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Articles 1461 à 1480 sur 1905
The Icon Curtain: The Cold War's Quiet Border
Par Yuliya Komska. 2015
The Iron Curtain did not existOCoat least not as we usually imagine it. Rather than a stark, unbroken line dividing…
East and West in Cold War Europe, the Iron Curtain was instead made up of distinct landscapes, many in the grip of divergent historical and cultural forces for decades, if not centuries. This book traces a genealogy of one such landscapeOCothe woods between Czechoslovakia and West GermanyOCoto debunk our misconceptions about the iconic partition. Yuliya Komska transports readers to the western edge of the Bohemian Forest, one of EuropeOCOs oldest borderlands, where in the 1950s civilians set out to shape the so-called prayer wall. A chain of new and repurposed pilgrimage sites, lookout towers, and monuments, the prayer wall placed two long-standing German obsessions, forest and border, at the heart of the centuryOCOs most protracted conflict. Komska illustrates how civilians used the prayer wall to engage with and contribute to the new political and religious landscape. In the process, she relates West GermanyOCOs quiet sylvan periphery to the tragic pitch prevalent along the Iron CurtainOCOs better-known segments. Steeped in archival research and rooted in nuanced interpretations of wide-ranging cultural artifacts, from vandalized religious images and tourist snapshots to poems and travelogues, "The Icon Curtain" pushes disciplinary boundaries and opens new perspectives on the study of borders and the Cold War alike. "Leading the Blind: A Century of Guide Book Travel
Par Alan Sillitoe. 1995
A journey into nineteenth-century travel guides to the UK, Europe, and Soviet Union as researched and written by one of…
England's most distinguished authors. In this quirky and illuminating social history, bestselling British author Alan Sillitoe culls fascinating details from Victorian-era guidebooks and travelogues in order to recount the pleasures, dangers, traps, and delights of travel in the century leading up to World War I. For instance, in Switzerland, an English officer once fell into a bears' den and was "torn in pieces." In Paris, the outdoor seating at cafés was in "unpleasant proximity to the gutters." In Germany and the Rhine, the denominations marked on coins did not necessarily indicate their value. And in Northern Italy, a traveler could look forward to a paradise of citron and myrtle, palms and cyclamen. For the armchair traveler journeying into a bygone era, Sillitoe begins with the essential practicalities relevant to any tourist: the price of passports and visas, how best to clear customs, and how many bags to pack. He includes timeless advice, such as: Board a boat on an empty stomach if you are prone to seasickness, and always break in your boots before embarking on a trip. Anachronistic recommendations abound as well: It is best to leave your servant at home, carry your milk with you when traveling to small Italian villages, and not pay children and "donkey women" for flowers. From convalescent hotels in the South of France to malaria-ridden marshes between Rome and Naples, and from the chaos of Sicily and southern Italy to the dazzling bullfights and rampant thieves of sunny Spain, Sillitoe guides readers through the minutiae of the Mediterranean with wit and historical insight. Then he takes an anecdote-filled road east into Greece, Egypt, the Holy Lands, Turkey, and Russia. Of course, the Grand Tour would not be complete without a thorough account of his home turf of England, with her idiosyncratic hamlets, smoke-filled skies, and working-class townsfolk in high-buckled shoes. At once a fascinating history of travel books from 1815 to 1914 and an entertaining ode to wanderlust, Leading the Blind brings to life the absurd and profound wonders of Victorian globetrotting. With simple but captivating prose, Sillitoe also shows how the way we view foreign lands can reveal a lot about what is happening at home.Along the Road: Notes and Essays of a Tourist (Paladin Bks.)
