www.bibliophilebooks.com TRAVEL AND PLACES


The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.


- Marcel Proust


75093 JOY UNCONFINED!: Lord Byron’s Grand Tour Re-


Toured by Ian Strathcarron When Lord Byron set off on a Grand Tour in 1809, he was accompanied by his faithful diarist Hobhouse, a valet, a pageboy, a butler and a mysterious German-speaking Farsi, not to mention numerous trunks of luggage and creature comforts. Byron was heavily in debt, and in spite of the expense of the tour its


purpose was to keep him from putting his inheritance further in the red. The destination was Persia via the Mediterranean, avoiding the extensive territories of the French empire. After landfall in Portugal and Gibraltar, the Princess Elizabeth docked in the grand harbour of Valletta, a cosmopolitan city held at the time by the British, and Byron soon found himself embroiled in espionage. He was recruited by a wily spook called Spiridion Foresti, who calculated that the Ionian islands could be secured for the British from under the nose of the tyrant Ali Pasha. Meanwhile Byron was introduced to the fascinating Mrs Constance Spencer-Smith, whose husband was trapped in French-occupied Stuttgart. When Constance herself was captured by the French she escaped from prison disguised as a boy, and to add further to her glamour, Napoleon had personally put a price on her head. The author and his wife retrace the route taken by Byron, and a highlight of the travelogue is when the king of Albania asks them if they know Jeremy Paxman. 263pp, colour photos. £19.99 NOW £6


74703 COLUMBUS: The Four Voyages


by Laurence Bergreen Drawing on vivid eyewitness reports, Columbus’ personal logbooks and the passionate letters he sent to his Spanish patrons King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the author digs deep into the explorer’s overwrought psyche spinning an epic tale to match the events of an epic life. He recreates the terror and


thrill as Columbus and his men attempted to settle and conquer unknown territories, establishing a colony that became the town of Santo Domingo, yet at the same time provoking 50,000 natives to commit mass suicide. He reveals how Columbus’ voyages had an irreversible effect on the world’s ecosystems and societies, transforming an evolutionary process that had begun millions of years before. They also had profound consequences for human biology and culture, bringing maize and syphilis to Europe, and horses and alcoholism to America. Columbus was a self-promoting and ambitious entrepreneur but also a masterful seaman and a brilliant captain. After returning to Spain, he would sail back to the New World three more times in the span of only a decade, leading campaigns that grew more conflicted, violent and morally ambiguous. By the time they ended, he was broken in body and spirit, a hero undone by the tragic flaw of pride. This rich, engaging biography analyses the complex legacies of exploration - political, scientific and even medical - that continue to shape our lives today. 423 pages illustrated in colour and b/w with maps. $35 NOW £8


74681 BRIEF HISTORY OF VENICE


by Elizabeth Horodowich ‘My tale is primarily historical. I therefore struck a balance between breadth and depth, between the grand battles and everyday life.’ The modern city of Venice exists on a series of interconnected islands in a lagoon in the North Adriatic. This lagoon is an unusual and unique natural environment of brackish


water. The central city is composed of about 120 islands, spanned and connected by more than 430 bridges that cross 170 canals or rii. Its open spaces are called campi and its narrow and often winding streets calli. The only piazza is that of San Marco, the city’s ceremonial and civic centre. It grew out of the swamps of Northern Italy to become one of the great mercantile and cultural centres of the world. In this colourful history, a leading expert on Venice tells the story of the city from its ancient origins and its early days as a multicultural trading place where Christians, Jews and Muslims lived together at the crossroads between East and West. She explores the often overlooked role of Venice alongside Florence and Rome, as one of the principal Renaissance capitals. She also looks at the threat from rising water levels. 250pp in paperback. $13.95 NOW £5


74896 GRAND CANAL, GREAT RIVER: The Travel Diary of a Twelfth-Century Chinese Poet by Philip Watson


Readers must surely be tempted by this rich panorama of 12th century China, an exotic mixture of travelogue, politics and poetry. Between July and December 1170, Lu You, a Chinese poet, politician


and historian, travelled from east to west China to take up an administrative post. His remarkable 1,800-mile journey took him from near modern Shanghai to Sichuan


province, along the mighty Grand Canal, begun in the 6th century and today the oldest and longest canal in the world, and up the Yangzi River through the famous Yangzi Gorges. Along the way he kept a daily record of his experiences, the people he met, the unfolding and ever-changing landscape and the famous historical sites, shrines, monasteries and pavilions. This new modern translation of the whole of the diary makes a superb work of literature accessible for the first time to the general reader, and the detailed commentary fills in all the essential background information. A beautiful 256 pages illustrated in colour and b/w with photographs of the places described, contemporary paintings and other artworks, notes, dramatis personae and map.


