Travel and Places 33


tells the story of the Italian automobile through men, vehicles and ever-changing conditions. The chapters follow a chronological format that reviews social, economic and political factors like the dark years of the oil crisis and international competition of the 1980s and 1990s. From the beloved Fiat Cinquicento to the Ferrari Testarossa each car is featured in a huge colour photograph, many across double page spreads on the glossy pages of this outsize volume, 300pp measuring 10½” x 12". ONLY £22.50


70035 LOCKHEED P-38 LIGHTNING by Jerry Scutts


The Lightning was the first American fighter to escort American bombers to Berlin. Ask any pilot posted to the South Pacific, faced with flying for several hours which plane he preferred, and he would say the Lockheed’s twin-boomed-tail killing machine. On D-Day in 1944, the Supreme Command wanted P-38s to be the first over the Normandy invasion beaches. It was the top US reconnaissance aircraft of the war. Yet it was rejected by our own RAF - perhaps because it was such a handful to pilot. Its heavy cannon and machine-gun armament made it the scourge of enemy ground forces against the Japanese, it racked up a score ratio such that every commander wanted more and more Lightnings. When they were fitted with simple devices to keep them stable under all flight altitudes and to offset the dreaded effects of compressibility, they became one of the best of all wartime fighters. It was also realised that they were on the threshold of supersonic flight. A great story and a great plane. 160 pages 29mm by 23mm packed with b/w photos. £25 NOW £10


69939 CHAPMAN QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE


TO NAUTICAL FLAGS by Dan Fales Flags of importance, types of flags (national, yacht, state, yacht club and cruising, organisational), size of flags, personal pennants, distress, courtesy, code flags, race flags, battle flags, flags of rank, other special flags plus where to fly, when, flag etiquette, flags ashore, raising and lowering, folding a flag, half mast, weather flags, sport fishing flags and more. For each there is a big colour picture on the glossy card pages of this 24 page spiral bound softback. £9.99 NOW £3.50


TRAVEL AND PLACES


How can you know that something is worth writing about if you haven’t seen anything else?


- Paul Theroux


70508 TAO OF TRAVEL by Paul Theroux


One of the greatest ever travel writers, Paul Theroux here celebrates 50 years of global wandering by collecting together the best writing on the subject of travel from the books which shaped him, as both traveller and reader. The result is a compelling mixture; part philosophical guide, part


reminiscence, part miscellany, which


includes such esoteric subjects as the contents of travellers’ bags, exposés of those who wrote about places that they never visited, travel as an ordeal, the perverse pleasures of the inhospitable, travellers’ favourite places, travel epiphanies and the essential Tao of travel. Excerpts from Theroux’s own work are interspersed with selections from other travellers, both familiar and unexpected, which include Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Freya Stark, Anton Chekov, Graham Greene and V.S. Pritchett, who - naughty, naughty - appears in “never visited” section - as well as many others for the right reasons - for his 1937 description of Brazil, a country he did not actually visit until many years later. For quality of writing and diversity of subjects, you will hard-pressed to find a better travel volume than this unique tribute to travel in its golden age. 285pp paperback.


£13.99 NOW £5


70685 DRIVE AROUND LANGUEDOC AND


SOUTHWEST FRANCE by Gillian Thomas and John Harrison


The best of Languedoc’s diverse and unspoilt landscape from the beaches to the coastal resorts and the wild and remote mountain plateaux, including Cather country, the Cévennes and the Pyrenees and


the Tarn and Gard regions, here is a guide to the top 25 tours through some astonishing countryside. The book features Perpignan, Toulouse, Albi, Carcassonne, the Mediterranean Coast and the Tarn Valley. With comprehensive driver’s guide including road signs, full colour detailed maps with major destinations clearly pinpointed, walking tours around cities and towns, detailed guides to sightseeing, activities, dining and accommodation and ideas for exploring on your own. 288pp in softback, colour photos and maps. £15.99 NOW £3.50


