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“Italy is a beautiful but complicated place, not so much a country as a collection of cultures and cuisines. Matt…
Goulding expertly navigates it’s wonders and eccentricities with wisdom and great passion.” -Anthony Bourdain "Goulding is pioneering a new type of writing about food." -Financial Times This is not a cookbook. This is something more: a travelogue, a patient investigation of Italy’s cuisine, a loving profile of the everyday heroes who bring Italy to the table. Pasta, Pane, Vino is the latest edition of the genre-bending Roads & Kingdoms style pioneered under Anthony Bourdain’s imprint in Rice, Noodle, Fish ( 2016 Travel Book of the Year, Society of American Travel Writers ) and Grape, Olive, Pig ( 2017 IACP Award, Literary Food Writing). Town by town, bite by bite, author Matt Goulding brings Italy to life through intimate portraits of its food culture and the people pushing it in new directions: Three globe-trotting brothers who became the mozzarella kings of Puglia; the pizza police of Naples and the innovative pies that stay one step ahead of the rules; the Barolo Boys who turned the hilly Piedmont into one of the world’s great wine regions.Goulding’s writing has never been better, in complete harmony with the book's innovative design and the more than 200 lush color photographs that introduce the chefs, shepherds, fisherman, farmers, grandmas, and guardians who power this country’s extraordinary culinary traditions. From the pasta temples of Rome to the multicultural markets of Sicily to the family-run, fish-driven trattorias of Lake Como, Pasta, Pane, Vino captures the breathtaking diversity of Italian regional food culture.The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet's Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India
By Rodger Kamenetz. 1994
While accompanying eight high–spirited Jewish delegates to Dharamsala, India, for a historic Buddhist–Jewish dialogue with the Dalai Lama, poet Rodger…
Kamenetz comes to understand the convergence of Buddhist and Jewish thought. Along the way he encounters Ram Dass and Richard Gere, and dialogues with leading rabbis and Jewish thinkers, including Zalman Schacter, Yitz and Blue Greenberg, and a host of religious and disaffected Jews and Jewish Buddhists. This amazing journey through Tibetan Buddhism and Judaism leads Kamenetz to a renewed appreciation of his living Jewish roots.The Exodus: How it Happened and Why It Matters
By Richard Elliott Friedman. 2017
The Exodus has become a core tradition of Western civilization. Millions read it, retell it, and celebrate it. But did…
it happen?Biblical scholars, Egyptologists, archaeologists, historians, literary scholars, anthropologists, and filmmakers are drawn to it. Unable to find physical evidence until now, many archaeologists and scholars claim this mass migration is just a story, not history. Others oppose this conclusion, defending the biblical account.Like a detective on an intricate case no one has yet solved, pioneering Bible scholar and bestselling author of Who Wrote the Bible? Richard Elliott Friedman cuts through the noise — the serious studies and the wild theories — merging new findings with new insight. From a spectrum of disciplines, state-of-the-art archeological breakthroughs, and fresh discoveries within scripture, he brings real evidence of a historical basis for the exodus — the history behind the story. The biblical account of millions fleeing Egypt may be an exaggeration, but the exodus itself is not a myth.Friedman does not stop there. Known for his ability to make Bible scholarship accessible to readers, Friedman proceeds to reveal how much is at stake when we explore the historicity of the exodus. The implications, he writes, are monumental. We learn that it became the starting-point of the formation of monotheism, the defining concept of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Moreover, we learn that it precipitated the foundational ethic of loving one’s neighbors — including strangers — as oneself. He concludes, the actual exodus was the cradle of global values of compassion and equal rights today.Hand Drawn Victoria: An Illustrated Tour in and around BC's Capital City (Hand Drawn)
By Emma FitzGerald. 2024
For locals and visitors alike, these sketches and stories highlight both the historic monuments and everyday moments that make Victoria…
shine.You never know quite what you&’ll come across in British Columbia&’s capital city. With its unmissable landmarks that attract people from around the world, Victoria is also rich in forested beauty, charming houses, and curious people, and is steeped in local history.Following the charm of her previous book, Hand Drawn Vancouver, in this memorable book, Emma FitzGerald captures the coastal city of Victoria and its surrounding communities in over 100 sketches of:Iconic Landmarks: It wouldn&’t be a visit to Victoria without stopping by the Empress, Munro&’s, or Butchart Gardens.Local Favourites: The longstanding Beacon Drive In and James Bay&’s Birdcage Confectionary are some beloved spots honoured within these pages.Beautiful Architecture: Journey back in time by admiring historic buildings, like Queen Anne–style homes and the spiraling Belfry Theatre.Stunning West Coast Landscape: Explore natural wonders, from culturally significant fields of camas flowers to Mystic Beach&’s stunning shoreline.Overheard Conversations: What really makes a city are the people who live there—Emma documents snippets of passersby&’s conversations as she sketches.Structured by neighbourhood, Hand Drawn Victoria is a beautiful keepsake for both locals and visitors, and a lovely way to celebrate the city—its buildings, its people, and its essence.Strands: A Year of Discoveries on the Beach
