Couchsurfing in Russia: Friendships and Misadventures Behind Putin's Curtain by Stephan Orth

$38.00 NZD

Category: Travel Writing | Reading Level: 5.5 Travel

'In the late summer of 2016' writes award-winning travel writer Stephan Orth, 'a journey to Russia feels like visiting enemy territory.' In this humorous and thought-provoking book, Orth ventures through that vast and mysterious territory to uncover the real, unfiltered Russia not seen in today's headl ines- authentic, bizarre, dangerous, and beautiful. Sidestepping the well-trod tourist path, he travels the country from Moscow to Vladivostok - across seven time zones and almost 9,500 kilometres - making stops in Chechnya, Saint Petersburg, Siberia, and beyond. Staying with an eclectic array of hosts, he bumps into gun nuts, internet conspiracy theorists, faux shamans, and Putin fans; learns to drive in death-defying Russian style; and discovers how to cure hangovers by sniffing rye bread. But he also sees a darker side of the country, witnessing firsthand the effects of Putin's influence in the run-up to the 2016 American election and the power of propaganda in this 'post-fact? era. Weaving everything together with thoughtfulness and warmth, Orth follows the acclaimed Couchsurfing in Iran with another complex, funny, and personal travelogue - a colourful portrait of a fascinating and misunderstood country. ...Show more

Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth by Dan Richards

$36.99 NZD

Category: Travel Writing

There are still wild places out there on our crowded planet. Through a series of personal journeys, Dan Richards explores the appeal of far-flung outposts in mountains, tundra, forests, oceans and deserts. These are landscapes that speak of deep time, whose scale can knock us down to size. Their untamed nature is part of their beauty and such places have long drawn the adventurous, the spiritual and the artistic.For those who go in search of the silence, isolation and adventure of wilderness it is - perhaps ironically - to man-made shelters that they often need to head; to bothies, bivouacs, camps and sheds. Part of the allure of such refuges is their simplicity: enough architecture to keep the weather at bay but not so much as to distract from the natural world.Following a route from the Cairngorms of Scotland to the fire-watch lookouts of Washington State, from Iceland's 'Houses of Joy' to the Utah desert; frozen ghost towns in Svalbard to shrines in Japan; Roald Dahl's Home Counties writing hut to a lighthouse in the North Atlantic, Richards explores landscapes which have inspired writers, artists and musicians, and asks: why are we drawn to wilderness? What can we do to protect them? And what does the future hold for outposts on the edge? ...Show more

The Bells of Old Tokyo: Travels in Japanese Time by Anna Sherman

$37.99 NZD

Category: Travel Writing | Reading Level: 3 Biography

In The Bells of Old Tokyo, Anna Sherman explores Japan and revels in all its wonderful particularity. As a foreigner living in Tokyo, Sherman's account takes pleasure and fascination in the history and culture of a country that can seem startlingly strange to an outsider. Following her search for the l ost bells of the city - the bells by which its inhabitants kept time before the Jesuits introduced them to clocks - to her personal friendship with the owner of a small, exquisite cafe, who elevates the making and drinking of coffee to an art-form, here is Tokyo in its bewildering variety. From the love hotels of Shinjuku to the appalling fire-storms of 1945 (in which many more thousands of people died than in Hiroshima or Nagasaki), from the death of Mishima to the impact of the Tohoku earthquake of 2011. For fans of The Lonely City, and Lost in Translation, The Bells of Old Tokyo is a beautiful and original portrait of Tokyo told through time. ...Show more

To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War & Peace by Kapka Kassabova