Par Aldous Huxley. 1925
Witty and &“enchanting&” reflections on the experience of travel, with a focus on art, music, and literature, by the author…
of Brave New World (The Spectator). One of the most renowned and prolific writers of the twentieth century, Aldous Huxley produced not only dystopian fiction like Brave New World and philosophical memoirs like The Doors of Perception, but also insightful travel writing. Here, he discusses his visits to Italy, France, and other European destinations; reflects on cultural landmarks; and ruminates on the benefits and challenges of travel itself, offering a fascinating glimpse into the Europe of a century ago—and the mind of a remarkable author. &“As opposed to those who believe that the best picture is the most famous or expensive one, or the one that wins a prize, Huxley speaks for those prepared to spend contemplative time with works of art.&” —The Sydney Morning HeraldToward Antarctica: An Exploration
Par Elizabeth Bradfield. 2019
“The most original piece of travel writing about the Antarctic region I have read in years . . . Bradfield is a literary…
tour guide in the best sense.” —Elizabeth Leane, author of Antarctica in Fiction: Imaginative Narratives of the Far SouthA poet and a naturalist, Elizabeth Bradfield documents and examines her work as a guide on ships in Antarctica through poetry, prose, and photographs, offering an incisive insider’s vision that challenges traditional tropes of The Last Continent.Inspired by haibun, a stylistic form of Japanese poetry invented by seventeenth-century poet Matsuo Basho to chronicle his journeys in remote Japan, Bradfield uses photographs, compressed prose, and short poems to examine our relationship to remoteness, discovery, expertise, awe, labor, temporary societies, “pure” landscapes, and tourism’s service economy. Antarctica was the focus of Bradfield’s Approaching Ice, written before she had set foot on the continent; now Toward Antarctica furthers her investigation with boots on the ground. A complicated love letter, Toward Antarctica offers a unique view of one of the world’s most iconic wild places.Like having a poet’s behind-the-scenes tour of a natural history museum . . . the exquisite landscape and wildlife come into vivid view; so does the gutsy work and responsibility of being a naturalist guide.” —Alison Hawthorne Deming, author of Zoologies: On Animals and the Human SpiritMy Venice: And Other Essays
Par Donna Leon. 2013
“Donna Leon has won a huge number of passionate fans and a tremendous amount of critical acclaim for her international…
bestselling mystery series featuring Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti. These accolades have built up not just for her intricate plots and gripping narratives, but for her insight into the culture, politics, family-life, and history of Venice, one of the world’s most-treasured cities, and Leon’s home for over thirty years. Readers love how Leon opens the doors to a private Venice, beyond the reach of the millions of international tourists who delight in the city's canals, food, and art every year. “My Venice and Other Essays” will be a treat for Leon's many fans, as well as for lovers of Italy and La Serenissima. For many years, Leon, who is a perennial #1 bestseller in Germany, has written essays for European publications. Collected here are the best of these: over fifty funny, charming, passionate, and insightful essays that range from battles over garbage in the canals to the troubles with rehabbing Venetian real estate. She shares episodes from her life in Venice, explores her love of opera, and recounts tales from in and around her country house in the mountains. With pointed observations and humor, she also explores her family history and former life in New Jersey, and the idea of the Italian man.Live Fast, Die Young: Misadventures in Rock And Roll America
Par Chris Price, Joe Harland. 2010
Disappointed to learn that Hotel California isn’t actually in the phone book, radio producers Chris and Joe resolve to seek…
out the true spirit of rock and roll America. Roof down and stereo up, they drive coast to coast on a mission to ‘live the music’. It’s a tale of friendship tested to the limit, great melodies, and noble myths.Returning Light: Thirty Years on the Island of Skellig Michael
Par Robert L. Harris. 2022
The Acclaimed International Bestseller "Reading Returning Light is a spiritual experience." —Irish ExaminerBy the lighthouse keeper on the remote, otherworldly Irish island of…