£20 NOW £7


75079 THE CHEESE AND I: An Englishman’s Voyage


Through the Land of Fromage by Matt Feroze


A funny, heart-warming and inspirational story about how one young Englishman pursued and realised his goals. His dream was an unusual one. He wanted to hang up his suit and leave the world of accountancy to immerse himself in the highly competitive French


cheese industry. To accomplish this, he knew he would have to make some huge sacrifices: give up a reliable salary, say goodbye to family and friends and move to a country where he struggled with the language and had almost no experience of the profession he wished to enter. Yet, after only a year and a half, he was being crowned Champion de France, Concours National des Fromagers 2013, beating veteran French cheesemongers to the title and opening up a wealth of new opportunities for himself. An incredible and inspiring 224 pages with colour photos. £14.99 NOW £5


75009 LAST GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER: Coming of Age in the Arctic


by Edward Beauclerk Maurice In 1930, aged 17, Edward Beauclerk Maurice from Somerset impulsively signed up as an apprentice in the fur industry “somewhere in Canada” with the Hudson Bay Company - the company of Gentleman Adventurers - ending up at a remote trading post


in the Canadian Arctic with no means of communication with the outside world other than the one ship that arrived per year. He may have been isolated at Frobisher Bay, but Edward was not alone. The Inuit who lived and traded there taught him how to track polar bears, build igloos, hunt fox, seal, whale and walrus and survive the most ferocious of winter storms. He learned their culture, taught their children English in the polar winter and completely immersed himself in their culture, earning himself the name Issumatak, meaning “he who thinks”. In 1934 he left Frobisher Bay, but after a year in England returned to manage the outpost at Southampton Island, where he experienced first hand how the isolated Inuit were starting to suffer from diseases brought by the white traders. He was to remain until 1939 when he left to serve in WWII, and would never return. He became a bookseller in an English village and died aged 90 as this, his only book, which covers his first stint up to 1934, was being readied for publication. It is how, as the subtitle tells us, he came of age in one of the most unlikely places on earth, and transports the reader to a time and way of life now lost forever. He paints an unrivalled portrait, engaging, compelling and funny, of that way of life. 392pp paperback.


$14.95 NOW £5


75095 ON THE ROAD TO BABADAG: Travels in the Other Europe


by Andrzej Stasiuk Poland’s leading travel writer Stasiuk has a superb ability to conjure up the essence of a location with a small telling detail. He recalls his journeys on the road in the eighties with no passport, when every trip resembled a flight of desperation, heading out to look at


Frankfurt from across the river or making a dash for Poznan on the back of a pick-up, lying among enormous plastic bags filled with water and swimming fish. More recently he has used maps to plan his trips south from the Baltic into Slovenia, Hungary and even Albania, but ‘no trip from the land of King Ubu to the land of Count Dracula will hold memories you can rely on later’. Following the trail of Adam Bodor’s bestselling Sinistra District he conjures up the Transylvanian warlord Coca and his rival Mukkerman. Driving southwest he asks the inhabitants if he is in Ukraine or Russia, but even they do not seem to be sure. The train between Budapest and Gonc runs through forests and limitless sunflowers, and at Szerencs the station is next to the biggest chocolate factory in Hungary. ‘Although it was a bright day, everything seemed submerged in green water’. In Ljubljana ‘mist shrouded the spires of churches’, and he is stopped by the police for doing 80 in a residential area. Finally he finds that ‘Albania is loneliness’. A quirky, fascinating read. 255pp, map.


£14.99 NOW £5


73055 BON VOYAGE! The Telegraph Book of River and Sea Journeys edited by Michael Kerr


The contributors, in this collection of the best of the Telegraph’s articles on travel by river and sea, number among them such luminaries as Martha Gellhorn, Ellen MacArthur, Jenny Diski, Nicholas Crane of Coast fame, and many more. There are historic events such as the D-Day landings and an incredible account from the 19th century of the arduous adventures in the heart of Africa of H. M. Stanley. 343 pages. £20 NOW £2.50


