Book picks similar to
In Scotland Again by H.V. Morton
travel
20th-century
non-fiction
culture
Among Muslims: Meetings at the Frontiers of Pakistan
Kathleen Jamie - 1992
Yet there was much that seemed oddly familiar: staying with women in Purdah reminded Jamie of her own family past; the intense religious ceremonies brought back memories of Orangemen marching through Glasgow. This is a superbly written, entertaining and important book: a narrative of people and local life, that crosses Western and Islamic cultures. Originally published as The Golden Peak, Jamie returned to Pakistan to write an Afterword and Preface for this new edition.
The Wild Side of Alaska
Donna Morang - 2013
However, this is only the beginning of her lifelong dream of hunting and fishing in the Last Frontier of Alaska.She will take you to the Brooks Range, north of the arctic circle, where she and her mate hunt for dall sheep, come face-to-face with a grizzly bear that wants to eat them, and an angry moose trying to trample her hunting partner.Return to the Brooks Range to live with Donna, her mate, and one-year-old daughter in a cabin deep in the wilderness while mining for the elusive gold. Live an authentic life in the Bush of Alaska (The Bush is a term Alaskans use to describe regions of the state not connected to civilization) where she bakes her own bread, has no electricity, no running water, and wolves try to eat her baby.Fish along side her in the famous Katmai and Resurrection Bay, or do some crazy dip-net fishing for salmon at Chitna, Alaska. Catch a few grayling, salmon, or northern pike,and float the Delta river where she almost lost her life.Fly in small airplanes over the Brooks Range to view forest fires waiting to trap them in the wilderness, or hold on tight as they cruise over the majestic Prince William Sound to land on Hinchinbrook Island, and hunt for Alaskan brown bear.Return to the new life-style in the wild and wooly north after the discovery of oil, and the not-so-civilized changes to the Last Great Frontier of Alaska. As author David VanDyke says, "The Wild Side of Alaska will pull you in and keep you laughing, crying and gasping at the amazing true story of one of the last real American frontier women. You won't want to miss this down-to-earth tale of woman versus wilderness.
City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi
William Dalrymple - 1993
With refreshingly open-minded curiosity, William Dalrymple explores the seven "dead" cities of Delhi as well as the eighth city-today's Delhi. Underlying his quest is the legend of the djinns, fire-formed spirits that are said to assure the city's Phoenix-like regeneration no matter how many times it is destroyed. Entertaining, fascinating, and informative, City of Djinns is an irresistible blend of research and adventure.
Warriors: Life and Death Among the Somalis
Gerald Hanley - 1993
A grueling description of a little-known aspect of WWII, Warriors describes a group of British Army soldiers charged with preventing bloodshed between feuding tribes at a remote outstation in Somalia. Hanley turns this period of his life, a difficult time that drove seven officers to suicide, into a devastating critique of imperialism.
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
Suketu Mehta - 2004
He approaches the city from unexpected angles, taking us into the criminal underworld of rival Muslim and Hindu gangs; following the life of a bar dancer raised amid poverty and abuse; opening the door into the inner sanctums of Bollywood; and delving into the stories of the countless villagers who come in search of a better life and end up living on the sidewalks.
When The Road Beckons
Ravi Manoram - 2015
Caught in the inescapable hurricane of life,the protagonist decides to snap out of the everyday mendacity and go on a 4000 km motorbike journey across Ladakh. Little does he know whether he can complete this arduous and uncertain journey and finds himself struggling with the whims and fancies of the mountain. But soon, his journey transforms into a metamorphic one, unsettling the dusts in his mind and teaching him invaluable lessons. The changing landscapes take him on a quest to discover his true identity as he learns to break free and introspect. He finds a connection to his past and finds his way to build his future, the future he always wanted to build but never had the courage to do so. He learns to annihilate the impediments on his path to creativity and entrepreneurship which were created by fear and uncertainty and goes on to follow his bliss. 'When the Road Beckons' is not merely a travelogue but a valuable read for anyone on a quest for meaning of life but is afraid to step into the unknown. It's a story that will take you to that one person whom you are quite eager to discover. And that person is You.
