Travels through Surinam jungle

 

Excellent condition. PB. 368pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Perched above Brazil on the shoulder of South America, Surinam is a land of myth and magic. Once traded to the Dutch by the English in return for Manhattan, it is now home to the largest tract of pristine rainforest left on earth. 

Andrew Westoll first fell under Surinam's spell as a young biologist, studying monkeys deep inside its primordial jungles. Five years later he returned, determined to chart the human, historical and environmental legacies of this surprising, little-known land. 

What he found was a country poised on the brink of profound change- a nation facing either ecological catastrophe or salvation. 

Westoll explores Surinam's bloody past, the allure of its wild places, the legends and rituals of its extraordinary people. 

An honest and beautiful writer he conjures a place of golden light and impenetrable shadow, of long-held secrets and sacred stories. And in the end he uncovers a nation that- like Westoll himself- is still in search of its own destiny.

SOLD Vikram Seth hitchhikes through Xinjiang and Tibet

 

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Rare book. Reasonable condition. PB. 178pp. $18 including postage anywhere in Australia.

After two years as a postgraduate student at Nanjing University in China, Vikram Seth hitch-hiked back to his home in New Delhi, via Tibet.  From Heaven Lake is the story of his remarkable journey and his encounters with nomadic Muslims, Chinese officials, Buddhists and others.

About the author

Vikram Seth is an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's writer, biographer and memoirist.

During the course of his doctorate studies at Stanford, he did his field work in China and translated Hindi and Chinese poetry into English. He returned to Delhi via Xinjiang and Tibet which led to a travel narrative From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet (1983) which won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.

SOLD Travels through Tibet

 

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Very rare book. PB. 220pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

SOLD Bettina Selby rides through Turkey and the Middle East

 

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Rare book. Good condition. PB. 292pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Pilgrims and visitors have entered Jerusalem in many ways. Some have swaggered in triumphantly in chariots, others humbly on foot or on an as, and today many arrive lolling back in package-holiday coaches.
Bettina Selby did it the hard way, on a bicycle called Evans, having followed the Crusaders' routes across Europe and through Turkey and Syria to Israel. Riding to Jerusalem combines the author's perceptions and reflections with her sense of humour and relish of adventure.

A 20th century travel classic in Brazil

 

Rare book. Good condition. PB. 384pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

In the summer of 1925 Colonel Fawcett - soldier, spy and legendary explorer - embarked on a journey into the dark and uncharted heart of Brazil in search of the lost 'City of Z'. He was never seen again. 

Rumours abounded - that Fawcett had been killed by Indians or wild animals or that he had lost his memory and become chief of a cannibal tribe - and many became obsessed with discovering what had become of him. 

In 1932, when "The Times" advertised for 'guns' to join an expedition to find Fawcett, the lure was too great for a young Peter Fleming and he immediately signed up, intending to send dazzling dispatches from the jungle. 

The expedition set out from Sao Paulo and, following tributaries of the Amazon, headed to Fawcett's last-known position. 

What followed was, in Fleming's words, 'a venture for which Rider Haggard might have written the plot and Conrad designed the scenery'. 

As the expedition forged its way deeper into the Amazon, disagreements fractured the group and the entire adventure ended in a chaotic race to be the first to report back home. 

Though the fate of Colonel Fawcett remains a mystery, Peter Fleming's wild escapade in the heart of Brazil has become one of the 20th century's best-loved travel classics.

SOLD Travel humour and misadventure

 

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Mint condition. PB. 200pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia

A rolling stone may gather no moss, but one thing it does gather is funny stories, as this collection of goofy travel essays shows. The perfect trip, where nothing goes wrong, is surely not the memorable trip, in which "everything" goes wrong and one lives to tell the tale--and laugh about it.

Where hasn't Paul Theroux been? A collection of travel writing

 

Mint condition. HB. $35 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Paul Theroux's first collection of essays and articles devoted entirely to travel writing, FRESH AIR FIEND touches down on five continents and floats through most seas in between to deliver a literary adventure of the first order, with the incomparable Paul Theroux as a guide. From the crisp quiet of a solitary week spent in the snowbound Maine woods to the expectant chaos of Hong Kong on the eve of the Hand-over, Theroux demonstrates how the traveling life and the writing life are intimately connected. His journeys in remote hinterlands and crowded foreign capitals provide the necessary perspective to "become a stranger" in order to discover the self. A companion volume to SUNRISE WITH SEAMONSTERS, FRESH AIR FIEND is the ultimate good read for anyone fascinated by travel in the wider world or curious about the life of one of our most passionate travelers.

Paul Theroux paddles the Pacific Islands

 

Good condition. PB. 528pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Renowned travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux has been many places in his life and tried almost everything. But this trip in and around the lands of the Pacific may be his boldest, most fascinating yet. From New Zealand's rain forests, to crocodile-infested New Guinea, over isolated atolls, through dirty harbors, daring weather and coastlines, he travels by Kayak wherever the winds take him--and what he discovers is the world to explore and try to understand.

SOLD Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar

 

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Mint condition. PB. 288pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

This 19th-century autobiography offers a rare inside look at the society surrounding a sultan's palace. A real-life princess in exile recalls her vanished world of harems, slave trading, and court intrigues.

Return to an era when Zanzibar was ruled by sultans, and enter a vanished world of harems, slave trading, and court intrigues. In this insider's story, a sultan's daughter who fled her gilded cage offers a compelling look at nineteenth-century Arabic and African royal life. After years of exile in Europe, the former princess wrote this fascinating memoir as a legacy for her children and a warm reminiscence of her island home.

Born Salamah bint Said, Princess of Zanzibar, in 1844, author Emily Ruete grew up in a harem with scores of siblings. The royal family maintained its fabulous wealth and luxury with a robust traffic in ivory, spices, and human bondage. Ruete ventures beyond the palace, into the city and plantations where European traders, missionaries, and colonists exercised a growing influence.

After her dramatic elopement with a German trader, Ruete attained the perspective to form a comparison of the lives of women in Muslim society with those of their European contemporaries. Originally published in 1886, this remarkable autobiography will captivate readers interested in Zanzibar and Eastern Africa as well as students of Arabic, Islam, and women's studies.

About the Author

"Ruete could be the subject of a thrilling romance," enthused Publishers Weekly of this author, who was born in 1840 as Salme, Princess of Oman and Zanzibar. As a 16-year-old, Ruete fled from her cloistered existence to Germany, where she found the freedom to marry her secret lover. Ruete wrote this colorful and informative memoir to introduce her children to their African heritage.