$39.99 NZD

Category: Travel Writing

Lake Ohrid and Lake Prespa. Two vast lakes joined by underground rivers. Two lakes that seem to hold both the turbulent memories of the region's past, and the secret of its enduring allure. Two lakes that have played a central role in Kapka Kassabova's maternal family. As she journeys to her grandmothe r's place of origin, Kassabova encounters a civilisational crossroads. The Lakes are set within the mountainous borderlands of North Macedonia, Albania and Greece, and crowned by the old Roman road, the via Egnatia. Once a trading and spiritual nexus of the southern Balkans, this lake region remains one of Eurasia's most culturally diverse areas. Meanwhile, with their remote rock churches, changeable currents, and large population of migratory birds, the Lakes live in their own time. By exploring on water and land the stories of poets, fishermen, and caretakers, misfits, rulers, and inheritors of war and exile, Kassabova uncovers the human history shaped by the Lakes. Setting out to resolve her own ancestral legacy of the Lakes, Kassabova's journey unfolds to a deeper enquiry into how geography and politics imprint themselves upon families and nations, and confronts her with questions about human suffering and the capacity for change. ...Show more

Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger; Rory Stewart (Foreword by, Introduction by)

$23.00 NZD

Category: Travel Writing

Wilfred Thesiger charts the time he spent living with the Bedu, including his legendary traverses of the Empty Quarter. Wilfred Thesiger is the last of the great British eccentric explorers, a legendary figure renowned for his travels though some of the most inaccessible places on earth. Arabian Sands w as his widely acclaimed first book and is recognized as one of the great travel classics. His evocative prose and stunning photographs capture the spirit of the proud tribespeople who became his friends and the harsh landscape he inhabited with them in a way very few westeners have. ...Show more

As I Walked out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee

$30.00 NZD

Category: Travel Writing | Series: Penguin Modern Classics

'The stooping figure of my mother, waist-deep in the grass and caught there like a piece of sheep's wool, was the last I saw of my country home as I left it to discover the world' Abandoning the Cotswolds village that raised him, the young Laurie Lee walks to London. There he makes a living labouring an d playing the violin. But, deciding to travel further a field and knowing only the Spanish phrase for 'Will you please give me a glass of water?', he heads for Spain. With just a blanket to sleep under and his trusty violin, he spends a year crossing Spain, from Vigo in the north to the southern coast. Only the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War puts an end to his extraordinary peregrinations... ...Show more

Three Tigers, One Mountain by Michael Booth

$40.00 NZD

Category: Travel Writing

'The next Bill Bryson' (New York Times) explores international relations past and present between three East Asian countries - Japan, South Korea and China - in this lively, absorbing travelogue China, Korea and Japan are the neighbours who love to hate each other. But why? More than neighbours, these t hree countries are siblings from a Confucian family. They share so much culturally, from this ancient philosophy to rice-growing, art, chopsticks and more, passed down from China over millennia. In turn, China has modelled much of its economic strategy on Japan's, and adores Korean popular culture. But China and Korea haven't forgiven Japan for its imperial war crimes. They are continually in disputes about island ownership, controversial war monuments and military escalation. And despite polls suggesting the public would like these relations to improve, East Asia festers with a mutual animosity which frequently threatens to trigger a 21st-century world war. In this deeply researched, revealing book, Michael Booth sets off travelling by car, boat, train and plane through all three countries to disentangle their knottiest problems, ending up in a fourth, Taiwan. Guided by local experts, he takes us on an enthralling journey that is by turns shocking, deeply moving, and wonderfully insightful. ...Show more

Great Cities Through Travelers' Eyes by Peter Furtado (Editor)

$45.00 NZD

Category: Travel Writing

This entertaining new anthology includes travelers' tales from thirty-eight cities spread over six continents, ranging from Beijing to Berlin, Cairo to Chicago, and Rio to Rome. The volume features commentators across the millennia, including the great travelers of ancient times, such as Greek geograph er Strabo; those who undertook extensive journeys in the medieval world, not least Marco Polo; courageous women such as Isabella Bird and Freya Stark; and enterprising writers and journalists, including Mark Twain. We see the work of famous travelers, but also stories by ordinary people who found themselves involved in remarkable situations, like the medieval Chinese abbot who was shown around the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris by the king of France. Some of the writers seek to provide a straightforward, accurate description of all they have seen, while others concentrate on their subjective experiences of the city and encounters with the inhabitants. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling historian Peter Furtado, each account provides both a vivid portrait of a distant place and time and an insight into those who journeyed there. The result is a book that delves into the splendors and stories that exist beyond conventional guidebooks and websites. ...Show more