Skellig Michael, a "profound memoir about the importance of place and what it really means to belong" (Belfast Telegraph)“On Skellig Michael, thousands of birds appear and disappear, erecting towers, coming together in wings of movement which build and unravel over the empty sea. Often, no one else is there to stand beside me on the island. The mind wanders; links with the past are easily made; ancient ways of viewing things come alive.”In 1987, Robert Harris happened upon an unusual job posting in the local paper—a new warden service was being set up on the island of Skellig Michael, and the deadline was imminent. Just weeks later he was on his way to set up camp in one of Ireland’s most remote locations, unaware that he would be making that same journey every May for the next 30 years.Here he transports us to the otherworldly island, a place that is teeming with natural life, including curious puffins that like to visit his hut. From the precipice he has observed a coastline that is relatively unchanged for the last thousand years—a beacon of equilibrium in an ever-changing world.But the island can be fierce too. It’s inhabitable for only five months of the year, and solitude can quickly become isolation as bad weather rolls in to create a veil between Skellig Michael and the rest of the world, when the dizzying terrain can become a very real threat to life.A beautiful and evocative work of nature writing, Returning Light is an extraordinary memoir about the profound effect a place can have on us, and how a remote location can bring with it a great sense of belonging.Tuning the Rig: A Journey to the Arctic
Par Harvey Oxenhorn. 1990
Long out of print, this book is a masterpiece of nautical adventure and natural history. The author had taught Conrad…
and Melville, but never set foot on a tall ship until he boarded the Regina Maris. H is evocation of masts and spars, canvas and rigging, and of the living presence of the Regina Maris on the open ocean is some of the finest writing about life aboard a ship this side of Patrick O'Brian. This is a beautiful, passionate examination of a man's coming to terms with himself, with his fellows, and with the diverse wonders of a fascinating arctic ecosystem.Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America
Par Charles Bowden. 2018
The renowned author explores the violent and corrupt history of America in “a haunted, often brilliant journey into the heart…
of our darkness” (Frederick Turner).Blood Orchid is the first volume in Charles Bowden’s Unnatural History of America sextet. It is a deeply personal and bracingly sharp chronicle of his quest to unearth our ugly truths. Through stark observations and visceral experiences, Bowden presents a dizzying excavation of the systemic violence and corruption at the roots of American society. Bowden visits dying friends in skid row apartments in Los Angeles, traverses San Francisco byways lined with clubs and joints, and roams through village bars and streets in the Sierra Madre mountains. In these wanderings resides a yearning for the understanding of past and present sins, the human penchant for warfare, abuse, and oppression, and the true war between humanity, the industrialized world, and the immense tolls of our shared land.Never in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places
Par Naomi Shihab Nye. 1996
From the acclaimed poet and National Book Award finalist, “a sparkling book of travel and childhood: born on the bridge…
between two cultures” (Paulette Jiles, New York Times–bestselling author).In Never in a Hurry the poet Naomi Shihab Nye resist the American inclination to “leave toward places when we barely had time enough to get there.” Instead she travels the world at an observant pace, talking to strangers and introducing readers to an endearing assemblage of eccentric neighbors, Filipina faith healers, dry-cleaning proprietors, and other quirky characters.A Palestinian-American who lives in a Mexican-American neighborhood, Nye speaks for the mix of people and places that can be called the “American Experience.” From St. Louis, the symbolic “Gateway to the West,” she embarks on a westward migration to examine America, past and present, and to glimpse into the lives of its latest outsiders—illegal immigrants from Mexico and troubled inner-city children.In other essays Nye ventures beyond North America’s bounds, telling of a year in her childhood spent in Palestine and of an adulthood filled with cross-cultural quests. Whether recounting the purchase of a car on the island of Oahu or a camel-back ride through India’s Thar Desert, Nye writes in wry, refreshing tones about themes that transcend borders and about the journey that remains the greatest of all—the journey from outside to in as the world enters each one of us, as we learn to see.“The generous gift of a writer at the top of her form, a book jammed with vivid sights and pungent tastes and wonderful stories.” —Marion Winik, author of Above Us Only SkyUnder Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain
Par Charlotte Higgins. 2014
Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, the captivating and haunting exploration of the remnants of an empire What does Roman…
Britain mean to us now? How were its physical remains rediscovered and made sense of? How has it been reimagined, in story and song and verse? Sometimes on foot, sometimes in a magnificent, if not entirely reliable, VW camper van, Charlotte Higgins sets out to explore the ancient monuments of Roman Britain. She explores the land that was once Rome’s northernmost territory and how it has changed since the years after the empire fell. Under Another Sky invites us to see the British landscape, and British history, in an entirely fresh way: as indelibly marked by how the Romans first imagined and wrote, these strange and exotic islands, perched on the edge of the known world, into existence.A Philosophy of Walking
Par Clifford Harper, Frederic Gros, John Howe. 2009
"It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth." --Nietzsche In A Philosophy of Walking, a bestseller in…
France, leading thinker Frédéric Gros charts the many different ways we get from A to B - the pilgrimage, the promenade, the protest march, the nature ramble - and reveals what they say about us. Gros draws attention to other thinkers who also saw walking as something central to their practice. On his travels he ponders Thoreau's eager seclusion in Walden Woods; the reason Rimbaud walked in a fury, while Nerval rambled to cure his melancholy. He shows us how Rousseau walked in order to think, while Nietzsche wandered the mountainside to write. In contrast, Kant marched through his hometown every day, exactly at the same hour, to escape the compulsion of thought. Brilliant and erudite, A Philosophy of Walking is an entertaining and insightful manifesto for putting one foot in front of the other.From the Hardcover edition.Ay, Cuba!: A Socio-Erotic Journey
Par Andrei Codrescu. 1999
A rare and intimate glimpse at life in Cuba at the end of the twentieth century For NPR commentator Andrei…
Codrescu, reporting from Cuba on the eve of Pope John Paul II's 1998 visit was an opportunity to understand the realities of life in a country that has long been the subject of stereotypes and misconceptions. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba was the last place to witness a "laboratory of pre-post-communism," as it toed the line between its socialist past and its uncertain future. On the streets of Havana and the beaches of Santiago de Cuba, Codrescu met people from all walks of life--from prostitutes and fortunetellers to bureaucrats and writers--eager to share their stories. Uncensored and compassionate, his interviews reveal a world where destruction and beauty, poverty and pride exist side by side. Traveling with photographer David Graham, whose powerful images illustrate the energy pulsing through everyday life in Cuba, Codrescu captures the humanity of a nation that is lost when it's reduced to a political symbol. With the United States resuming relations with Cuba for the first time in decades, Ay,Cuba! is more relevant now than ever before.Avalanche & Gorilla Jim: Appalachian Trail Adventures and Other Tales
Par Al Dragon. 2012
Avalanche and Gorilla Jim is a true picture of what it's like to hike over 1,300 miles of fun-filled, gut-wrenching,…
awe inspiring trail. It is filled with the humor of two guys on a long trek over grueling terrain. You actually live and feel Appalachian trail life, its exciting adventures and fun . . . and, in a sometimes crappy world, meet people who enrich your faith in humanity. This is the Appalachian Trail with all its beauty and flaws, written in a style of fresh sharp adventure with a pleasing edge.On the Road to Babadag: Travels in the Other Europe
Par Michael Kandel, Andrzej Stasiuk. 2004
Andrzej Stasiuk is a restless and indefatigable traveler. His journeys take him from his native Poland to Slovakia, Hungary, Romania,…
Slovenia, Albania, Moldova, and Ukraine. By car, train, bus, ferry. To small towns and villages with unfamiliar-sounding yet strangely evocative names. "The heart of my Europe," Stasiuk tells us, "beats in Sokolow, Podlaski, and in Husi, not in Vienna." Where did Moldova end and Transylvania begin, he wonders as he is being driven at breakneck speed in an ancient Audi--loose wires hanging from the dashboard--by a driver in shorts and bare feet, a cross swinging on his chest. In Comrat, a funeral procession moves slowly down the main street, the open coffin on a pickup truck, an old woman dressed in black brushing away the flies above the face of the deceased. On to Soroca, a baroque-Byzantine-Tatar-Turkish encampment, to meet Gypsies. And all the way to Babadag, between the Baltic Coast and the Black Sea, where Stasiuk sees his first minaret, "simple and severe, a pencil pointed at the sky." A brilliant tour of Europe's dark underside--travel writing at its very best.Border Odyssey: Travels along the U.S./Mexico Divide
