Download or read book To Timbuktu for a Haircut written by Rick Antonson and published by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Timbuktu: the African city known to legend as a land of scholars, splendor and mystery, a golden age in the Sahara Desert. But to many it is a vaguely recognizable name – a flippant tag for “the most remote place on earth.” With this fabled city as his goal, author Rick Antonson began a month-long trek. His initial plan? To get a haircut. Aided by an adventuresome spirit, Rick endures a forty-five hour train ride, a swindling travel agent, “Third World, three-lane” roads, rivers, and a flat deck ferry boat before finally reaching Timbuktu. Rick narrates the history of this elusive destination through the teachings of his Malian guide Zak, and encounters with stranded tourists, a camel owner, a riverboat captain, and the people who call Timbuktu home. Antonson’s eloquence and quiet wit highlight the city’s myths—the centuries old capital and traveler’s dream—as well as its realities: A city gripped by poverty, where historic treasures lie close to the sands of destruction. Indeed, some 700,000 ancient manuscripts remain there, endangered. Both a travelogue and a history of a place long forgotten, To Timbuktu for a Haircut emerges as a plea to preserve the past and open cultural dialogues on a global scale. The second edition of this important book outlines the volatile political situations in Timbuktu following the spring 2012 military coup in Mali and the subsequent capture of the city by Islamic extremists. Literally, it is a race against time to save the city’s irreplaceable artifacts, mosques, and monuments, and to understand why Timbuktu’s past is essential to the future of Africa.
Download or read book To Timbuktu for a Haircut written by Rick Antonson and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2013-08-03 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the fabled city of Timbuktu as his goal, author Rick Antonson began a month-long trek. His initial plan? To get a haircut. The second edition of this important book outlines the volatile political situations in Timbuktu following the spring 2012 military coup in Mali and the subsequent capture of the city by Islamic extremists.
Download or read book The Bad Ass Librarians of Timbuktu written by Joshua Hammer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To save ancient Arabic texts from Al Qaeda, a band of librarians pulls off a brazen heist worthy of Ocean’s Eleven in this “fast-paced narrative that is…part intellectual history, part geopolitical tract, and part out-and-out thriller” (The Washington Post) from the author of The Falcon Thief. In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River, tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that were crumbling in the trunks of desert shepherds. His goal: preserve this crucial part of the world’s patrimony in a gorgeous library. But then Al Qaeda showed up at the door. “Part history, part scholarly adventure story, and part journalist survey…Joshua Hammer writes with verve and expertise” (The New York Times Book Review) about how Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist from the legendary city of Timbuktu, became one of the world’s greatest smugglers by saving the texts from sure destruction. With bravery and patience, Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350,000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali. His heroic heist “has all the elements of a classic adventure novel” (The Seattle Times), and is a reminder that ordinary citizens often do the most to protect the beauty of their culture. His the story is one of a man who, through extreme circumstances, discovered his higher calling and was changed forever by it.
Download or read book Full Moon over Noah s Ark written by Rick Antonson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-04-12 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed travel writer Rick Antonson sets his adventurous compass on Mount Ararat, exploring the region’s long history, religious mysteries, and complex politics. Mount Ararat is the most fabled mountain in the world. For millennia this massif in eastern Turkey has been rumored as the resting place of Noah’s Ark following the Great Flood. But it also plays a significant role in the longstanding conflict between Turkey and Armenia. Author Rick Antonson joined a five-member expedition to the mountain’s nearly 17,000-foot summit, trekking alongside a contingent of Armenians, for whom Mount Ararat is the stolen symbol of their country. Antonson weaves vivid historical anecdote with unexpected travel vignettes, whether tracing earlier mountaineering attempts on the peak, recounting the genocide of Armenians and its unresolved debate, or depicting the Kurds’ ambitions for their own nation’s borders, which some say should include Mount Ararat. What unfolds in Full Moon Over Noah’s Ark is one man’s odyssey, a tale told through many stories. Starting with the flooding of the Black Sea in 5600 BCE, through to the Epic of Gilgamesh and the contrasting narratives of the Great Flood known to followers of the Judaic, Christian and Islamic religions, Full Moon Over Noah’s Ark takes readers along with Antonson through the shadows and broad landscapes of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Armenia, shedding light on a troubled but fascinating area of the world. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Download or read book To Timbuktu and Beyond written by David L. Marshall and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2010-11-30 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is not merely a history or a biography, but a testimony of how the hand of Lord used me with all of my failures to his glory. After more than 60 years of missionary service and seeing the hand of God work miracle after miracle, I am excited to share with you His mighty works that I witnessed while serving Him in Timbuktu and beyond. This book conveys the exciting adventures and wonderful joy of serving the Lord. I trust that through this book you will be encouraged in your service to God wherever that might be whether in Kalamazoo or Timbuktu.