Two Wheels South by Matias Corea

$89.99 NZD

Category: Travel Writing

Two friends take the motorcycle trip of their life—From Brooklyn to Patagonia. Matias Corea shares his insights on how to prepare, choose the right motorcycle, what to pack, how to plan the route, where to camp and last but not least: How to prepare your mind. Setbacks and breaking down are part o f the adventure, but preparation and being on the road teach you the confidence to tackle any problem.Follow Matias Corea and his friend Joel through the American South, Central America over the Darien Gap and beyond, over wooden cracking jungle bridges in Colombia and to dry lake high plateaus in Argentina. Feel the character of the roads and the smell of nature: Riding a motorcycle is one of the purest forms of traveling. After 7 months and 13 countries Matias and Joel have learned a lot while riding down south on their trusty BMW air-cooled G/S overland haulers and are ready to share their experience. Two Wheels South invites you on the experience of a lifetime. ...Show more

The Writer Abroad : Literary Travellers from Austria to Uzbekistan by Lucinda Hawksley

$39.99 NZD

Category: Travel Writing | Reading Level: General Adult

Riding Route 94 by MCKIE DAVID

$29.99 NZD

Category: Travel Writing

On previous journeys through Britain, David McKie headed for places he had heard of and was eager to see. But how true, how representative a picture of the country could that provide? What, he wondered, might happen if he let chance dictate his itinerary? McKie decides to travel only where he was taken by buses with the number 94, stopping off along the way to visit often unexpected places. Chance also takes the form of unexpected encounters at the bus stop or stumbling across some fascinating slice of local history in a country churchyard. Eschewing such simplistic generalisations as the 'north-south divide', he nonetheless finds themes emerging: Why do some communities thrive and grow while others seem set on a course of inevitable decline - sometimes even communities living cheek by jowl? What kind of urban landscape have we inherited from the post-war planners, whose best intentions too often took little account of how people actually want to live? And how much are our opportunities and expectations shaped by the communities we are born into? These buses will take David McKie across the idyllic Isle of Mull (where the driver pauses to let him drink in the view), to the furthest reaches of Cornwall ('in England, but certainly not of England'), through the post-industrial landscape of Middlesbrough, and to a whole host of places, some privileged, some bereft, some in between. This is a journey that will make the reader discover unfamiliar places for the first time and see familiar places through fresh eyes. So get your ticket from the driver and take your seat: you're about to discover that some of the most unexpected things in this ever-surprising country are to be glimpsed through the window of the number 94 bus. ...Show more

Come, Tell Me How You Live: An Archaeological Memoir by Agatha Christie

$34.99 NZD

Category: Travel Writing

Agatha Christie's personal memoirs about her travels to Syria and Iraq in the 1930s with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan, where she worked on the digs and wrote some of her most evocative novels. Think you know Agatha Christie? Think again! To the world she was Agatha Christie, legendary author o f bestselling whodunits. But in the 1930s she wore a different hat, travelling with her husband, renowned archaeologist Max Mallowan, as he investigated the buried ruins and ancient wonders of Syria and Iraq. When friends asked what this strange 'other life' was like, she decided to answer their questions by writing down her adventures in this eye-opening book. Described by the author as a 'meandering chronicle of life on an archaeological dig', Come, Tell Me How You Live is Agatha Christie's very personal memoir of her time spent in this breathtaking corner of the globe, living among the working men in tents in the desert where recorded human history began. Acclaimed as 'a pure pleasure to read', it is an altogether remarkable and increasingly poignant narrative, a fascinating, vibrant and vivid portrait of everyday life in a world now long since vanished. ...Show more