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
Tony Horwitz - 1998
But awakened one morning by the crackle of musket fire, Horwitz starts filing front-line dispatches again this time from a war close to home, and to his own heart.Propelled by his boyhood passion for the Civil War, Horwitz embarks on a search for places and people still held in thrall by America's greatest conflict. The result is an adventure into the soul of the unvanquished South, where the ghosts of the Lost Cause are resurrected through ritual and remembrance.In Virginia, Horwitz joins a band of 'hardcore' reenactors who crash-diet to achieve the hollow-eyed look of starved Confederates; in Kentucky, he witnesses Klan rallies and calls for race war sparked by the killing of a white man who brandishes a rebel flag; at Andersonville, he finds that the prison's commander, executed as a war criminal, is now exalted as a martyr and hero; and in the book's climax, Horwitz takes a marathon trek from Antietam to Gettysburg to Appomattox in the company of Robert Lee Hodge, an eccentric pilgrim who dubs their odyssey the 'Civil Wargasm.'Written with Horwitz's signature blend of humor, history, and hard-nosed journalism, Confederates in the Attic brings alive old battlefields and new ones 'classrooms, courts, country bars' where the past and the present collide, often in explosive ways. Poignant and picaresque, haunting and hilarious, it speaks to anyone who has ever felt drawn to the mythic South and to the dark romance of the Civil War.
How To Fly For Free: Practical Tips The Airlines Don't Want You To Know
Scott Keyes - 2012
You’ll learn how to quickly rack up hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer miles. (These tips helped me earn over 1.4 million points since 2010.) You’ll also learn how to:- Earn elite status in just one flight- Bring along a companion anywhere you fly — free — for two years- Add extra cities to your trip- Get bumped- And morePlenty of books promise to teach you how to get the cheapest airfare possible with 350 pages worth of useless tips like “book your flights on Tuesdays at 1pm” or “try to fly the same carrier each time.” This isn’t that book. How To Fly For Free is a practical, step-by-step guide that will let you avoid paying thousands for airfare.Words: 13,132Pages: 56-----------------------Table of ContentsIntroductionSection 1: How to Get Free Flights1) The Fastest Way To Get Free Flights2) How Your Credit Score Works3) Step-By-Step Guides For Three Types Of Travelers4) How To Get Bumped5) Earning Elite Status In One Roundtrip Flight6) Complaints = Miles7) Bring A Companion For FreeSection 2: How to Use Your Miles8) Spending Points Wisely9) How To Fly To Additional Cities For Free10) Using Partner Airlines To Fly Anywhere In The WorldSection 3: Planning a Trip From Start to Finish11) How To Plan A Trip, Step-By-Step12) Finding Cheap Flights-----------------------About the author: Scott Keyes is a travel expert who has earned 1.4 million points in the past two years. He personally travels around 100,000 miles per year. Though once skeptical about the usefulness of frequent flyer miles, free trips to places like Norway, Dominican Republic, and the Galapagos Islands put his fears to rest.