By Jean Sprackland. 2012
Strands describes a year's worth of walking on the ultimate beach: inter-tidal and constantly turning up revelations: mermaid's purses, lugworms,…
sea potatoes, messages in bottles, buried cars, beached whales and a perfect cup from a Cunard liner. This is a series of meditations prompted by walking on the wild estuarial beaches of Ainsdale Sands between Blackpool and Liverpool, Strands is about what is lost and buried then discovered, about all the things you find on a beach, dead or alive, about flotsam and jetsam, about mutability and transformation - about sea-change.The Story of the Scrolls: The miraculous discovery and true significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls
By Dr Geza Vermes. 1999
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran, Palestine, in 1947 was one of the greatest archaeological finds of…
all time. Written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and hidden in caves by an ancient Jewish sect, these mysterious manuscripts revolutionized our understanding of the Bible, of Judaism and the early Christian world. Geza Vermes is the world's leading Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, whose English translations brought these extraordinary documents to thousands, and whose life has been inextricably interwoven with the scrolls for over sixty years. In this illuminating book he relates the controversial story of their discovery and publication around the world, revealing cover-ups, blunders and academic in-fighting, but also the passion and dedication of many of those involved. He shares what he has learned about the scrolls and, evaluating passages from them, gives his views on their true significance and what they can teach us, as well as those areas where scholarly consensus has not yet been reached. Few scholars have been as closely associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls as Vermes. Writing with candour and unique authority, he has created an ideal introduction to understanding these miraculous documents.Stone Will Answer: A Journey Guided by Craft, Myth and Geology
By Beatrice Searle. 2023
A beautiful memoir, travelogue and meditation on stone by artist and stone mason Beatrice Searle.'Extraordinary' Guardian‘A magnificent book’ Alex Woodcock‘Exceptional’…
Kerri Andrews‘Luminous’ SpectatorAt the age of twenty-six, artist and Cathedral stonemason Beatrice Searle crossed the North Sea and walked 500 miles along a medieval pilgrim path through Southern Norway, taking with her a 40-kilogram Orcadian stone.Fascinated with the mysterious footprint stones of Northern Europe and the ancient Greco-Roman world, stones closely associated with travellers, saints and the inauguration of Kings, she follows in their footsteps as her stone becomes a talisman, a bedrock and an offering to those she meets along the way.Stone Will Answer is an unusual adventure story of journeys practical, spiritual and geological, of weight and motion, and an insight into a beguiling craft.Sound Bites: Eating on Tour with Franz Ferdinand
By Alex Kapranos. 2007
In September 2005, Alex Kapranos began writing about what he ate while touring the world with the rock band Franz…
Ferdinand. The writing is as much about where he eats and the people he eats with as the unusual flavours he tastes on the road. Whether it’s munching donuts with cops in Brooklyn, swallowing bull’s balls with the band in Buenos Aires or queuing for a saveloy in South Shields, these are surprising and vivid snapshots of life on the road. Funny, poignant, sickening or sexual depending on the situation, the material, both new and previously published in the Guardian, is fascinating and entertaining.Sold as a Slave (Great Journeys Ser. #No. 8)
By Olaudah Equiano. 2007
In an adventurous and extraordinary life, Equiano (c.1745-c.1797) criss-crossed the Atlantic world, from West Africa to the Caribbean to the…
USA to Britain, either as a slave or fighting with the Royal Navy. His account of his life is not only one of the great documents of the abolition movement, but also a startling, moving story of danger and betrayal.Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries – but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.Snakes with Wings and Gold-digging Ants
By Herodotus. 2007
So much of what we know of the Ancient World comes from Herodotus (c.490 BC - c.420 BC) that he…
will always remain the greatest of historians. But in addition such a large part of the entertainment value of the Ancient World comes from his enormous, omnivorous, sometimes credulous appetite for stories of distant lands and strange creatures.Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries – but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.Short Walks from Bogotá: Journeys in the new Colombia
By Tom Feiling. 2012
For decades, Colombia was the 'narcostate'. Now travel to Colombia and South America is on the rise, and it's seen…