Par Charles D. Thompson Jr.. 2015
This blend of travelogue and reportage from the US-Mexico border is &“an exploration of 2,000 miles of fraught, rugged and…
deeply contested territory&” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). In a quest to capture a real-life, close-up view of the land where so many have been kicked, cussed, spit on, arrested, detained, trafficked, or killed—and the subject that has been debated for decades by politicians and commentators—Charles D. Thompson records his journey from Boca Chica to Tijuana, and his conversations with everyone from border officials to migrant workers to local residents. Along the journey, five centuries of cultural history (indigenous, French, Spanish, Mexican, African American, colonist, and US), wars, and legislation unfold. Among the terrain traversed: walls and more walls, unexpected roadblocks, and patrol officers; a golf course (you could drive a ball across the border); a Civil War battlefield (you could camp there); the southernmost plantation in the US; a hand-drawn ferry, a road-runner tracked desert and a breathtaking national park; barbed wire, bridges, and a trucking-trade thoroughfare; ghosts with guns; obscured, unmarked, and unpaved roads; a Catholic priest and his dogs, artwork, icons, and political cartoons; a sheriff and a chain-smoking mayor; a Tex-Mex eatery empty of customers and a B&B shuttering its doors; murder-laden newspaper headlines at breakfast; the kindness of the border-crossing underground; and too many elderly, impoverished, ex-U.S. farmworkers, braceros, who lined up to have Thompson take their photograph. &“A firsthand look at how modern U.S. border policy has affected the people in the region, from migrant workers to indigenous people to border patrol agents to residents of economically stagnant towns just north of the boundary. The result is a travel memoir with a conscience, an extension of Thompson&’s ongoing work to humanize the hotly debated region.&” —The News & ObserverWhere the Tree Frogs Took Me: How Encounters With Strangers Shaped A Life Of Travel And Beyond
Par Maia Williamson. 2020
How encounters with strangers shaped a life of travel and beyond ~We are all looking for ways to make our…
lives meaningful and often turn to those in our inner circles and communities for the direction. But what if that sense of meaning and perspective comes from complete strangers? And what if those random encounters were not so random after all? This book shows us how to embrace the messages and subsequent lessons we receive from the different people – often complete strangers – that we meet while out there in the world.This collection of stories from over twenty years of travel shows what we can learn about the world we live in through greater empathy and understanding of the people we share it with. Each encounter we have, however, sad, humorous, strange or seemingly insignificant is part of the journey we are all on.Where the Tree Frogs Took Me is for anyone who appreciates the diversity of the human experience and our reaction to it in all of its different forms. This book will resonate with people who are open to the notion of synchronicity and the significance of each encounter as meant to happen in order to create a change or shift in our lives.The New Parisienne: The Women & Ideas Shaping Paris
Par Lindsey Tramuta. 2020
“Tramuta sweeps away the tired clichés of the Parisian woman with her vivid profiles of the dynamic and creative ‘femmes’…
now powering the French capital.” —Eleanor Beardsley, NPR Paris correspondentThe New Parisienne focuses on one of the city’s most prominent features, its women. Lifting the veil on the mythologized Parisian woman—white, lithe, ever fashionable—Lindsey Tramuta demystifies this oversimplified archetype and recasts the women of Paris as they truly are, in all their complexity. Featuring 50 activists, creators, educators, visionaries, and disruptors—like Leïla Slimani, Lauren Bastide, and Mayor Anne Hidalgo—the book reveals Paris as a blossoming cultural center of feminine power. Both the featured women and Tramuta herself offer up favorite destinations and women-owned businesses, including beloved shops, artistic venues, bistros, and more. The New Parisienne showcases “Parisianness” in all its multiplicity, highlighting those who are bucking tradition, making names for themselves, and transforming the city.“With stunning photographs and inspiring profiles, Lindsey Tramuta tramples the myths and takes us into the lives of real Parisiennes. Bravo!”—Pamela Druckerman, New York Times–bestselling author of Bringing Up Bébé“Like the subjects of her book, Lindsey Tramuta is a force. The New Parisienne is the go-to chronicle of the joyful, progressive, pioneering women of a city that Tramuta understands with deep intelligence.” —Lauren Collins, New York Times–bestselling author of When in French“Tramuta’s new book posits that Parisian women have been ahead of these radically changing times. But rather than being trendsetters in the stylish sense, they qualify as visionaries and agents of change across spheres of diversity, tech, culture, politics, and more.” —VogueAmerica: An Anthology of France and the United States
