SOLD Travels into the heart of dangerous Borneo

 

SOLD

Very good condition. PB. 208pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The story of a 1983 journey to the center of Borneo, which no expedition had attempted since 1926. O'Hanlon, accompanied by friend and poet James Fenton and three native guides brings wit and humor to a dangerous journey.

SOLD The history of Bali

 

SOLD

Mint condition. PB. 280pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Under the Volcano is dramatic history written by a master storyteller. Travellers come to Bali looking for paradise. Nehru called it “the morning of the world”. Yet this small island has seen much bloodshed - from the ritual suicides of Balinese warriors fighting the Dutch, to the massacres of 1965-66 and the bombings of 2002 and 2005.

In Under the Volcano, Cameron Forbes looks at the blood and beauty of Bali through interviews, legends, reporting and history. He tells the stories of explorers, colonisers, surfers, artists, jihadists and drug-runners and above all of the Balinese themselves. In doing so he brings the island paradise into vibrant and disturbing focus.

SOLD Travels through wild Indonesia

 

SOLD

Mint condition. PB. 266pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

My Friend the Fanatic is a portrait of the world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, a land once synonymous with tolerance that the author claims finds itself in the midst of a profound shift toward radical Islam. 

This portrait is painted through the travels of a pair of unlikely protagonists. Sadanand Dhume, the author, is a foreign correspondent, an Indian atheist with a fondness for literary fiction and an interest in economic development. His companion, Herry Nurdi, is a young Islamist who hero-worships Osama bin Laden.

SOLD Indonesia, religion and politics in one volume

 

SOLD

Mint condition. PB. 374pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Following the Bali bombings, Australia suddenly found itself in the middle of a war of terror that gripped the world. Worse still, it was a war with an enemy we never knew we had - an enemy we're still struggling to identify and understand. Even worse, we neglected to understand that this enemy was one we shared with Indonesia itself.

SOLD Traveling through and reporting from Indonesia

 

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Mint condition. PB. 404pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

A compelling, entertaining and fascinating journey through one of the world's largest, most dynamic and most contradictory countries.

In 1945, Indonesia's declaration of independence promised: 'the details of the transfer of power etc. will be worked out as soon as possible.' Still working on the 'etc.' seven decades later, the world's fourth most populous nation is now enthusiastically democratic and riotously diverse.

Over 65 million Indonesians use Facebook, though 80 million live without electricity. It is one of the richest and most enchanting countries on earth, but is riddled, too, with ineptitude and corruption.

Elizabeth Pisani, who first worked in Indonesia 25 years ago as a foreign correspondent and came back a decade later as a medical researcher, set out in 2011 to rediscover its enduring attraction, and to find the links which bind together this impossibly disparate nation.

She travelled over 13,000 miles by land and sea, dropping in on local potentates and staying with farmers and fishermen, and nomads and nurses, often on islands too small to appear on a map.

In Indonesia Etc., Pisani weaves together the stories of Indonesians encountered on her journey with a considered analysis of Indonesia's recent history, corrupt political system, ethnic and religious identities, stifling bureaucracy and traditional 'sticky' cultures.

Fearless and funny, and sharply perceptive, she has drawn a compelling, entertaining and deeply informed portrait of a captivating nation.

About the Author

ELIZABETH PISANI was Indonesia correspondent for Reuters and the Economist from 1988 to 1991. She worked with Indonesia's Ministry of Health from 2001 to 2005 as an epidemiologist, and spent 2011 travelling the archipelago. Pisani is the author of The Wisdom of Whores (Granta, 2008), and speaks several languages, including Indonesian.

SOLD Travels in Indonesia

 

SOLD

Rare book. Very good condition. PB. 280pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Norman Lewis was eighty-three years old when in 1991 he embarked on a series of three arduous journeys into the most contentious corners of Indonesia: into the extreme western edge of Sumatra, into East Timor and Irian Jaya. 

He never drops his guard, reporting only on what he can observe, and using his well-honed tools of irony, humour and restraint to assess the power of the ruling Javanese generals who for better or worse took over the 300-year old dominion of the exploitative Dutch colonial regime. 

An Empire of the East is the magnificent swan-song of Britain's greatest travel writer.

Graham Greene called Lewis "one of the best"; Pico Iyer said he's "one of the world's last unguarded secrets"; and Anthony Burgess said "his prose is almost edible." 

And yeah, he's pretty good. 

Lewis visits deep into the leafy and political jungles of Sumatra and East Timor, describing the lurking perils of Indonesian restaurants that cook their food once a week and political land mines as well. 

"Empire" is a scholarly and well-written treatment of Indonesia.