as one of the rising stars of the global economy. Where does the truth lie? Writer and journalist Tom Feiling, author of the acclaimed study of cocaine The Candy Machine, has journeyed throughout Colombia, down roads that were until recently too dangerous to travel, to paint a fresh picture of one of the world's most notorious and least-understood countries. He talks to former guerrilla fighters and their ex-captives; women whose sons were 'disappeared' by paramilitaries; the nomadic tribe who once thought they were the only people on earth and now charge $10 for a photo; the Japanese 'emerald cowboy' who made a fortune from mining; and revels in the stories that countless ordinary Colombians tell. How did a land likened to paradise by the first conquistadores become a byword for hell on earth? Why is one of the world's most unequal nations also one of its happiest? How is it rebuilding itself after decades of violence, and how successful has the process been so far? Vital, shocking, often funny and never simplistic, Short Walks from Bogota unpicks the tangled fabric of Colombia, to create a stunning work of reportage, history and travel writing.A Short Residence in Sweden & Memoirs of the Author of 'The Rights of Woman'
By Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin. 2012
In these two closely linked works - a travel book and a biography of its author - we witness a…
moving encounter between two of the most daring and original minds of the late eighteenth century: A Short Residence in Sweden is the record of Wollstonecraft's last journey in search of happiness, into the remote and beautiful backwoods of Scandinavia. The quest for a lost treasure ship, the pain of a wrecked love affair, memories of the French Revolution, and the longing for some Golden Age, all shape this vivid narrative, which Richard Holmes argues is one of the neglected masterpieces of early English Romanticism.Memoirs is Godwin's own account of Wollstonecraft's life, written with passionate intensity a few weeks after her tragic death. Casting aside literary convention, Godwin creates an intimate portrait of his wife, startling in its candour and psychological truth. Received with outrage by friends and critics alike, and virtually suppressed for a century, it can now be recognized as one of the landmarks in the development of modern biography.The Shell Country Alphabet: The Classic Guide to the British Countryside
By Geoffrey Grigson. 2009
In the 1960s Geoffrey Grigson travelled around England writing the story of the secret landscape that is all around us,…
if only we take the time to look and see. The result is a book that will take you on an imaginative journey, revealing hidden stories, unexpected places and strange phenomena. From green men, ice-scratches, cross-legged knights and weathercocks to rainbows, clouds and stars; from place-names and poets to mazes, dene-holes and sham ruins, via avenues, dewponds and village greens, The Shell Country Alphabet will help you discover the world that remains, just off the motorway.'Geoffrey Grigson resurrected the minor, the provincial and the parochial ... [he was] an erudite and unrivalled topographer ... ardent in promoting informed awareness of the distinctiveness of place' Toby Barnard'An anthologist of genius' P.J. KavanaghSequins for a Ragged Hem (Black Britain: Writing Back #8)
By Amryl Johnson. 1988
A beautifully atmospheric memoir and travelogue from poet Amryl Johnson depicting her journey from the UK to Trinidad in the…
1980s'Memories demanded that I complete this book. If what I experienced was, in fact, a haunting, I believe I have now laid these ghosts to rest in a style which I hope will satisfy even the most determined ones.'Amryl Johnson came to England from Trinidad when she was eleven. As an adult in 1983, ready for a homecoming, she embarks on a journey through the Caribbean searching for home, searching for herself.Landing in Trinidad as carnival begins, she instantly surrenders to the collective, pulsating rhythm of the crowd, euphoric in her total freedom. This elation is shattered when she finds the house where she was born has been destroyed. She cannot escape - nor wants to - from the inheritance of colonialism.Her bittersweet welcome sets the tone for her intoxicating exploration of these distinct islands. In evocative, lyrical prose Sequins for a Ragged Hem is an astonishingly unique memoir, interrogating the way our past and present selves live alongside one another.Selected by Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo, this series rediscovers and celebrates pioneering books from Black Britain and the diaspora, which remap the nation and reframe our history.A Search In Secret India: The classic work on seeking a guru
By Paul Brunton. 1934
'He found many marvelous things...But now and then a man of real spirituality set his feet on the way that…
finally led him to what he had looked and hoped for.' New York Times Book Review The late Paul Brunton was one of the twentieth century's greatest explorers of and writers on the spiritual traditions of the East. A Search in Secret India is the story of Paul Brunton's journey around India, living among yogis, mystics and gurus, some of whom he found convincing, others not. He finally finds the peace and tranquility which come with self-knowledge when he meets and studies with the great sage Sri Ramana Maharishi.'Superb - a great book to fuel your wanderlust.' Mark Beaumont'The ultimate running book, showcasing the ultimate running adventure.' Sean…
