Download or read book A Time of Gifts written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2011-09-14 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This beloved account about an intrepid young Englishman on the first leg of his walk from London to Constantinople is simply one of the best works of travel literature ever written. At the age of eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor set off from the heart of London on an epic journey—to walk to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the rich account of his adventures as far as Hungary, after which Between the Woods and the Water continues the story to the Iron Gates that divide the Carpathian and Balkan mountains. Acclaimed for its sweep and intelligence, Leigh Fermor’s book explores a remarkable moment in time. Hitler has just come to power but war is still ahead, as he walks through a Europe soon to be forever changed—through the Lowlands to Mitteleuropa, to Teutonic and Slav heartlands, through the baroque remains of the Holy Roman Empire; up the Rhine, and down to the Danube. At once a memoir of coming-of-age, an account of a journey, and a dazzling exposition of the English language, A Time of Gifts is also a portrait of a continent already showing ominous signs of the holocaust to come.
Download or read book A Time to Keep Silence written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2011-12-08 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the French Abbey of St Wandrille to the abandoned and awesome Rock Monasteries of Cappadocia in Turkey, the celebrated travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor studies the rigorous contemplative lives of the monks and the timeless beauty of their monastic surroundings. In his occasional retreats, the peaceful solitude and the calm enchantment of the monasteries was passed on as a kind of 'supernatural windfall' which A Time to Keep Silence so effortlessly records.
Download or read book Between the Woods and the Water written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2010-10-10 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed travel writer's youthful journey - as an 18-year-old - across 1930s Europe by foot began in A Time of Gifts, which covered the author's exacting journey from the Lowlands as far as Hungary. Picking up from the very spot on a bridge across the Danube where his readers last saw him, we travel on with him across the great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Romanian border to Transylvania. The trip was an exploration of a continent which was already showing signs of the holocaust which was to come. Although frequently praised for his lyrical writing, Fermor's account also provides a coherent understanding of the dramatic events then unfolding in Middle Europe. But the delight remains in travelling with him in his picaresque journey past remote castles, mountain villages, monasteries and towering ranges.
Download or read book The Broken Road written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Patrick Leigh Fermor recounts the last leg of his epic walk across Europe as he makes his way through Bulgaria, Romania, and finally Greece. In the winter of 1933, eighteen-year-old Patrick (“Paddy”) Leigh Fermor set out on a walk across Europe, starting in Holland and ending in Constantinople, a trip that took him almost a year. Decades later, Leigh Fermor told the story of that life-changing journey in A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water, two books now celebrated as among the most vivid, absorbing, and beautifully written travel books of all time. The Broken Road is the long-awaited account of the final leg of his youthful adventure that Leigh Fermor promised but was unable to finish before his death in 2011. Assembled from Leigh Fermor’s manuscripts by his prizewinning biographer Artemis Cooper and the travel writer Colin Thubron, this is perhaps the most personal of all Leigh Fermor’s books, catching up with young Paddy in the fall of 1934 and following him through Bulgaria and Romania to the coast of the Black Sea. Days and nights on the road, spectacular landscapes and uncanny cities, friendships lost and found, leading the high life in Bucharest or camping out with fishermen and shepherds–in the The Broken Road such incidents and escapades are described with all the linguistic bravura, odd and astonishing learning, and overflowing exuberance that Leigh Fermor is famous for, but also with a melancholy awareness of the passage of time, especially when he meditates on the scarred history of the Balkans or on his troubled relations with his father. The book ends, perfectly, with Paddy’s arrival in Greece, the country he would fall in love with and fight for. Throughout it we can still hear the ringing voice of an irrepressible young man embarking on a life of adventure.
Download or read book Short Walks from Bogot written by Tom Feiling and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012-08-30 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, Colombia was the 'narcostate'. Now travel to Colombia and South America is on the rise, and it's seen as one of the rising stars of the global economy. Where does the truth lie? Writer and journalist Tom Feiling, author of the acclaimed study of cocaine The Candy Machine, has journeyed throughout Colombia, down roads that were until recently too dangerous to travel, to paint a fresh picture of one of the world's most notorious and least-understood countries. He talks to former guerrilla fighters and their ex-captives; women whose sons were 'disappeared' by paramilitaries; the nomadic tribe who once thought they were the only people on earth and now charge $10 for a photo; the Japanese 'emerald cowboy' who made a fortune from mining; and revels in the stories that countless ordinary Colombians tell. How did a land likened to paradise by the first conquistadores become a byword for hell on earth? Why is one of the world's most unequal nations also one of its happiest? How is it rebuilding itself after decades of violence, and how successful has the process been so far? Vital, shocking, often funny and never simplistic, Short Walks from Bogota unpicks the tangled fabric of Colombia, to create a stunning work of reportage, history and travel writing.