70016 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART


by Dilys Powell


Hailed as a classic when it was first published more than 40 years ago, this unforgettable evocation of a country and its people has stood the test of time and is still regarded as one of the most outstanding books on Greece ever written. The author is remembered as the leading film critic of her day. Before the WWII,


she spent many years in Greece, where her husband was Director of the British School of Archaeology. After his tragic early death, she returned again and again to the country she had loved. In this personal odyssey, she gives a deeply moving account of her journeys. 280 paperback pages with maps. £9.99 NOW £4


70227 JOURNAL OF WILLIAM BECKFORD IN


PORTUGAL AND SPAIN 1787-1788 edited by Boyd Alexander


William Beckford was the son of a Lord Mayor of London and a precocious genius. He is perhaps best remembered as the builder of the massive neo-Gothic Fonthill Abbey. His oriental tale Vathek has been reprinted many times. Readers may be less familiar with his travel writings which are amongst the best of their genre, as they will be able to judge from this witty personal account of his Iberian sojourn. Beckford was ostracised by polite society after being accused of misconduct with the young son of Lord Courtenay and, soon afterwards, was forced to flee England. En route to plantations in Jamaica, he arrived in Lisbon and, due to having suffered terrible seasickness, refused to go any further. It was the beginning of a love affair with Portugal. Through his friendship with the Queen’s favourite, Diego, Marquis of Marialva, he was fêted by the Portuguese nobility and also met a choirboy, Gregorio Franchi, who became his most intimate friend and general factotum. However, the British envoy constantly prevented the Queen’s reception of Beckford and, impatient with waiting, he went on to Spain. Here, in true Beckfordian style, he became simultaneously entangled with an older married woman, a young married girl and a 12-year-old boy! This journal provides a fascinating and entertaining account of his time in Portugal and Spain, giving an intimate picture of court life, while at the same time offering a tantalising glimpse into the mind of someone renowned for his hedonistic and unconventional behaviour. 250 paperback pages illustrated in b/w with glossary, list of signs and abbreviations, a note on the manuscript. £18 NOW £6.50


70076 ANCIENT MARINER: The Amazing Adventures of Samuel Hearne the Englishman Who Walked to the Arctic Ocean by Ken McGoogan


Everybody knows the classic poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, but we would take a bet that most people are unaware that the poet was inspired by a real-life, intrepid adventurer by the name of Samuel


Hearne who had become the first European to visit the Arctic coast of North America and had written an account entitled A Journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort in Hudson’s Bay to the Northern Ocean. Coleridge actually met him and was swept away as the old navigator evoked the hardship, hunger and awe-full magic of the journey. In 1757, when 12-year-old Hearne joined the Royal Navy, he embarked on a life of high adventure. He spent three years trekking the northern wilds of the Arctic in search of a fabled copper mine and the legendary Northwest Passage. Immersing himself among the native peoples, he travelled more than 3,500 miles, mostly on foot. This page-turning volume paints a vivid portrait of life in Dr Johnson’s London, on and off the wooden sailing ships and, uniquely, among the Dene people of the Arctic Circle. 426 paperback pages illus in b/w with maps. £8.99 NOW £5


70489 THE LONG EXILE by Melanie McGrath Nanook of the North captured the world’s imagination when it was released in 1922. It was Robert Flaherty’s film, the fictitious story of an Eskimo hunter who lived in an igloo with his family in a mythical Arctic Eden of spring flowers and polar bears. Just two years later, the man who played Nanook, the Inuit hunter Alakariallak, starved to death on the Arctic ice. By this time, Flaherty had quit the Arctic for good, leaving behind his bastard son Joseph to grow up Eskimo. 30 years later, the Canadian government drew up a list of Inuit who were to be experimentally resettled in the uninhabited Polar Arctic and left to fend as best they could. Joseph Flaherty and his family were on that list. This is their tale - a chilling story of social tampering and broken promises which left two Inuit generations banished to a wilderness of almost unimaginable harshness. Poignant and humane, McGrath has tracked down some of the survivors and travelled the territory to tell her poetic story which is modulated, lyrical and as beautiful as the landscape. 302pp in paperback. £8.99 NOW £4