A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith
Timothy Egan - 2019
He embarked on a thousand-mile pilgrimage through the theological cradle of Christianity, exploring one of the biggest stories of our time: the collapse of religion in the world that it created. Egan sets out along the Via Francigena, once the major medieval trail leading the devout to Rome, and makes his way overland via the alpine peaks and small mountain towns of France, Switzerland and Italy. The goal: walking to St. Peter's Square, in hopes of meeting the galvanizing pope who is struggling to hold together the church through the worst crisis in half a millennium.Making his way through a landscape laced with some of the most important shrines to the faith, Egan finds a modern Canterbury Tale in the chapel where Queen Bertha introduced Christianity to pagan Britain; parses the supernatural in a French town built on miracles; and journeys to the oldest abbey in the Western world, founded in 515 and home to continuous prayer over the 1,500 years that have followed. He is accompanied by a quirky cast of fellow pilgrims and by some of the towering figures of the faith--Joan of Arc, Henry VIII, Martin Luther.A thrilling journey, a family story, and a revealing history, A Pilgrimage to Eternity looks for our future in its search for God.One of Oprah's Must-Read Books of Fall 2019
North To Alaska: The True Story of An epic, 16,000-mile cycle journey the length of the Americas
Trevor Lund - 2019
Returning home to a job I didn’t enjoy, that dream burned at my mind until, as a mature student in 1999, I was given the opportunity to take a year out and decided now was my time. This was at a time of huge advances in communication technology but I chose to journey without a mobile phone or any other means of communicating with the outside world – something we might struggle to comprehend these days. If I got into trouble, if I got injured, if I became lost, it was up to me to sort myself out. No close friends were willing to leave the comforts of home, so the fledgling internet did at least prove useful in finding a travel companion. But within nine days of the start of my journey I found myself alone, close to the bottom of the world and with many thousands of miles of the unknown still ahead. This book tells how the desire to fulfil a burning ten-year dream helped me overcome illness, injury, exhaustion, loneliness and so much more; how I, a normal guy from a working-class family in Leeds – among many other adventures – found myself singing to bears to keep them at bay, ran out of water crossing the driest desert in the world, had a volcano rain ash down on me and found myself hiding out from bandits most nights while pedalling through Mexico.
Tiny Stations: An Uncommon Odyssey Around Britain's Railway Request Stops
Dixe Wills - 2014
Perhaps the oddest quirk of Britain's railway network is also one of its least well known: around 150 of the nation's stations are request stops. Take an unassuming station like Shippea Hill in Cambridgeshire - the scene of a fatal accident involving thousands of carrots. Or Talsarnau in Wales, which experienced a tsunami. Tiny Stations is the story of the author's journey from the far west of Cornwall to the far north of Scotland, visiting around 40 of the most interesting of these little used and ill-regarded stations. Often a pen-stroke away from closure - kept alive by political expediency, labyrinthine bureaucracy or sheer whimsy - these half-abandoned stops afford a fascinating glimpse of a Britain that has all but disappeared from view. There are stations built to serve once thriving industries - copper mines, smelting works, cotton mills, and china clay quarries where the first trains were pulled by horses; stations erected for the sole convenience of stately home and castle owners through whose land the new iron road cut an unwelcome swathe; stations created for Victorian day-tripping attractions; a station built for a cavalry barracks whose last horse has long since bolted; and many more. Dixe Wills will leave you in no doubt that there's more to tiny stations than you might think.
Pedalling to Hawaii: A Human Powered Adventure
Stevie Smith - 2004
One rainy, miserable Monday he resolves to grab life with both hands and embark on an adventure: the first entirely human-powered journey around the world. Although he had never been on an expedition of any kind and had no money, Stevie and his friend Jason dreamed up a voyage that would take them from England to Hawaii by bicycle, inline skates and ocean-going pedal boat. For 111 days, they pedalled 7,500 kilometers across the Atlantic, and then crossed the United States to take on the challenge of the Pacific. Pedalling to Hawaii is hilarious, entertaining and refreshingly non-heroic, packed with thrills and spills as the intrepid and sometimes blundering duo make their way around the world. It is also a meditative account of a search for simplicity and integrity.
Lonely Planet Journeys: Drive Thru America
Sean Condon - 1998
In his search for American myths and realities - along with comfort, cable TV and good, reasonably priced coffee - Sean Condon paints a hilarious road-portrait of the USA.
ঝিলাম নদীর দেশ
Bulbul Sarwar - 1990
He captures the essence of Kashmir in all its tragic beauty.
Road Scholar: Coast To Coast Late in the Century
Andrei Codrescu - 1993
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year in Hyperion hardcover.