In the Footsteps of Stamford Raffles – Nigel Barley
Sir Stamford Raffles was a British colonial trader who, in 1819, founded the island city-state of Singapore. Today, Singapore is a world alpha city ranked alongside London, New York, and Tokyo. In this intriguing book – part history, part travelogue – the author revisits the places that were important in the life of Raffles and evaluates his legacy, both good and bad, in present-day Singapore.
Here and There: Collected Travel Writing – A.A. Gill
Enjoy a trip around the world with this “best of” collection of A.A.Gill’s sometimes acerbic, often astute, and always highly entertaining travel writing. Here and There is an engaging collection of travel tales by acclaimed writer A.A. Gill. Short, sharp, and to the point, Gill’s perspective is always unique. He is controversial and charming, cynical and humorous, and each story bursts with his quick wit and colorful prose. Take a trip with A.A. Gill as he ponders why croissants and cappuccinos just aren’t what they used to be, reveals the appealing nature of slowness, and comes to understand why Freud came up with psychoanalysis. He’ll keep you entranced as he discovers the strong, beautiful rhythm of Budapest, learns about the new trend of “glamping” (glamorous camping), experiences the murderous cold of Svalbard, and stumbles upon lobster-shaped coffins in Ghana. With his unique voice, A.A. Gill delivers a collection of stories that highlights the very best of his travel writing. Here and There, complete with introduction and an extra piece written exclusively for this collection, is a must-read for anyone with a curiosity for travel that can’t be sated.
Destination Saigon – Walter Mason
Get a taste of the real Vietnam and its people on a sometimes funny, always fascinating journey from the bustling cities to out of the way villages, into Buddhist monasteries and along the Mekong
From the crazy heat and color of Saigon to the quieter splendor of Hanoi, this is a rare, joyous, and at times hilarious insight into 21st century Vietnam. Seduced by the beauty and charm of its people and the sensuousness of its culture we can almost taste the little coconut cakes cooked over a fire in a smoky Can Tho kitchen, or smell the endless supplies of fresh baguettes and croissants just out of city ovens. As colorful city cafes and bars make way for visits to out-of-the-way shrines and temples, we take an impromptu visit to forbidden fortune tellers, and glimpse a little of the Cao Dai religion, made famous in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American. Traveling off the beaten track to far-flung villages and lesser-known towns, we cruise along the Mekong, board hopelessly overcrowded local buses, or perch perilously on the back of motorbikes. Behind-the-scenes visits to Buddhist monasteries reveal a quieter and more transcendent world beyond the busy day trips of tourists, and in the process, we begin to see the country through the eyes of its people.
Two Lives – Vikram Seth
Widely acclaimed as one of the world’s greatest living writers, Vikram Seth — author of the international bestseller A Suitable Boy — tells the heartrending true story of a friendship, a marriage, and a century. Weaving together the strands of two extraordinary lives — Shanti Behari Seth, an immigrant from India who came to Berlin to study in the 1930s, and Helga Gerda Caro, the young German Jewish woman he befriended and later married — Two Lives is both a history of a violent era seen through the eyes of two survivors and an intimate, unforgettable portrait of a complex, abiding love.
In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Travellers Tale – Amitav Ghosh
Once upon a time an Indian writer named Amitav Ghosh set out to find an Indian slave, name unknown, who some seven hundred years before had traveled to the Middle East. The journey took him to a small village in Egypt, where medieval customs coexist with twentieth-century desires and discontents. But even as Ghosh sought to re-create the life of his Indian predecessor, he found himself immersed in those of his modern Egyptian neighbors.
Combining shrewd observations with painstaking historical research, Ghosh serves up skeptics and holy men, merchants and sorcerers. Some of these figures are real, some only imagined, but all emerge as vividly as the characters in a great novel. In an Antique Land is an inspired work that transcends genres as deftly as it does eras, weaving an entrancing and intoxicating spell.