70510 TO PRUSSIA WITH


LOVE by Roger Boyes A thigh-slapping account of one Brit’s attempt to make it in rural Germany, subtitled Misadventures in Rural East Germany. In a desperate attempt to save his relationship with his girlfriend Lena and take a break from the world of journalism, Roger Boyes agrees to make a great escape from the easy urban lifestyle of Berlin and decamp to the countryside. He has hopes for


Italy, but Lena has inherited a run-down old schloss in deepest, darkest Brandenburg. Needing a form of income, they decide to set up a B&B with a British theme. Enter unhelpful Harry and his Trinidadian chef cousin, an unhinged Scot who advised them on re-branding Brandenburg, some suicidal frogs and a posse of mad tourists. It all culminates, naturally, in a cricket match between the Brits and the Germans on an old Russian minefield. Farce meets romance in this hilarious romp through East Germany’s very own version of Fawlty Towers. 254pp in paperback. £8.99 NOW £3.50


70523 MY FIRST TRAVELS


IN NORTH AMERICA by Isabella Bird


Isabella Lucy Bird Bishop died in 1904 at the height of the popularity of her eight travel narratives. Her first book on Hawaii was published in 1875 and she had given hundreds of lectures on social, political and religious issues and acted on behalf of poor people at home and abroad. In 1882 she was made the first


woman Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. This book was first published early in 1856 under the title ‘The English Woman In America’ and this edition has a new introduction by Clarence C. Strowbridge. In this captivating travelogue, she reports to her sister back home in England on a series of journeys through 19th century Canada and the United States. She recounts with passion and sensitivity such insights as wigwams on Prince Edward Island and Quebec’s romantic falls of


Bibliophile Books Unit 5 Datapoint, 6 South Crescent, London E16 4TL TEL: 020 74 74 24 74 70684 100 MOST BEAUTIFUL SQUARES OF


THE WORLD edited by Manfred Leier A town or city square is the beating heart of a community, with its public buildings, restaurants, market, transport and bustling life. This collection of 100 great squares from around the world will evoke nostalgic memories of old holidays and ideas for new ones. Italy has a high concentration of famous squares, notably the Piazza Navona in Rome dominated by Bernini’s spectacular Baroque fountains and the Piazza San Marco in Venice with its towering campanile. The Acropolis of Athens may challenge our definition of a square but was certainly at the heart of the city, while Madrid’s Plaza Mayor is an impressive Baroque collection of uniform arcades. Stanislas Square in Nancy was built during the French town’s brief period of Polish rule and is surrounded by five richly ornamented palaces, while the Grand Place in Brussels saw executions as well as the markets for which it is still famous. Rothenburg on the Tauber embodies the Middle Ages, and Wenceslas Square in Prague elegantly combines Art Nouveau with older buildings. Shanghai’s People’s Square and New York’s Times Square offer a modern vision from very different political perspectives, while Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center and Chicago’s Water Tower Place are other examples of


breathtaking 20th century design. 208pp, brief histories of each square, lavishly illustrated with colour photography. ONLY £6


Lorette as well as dark encounters with cholera, slavery and harrowing storms at sea. Isabella, whose youth was marred by illness, was advised by her physician to travel. With a budget of £100 from her clergyman father, she ventured off to North America on the first of many journeys including forays to the Middle East and Asia. 363pp in paperback. £15.99 NOW £5


70718 RIDING WITH


GHOSTS by Gwen Maka An outrageous and frank account of a 40-something English woman’s epic 4,000 mile cycle ride from Seattle to Mexico, via the snow- covered Rocky Mountains. Gwen Maka travelled the length and breadth of the American West, mostly alone and camping in the wilds and ran appalling risks but coped with it all in a gutsy, hilarious


way. Here is exhaustion, climatic extremes, dangerous animals, eccentrics, lechers, and a permanently saddle- sore bum. As she travels, the ghosts of Lewis and Clarke, Chief Joseph and Geronimo, Custer and Crazy Horse, all the legendary figures of the Old West ride with her. We witness the strong, often tragic traces of history left lingering on the land and the faded trails of the vanished American Indian nations. Gwen displays an almost psychic sensitivity to the atmosphere of this spectacular landscape and she conjures moments from the past poignantly. 280pp in paperback with colour photos. £7.99 NOW £3.50