GREAT CITIES: Their History & Culture


74969 LENINGRAD: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941- 1944 by Anna Reid


Assembling a huge amount of new material, Anna Reid reappraises as honestly as possible the myths and the decades of Soviet propaganda surrounding the siege of Leningrad in World War II. The story she tells is almost unbearably dark, but she has managed neither to exploit that darkness nor to evade it. Quoting


from primary sources such as accounts drawn from diarists on both sides, memoirs and government records, she produces a gripping, authoritative narrative history of the two-and-a-half years that followed Hitler’s brutal surprise attack on the Soviet Union, during which some 750,000 civilians, or one in three of its population, died of starvation. This stirring volume reveals the Nazis’ deliberate decision to starve the city into surrender, the incompetence and cruelty of the Soviet war leadership, and the horrors experienced by the soldiers on the front lines. Above all, she brings to life what it was actually like to be imprisoned in the blockaded city: the relentless search for food, fuel and water, the withering of emotions and family ties, the looting, murder and cannibalism - but also, by contrast, the extraordinary bravery, self-sacrifice and generosity of some of the inhabitants. Vital questions are also asked, such as: Why did the city not fall to the Germans or collapse into anarchy? Was the size of the death toll as much the fault of Stalin as of Hitler? What decided who lived and who died? A book of deep insights. 492 pages with b/ w archive photos, maps, notes and appendices: How Many? Civilian Deaths and Daily Bread Ration.


ONLY £7.50


75099 AT THE KREMLIN GATES: A Historical Portrait of Moscow


by Gerald R. Skinner As a historical case-study of the growth, development and near- death experiences of a single city, which became ‘a living monument to its own survival’, this volume is sure to be of interest to travellers, urbanists and historians as well as to the general reader. It is a portrait


of Moscow through time but with one constant, the Kremlin, which has been at once the supreme metaphor of State power and also a symbol of Russian national identity. The tension between Moscow as an urban community and the Moscow of empire and belief is fundamental to the city’s narrative. By tradition, the city is the easternmost bastion of western civilization. It has stood against invasion and war, pestilence and fire. It has been rejected by its own rulers, and its destruction has been planned by its dreamers and invaders alike. Yet it has survived. How this happened is a story of historical accident, the vagaries of geography and economics and, upon occasion, sheer human willpower and faith. If Moscow has endured barely imaginable catastrophes, it has also been the scene of creative brilliance. It seems to be at one and the same time ‘the pilot-boat to hell and a celestial city of the future’. The author has experienced Moscow as a graduate student, as a bureaucrat and diplomat and as a member of the


73881 HENRY HUDSON: Dreams and Obsession by Corey Sandler


Like so many explorers, Henry Hudson was a driven man, and his tragic end, set adrift in Hudson’s Bay with his sons and a few loyal crew members, was the result of his determination to find the elusive north-west passage through to the Pacific. The author describes Hudson’s four voyages in the early 17th century, retracing his steps and undergoing the punishing conditions first hand. In 1607 and 1608 Hudson attempted to reach the Pacific by sailing up to the Arctic in his ship the Hopewell, first trying the western passage and then the eastern route north of Russia, but both times he encountered impenetrable ice. He spent a month in Novaya Zembla and also corresponded with John Smith, the explorer consolidating the English settlement at Jamestown in Virginia. For his third voyage Hudson changed his sponsor and was financed by the Dutch East India company, but failing once more to find the eastern passage he went west of his own initiative and against the orders of the company. Finally the ill-fated fourth voyage. 431pp, paperback, photos, maps. £14.95 NOW £4


74771 VENICE REVEALED: An Intimate Portrait


by Paolo Barbaro Venice is a kind of miracle surrounded by sea, cut by more canals than streets, and made up of 120 separate islands connected by bridges, built on sand and mud and reinforced by millions of ancient, petrified tree trunks. It defies nature and belief. No city in the world has been more often painted or written about Venice and for


centuries it has drawn visitors to its cafés, churches and street life. But Venice is dying, literally sinking into the sea, a victim of global warming, increased pollution and the weight of its tourists. Rediscover the beautiful labyrinths. 233pp in paperback. Illus.


£10.99 NOW £4 57493 LIFE AND VOYAGES OF CHRISTOPHER


COLUMBUS by Washington Irving The trials and disappointments of the great explorer are graphically detailed in this biography first published in 1828, when Washington Irving was America’s most famous writer. People had thought it was only the great distance that made it impossible to reach Asia sailing west from Spain. No one had predicted that a vast


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University of Oxford. His gripping book seeks to reconcile the differing images he had of the city before, during and after communism. 396 paperback pages with b/w illustrations, chronology.


