Ashleys Must-Read Travel Books
Discover Ashley's must-read travel books, from The Snow Leopard to Kon-Tiki. Explore classic adventures, nature tales, and journeys through Asia and beyond.
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The Travels of Ibn Battuta in the Near East, Asia and Africa 1325-1354
by Ibn Batuta
In 1326, Ibn Battuta began a pilgrimage to Mecca that ended 27 years and 75,000 miles later. His engrossing account of that journey provides vivid scenes from Morocco, southern Russia, India, China, and elsewhere. "Essential reading . . . the ultimate in real life adventure stories." — History in Review.
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Seven Years in Tibet
by Heinrich Harrer
An account of an Austrian mountain climber's escape from a British internment camp in India during World War II and his twenty-one-month journey through the Himalayas to safety in the Forbidden City of Lhasa in Tibet.
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Kon-Tiki
by Thor Heyerdahl
The story of the Pacific journey by six men on a raft in search of the path taken by Kon-Tiki, a white voyager, 1500 years before. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
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The Last Place on Earth
by Roland Huntford
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the South Pole was the most coveted prize in the fiercely nationalistic modern age of exploration. In the brilliant dual biography, the award-winning writer Roland Huntford re-examines every detail of the great race to the South Pole between Britain's Robert Scott and Norway's Roald Amundsen. Scott, who dies along with four of his men only eleven miles from his next cache of supplies, became Britain's beloved failure, while Amundsen, who not only beat Scott to the Pole but returned alive, was largely forgotten. This account of their race is a gripping, highly readable history that captures the driving ambitions of the era and the complex, often deeply flawed men who were charged with carrying them out. THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH is the first of Huntford's masterly trilogy of polar biographies. It is also the only work on the subject in the English language based on the original Norwegian sources, to which Huntford returned to revise and update this edition.
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Video Night in Kathmandu
by Pico Iyer
Mohawk hair-cuts in Bali, yuppies in Hong Kong and Rambo rip-offs in the movie houses of Bombay are just a few of the jarring images that Iyer brings back from the Far East.
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The Snow Leopard
by Peter Matthiessen
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD “A masterpiece that exceeds the boundaries of the travel genre and envelops you with its incredible prose.” —Wall Street Journal An unforgettable spiritual journey through the Himalayas by renowned writer Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014) In 1973, Peter Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller traveled high into the remote mountains of Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep and possibly glimpse the rare and beautiful snow leopard. Matthiessen, a student of Zen Buddhism, was also on a spiritual quest to find the Lama of Shey at the ancient shrine on Crystal Mountain. As the climb proceeds, Matthiessen charts his inner path as well as his outer one, with a deepening Buddhist understanding of reality, suffering, impermanence, and beauty. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by acclaimed travel writer and novelist Pico Iyer. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Never Cry Wolf
by Farley Mowat
By enquiring into the puzzle of sibling relations, Frank J. Sulloway pioneers a new view of how family affects individual development. He shows that birth-order is so fundamental to the family that it transcends gender, class and nationality.
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Among the Believers
by V. S. Naipaul
In this account of his journeys through Asia, the believers are the Muslims Naipaul met on these jouneys. He shows young people battling to regain the original purity of their faith, and offers an insight into modern Islam and the comforting simplifications of religious fanaticism.
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Into the Heart of Borneo
by Redmond O'Hanlon
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.
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The Valleys of the Assassins
by Freya Stark
Hailed as a classic upon its first publication in 1934, The Valleys of the Assassins firmly established Freya Stark as one of her generation's most intrepid explorers. The book chronicles her travels into Luristan, the mountainous terrain nestled between Iraq and present-day Iran, often with only a single guide and on a shoestring budget. Stark writes engagingly of the nomadic peoples who inhabit the region's valleys and brings to life the stories of the ancient kingdoms of the Middle East, including that of the Lords of Alamut, a band of hashish-eating terrorists whose stronghold in the Elburz Mountains Stark was the first to document for the Royal Geographical Society. Her account is at once a highly readable travel narrative and a richly drawn, sympathetic portrait of a people told from their own compelling point of view. This edition includes a new Introduction by Jane Fletcher Geniesse, Stark's biographer.