Download or read book The Book of Gifts written by Craig Higginson and published by Pan Macmillan South africa. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘An intriguing and complex family story. I was hooked from the first sentence.’ – Nozizwe Cynthia Jele, author of The Ones with Purpose What is the cost of giving a gift? What is the cost of receiving one? At eleven years old, Julian Flint prefers to remain invisible, safe inside the architecture of adults provided by his mother, his uncle and his aunt. But when his mother, Emma, a celebrated sculptor, takes them all on a family holiday to a hotel by the sea, he meets the captivating and irreverent Clare and everything he thought he knew begins to shift – setting off a chain of events that will determine each of their fates. From the award-winning author of The Dream House and The White Room comes Craig Higginson’s most gripping and nuanced novel to date. Moving from the lush beaches of uMhlanga Rocks to the stark midwinter wastes of Johannesburg and the rich and strange coral reefs of Mauritius, this masterfully plotted novel explores the fault-lines between loyalty and betrayal, innocence and accountability, blindness and perception, entrapment and flight. The Book of Gifts dives into the deepest and most hazardous reaches of human consciousness in order to catch the brightest fish.
Download or read book The Gifts of Reading written by Robert Macfarlane and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of The Old Ways and Landmarks -- an essay on the joy of reading, for anyone who has ever loved a book Every book is a kind of gift to its reader, and the act of giving books is charged with a special emotional resonance. It is a meeting of three minds (the giver, the author, the recipient), an exchange of intellectual and psychological currency, that leaves each participant enriched. Here Robert Macfarlane recounts the story of a book he was given as a young man, and how he managed eventually to return the favour, though never repay the debt. From one of the most lyrical writers of our time comes a perfectly formed gem, a lyrical celebration of the transcendent power and humanity of the given book.
Download or read book Mani written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2006-06-06 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Join a classic adventurer on his travels throughout southern Greece, where he explores remote villages, swims in the Aegean and Ionian seas, and finds history wherever he goes. The Mani, at the tip of Greece’s—and Europe’s—southernmost promontory, is one of the most isolated regions of the world. Cut off from the rest of the country by the towering range of the Taygetus and hemmed in by the Aegean and Ionian seas, it is a land where the past is still very much a part of its people’s daily lives. Patrick Leigh Fermor, who has been described as “a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Graham Greene,” bridges the genres of adventure story, travel writing, and memoir to reveal an ancient world living alongside the twentieth century. Here, in the book that confirmed his reputation as one of the English language’s finest writers of prose, Patrick Leigh Fermor carries the reader with him on his journeys among the Greeks of the mountains, exploring their history and time-honored lore. Mani is a companion volume to Patrick Leigh Fermor’s celebrated Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece.
Download or read book Under the Sun written by Bruce Chatwin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-02-17 with total page 615 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Wonderful...the closest we are ever going to get to a Chatwin autobiography." -William Dalrymple, The Times Literary Supplement (London) The celebrated author of such beloved works as In Patagonia and The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin was a nomad whose desire for adventure and enlightenment was made wholly evident by his writing. This marvelous selection of letters-to his wife, to his parents, and to friends, including Patrick Leigh Fermor, James Ivory, and Paul Theroux- reveals a passionate man and a storyteller par excellence. Written with the verve and sharpness of expression that first marked him as an author of singular talent, Chatwin's letters provide a window into his remarkable life and strikingly detailed insights regarding his literary ambitions and tastes.
Download or read book Words of Mercury written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A career-spanning anthology from the greatest traveler—and travel writer—of the twentieth century. The adventures of Patrick “Paddy” Leigh Fermor, Britain’s most beloved traveler, began in 1933, when he embarked on a walk from Holland to Constantinople—the entire length of Europe—at the tender age of eighteen. Sleeping in barns, monasteries, and, on occasion, aristocratic country houses, the young adventurer made way his through the Old World just as everything was about to change. Words of Mercury collects pieces from every stage of Leigh Fermor’s life, from his journey through Eastern Europe just before the outbreak of the Second World War—described in gorgeous, meditative detail—to his encounter with voodoo in Haiti, to a monastic retreat to Normandy to try to write a book. Also included is the story of one of his most well-known exploits from the war—his planned and executed kidnap of a German general under British orders. Ever the student, “Paddy” also wrote extensively on his encounters with polymaths, linguists, and artists all over the world. Over the course of his illustrious lifetime, Leigh Fermor wrote several acclaimed travel books, countless essays, translations, and book reviews, many of which are compiled in this anthology. His unique experiences out in the world fed his insatiable curiosity and voracious appetite for scholarship. His tales, written in a singular, elegant style, have inspired generations of writers and continue to shape the language of travel.