70708 JOURNEYS OF A LIFETIME by National


Geographic and Keith Bellows Subtitled 500 of the World’s Greatest Trips, for more than a century, National Geographic has journeyed the world, bringing back intriguing stories of far away places. With stunning colour photographs, colour maps and expert advice for making each trip a reality, here is the


ultimate adventure book. You will find in it an Alaskan polar bear safari, trekking in Nepal or for those in want of luxury, board the Orient Express and travel from Venice to London. Zoom down the world’s longest ski run in Chamonix or follow in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac across America. From truffle-hunting in Italy to Sushi-shopping in Japan, along the way we can explore ancient Egypt, classical Greece, Moorish Spain or Renaissance Italy. Follow in the footsteps of Alexander the Great or Charles Darwin and enjoy the fun top ten lists highlighting quirky travel options like the world’s top elevator rides, bridges to walk across, steam trains, ancient highways and much, much more and advice from where to sit on a train to what to wear and what to order. Gourmet heaven, culture vultures satisfied, hands-on action adventures, bird’s eye views, pilgrimages for readers and dreamers and history fans, this is a book to dip into 500 times over taking us right to Illinois and the Frank Lloyd Wright Oak Park and Amish country to England’s most beautiful garden. Plus more than 20 top ten lists in categories ranging from sailing cruises to underground walks and long distance cycle routes. Beautifully laid out and presented and on glossy paper, 400pp 9" x 12". £25 NOW £15


69848 MY ATTAINMENT OF THE POLE by Dr. Frederick A. Cook


No-one knows for sure who first conquered the North Pole, with two rival claims emerging within days of each other in 1909. Frederick Cook, author of this recently reprinted memoir of 1911, claimed he had got there in 1908. Robert Peary immediately challenged the claim with his own conquest, and in a fascinating introduction Robert M. Bryce assesses the angry and defamatory claims and counter-claims and presents the evidence. Cook first crossed the Greenland icecap as a member of an expedition led by Peary. His claim in 1906 to have conquered Mt. McKinley, now disputed, brought in the financial backing for an attempt on the Pole in 1908-9, but during the celebrations Peary returned from his own expedition and challenged the truth of Cook’s account, backed by an influential press campaign to discredit Cook. Posterity has judged that neither man in fact reached the pole, but Cook’s memoir still offers a fascinating and vivid first hand description of polar exploration. 618pp, 2001 rare imported paperback, black and white photos, drawings. $22.95 NOW £4


e-mail: orders@bibliophilebooks.com 70682 100 MOST BEAUTIFUL CITIES OF


THE WORLD edited by Manfred Leier The city break is the most popular form of contemporary tourism and this beautiful book makes an imaginative choice of worldwide destinations, giving a brief account of their history and main attractions and capturing the essence of the cityscape with big colour photographs. The capitals of Europe are joined by other major centres of culture: London by the very different Oxford, Dublin and Edinburgh, Salzburg’s Baroque complementing Vienna’s coffee house culture, and westward-looking St. Petersburg contrasting with Moscow’s monumental assertions of national identity. Dresden, Bratislava, Dubrovnik and Helsinki are other European gems. North America offers New Orleans, the jazz capital of the world, together with Mexico City and its three cultures - Aztec, Spanish, and the modern Mexican fusion of the two histories. Peru’s capital Lima also combines modern development with relics of the colonial past. Jerusalem is a pilgrimage centre for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, with venerable world sites, and both Amman in Jordan and Damascus in Syria are cities of extraordinary beauty despite their position now at the centre of conflict. Dubai by contrast is famous for iconic modern buildings such as the Burj el-Arab Hotel. Further east we travel to Isfahan, Lhasa, Rangoon, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, while Africa is represented by the Medina of Tunis, Cairo’s pyramids and the Twelve Apostles Rocks near Cape Town.


