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Tag Archives: Travel literature
Read Chapter 1 of “Turn Left at Lenin’s Statue” for free!
Turn Left at Lenin’s Statue is my first travel book. It’s the story of a journey through Central Asia, past frontiers and across seasons; a journey whose aim was to understand this region, to go beyond the (scarce) headlines and, … Continue reading
Posted in The Book
Tagged Almaty, Amazon, Amazon self publish, Book, Central Asia, Chapter 1, free chapter 1, Free reading, Kazakhstan, Lenin, Nur Sultan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Statue, Travel, Travel Book, Travel literature, Travel writing, Travelogue, Turn Left
16 Comments
“Shark Drunk” by Morten Strøksnes, Vintage.
Norwegians are an inscrutable bunch. I’ve got colleagues from up there and, let me tell you, they are a constant source of wonder. Amongst many things, they’ll think nothing of saying things such as “Because you haven’t asked for this … Continue reading
Posted in Books review
Tagged Aasjord, Book, Book Review, Books, Critique, Greenland, Greenland Shark, Havbuka, Hemingway, Lofoten, Morten, Morten Strøksnes, Nordic, North, Norway, Ocean, Sea, Shark Drunk, The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean, Travel literature, Vestfjord, Vintage
18 Comments
Porteño portrait.
There’s only a way to define my desire to describe a community of 13 million people after visiting it for a mere handful of days: preposterous. Still, this is what I’ll attempt here. This is my final tribute to Buenos … Continue reading
Posted in Americas, Argentina
Tagged America, Argentina, Buenos Aires, Evita Peron, Homelessness, Humanity, Kindness, Latin America, Lucha, Luchamos, Lucia Perez, Machismo, People, People watching, Peronismo, Peronismo militante, Photography, Politics, Porteño, Portrait, Poverty, Pueblo, Resistance, Riot, San Telmo, Santiago Maldonado, Street photography, Tourism, Travel, Travel literature, Urban photography, Violence
19 Comments
Confessions of a graphomaniac.
Doctor, dear doctor, help me for I’m a graphomaniac. Yes doctor, I love paper. I adore the smell of the thing, the muffled noise of a pencil running on a smooth sheet. In a nutshell, doctor, I love writing. I … Continue reading
Posted in Odd ones out, Random memories
Tagged Asia, Beirut, Central Asia, Drawing, Graphomania, Graphomaniac, Italia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Mapping, Maps, Memories, Middle East, Mitsubishi, Moleskine, Norris, Note, Pamir, Pen, Sri Lanka, Staedler, Travel, Travel literature, Travelling, Writing
26 Comments
“Out of Steppe” by Daniel Metcalfe, Arrow – Random House
If the passion for travelling off the beaten path, exploring places that don’t make it on the top-shelf brochure at your local Trailfinders (but, let’s face it, they don’t even make it to the bottom one), was a genetic strand … Continue reading
Posted in Books review
Tagged Afghanistan, Aral Sea, Arrow, Asia, Books review, Bukhara, Bukharan Jews, Byron, Central Asia, Colin Thubron, Daniel Metcalfe, Iran, Karakalpakstan, Kazakhstan, Moynaq, Pakistan, Random House, Tehran, The Economist, Thesiger, Travel literature, Travel writing, Uzbekistan, Volga Germans, Wilfred Thesiger, Yaghnobi
12 Comments
“I have never encountered splendour of this kind before”. Visiting Isfahan with Robert Byron
On paper it sounded like a good idea: visiting a country whilst reading about it, journeying through the physical space and the mental one concocted by a great travel writer, attempting to match my experiences to those of the author. … Continue reading
“Arabian Sands”, by Wilfred Thesiger, Penguin Books.
Italo Calvino once wrote that a ‘classic’ is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. If this is the approved meter of judgement for the category, then I’ve no doubts that Arabian Sands belongs to … Continue reading
Posted in Books review, Uncategorized
Tagged Africa, Arabia, Arabian Sands, Bedouin, Bedu, History, Middle East, Penguin books, Travel literature, Travelling, Travelogue, Wilfred Thesiger
8 Comments
“Ninety Percent of Everything”, by Rose George, Picador
I’m an intrinsically sceptical person, the sort of individual who’s the thorn in the side of marketers, focus group organisers or pollsters. Give an advert saying “The best book of the year” and I’ll immediately think ‘bullshit’. Make me read … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Books, Books review, Felixstowe, Maersk, Maersk Kendal, Merchant Navy, mission, Ninety percent of everything, Picador, Pirates, Rose George, Seafaring, Singapore, Slate, Somalia, Travel literature
11 Comments