Download or read book A Season of Gifts written by Richard Peck and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-10-14 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most adored characters in children's literature is the eccentric, forceful, bighearted Grandma Dowdel, star of the Newbery Award-winning A Year Down Yonder and Newbery Honor-winning A Long Way from Chicago. And it turns out that her story isn't over. It's now 1958, and a new family has moved in next door to Mrs. Dowdel: a minister and his wife and kids. Soon Mrs. Dowdel will work her particular brand of charm on all of them, and they will quickly discover that the last house in town might also be the most vital.
Download or read book Walking the Woods and the Water written by Nick Hunt and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2014-03-20 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nick Hunt pays homage to Patrick Leigh Fermor by walking the same route across Europe in this "glorious book."
Download or read book Patrick Leigh Fermor written by Artemis Cooper and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2012-10-11 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) was a war hero whose exploits in Crete are legendary, and above all he is widely acclaimed as the greatest travel writer of our times, notably for his books about his walk across pre-war Europe, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water; he was a self-educated polymath, a lover of Greece and the best company in the world. Artemis Cooper has drawn on years of interviews and conversations with Paddy and his cloest friends as well as having complete access to his archives. Her beautifully crafted biography portrays a man of extraordinary gifts - no one wore their learning so playfully, nor inspired such passionate friendship.
Download or read book Patrick Leigh Fermor A Life in Letters written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first extensive collection of letters written by war hero and travel writing legend Patrick Leigh Fermor. Handsome, spirited, and erudite, Patrick Leigh Fermor was a war hero and one of the greatest travel writers of his generation. He was also a wonderful friend. The letters in this collection span almost seventy years, the first written ten days before Paddy’s twenty-fifth birthday, the last when he was ninety-four, and the correspondents include Deborah Devonshire, Nancy Mitford, Lawrence Durrell, Diana Cooper, and his lifelong companion, Joan Rayner. The letters exhibit many of Fermor’s most engaging characteristics: his lust for life, his unending curiosity, his lyrical descriptive powers, his love of language, his exuberance, and his tendency to get into scrapes—particularly when drinking and, quite separately, driving. Here are plenty of extraordinary stories: the hunt for Byron’s slippers in one of the remotest regions of Greece; an ignominious dismissal from Somerset Maugham’s Villa Mauresque; and hiding behind a bush to dub Dirk Bogarde into Greek during the shooting of Ill Met by Moonlight. The letters radiate warmth and gaiety; many are enhanced with witty illustrations and comic verse, while others contain riddles and puns. Every one of them entertains.
Download or read book Island of Towers written by Clarissa Aykroyd and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-25 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Island of Towers is a well travelled, luminous collection of poems, released after 25 years of writing. Aykroyd dazzles with myriad forms and a wordly otherworldliness. She is a poet guided by great lights, 'Tagore, Césaire, Neruda', only to 'never go / as far as Pont Mirabeau'. Aykroyd crosses continents at the beat of a butterfly wing, all the time writing with timeless beauty and grace. Island of Towers, to paraphrase Paul Celan, is "a message in a bottle...sent out in the--not always greatly hopeful--belief that somewhere and sometime it could wash up on land."
Download or read book A Time of Gifts written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2010-10-10 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1933, at the age of 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on an extraordinary journey by foot - from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the first volume in a trilogy recounting the trip, and takes the reader with him as far as Hungary. It is a book of compelling glimpses - not only of the events which were curdling Europe at that time, but also of its resplendent domes and monasteries, its great rivers, the sun on the Bavarian snow, the storks and frogs, the hospitable burgomasters who welcomed him, and that world's grandeurs and courtesies. His powers of recollection have astonishing sweep and verve, and the scope is majestic.
Download or read book Patrick Leigh Fermor An Adventure written by Artemis Cooper and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Patrick Leigh Fermor’s enviably colorful life took off when in 1934, at the age of eighteen, he decided to walk across Europe. In just over a year he had trekked through nine countries and taught himself three languages, and his enthusiasm and curiosity for every kind of experience made him equally happy in caves or country houses, among shepherds or countesses. At the outbreak of war he left his lover, Princess Balasha Cantacuzene, in Romania and returned to England to enlist. Commissioned into the Intelligence Corps, he became one of the handful of Allied officers supporting the Cretan resistance to the German occupation. In 1944 he commanded the Anglo-Cretan team that abducted General Heinrich Kreipe and spirited him away to Egypt. A journey to the Caribbean, stays in monasteries, and explorations all over Greece provided the subjects for his first books. It was not until he and his wife had moved to southern Greece that he returned to his earliest walk. In these books, which took many years to write, he created a vision of a prewar Europe, which in its beauty and abundance has never been equaled. Artemis Cooper has drawn on years of interviews and conversations with Leigh Fermor and his closest friends, and has had complete access to his archive. Her beautifully crafted biography portrays a man of extraordinary gifts—no one wore their learning so playfully nor inspired such passionate friendship.