Par Editor François Busnel. 2020
Today’s leading French writers offer their perspective of a post-2016 America in this collection of pieces from the bestselling French…
literary magazine.From Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America to the moveable feasts of the Lost Generation, France and the United States have long shared a special relationship, defined as much by romantic fascination as occasional incomprehension. François Busnel, host of the acclaimed literary talk show La Grande Librairie, seeks to bridge this gap with America, a journal of literature and politics conceived in the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump, now available to English readers for the first time.In this insightful collection of pieces from the magazine, Alain Mabanckou sketches the outlines of his Los Angeles, where he finds a sense of belonging far from his home country of the Republic of the Congo. Leïla Slimani considers the ways #MeToo is shaping a new discourse around consent on college campuses, and Philippe Besson takes an old-fashioned road trip through the American heartland as he drives from Chicago to New Orleans. Joël Dicker traipses through Yellowstone National Park on the lookout for grizzlies, while Alice Zeniter wanders the scorching streets of Las Vegas on foot. Featuring a poignant interview with National Book Award winner Louise Erdrich and original work in English by luminaries including Richard Powers, Colum McCann, and Laura Kasischke, America suggests a new way of understanding the enduring relationship between France and the United States, one that has never been read in quite this way before.From the streets of Manhattan to the Wyoming wilderness, across rural Pennsylvania’s Amish country to the bright lights of Hollywood, America takes us on a crisscrossing road trip across the country as it archives accounts of the administration of the past four years and offers a moving testament to the essential power of literature to unite in times of division.Praise for America“Busnel presents a fine anthology of essays originally published in the French quarterly America. . . . The writers’ varied approaches mean that, even for readers familiar with the issues at play, the pieces will be consistently entertaining. As such, an American audience should lap up this thought-provoking tour.” —Publishers Weekly“A form of sophisticated literary activism.” —Literary Hub“While we wait for the “great works” inspired by the Trump era, the novelists and reporters at America will continue to discover the country that elected him, painting a picture while leaving prejudice to one side.” —France-Amérique“A kaleidoscopic reading list of a divided nation.” —Columbia Journalism ReviewMiami (Classics Of Reportage Ser.)
Par Joan Didion. 1987
An astonishing account of Cuban exiles, CIA informants, and cocaine traffickers in Florida by the New York Times–bestselling author of…
South and West. In Miami, the National Book Award–winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking looks beyond postcard images of fluorescent waters, backlit islands, and pastel architecture to explore the murkier waters of a city on the edge. From Fidel Castro and the Bay of Pigs invasion to Lee Harvey Oswald and the Kennedy assassination to Oliver North and the Iran–Contra affair, Joan Didion uncovers political intrigues and shadowy underworld connections, and documents the US government’s “seduction and betrayal” of the Cuban exile community in Dade County. She writes of hotels that offer “guerrilla discounts,” gun shops that advertise Father’s Day deals, and a real-estate market where “Unusual Security and Ready Access to the Ocean” are perks for wealthy homeowners looking to make a quick escape. With a booming drug trade, staggering racial and class inequities, and skyrocketing murder rates, Miami in the 1980s felt more like a Third World capital than a modern American city. Didion describes the violence, passion, and paranoia of these troubled times in arresting detail and “beautifully evocative prose” (The New York Times Book Review). A vital report on an immigrant community traumatized by broken dreams and the cynicism of US foreign policy, Miami is a masterwork of literary journalism whose insights are timelier and more important than ever.