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Paris (Marion Boyars Modern Classics)

In this book, Julian Green, an American born in Paris at the turn of the last century, accompanies the reader on an imaginative stroll around the French capital, revealing its secret stairways, courtyards and alleys. From haunted visions of Notre-Dame to memories of the old Trocadero, Green describes these strange and often little known locations in loving detail.

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In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century

Geert Mak spent the year 1999 criss-crossing the continent, tracing the history of Europe from Verdun to Berlin, St Petersburg to Auschwitz, Kiev to Srebrenica. He set off in search of evidence and witnesses, looking to define the condition of Europe at the verge of a new millennium. The result is mesmerising: Mak's rare double talent as a sharp-eyed journalist and a hugely imaginative historian makes "In Europe" a dazzling account of that journey, full of diaries, newspaper reports and memoirs, and the voices of prominent figures and unknown players; from the grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II to Adriana Warno in Poland, with her holiday job at the gates of the camp at Birkenau.But Mak is above all an observer. He describes what he sees at places that have become Europe's well-springs of memory, where history is written into the landscape. At Ypres he hears the blast of munitions from the Great War that are still detonated twice a day. In Warsaw he finds the point where the tram rails that led to the Jewish ghetto come to a dead end in a city park. And in an abandoned creche near Chernobyl, where tiny pairs of shoes still stand in neat rows, he is transported back to the moment time stood still in the dying days of the Soviet Union. Mak combines the larger story of twentieth-century Europe with details that suddenly give it a face, a taste and a smell. His unique approach makes the reader an eyewitness to his own half-forgotten past, full of unknown peculiarities, sudden insights and touching encounters. "In Europe" is a masterpiece; it reads like the epic novel of the continent's most extraordinary century.

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The Bridge: A Journey Between Orient and Occident

Istanbul's Galata Bridge has spanned the Golden Horn since the sixth century AD, connecting the old city with the more Western districts to the north. But the bridge is a city in itself, peopled by merchants and petty thieves, tourists and fishermen, and at the same time a microcosmic reflection of Turkey as the link between Asia and Europe. Geert Mak introduces us to the woman who sells lottery tickets, the cigarette vendors and the best pickpockets in Europe. He tells us about the pride of the cobbler and the tea-seller's homesickness. And he describes the role of honour in Turkish culture, the temptations of fundamentalism and violence, and the urge to survive, even in the face of despair.These stories of the bridge's denizens are interwoven with vignettes illuminating moments in the history of Istanbul and Turkey and shedding light on Turkey's relationship with Europe and the West, the Armenian question, the migration from the Turkish countryside to the city and the demise of the Ottoman Empire.

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Turkish Coast (Through Writer's Eyes) (Through Writers' Eyes)

The Turkish Coast from Izmir to Antalya is an area of incredible natural drama, rich in the ruins of antiquity. It is a prime focus for many cultured holiday makers visiting the region by land, yacht and gulet. It has been at the centre of Mediterranean culture and history for thousands of years, with a rich and varied literature. With accounts ranging from the excitement of archaeological discovery, or the route march of Alexander's army, to the pleasures of the hammam and Turkish cooking, this latest addition to the "Through Writers' Eyes" series will satisfy the appetites of travellers real and armchair. Sources range from the classical to the contemporary: from The Odyssey and Plutarch to Freya Stark, Jeremy Seal and Louis de Berniere.

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Japan (Through Writer's Eyes) (Through Writers' Eyes)

From the present-day street life of Ginza, to the heights of Mount Fuji in the company of 16th-century traveller and poet Basho: the most recent addition of Eland's through writers' eyes series brings together a chorus of voices from Japan and across the globe. Detailed introductions stemming from Elizabeth Ingram's own experiences as a traveller, (later a resident) and journalist in Japan, develop a lively and intimate portrait of towns and provinces, making it an ideal companion. A library in the palm of your hand: extracts of prose, poetry and novels from a rich variety of writers, including Jan Morris, Nicolas Bouvier, Oswald Wynd, Peter Popham, Basho, Yasunari Kawabata, Alan Booth, Futabei Shimei, Angela Carter, Joao Rodrigues and Mary Crawford Fraser. It is a source book for those visiting Japan for the first time and for expatriates. One must never forget that for all the talk of the new Asia, the Japanese economy is still bigger than that of India and China combined.

