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.
To A Mountain in Tibet – Colin Thubron
Mount Kailas is the most sacred of the world’s mountains – holy to one-fifth of humanity. Isolated beyond the central Himalayas, its summit has never been scaled, but for centuries the mountain has been ritually circled by Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims. Colin Thubron joins these pilgrims, after an arduous trek from Nepal, through the high passes of Tibet, to the magical lakes beneath the slopes of Kailas itself. He talks to secluded villagers and to monks in their decaying monasteries; he tells the stories of exiles and of eccentric explorers from the West. Yet he is also walking on a pilgrimage of his own. Having recently witnessed the death of the last of his family, his trek around the great mountain awakens an inner landscape of love and grief, restoring precious fragments of his own.
The Truth About Anna and Other Stories – William Warren
William Warren’s writings on Asia have entertained and informed readers all over the world for 40 years. As he says, ‘Even as a child, I preferred the unusual to the ordinary, the little-known to the familiar; and such inclinations remained with me as I grew up, determining what sort of books I particularly enjoyed, the places I wanted most to visit, and, after I started writing, the subjects that most appealed to me.’ The essays in this book, all of them about Asia and collected here for the first time, are linked by a taste for oddity and romance.
Their subjects range from Anna Leonowens – generally known as the sugar-sweet heroine of The King and I, but revealed here as a somewhat different Anna, less appealing but more interesting – to the significance of amulets and of shrines, Asian women, cobra as a gastronomic treat, the myth surrounding Jim Thompson, and the truth behind some of the Asian writings of Somerset Maugham – to name just a few.
Memories and Such 