by Douglas Kennedy (2010)
‘To the western mind’, writes Douglas Kennedy, ‘Egypt has always been a land apart — *the cradle of history and human culture*, as one guidebook put it — filled with the symbolic left-behinds of one of civilization’s first big trial runs... But what about the modern state lurking behind this mythic realm? While countless travel chronicles have been written about Egypt the Immortal, few writers have ever undertaken journey through the contemporary Egyptian condition.’ In this clever, quirky and highly original travel book, Douglas Kennedy takes us on such a journey as he loiters with intent in modern Egypt. Sidestepping the usual assortment of pyramids, Ptolemaic temples and other ancient debris, he instead finds himself encountering an Egypt far removed from the common ‘archaeological theme park’ image — an Egypt where Bedouin watch American television in an oasis on the edge of nowhere...where monks in a desert cloister know a thing or two about word processors... where an entire community of Cairo's poor have set up residence in a cemetery… and where a young law student can simultaneously express his devotion to the word of Allah and to the songs of Michael Jackson. He discovers an Egypt delicately balanced between a multitude of conflicting identities; a major Arab nation struggling to find its way in the late twentieth century, while attempting to keep the gathering forces of Islamic fundamentalism at bay. *Beyond the Pyramids* is a dazzling chronicle of travels through a landscape strewn with incongruities; a landscape peopled by a vivid supporting cast of intriguing characters, whose stories all form part of Kennedy's pungently funny, compulsively entertaining, yet ultimately serious portrait of Egypt today.
Pete Davies
Welcome to the great Plains--where tornadoes convert barns to matchsticks in seconds and generations of work can be destroyed in a single day. Two years ago, English novelist Pete Davies decided to search for the soul of America's heartland. Storm Country is the result--written with the same black humor that made his Last Election and Dollarville cult favorites.
Ian Frazier
With his unique blend of intrepidity, tongue-in-cheek humor, and wide-eyed wonder, Ian Frazier takes us on a journey of more than 25,000 miles up and down and across the vast and myth-inspiring Great Plains. A travelogue, a work of scholarship, and a western adventure, Great Plains takes us from the site of Sitting Bull?s cabin, to an abandoned house once terrorized by Bonnie and Clyde, to the scene of the murders chronicled in Truman Capote?s In Cold Blood. It is an expedition that reveals the heart of the American West.
Norman Henderson
"The North American Plains is one of the world's great landscapes - perhaps the signature landscape of the continent. Today, the most intimate experience most of us have of the great grasslands is from behind the window of a car or train. It was not always so. In the earliest days, Plains Indians traveled on foot across the vastness, with only the fierce, wolflike Plains dogs as companions. Later, with the arrival of the Europeans, horses and canoes appeared on the Plains. In Rediscovering the Great Plains, Norman Henderson, a leading scholar of the world's great temperate grasslands, revives these traditional modes of travel, journeying along two hundred miles of Canada's Qu'Appelle Valley by dog and travois (the wooden rack pulled by dogs and horses used by Native Americans to transport goods), then by canoe, and finally by horse and travois.". "Henderson interweaves his own adventures with the exploits of earlier Plains travelers, such as Lewis and Clark, Francisco Coronado, La Verendrye, and Alexander Henry. Lesser-known experiences of the fur traders and others who struggled to cross this strange and forbidding landscapes also illuminate the story, while Henderson's often humorous description of his attempts to find and train old Plains breeds of dogs and horses highlight the difficulties involved in re-creating traditional travel methods. He also draws on the history of the world's other great temperate grasslands: the South American Pampas and the Eurasian Steppes. Recalling the work of Ian Frazier and Jonathan Raban, Henderson's captivating account of his three journeys of exploration will foster a better appreciation for, and deeper understanding of, the natural and human history of the North American Plains."--BOOK JACKET.
Georgie Anne Geyer
Soviet Central Asia: an exotic region of harsh deserts and rugged mountains shut off by communism since 1917, mysterious lands that still evoke images of the ancient Silk Road caravans. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tatarstan, and Azerbaijan are primarily inhabited by Muslim peoples of whom we know very little. Now that the long winter of communism has ended and these new republics slowly open to the West, syndicated columnist and television personality Georgie Anne Geyer has taken it upon herself to learn more. A modern-day Marco Polo, she shares her eye-opening personal experiences in Waiting for Winter to End. Join her as she sets out from Moscow for Kazan and Alma-Ata, Bishkek and Tashkent, Samarkand and Baku. Sit in on her interviews with nascent political leaders about the post-Soviet situation, in which possible dangers for the United States are revealed. Travel with a witty, observant, and knowledgeable companion to a resources-rich region that will become more and more important for the world. Georgie Anne Geyer's latest book is a lively, multifaceted account of her adventures in places to which few Westerners have gone before. Part travelogue, part history, part insider's political briefing - an entirely enjoyable and entertaining read.