Dave Greenford has heard the old cliche about how when you arrive in India, it's like stepping into an oven. But, somehow, this doesn't prepare him for the realization that when he arrives in India, it is like stepping into an oven.
He is there because his friend Liz--who he hopes will turn out to be more than just a friend--has the summer off. And what better way to spend her time than searching for her tantric center?
For Dave, however, the spiritual side of India is hidden by the daily frustrations of travel itself. A fourteen-hour bumpy bus ride, food-poisoning (and the ever-constant threat of malaria), child beggars, and a bossy and uninterested Liz can turn even the greatest of Asian adventures into the Vacation from Hell. Despite "[the] general belief that a long and unpleasant holiday was of crucial importance to one's development as a human being," Dave wants to go back home to England. How he finally gets there is what makes Are You Experienced? so much fun.Read More...Hide Pages: 233
Chasing the Monsoon by Alexander Frater An original,wonderfully and entertaining and convincing account of an ambitious and unusual journey in pursuit of the monsoon,all the way up the Indian subcontinent. Pages: 273
Ladies Coupe by Anita Nair Meet Akhilandeswari, Akhila for short: forty-five and single, an income-tax clerk, and a woman who has never been allowed to live her own life - always the daughter, the sister, the aunt, the provider - until the day she gets herself a one-way ticket to the seaside town of Kanyakumari. In the intimate atmosphere of the all-women sleeping car - the 'Ladies Coupe' - Akhila asks the five women the question that has been haunting her all her adult life: can a woman stay single and be happy, or does she need a man to feel complete?
This wonderfully atmospheric, deliciously warm novel takes the reader into the heart of women's lives in contemporary India, revealing how the dilemmas that women face in their relationships with hunsbands, mothers, friends, employers and children are the same world over.Read More...Hide Pages: 276
A Fez of the Heart by Jeremy Seal Upon the orders of Kemal Ataturk, the fez replaced the turban as Turkey's national headdress. Outlawed completely in 1925, the turban is viewed as a symbol of Turkish backwardness. While living and teaching in Turkey for several years, Jeremy Seals developed an obsession for the fez, a hat he believes has come to symbolize the soul of the country. Through interviews with villagers and historical essays, Seals chronicles his journey through Turkey, to areas both metropolitan and remote, to find the heart of the country as embodied by its national head gear.Read More...Hide Pages: 291
Hold the Enlightenment by Tim Cahill n his latest collection of death-defying exploits and far-flung travels, Outside Magazine editor Tim Cahill visits the side of an active volcano in Ecuador, the Saharan salt mines and the largest toxic waste dump in the Western Hemisphere. He also ventures to find a Caspian tiger in Turkey and giant centipedes in the Congo. Cahill is one of the last great intrepid journalists, and his thirty wildly entertaining essays display sparkling wit and unstinting curiosity. When not on the move, he debunks hoary notions of the kindness of dolphins and ruminates on religion, death and the perplexing phenomenon of yoga. Charming, incisive and absolutely fearless, Cahill is the perfect travel companion.Read More...Hide Pages: 297
how to find the secret walk-up fares that can save air travelers hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on last minutes flights;
which coach seats on which planes are better than first class;
the secret rule to know to avoid being bumped from a flight,
which cruise ship brochures lie;
which credit card companies are fastest - and slowest - to come to your aid in a foreign land, or worse, in the U.S.,;
which hotels have the best - and the worst -fire and crime safety records, and how you can protect yourself;
how to negotiate the best hotel room deal;
which hotels have the worst water pressure in their showers (and better yet, how you can get great water pressure, even at those hotels);
and much, much more.
Accessible and entertaining, The Travel Detective gives you the information and tools you need to make every trip an affordable pleasure.Read More...Hide Pages: 373
The World, The World by Norman Lewis In This rich and fascinating second volumes of memoirs,following the classic I Came,I Saw,Norman Lewis take us from Enfield to Guatemala via Brazil and to Peru by way of Braintree ,Heartland of the paranormal,not to mention Vietnam,Burma,Spain,Cuba,Sicily and India.He recounts his wartime career,his life abroad and at home and his reminiscences of Ian Fleming and Ernest Hemingway with his characteristic humour, sharp eye for detail and keen delight in the absurd.Read More...Hide Pages: 293
The Age of Kali: Indian Travels and Encounters by William Dalrymple William Dalrymple has proved himself to be one of the most perceptive and enjoyable travel writers of the 1990s. His first book, In Xanadu, became an instant backpacker's classic, winning a stream of literary prizes. City of Djinns and From the Holy Mountain soon followed, to universal critical praise. Yet it is India that Dalrymple continues to return to in his travels, and his fourth book, The Age of Kali, is his most reflective book to date.
