrait of female power and female potential, both to shelter and to harm. It reaches into our mythical past and opens up space for us to dream of a radical future.
The best new writing, photography, art, and reportage from and about Berlin—in the series that’s “like a literary vacation” (Publishers Weekly). In 1990s Berlin, the scars of a century of war were still visible everywhere: coal stoves, crumbling buildings, desolate minimarts, not a working buzzer or elevator. To visit the city then was a hallucinatory experience, a simultaneous journey into the past and into the future. The abandoned ruins, the hidden gems found at the flea market, the illegal basement raves are a thing of the past. The era of Berlin as a site of urban archeology is over. Almost all the damaged buildings have been repaired, squatters have been removed, the shops sell...
How can we think more deeply about our travels? This was the question that inspired Emily Thomas' journey into the philosophy of travel. Part philosophical ramble, part travelogue, The Meaning of Travel begins in the Age of Discovery, when philosophers first started taking travel seriously. It meanders forward to consider Montaigne on otherness, John Locke on cannibals, and Henry Thoreau on wilderness. On our travels with Thomas, we discover the dark side of maps, how the philosophy of space fuelled mountain tourism, and why you should wash underwear in woodland cabins... We also confront profound issues, such as the ethics of 'doom tourism' (travel to 'doomed' glaciers and coral reefs), and the effect of space travel on human significance in a leviathan universe. The first ever exploration of the places where history and philosophy meet, this book will reshape your understanding of travel.
'Extraordinary... A fascinating and intelligent book.' Sunday Times New islands are being built at an unprecedented rate whether for tourism or territorial ambition, while many islands are disappearing or fragmenting because of rising sea levels. It is a strange planetary spectacle, creating an ever-changing map which even Google Earth struggles to keep pace with. In The Age of Islands, explorer and geographer Alastair Bonnett takes the reader on a compelling and thought-provoking tour of the world's newest, most fragile and beautiful islands and reveals what, he argues, is one of the great dramas of our time. From a 'crannog', an ancient artificial island in a Scottish loch, to the militarized artificial islands China is building in the South China Sea; from the disappearing islands that remain the home of native Central Americans to the ritzy new islands of Dubai; from Hong Kong and the Isles of Scilly to islands far away and near: all have urgent stories to tell.
A poignant reflection on alienation and belonging, told through the lives of five remarkable people who struggled against nationalism and intolerance in one of EuropeÕs most stunning cities. What does it mean to belong somewhere? For many of PragueÕs inhabitants, belonging has been linked to the nation, embodied in the capital city. Grandiose medieval buildings and monuments to national heroes boast of a glorious, shared history. Past governments, democratic and Communist, layered the city with architecture that melded politics and nationhood. Not all inhabitants, however, felt included in these efforts to nurture national belonging. Socialists, dissidents, Jews, Germans, and VietnameseÑa...
SHORTLISTED FOR THE EDWARD STANFORD TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A dazzlingly brilliant book' Hannah Dawson 'Fascinating, often exhilarating ... Albinia is an intrepid, imaginative guide' TLS The Britannias tells the story of Britain's islands and how they are woven into its collective cultural psyche. From Neolithic Orkney to modern-day Thanet, Alice Albinia explores the furthest reaches of Britain's island topography, once known (wrote Pliny) by the collective term, Britanniae. Sailing over borders, between languages and genres, trespassing through the past to understand the present, this book knocks the centre out to foreground neglected epics and subversive voices. The ancient mythology of i...
*Shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2016* Mirza Waheed's extraordinary new novel The Book of Gold Leaves is a heartbreaking love story set in war-torn Kashmir. In an ancient house in the city of Srinagar, Faiz paints exquisite Papier Mache pencil boxes for tourists. Evening is beginning to slip into night when he sets off for the shrine. There he finds the woman with the long black hair. Roohi is prostrate before her God. She begs for the boy of her dreams to come and take her away. Roohi wants a love story. An age-old tale of love, war, temptation, duty and choice, The Book of Gold Leaves is a heartbreaking tale of a what might have been, what could have been, if only....
**TOP TEN BESTSELLER** 'I would rather read Colin Thubron than any other travel writer alive' John Simpson Mount Kailas is the most sacred of the world's mountains - holy to one fifth of humanity. Isolated beyond the central Himalayas, its summit has never been scaled, but for centuries the mountain has been ritually circled by Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims. Colin Thubron joins these pilgrims, after an arduous trek from Nepal, through the high passes of Tibet, to the magical lakes beneath the slopes of Kailas itself. He talks to secluded villagers and to monks in their decaying monasteries; he tells the stories of exiles and of eccentric explorers from the West. Yet he is also walking on a pilgrimage of his own. Having recently witnessed the death of the last of his family, his trek around the great mountain awakes an inner landscape of love and grief, restoring precious fragments of his own past.