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    #76
    Looking for some decent books to read I've taken ad hoc's recommendations and just ordered both Danube and Border.

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      #77
      Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
      Not sure if this is a travel book exactly, but I've just finished Ottoman Odyssey by Alev Scott. A journey around the various parts of the former empire mixing interviews with history with travel. She delves into Erdoğan and his attempts to revive the empire and the way he spends money to do so (especially in the Balkans). She's very up front and honest about Israel and Palestine and is not afraid to call apartheid apartheid. And she also doesn't shy away from using the word genocide to describe what happened to the Armenians. (The author, who is a young journalist, is from London from a Turkish Cypriot family)

      Recommended. Think Antepli Ejderha would enjoy it in particular, but anyone who enjoys a good travel /modern history book will get a lot from it. My only criticism is that it could be much longer.


      ​​​​​
      I've just started this, only read the first chapter, but it reads easily and seems well written and researched. The distinction between Alevis and Alawites is made very early, something a lot of other writers on Turkey don't get and confuse.

      I didn't realise she was barred from Turkey, a badge of honour.

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        #78
        Over the Current Reading thread /or possibly Who likes looking at maps, someone mentioned Brooke-Hitching's 'The Golden Atlas". My apologies, to whoever recommended it, but I've done a search and it's coming back with zero results. Anyway, it's not a travel book, but a book about other peoples' travels. Finishes with the Shackleton expedition of 1914-17...It's excellent. He manages to condense years of travel - Raleigh's circumnavigation for example into a couple of pages. But the travels are simply excuses for some beautiful maps. Having just finished watching The Terror, his account of the Franklin expedition was particularly good. He also has quite a large chapter on female travellers. Many of whom I knew nothing about so that was fascinating. It's also a beautiful object (in hardback) to handle and possess.

        During lockdown, I bought Essays in Idleness and Hojoki, by two Buddhist monks from medieval Japan. One, Chomei decided to exile himself as a hermit in a hut in the mountains. His section of the book deals basically with the opposite of travel.

        Just started The Frozen River which was recommended by J over on the current reading thread. A walk down the frozen Zangskar river. Not far in, but it is lyrical. Almost a prose poem about Ladakh, a region have travelled in previously.

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          #79
          Having been laid up the last 6 weeks, I’ve had a bit of a reading binge. Probably because I can’t get out and about much, travel writing has been a means of escape.

          Anyways, wanted to say I took the upthread recommendation(s) to read Kassabova’s Border book. Feck me, it’s superb writing. And on a topic/area I only vaguely knew about.

          Also chomped through a couple of Bryson’s for lighter relief, and thinking about revisiting some Paul Theroux if this ailment goes on much longer.

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            #80
            Terribly sad to hear that Jonathan Raban has died

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              #81
              Ah. Shame. As I mentioned in the opening post of this thread, Old Glory is an absolute favourite of the genre.

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                #82
                Yes, very sad. Him and Paul theroux were my go-to travel writers growing up.

                Although, unlike theroux, I knew nothing about his life at all until now. Thanks for the obituary link, nef.
                Last edited by Jon; 22-01-2023, 10:29.

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                  #83
                  San Bernardhinault, you said earlier in this thread that you’d seen Apsley Cherry Garrard speak at the RGS - Can we assume you are very very old…? Cherry Garrard died in 1959 after a decade or so of seclusion …

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                    #84
                    That’s a fair point. I have no idea what I was talking about. I did see someone who’d just written a book on an Antarctic explorer (that explorer might have been Cherry-Garrard but it might have been someone completely different) and perhaps that was what I meant. But frankly, have no idea. And can’t remember the name of either writer or adventurer.

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                      #85
                      Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
                      That’s a fair point. I have no idea what I was talking about. I did see someone who’d just written a book on an Antarctic explorer (that explorer might have been Cherry-Garrard but it might have been someone completely different) and perhaps that was what I meant. But frankly, have no idea. And can’t remember the name of either writer or adventurer.
                      The excellent David Grann? His The White Darkness tells the story of Henry Worsley.

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