Download or read book Babel Unbound written by Lesley Cowling and published by Wits University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this timely, original and sophisticated collection, writers from the Global South demonstrate that forms of publicness are multiple, mobile and varied. The notion that societies mediate issues through certain kinds of engagement is at the heart of imaginings of democracy and often centers on the ideal of the public sphere. But this imagined foundation of how we live collectively appears to have suffered a dramatic collapse across the world, with many democracies apparently unable to solve problems through talk – or even to agree on who speaks, in what ways and where. In the 10 essays in this timely, original and sophisticated collection, writers from southern Africa combine theoretical analysis with the examination of historical cases and contemporary developments to demonstrate that forms of publicness are multiple, mobile and varied. They propose new concepts and methodologies to analyse how public engagements work in society. Babel Unbound examines charged examples from the Global South, such as the centuries old Timbuktu archive, Nelson Mandela as a powerful absent presence in 1960s public life, and the challenges to the terms of contemporary debate around the student activism of #rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall. These show how issues of public discussion span both archive and media, verbal debates in formal spaces and visual performances that circulate in unpredictable ways.
Download or read book Going Places written by Robert Burgin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 605 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Successfully navigate the rich world of travel narratives and identify fiction and nonfiction read-alikes with this detailed and expertly constructed guide. Just as savvy travelers make use of guidebooks to help navigate the hundreds of countries around the globe, smart librarians need a guidebook that makes sense of the world of travel narratives. Going Places: A Reader's Guide to Travel Narratives meets that demand, helping librarians assist patrons in finding the nonfiction books that most interest them. It will also serve to help users better understand the genre and their own reading interests. The book examines the subgenres of the travel narrative genre in its seven chapters, categorizing and describing approximately 600 titles according to genres and broad reading interests, and identifying hundreds of other fiction and nonfiction titles as read-alikes and related reads by shared key topics. The author has also identified award-winning titles and spotlighted further resources on travel lit, making this work an ideal guide for readers' advisors as well a book general readers will enjoy browsing.
Download or read book Route 66 Still Kicks written by Rick Antonson and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2012-06-23 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the stories of one of Canada's most enthusiastic travellers explore the famous American highway that inspired the likes of Al Capone, Salvador Dali, Mickey Mantle, and the countless fans of this iconic American landmark.
Download or read book Running Away to Sea written by George Fetherling and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2008-12-15 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a turning point in his life, George Fetherling embarked on an adventure to sail round the world on one of the last of the tramp freighters. The four-month voyage carried him 30,000 nautical miles from Europe via the Panama Canal to the South Pacific and back by way of Singapore, Indonesia, the Indian Ocean, and Suez. Written with dash, colour, and droll humour, Fetherling’s narrative is peopled by a rich cast of characters, from the Foreign Legionnaires of French Polynesia to the raskol gangs of Papua New Guinea. The author captures the reality of life aboard a working cargo ship – the boredom, the seclusion, the differences of nationality and culture that isolation and cramped quarters seem to exaggerate. But the routine of loneliness or tranquility is punctuated by moments of near-panic – shipboard fires, furniture-smashing storms, even a brush with pirates in the Straits of Malacca.
Download or read book Saris on Scooters written by Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2010-04-12 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos uses her talent for investigative reporting to take us into the poorest villages in India. The women who live there are making astute use of microcredit to break the cycle of poverty. After witnessing these women's successes, it becomes evident that such villages have strengths equal to those of modern cities in India.
Download or read book Walking with Ghosts in Papua New Guinea written by Rick Antonson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed travel writer Rick Antonson (Full Moon Over Noah’s Ark) tackles his most challenging adventure yet: a formidable trail through the remote jungles of Papua New Guinea. Rick Antonson has traveled to parts of the world that are not simply exotic but sometimes damned near inaccessible. He has climbed to the summit of Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey, traveling beyond to Iraq and Iran and Armenia. He has undertaken an improbable overland journey to the ancient city of Timbuktu, an enlightening look into efforts to preserve the city’s priceless manuscripts. Now he has traversed the notorious Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea, a country some call “the last wild place on earth.” The trail is a narrow, 60-mile footpath featuring rough jungle, 6,000 feet in elevation change, and punishing weather extremes. In a country unfairly locked in Western misperceptions, the track is inhospitable terrain yet home to hospitable indigenous peoples, who live among the rusting reminders of the Japanese, Australian, and American armies that clashed in some of the deadliest protracted combat of World War II. In Walking With Ghosts in Papua New Guinea, Antonson shares a journey of physical and mental endurance in his inimitable way, in the company of a mixed band of resolute adventurers, blending fascinating historical context with the tribulations of unexpected discoveries in faraway lands.