Conway---In 2019, Nick Butter became the first person to run a marathon in every country on Earth. This is Nick's story of his world record-breaking adventure and the extraordinary people who joined him along the way.On January 6th 2018, Nick Butter tied his laces and stepped out on to an icy pavement in Toronto, where he began to take the first steps of an epic journey that would see him run 196 marathons in every one of the world's 196 countries. Spending almost two years on the road and relying on the kindness of strangers to keep him moving, Nick's odyssey allowed him to travel slowly, on foot, immersing himself in the diverse cultures and customs of his host nations.Running through capital cities and deserts, around islands and through spectacular landscapes, Nick dodges bullets in Guinea-Bissau, crosses battlefields in Syria, survives a wild dog attack in Tunisia and runs around an erupting volcano in Guatemala. Along the way, he is often joined by local supporters and fellow runners, curious children and bemused passers-by. Telling their stories alongside his own, Nick captures the unique spirit of each place he visits and forges a new relationship with the world around him.Running the World captures Nick's journey as he sets three world records and covers over five thousand miles. As he recounts his adventures, he shares his unique perspective on our glorious planet, celebrates the diversity of human experience, and reflects on the overwhelming power of running.In the spring of 2021, as the UK's latest pandemic lockdowns were lifted, Nick Butter set out from the Eden…
Project to become the fastest person to cover every mile of Britain's mainland coastline on foot.Battling the most extreme winds Britain had seen in 100 years, days of torrential rain and the unrelenting hills of Western Scotland and Cornwall, Nick suffered two broken bones and countless injuries, whilst taking on two marathons a day, every day, for 100 days.Covering an extraordinary 5,250 miles, running for over 12 hours a day, struggling to take in the 8,000 daily calories required to fuel his body, Nick battled sleep deprivation and extreme weight loss as he pushed his body and mind to their limit.Supported by close friends and family (including his ever-dependable right-hand man, Andy Swain, whose diary extracts feature in this book), Nick experienced spiralling lows and euphoric highs. As he traversed footpaths, country lanes and busy A roads, he passed through over two thousand coastal communities, buoyed along by supporters cheering from windows, balconies, passing cars and pavements, by school children and fellow runners, and by the stunning sights and sounds of the British coast.Run Britain is Nick's account of his extraordinary adventure.The Roads to Sata: A 2000-mile walk through Japan
By Alan Booth. 1985
'A memorable, oddly beautiful book' Wall Street Journal'A marvellous glimpse of the Japan that rarely peeks through the country's public…
image' Washington PostOne sunny spring morning in the 1970s, an unlikely Englishman set out on a pilgrimage that would take him across the entire length of Japan. Travelling only along small back roads, Alan Booth travelled on foot from Soya, the country's northernmost tip, to Sata in the extreme south, traversing three islands and some 2,000 miles of rural Japan. His mission: 'to come to grips with the business of living here,' after having spent most of his adult life in Tokyo.The Roads to Sata is a wry, witty, inimitable account of that prodigious trek, vividly revealing the reality of life in off-the-tourist-track Japan. Journeying alongside Booth, we encounter the wide variety of people who inhabit the Japanese countryside - from fishermen and soldiers, to bar hostesses and school teachers, to hermits, drunks and the homeless. We glimpse vast stretches of coastline and rambling townscapes, mountains and motorways; watch baseball games and sunrises; sample trout and Kilamanjaro beer, hear folklore, poems and smutty jokes. Throughout, we enjoy the wit and insight of a uniquely perceptive guide, and more importantly, discover a new face of an often-misunderstood nation.The Ripening Sun
By Patricia Atkinson. 2006
For most people giving up the day job and moving to a beautiful area of France and living off the…
vines is an impossible but delicious dream. In 1990, Patricia Atkinson and her husband decided to sell up in Britain and emigrate to the Dordogne. Their idea was to buy a house with a few vines attached and employ someone to tend to the wine while they earned their living with some financial consultancy work. There followed a series of disasters: the stock market crashed leaving their small holding as their sole source of income; the first red wine harvest turned to vinegar; and Patricia's husband returned to Britain, unable to cope with the stress. He never returned. Patricia Atkinson, whose only knowledge of wine up to that moment was 'that it came from a bottle' and who had not a word of French, was left to salvage their life savings form the vineyards. What follows is a remarkable story of struggle and transformation whereby her tiny 4 hectare plot has become a major estate of 21 hectares, where her Clos d'Yvigne wines have won awards and been adopted by wine merchants throughout the world and where she has been hailed as a superstar by UK wine writers.Reveries of the Solitary Walker
By Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 2004
After a period of forced exile and solitary wandering brought about by his radical views on religion and politics, Jean-Jacques…
Rousseau returned to Paris in 1770. Here, in the last two years of his life, he wrote his final work, the Reveries. In this eloquent masterpiece the great political thinker describes his sense of isolation from a society he felt had rejected his writings - and the manner in which he has come to terms with his alienation, as he walks around Paris, gazing at plants, day-dreaming and finding comfort in the virtues of solitude and the natural world. Meditative, amusing and lyrical, this is a fascinating exploration of Rousseau's thought as he looks back over his life, searching to justify his actions, to defend himself against his critics and to elaborate upon his philosophy.