Life on the Golden Horn


Mary Wortley Montagu - 2007
    Allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries - but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own.

Fighting in Spain


George Orwell - 2007
    

In the Heart of the Amazon Forest (Penguin Great Journeys)


Henry Walter Bates - 1863
    Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries - but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: great civilizations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, and multitudes of birds and flowers new to science.

Borneo, Celebes, Aru


Alfred Russel Wallace - 1869
    Whether living with Hill Dyaks or hunting Orang-Utans or sailing on a junk to the unbelievably remote Aru islands, Wallace opens our eyes to a now long vanished world.

A Journey to the End of the Russian Empire


Anton Chekhov - 1893
    But lucky chance the Herald was also stranded -- with a band on board, so there was an excellent party. This was a high point of Chekhov's great journey through Russia's wilderness. He was to share a cabin with an opium-smoking Chinese man, learn why Japanese ladies were famed for their sexual prowess and witness vicious punishments in the desolate wasteland of Russia's penal colony.

Across the Empty Quarter


Wilfred Thesiger - 2007
    The result was a monument both to his resilience and to the Bedu who guided him and who emerge as the book's real heroes.An extract of 'Arabian Sands, 1959.

Snakes with Wings and Gold-digging Ants


Herodotus - 2007
    Each beautifully packaged volume offers a way to see the world anew, to rediscover great civilizations and legends, vast deserts andunspoiled mountain ranges, unusual flora and strange new creatures, and much more.

Adventures in the Rocky Mountains


Isabella Lucy Bird - 1879
    Each beautifully packaged volume offers a way to see the world anew, to rediscover great civilizations and legends, vast deserts and unspoiled mountain ranges, unusual flora and strange new creatures, and much more.

Jaguars and Electric Eels (Penguin Great Journeys)


Alexander von Humboldt - 1853
    This part of his matchless narrative of adventure and scientific research focuses on his time in Venezuela - in the Llanos and on the Orinoco River - riding and paddling, restlessly and happily noting the extraordinary things on every hand. Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries -- but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own.

The Cobra's Heart (Penguin Great Journeys)


Ryszard Kapuściński - 2007
    Humane, evocative and magical, The Cobra's Heart makes the case for Kapuscinski as a great writer as well as a great journalist.

Escape from the Antarctic (Penguin Great Journeys)


Ernest Shackleton - 1919
    Through one of the greatest recorded feats of navigation and of leadership, he overcame almost impossible odds and rescued every one of his men from otherwise certain death.

Sold as a Slave


Olaudah Equiano - 2007
    His account of his life is not only one of the great documents of the abolition movement, but also a startling, moving story of danger and betrayal. "Great Journeys" allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries - but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.

Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe


Bill Bryson - 1991
    In Neither Here nor There he brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia. Fluent in, oh, at least one language, he retraces his travels as a student twenty years before.Whether braving the homicidal motorist of Paris, being robbed by gypsies in Florence, attempting not to order tripe and eyeballs in a German restaurant, window-shopping in the sex shops of the Reeperbahn or disputing his hotel bill in Copenhagen, Bryson takes in the sights, dissects the culture and illuminates each place and person with his hilariously caustic observations. He even goes to Liechtenstein.

The Pillars of Hercules


Paul Theroux - 1995
    Paul Theroux decided to travel from one to the other – but taking the long way round. His grand tour of the Mediterranean begins in Gibraltar and takes him through Spain, the French Riviera, Italy, Greece, Istanbul and beyond. He travels by any means necessary - including dilapidated taxi, smoke-filled bus, bicycle and even a cruise-liner. And he encounters bullfights, bazaars and British tourists, discovers pockets of humanity in war-torn Slovenia and Croatia, is astounded by the urban developments on the Costa del Sol and marvels at the ancient wonders of Delphi. Told with Theroux's inimitable wit and style, this lively and eventful tour evokes the essence of Mediterranean life.

A Year in Provence


Peter Mayle - 1989
    He endures January's frosty mistral as it comes howling down the Rhône Valley, discovers the secrets of goat racing through the middle of town, and delights in the glorious regional cuisine. A Year in Provence transports us into all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life and lets us live vicariously at a tempo governed by seasons, not by days.