The result of 10 year's living and traveling throughout the Indian subcontinent, The Age of Kali emerges from Dalrymple's uneasy sense that the region is slipping into the most fearsome of all epochs in ancient Hindu cosmology: "the Kali Yug, the Age of Kali, the lowest possible throw, an epoch of strife, corruption, darkness, and disintegration." The brilliance of this book lies in its refusal to reflect any cultural pessimism. Dalrymple's love for the subcontinent, and his feel for its diverse cultural identity, comes across in every page, which makes its chronicles of political corruption, ethnic violence, and social disintegration all the more poignant. The scope of the book is particularly impressive, from the vivid opening chapters portraying the lawless caste violence of Bihar, to interviews with the drug barons on the North-West Frontier, and Dalrymple's extraordinary encounter with the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Some of the most fascinating sections of the book are Dalrymple's interviews with Imran Khan and Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, which read like nonfiction companion pieces to Salman Rushdie's bitterly satirical ShamRead More...Hide Pages: 371
Yemen : Travels in Dictionary Land by Tim Mackintosh-Smith Arguably the most fascinating but least known country in the Arab world,Yemen has a way of attracting comment that ranges from the superficial to the wildly fictitious.Crossing mountain,desert,ocean and three millenia of history,Tim Mackintosh-Smith portrays hyrax hunters and dhow skippers,a noseless regicide,and a sword-wielding tyrant with a passion for Heinz Russian salad.
This book is an Arabian grand tour in which every page is dashed-like the land it describes-with the marvellous.Read More...Hide Pages: 255
Video Night in Kathmandu: And Other Reports from the Not-So-Far East by Pico Iyer Mohawk haircuts in Bali. Yuppies in Hong Kong. In Bombay, not one but five Rambo rip-offs, complete with music and dancing. And in the People's Republic of China, a restaurant that serves dishes called "A Legitimate Beef" and "Ike and Tuna Turner." These are some of the images -- comic, poignant, unsettling -- that Iyer brings back from the Far East.
The Time writer approaches his subject with a camera-sharp eye and a willingness to go beyond the obvious conclusions about the hybrid cultures of the East and West.
"Quick-witted and perceptive -- something more than a deft and entertaining traveler's tale." (The New Yorker)Read More...Hide Pages: 428
The treatment technique of reflexology - the micro-massaging of reflex points on the soles of the feet - has historical roots extending back 5,000 years. Each part of our bodies is reflected in its own special reflex point on our feet, and the skill of the trained reflexologist is to detect and correct any energy imbalance and restore harmony to all the systems of the body...
House of Sand and Fog
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
In this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family's dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. Sheriff Lester Burdon, a married man who finds himself falling in love with Kathy, becomes obsessed with helping her fight for justice.
Drawn by their competing desires to the same small house in the California hills and doomed by their tragic inability to understand one another, the three converge in an explosive collision course.
Bergdorf Blondes
Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes
Plum Sykes's beguiling debut welcomes readers to the glamorous world of Park Avenue Princesses, the girls who careen through Manhattan in search of the perfect Fake Bake (tan acquired from Portofino Tanning Salon), a ride on a PJ (private jet) with the ATM (rich boyfriend), and the ever-elusive fiancé.
With invitations to high-profile baby showers and benefits, more Marc Jacobs clothes than is decent, and a department store heiress for a best friend, our heroine known only as Moi is living at the peak of New York society. But what is Moi to do when her engagement falls apart? Can she ever find happiness in a city filled with the distractions of Front Row Girls, dermatologists, premieres, and eyebrow waxes? Is it possible to find love in a town where her friends think that the secret to happiness is getting invited to the Van Cleef and Arpels über-private sample sale? And how is she going to deal with the endless phone calls from her mother in England demanding that she get married to the Earl next door?
With enormous wit and an insider's eye, Sykes captures the nuances of the rich and spoiled in a heartwarming social satire, featuring a loveable "champagne bubble of a girl" who's just looking for love (and maybe the perfect pair of Chloé jeans).