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Persia (Through Writer's Eyes) (Through Writers' Eyes)

The land of the Iranians, known to European travelers for centuries as Persia, is a land riven by mountain-ranges, made inhospitable by deserts, yet rich in plains, forests and jewel-like gardens. Home to the most sublime architecture in the world, and a breeding ground for poets, Empires, Mystics and saints, it has an enduring and invincible fascination. David Blow enriches our understanding with his knowledgeable selection of the best of three thousand years of descriptive writing. He allows us to visit the courts of Cyrus and Xerxes, to ride out with the Parthians and Sassanians and to make a passing acquaintanceship with both the Shah and the late Ayatollah Khomeini, with Hafiz, and with Omar Khayyam.

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Egypt (Through Writers' Eyes) (Through Writers' Eyes)

No land on earth has been so long observed as Egypt, which was attracting awestruck travellers back in the days of Herodotus and Julius Caesar. Then came pilgrims to Sinai, crusaders and Napoleon, followed by the Grand Tourists of the eighteenth century and those less grand with Thomas Cook in the nineteenth. The range of voices gathered here is dazzling: an ancient myth from a papyrus next to Naguib Mahfouz's account of Alexandria, Florence Nightingale describing Abu Simbel side by side with Ahdaf Soueif's description of Sinai. A description of medieval Cairo by Ibn Jubayr walks hand in hand with one of the modern city by the Egyptian thinker, Taha Hussein. Lucie Duff-Gordon sails up the Nile, Edward Lane crawls through a sand-filled temple and Isambard Kingdom Brunel struggles up the cataract above Aswan.

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The Age of Kali: Travels and Encounters in India

William Dalrymple, who wrote about India in "City of Djinns", returns to the country in a series of essays. Featured in the pages this work are 15-year-old guerrilla girls and dowager Maharanis; flashy Bombay drinks parties and violent village blood feuds; a group of vegetarian terrorists intent on destroying India's first Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet; and a palace where port and cigars are still carried to guests on a miniature silver steam train. In the course of his travels, Dalrymple meets such figures as Imran Khan, Ismail Merchant, Benazir Bhutto and Baba Sehgal, the Indian Gary Glitter; he witnesses the macabre nightly offering to the bloodthirsty goddess Parashakti - She Who is Seated on a Throne of Five Corpses; he experiences civil war in Kashmir and caste massacres in the badlands of Bihar, and dines with a drug baron on the North-West Frontier; he discovers such oddities as the terrorist apes of Jaipur (only brought to book when the municipality began impregnating their bananas with opium); and the shrine where Lord Krishna is said to make love every night to his 16,108 wives and 64,732 milkmaids.

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Galapagos (Through Writer's Eyes) (Through Writers' Eyes)

The Galapagos Islands, an ‘enchanted archipelago' with natural volcanic beauty, were made famous by the explorations of Charles Darwin. The near-miraculous survival of unique species of birds and animals on these remote Pacific islands gave birth to his revolutionary theory of evolution. John Hickman, who sailed past them as a young man and later went to serve as British ambassador to both Chile and Ecuador, became fascinated by the islands. He always kept an ear open for the human stories behind the Galapagos, and discovered pirates and buccaneers, writers and exiles, real life Robinson Crusoes and Swiss Family Robinsons as well as the schemes of Spanish Kings, Inca Emperors and American filibusters.

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A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople - From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube

In 1933, at the age of 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on an extraordinary journey by foot - from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the first volume in a trilogy recounting the trip, and takes the reader with him as far as Hungary. It is a book of compelling glimpses - not only of the events which were curdling Europe at that time, but also of its resplendent domes and monasteries, its great rivers, the sun on the Bavarian snow, the storks and frogs, the hospitable burgomasters who welcomed him, and that world's grandeurs and courtesies. His powers of recollection have astonishing sweep and verve, and the scope is majestic.

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Against Venice

This title is a counterblast to the slightly hyperventilating cultural consumerism of Parisien intellectuals; who regard Venice as the city where existentialism should be experienced. Debray criticises this world in a refreshing way luring the traveller back to this seductive city.

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The Shadow of the Sun (Penguin Celebrations)

'Only with the greatest of simplifications, for the sake of convenience, can we say Africa. In reality, except as a geographical term, Africa doesn't exist'. Ryszard Kapuscinski has been writing about the people of Africa throughout his career. In astudy that avoids the official routes, palaces and big politics, he sets out to create an account of post-colonial Africa seen at once as a whole and as a location that wholly defies generalised explanations. It is both a sustained meditation on themosaic of peoples and practises we call 'Africa', and an impassioned attempt to come to terms with humanity itself as it struggles to escape from foreign domination, from the intoxications of freedom, from war and from politics as theft.