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American novelist E.L. Doctorow once observed that literature "endows places with meaning." Yet, as this wide-ranging new book vividly illustrates, understanding the places that shaped American writers' lives and their art can provide deep insight into what makes their literature truly meaningful. Published on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Historic Preservation Act, Writing America is a unique, passionate, and eclectic series of meditations on literature and history, covering over 150...

In the past, museums often changed the meaning of icons or statues of deities from sacred to aesthetic, or used them to declare the superiority of Western society, or simply as cultural and historical evidence. The last generation has seen faith groups demanding to control 'their' objects, and curators recognising that objects can only be understood within their original religious context. In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in the role religion plays in museums, with major e...

A moving meditation on the hidden, sometimes difficult topics we must consider to live an authentic life, from the New York Times bestselling author of 'To Shake the Sleeping Self'. We aren't born into a self. It is created without our consent, built on top of our circumstances, the off-handed comments we hear from others, and the moments that scared us most when we were young. But in the busyness of our daily life, we rarely get the chance to think clearly about the questions that matter mos...

In Bowing to Elephants, a woman seeking love and authenticity comes to understand herself as a citizen of the world through decades of wandering the globe. During her travels she sees herself more clearly as she gazes into the feathery eyes of a 14,000-pound African elephant and looks for answers to old questions in Vietnam and the tragically ravaged landscape of Cambodia. Bowing to Elephants is a travel memoir with a twist the story of an unloved rich girl from San Francisco who becomes...

The topos of the journey is one of the oldest in literature, and even in this age of packaged tours and mediated experience, it still remains one of the most compelling. This volume examines the ways in which the legacy of the Grand Tour is still evident in works of travel and literature. From its aristocratic origins and the permutations of sentimental and romantic travel to the age of tourism and globalization, the Grand Tour still influences the destinations tourists choose and shapes the ide...

A guide to the landscape and manners of the island of Corfu. 'One of Lawrence Durrell's best books - indeed, in its gem-like miniature quality, among the best books ever written.' Freya Stark 'This charming idyll depicts the country life and cosmopolitan society of Corfu in the years immediately before the war . . . The matter of it is as sound as the story is delightful.' Sunday Times 'Corfu, that Ionian island whose idyllic yet blood-stained history goes back the best part of a thousand yea...

Experience the magic of Leacock's Mariposa via a walking tour of Orillia. In 1912 Stephen Leacock began the serialized publication of Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. Within the pages of the stories he immortalized Orillia, Ontario, and its citizens. One hundred years later Orillia, ''''The Sunshine City,'''' still answers to the name Mariposa. The impact and legacy of Leacock's work continues to inspire and define the Orillia of today.Visitors come to Orillia from far and wide, not only to s...

Utopian Dreams offers one writer's attempt to retreat from the 'real world' - which is making him emptier and angrier by the day - and seek out the alternatives to modern manners and morality. Instead of cynicism, loneliness and depression, is it possible to be idealistic, to find belonging and companionship with others who share your sadness, or even, perhaps, your happiness? With his wife and baby in tow, Jones spends a year with spritualists, time-travellers, reformed drug addicts and Quakers...

Ninety years after the death of its author, Jerome K Jerome's ever-popular Three Men in a Boat is taken down from the shelf and the dust blown from its pages to reveal surprising facts and stories. John Llewellyn's debut book explores the life and work of author Jerome K Jerome, exposing the fascinating stories that lay behind his famous comic travelogue, Three Men in a Boat. Jerome's archetypal Englishman, Harris, was a Russian by birth and came from a family of Eastern European immigrants. The...

The author observes: "All of Greece is absorbing and rewarding. There is hardly a rock or stream without a battle or myth or miracle or a peasant anecdote or a superstition; and talk and incident, nearly all of it odd or memorable, thicken round the traveller's path at every step." In 'Mani', one of the "two best travel books of the century", Patrick Leigh Fermor fully bears this out. His glorious fusion of scholarship, history and imagination is a joy to read.

Colm Toibin's Homage to Barcelona celebrates one of Europe's greatest cities - a cosmopolitan hub of vibrant architecture, art, culture and nightlife. It moves from the story of the city's founding and its huge expansion in the nineteenth century to the lives of Gaudi, Miro, Picasso, Casals and Dali. It also explores the history of Catalan nationalism, the tragedy of the Civil War, the Franco years and the transition from dictatorship to democracy which Colm Toibin witnessed in the 1970s. Writte...

As read on BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week'Shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year AwardLonglisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize'Sherman's is a special book. Every sentence, every thought she has, every question she asks, every detail she notices, offers something. The Bells of Old Tokyo is a gift . . . It is a masterpiece.' - SpectatorFor over 300 years, Japan closed itself to outsiders, developing a remarkable and unique culture. During its period of isolation, the inhabitants o...

A Guardian Travel Book of the Year Shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards ‘The premise of this book is simple, or that is what it seemed when I started.’ Peter Fiennes follows in the footsteps of twelve inspirational writers, bringing modern Britain into focus by peering through the lens of the past. The journey starts in Dorset, shaped by the childhood visions of Enid Blyton, and ends with Charles Dickens on the train that took him to his final resting place in Westminste...

In November 1937 Freya Stark returned to the Hadhramaut during the fragile British peace. With some colourful companions and 81 packages, she travelled through the arid beauty of the desert until her company was marooned in a busy town in the interior. She met Sultans and slaves, bedouin and bandits, and spent her time exploring dusty forts and the ritual of the harem. She returned to the coast, learning the art of the caravan the hard way, but grateful for the Arabian version of solitude. This...