208pp, lavishly


illus with colour photography. ONLY £6


68937 WORLD CITIES: YESTERDAY AND TODAY by Michael Swift


Alexandria, Amsterdam, Antwerp...Warsaw, Washington, York - 57 great cities of the world are described by means of old maps and new satellite photographs in this sumptuous cartographical paradise. Rome gave the grid pattern to many ancient cities, and the pattern was copied in the New World at the end of the medieval period. The Industrial Revolution and development of railways and canals resulted in the urban sprawl of industrial regions which we see today, with a steady move from the land to the city. Each of the world cities discussed in this book starts with a brief history, accompanied by a satellite image showing all or a significant portion of the city. Superimposed on the satellite image are coloured areas showing the extent of the historic maps which are then reproduced on subsequent pages. 256pp, large landscape format, 250 colour reproductions. £25 NOW £8


69496 PLAYING CARDS IN CAIRO by Hugh Miles


Subtitled Mint Tea, Tarneeb and Tales of the City, Hugh Miles learns the most intimate tales of Cairo. While the Arabic women cut and shuffle and play tarneeb, Miles listens to their stories and learns about what it means to be a young Muslim woman, dating, dieting and divorcing in a country where traditional Islamic values are in the ascendant. It is unusual for a European man to be permitted to share secrets and confidences of Muslim women, but somehow he hears from behind the veil the frustrations, fads, fashions and fallibilities familiar to women the world over. 279pp in paperback. £8.99 NOW £3


69341 GREAT WALL REVISITED: From the Jade Gate to Old Dragon’s Head by William Lindesay


William Lindesay has spent 15 years researching photographs and has re-photographed more than 150 locations, and chosen half of them for inclusion in this splendid book. He presents 72 ‘then and now’ comparisons with useful histories, literary impressions by famous visitors and contemporary accounts which explain the changes which have taken place along the Wall from the Jade Gate to the Yellow Sea coast. But how did our great-grandfathers see the Great Wall 150 years ago? Our book presents the findings of a quest to answer how has the Great Wall changed. Here is Juliet Bredon taking travellers for a stroll along the Wall, towers, passes, ridges, the Eastern Dam Gate, and also maps and plans and calligraphy in a very beautifully produced landscape format landmark publication. 292pp with one spectacular gatefold 180 degree panorama at Badaling. Colour illus. £25 NOW £6.50


69870 TOSSERS AND ARSEBLOWERS: An


Alternative Romp Through Europe by J. R. Daeschner


The tossers of the title are from Switzerland, providing the author with extraordinary spectacles of aggressive cowfighting as he tours the continent in search of unusual customs. Turkish Oil Wrestling has iconic status on gay websites, and the author heads for a gay bar in Istanbul to get the dope (metaphorically speaking) from Gay Bear Akif. We Brits are by no means the only nation to claim St George as a patron, and the author visits a former priest who has turned his Gaudí-inspired apartment in Barcelona into a shrine to the saint. And what about the arseblowing? Ah yes, you have to go to the Dordogne for that, where on the feast of Soufflaculs people go round with bellows putting the wind up their friends and neighbours. 386pp, paperback, colour photos. £8.99 NOW £3


69908 COAST TO COAST: Vintage Travel in


North America by Antony Shugaar “Politicians, speculators, trollops, tycoons, croupiers, judges, actresses and cattlemen” were among the fashionable crowd at the resort of Saratoga Springs around 1941, but 100 years earlier, when Dickens slept in bunks the size of bookshelves as he travelled round America by canal boat, tourism was more of a challenge. Stagecoaches offered “brilliant decorations and silk upholstery” but they had a tendency to plunge off the road, and canal boats were the first really reliable transcontinental rides. Transcontinental railways, begun during the Civil War, finally made long-distance travel both speedy and comfortable. This book documents the passenger experience including observation domes, luxurious dining and sleeping cars, cogwheel railways up precipitous slopes such as Mount Washington, private trains for moguls and chateau hotels. Archive photos are supplemented by inset facsimiles, including an 1891 menu


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