Download or read book Train Beyond the Mountains written by Rick Antonson and published by Greystone Books Ltd. This book was released on 2023-04-18 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A captivating journey blending memoir, history, and biography that takes the reader on one of the world's most famous trains and tells of carving the dramatic route it follows, while pondering other international railways through the eyes of travellers past and present. Rick Antonson has ridden trains in more than thirty-five countries—but almost everything he thinks he knows about train travel changes when he boards the Rocky Mountaineer with his ten-year-old grandson, Riley. As they wind over trestles and through tunnels, each mile of track uncovers stories of dynamite and discovery, surveyors and schemers, explorers and visionaries, and the people who helped to build Canada against the odds of geography and politics. Surrounded by a wild landscape that sparks imagination, fellow passengers recount train travels in other countries, get nostalgic for the era of steam locomotives, and consider life’s unfinished journeys. Peppered with spirited dialogue, heartrending vignettes, and intriguing anecdotes, Train Beyond the Mountains is a travelogue with urgency: to make your travel dreams happen now. As one passenger muses, "The mistake we make is that we think we have time."
Download or read book Life in Alien Territory written by Renate A. Schulz and published by Wheatmark, Inc.. This book was released on 2014-11-05 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Retired university professor Renate Schulz is looking for something to do with her life, some way to give back. She decides to rejoin the Peace Corps forty-six years after she first served. Life in Alien Territory: Memories of Peace Corps Service in Mali chronicles her eleven months in Mali, West Africa, a predominantly Muslim country. At age seventy-one, she is the oldest Peace Corps volunteer among 180 other Americans. Schulz weaves the highs and lows of her life as a volunteer in Africa into her daily journal entries. Her personal struggles with the challenges of living in third world conditions, particularly at her age, are woven into her real-life concerns about human rights in West Africa, particularly for women and children. Her time in Mali, with all its challenges and frustrations, are offset with her growing appreciation for this "alien" culture. In this wonderfully readable travel narrative, Schulz captures the spirit of the culture, education, and people of Mali. At the same time, she shows how you are never too old to have a life-changing adventure.
Download or read book A Travel Junkie s Diary written by Dina Bennett and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dina Bennett’s on the road again—and she can’t stop! Having completed the 7,800-mile Peking to Paris Classic Car Challenge while braving carsickness and patching rocky marital relations, she’s once more in over her head, enduring 100,000 miles of road trips through the world’s out-of-the-way places. Drawn to strange foods and intriguing views into the kaleidoscope of local life, and with a knack for getting into—and out of—awkward situations, Dina gives you the world in all its glory. She’s a born storyteller, uncovering the curious and unusual in the ordinary, bringing you along on vivid experiences in laugh-out-loud style. Neither particularly brave nor wild, she opens her diary of personal triumphs and embarrassments, suspense and discovery, in places most will never get to. Join her as she stands knee-to-knee with a Tajik border guard in his bedroom, hunts down camel pad meat in the street markets of China, and seeks out the source of mare’s milk in Kyrgyzstan. Whether stranded on a sandbar in Myanmar’s Chindwin River or sharing barley beer with an ex-Black Panther in Ethiopia, Dina’s observations are half prying neighbor, half best friend gossiping together on the crooked path to enlightenment. The tales in A Travel Junkie’s Diary plunge the reader right into the midst of exhilarating travel experiences, with all the smells, sounds, sensations and emotions of being right there. They are by turns fascinating and frightening, endearing and bittersweet, humorous, humiliating, and always engrossing.
Download or read book Green Growth and Travelism written by Geoffrey Lipman and published by Goodfellow Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2012-06-18 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores why the industry is misperceived and how it can take its rightful leadership place in the transformation to the new green economy. It looks practically into these issues by taking the views of 46 government, industry and civil society thought leaders on the challenges, opportunities and solutions.
Download or read book George Fetherling s Travel Memoirs 3 Book Bundle written by George Fetherling and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The travel writing of celebrated writer George Fetherling is filled with vivid prose and bizarre characters. Includes: One Russia, Two Chinas A travel narrative written over the course of ten years, One Russia, Two Chinas is about change and resistance to change in the postmodern world. A valuable document that freezes some important world events for close inspection. Running Away to Sea: Round the World on a Tramp Freighter At a turning point in his life, George Fetherling embarked on an adventure to sail round the world on one of the last of the tramp freighters. The four-month voyage carried him 30,000 nautical miles from Europe via the Panama Canal to the South Pacific and back by way of Singapore, Indonesia, the Indian Ocean, and Suez. Written with dash, colour, and droll humour, Fetherling’s narrative is peopled by a rich cast of characters, from the Foreign Legionnaires of French Polynesia to the raskol gangs of Papua New Guinea. Indochina Now and Then George Fetherling recounts multiple journeys through Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, keeping an eye peeled and an ear cocked for whatever faint traces of French rule might remain. Indochina Now and Then is a travel narrative that leaves an indelible impression in the readers imagination.
Download or read book PATA Compass written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 838 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