£14.99 NOW £6 75102 ATHENS: A Cultural


and Literary History by Michael Llewellyn Smith As British ambassador to Athens in the late 20th century, Michael Llewellyn Smith knows all the layers of invasion and occupation that have left their traces. Dominated by the classical city, Athens nowadays has little evidence of the Byzantines, Franks, Catalans and Florentines


who created their own culture and architecture in the Middle Ages, although next to the magnificent cathedral there is the Byzantine Little Cathedral, its west front decorated with marble animals and signs of the zodiac rifled from more opulent buildings. The Turks ruled Athens for 400 years, though you have to look carefully to find clues that they used the Acropolis as a garrison and that the Parthenon was a mosque. Byron was one of the few visitors to Ottoman Athens who have left detailed accounts, and his description of a flirtation with the three daughters of a consul’s widow makes fascinating reading, particularly as the widow tried to sell her eldest daughter Teresa to the British aristocrat. Llewellyn Smith knows all the ins and outs of Lord Elgin’s controversial note of permission to remove antiquities from the Acropolis: did it or did it not include removing part of the frieze and metopes by force, rather than just picking up what had already fallen? Olympic Athens, the Colonels, and the modern city are all unpacked for our enjoyment. 257pp, paperback, line drawings.


£12 NOW £5


75103 TOKYO: A Cultural and Literary History


by Stephen Mansfield The giant conurbation of Tokyo is one of the most exciting and creative places in the world. The author of this revelatory book has lived on its fringes for nearly 30 years and here he explores the unique crossbred cultures of taste that have shaped the city. From its obscure origins as a fishing village along a marshy estuary,


Tokyo has grown into one of the world’s largest and most culturally vibrant metropolises. But for all its modernity, it is impregnated with a nostalgia for the past. In the backstreets can be found wooden temples, fox shrines, mouldering steles and statues of Bodhisattvas that evoke a different age. This is a city of literature, inspiring authors like Murakami Haruki, of art, producing print masters Hokusai Hiroshige and Utamaro, and of the distinguished Kabuki theatre. It is a city of jaw-dropping, postmodernist architecture, but also a city of calamities such as the great fires of the Edo period, the floods, famines, typhoons and earthquakes that are the consequences of living on one of the earth’s largest fault lines. An in-depth cultural and historical 268 paperback pages with index of literary and historical names and index of places and landmarks, illustrated in b/w.


£12 NOW £5


continent stood in the way. And indeed, for Columbus himself, the revolution of understanding was too much to comprehend. He had counted on a new route to Asia that would bring him glory, riches and titles, and the thought of an unknown and undeveloped continent held no attractions. Paperback, 720 pages. ONLY £4


72105 AGAINST THE FLOW by Tom Fort Subtitled ‘Wading Through Eastern Europe’, it was 20 years ago that Tom Fort drove his little red car onto the ferry at Felixstowe. The old order that has held Eastern Europe in its grip for half a century has gone, and no one yet knew what the new order would be. What hadn’t changed were the landscapes and the rivers that flowed out of the mountains of Poland, Slovakia and Romania, and across the plains of Bohemia and Hungary. Young people flooded West in search of work and prosperity. Starting this time on the bus from London to Krakow, Tom retraces his steps of 20 years before. 306pp in paperback.


£8.99 NOW £2.50


73127 CRAZY RIVER by Richard Grant Having narrowly escaped death at the hands of Mexican drug barons in the Sierra Madre, Grant now plunges with trademark recklessness into Africa, in an exhilarating and gripping descent through a previously unexplored river, the Malagarasi. Waylaid by thieves and whores, Grant travels by raft, dodging bullets and crocodiles, hacking through swamps and succumbing to fever before finally emerging, bloody but not broken, at his journey’s end. Packed with masochism and self pity. 272pp in paperback.


£9.99 NOW £2.50


73892 COLUMBUS: The Four Voyages, 1492- 1504 by Laurence Bergen


Brilliant, persuasive, volatile and paranoid, Christopher Columbus knew little about celestial navigation and nothing about the Pacific Ocean which fringes the place he went looking for - China. Instead, he thought he had found India and it was with much relief that the Santa Maria, Pinta and Niña sighted land on 12 October 1492 - the Santa Maria was taking on water and the crew were on the verge of mutiny. Yet for all his many flaws, Columbus was a masterful seaman who changed the entire course of world history. Journey into the uncharted waters of the New World - 1492-3, 1493-6, 1498 and 1502-3, his failure to obtain backing for a fifth voyage in 1505 and falling from favour with the Spanish court and his death, aged 54. Colour artworks, maps and woodcuts. 423pp, paperback.


£10.99 NOW £6


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