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American Tacos: A History and Guide
by José R. RalatThis culinary travelogue is “a deeply researched guide to north-of-the-border taco culture and history” (Los Angeles Times).Tacos may have been created south of the border, but Americans have made this Mexican food their own, with each style reflective of a time and a place. American Tacos explores them all, taking us on a detailed and delicious journey through the evolution of this dish.In search of every taco variety from California to Texas and beyond, José Ralat traveled from coast to coast and border to border, visiting thirty-eight cities across the country. He examines the pervasive crunchy taco and the new Alta California tacos from chefs Wes Avila, Christine Rivera, and Carlos Salgado. He tastes famous Tex-Mex tacos like the puffy taco and breakfast taco, then tracks down the fry bread taco and the kosher taco. And he searches for the regional hybrid tacos of the American South and the modern, chef-driven tacos of restaurants everywhere. Throughout, he tells the story of how each style of taco came to be, creating a rich look at the diverse taco landscape north of the border. Featuring interviews with taqueros and details on taco paraphernalia and the trappings of taco culture, American Tacos is a book no taco fan will want to take a bite without.“[American Tacos] offers plenty of recommendations on where to get great tacos…But it offers much more than that.” ?Chicago Tribune“A fast-paced cultural survey and travel guide . . . An exceptional book.” ?TASTE“Fabulous.” ?San Francisco Chronicle
American Tacos: A History and Guide
by José R. RalatThis culinary travelogue is “a deeply researched guide to north-of-the-border taco culture and history” (Los Angeles Times).Tacos may have been created south of the border, but Americans have made this Mexican food their own, with each style reflective of a time and a place. American Tacos explores them all, taking us on a detailed and delicious journey through the evolution of this dish.In search of every taco variety from California to Texas and beyond, José Ralat traveled from coast to coast and border to border, visiting thirty-eight cities across the country. He examines the pervasive crunchy taco and the new Alta California tacos from chefs Wes Avila, Christine Rivera, and Carlos Salgado. He tastes famous Tex-Mex tacos like the puffy taco and breakfast taco, then tracks down the fry bread taco and the kosher taco. And he searches for the regional hybrid tacos of the American South and the modern, chef-driven tacos of restaurants everywhere. Throughout, he tells the story of how each style of taco came to be, creating a rich look at the diverse taco landscape north of the border. Featuring interviews with taqueros and details on taco paraphernalia and the trappings of taco culture, American Tacos is a book no taco fan will want to take a bite without.“[American Tacos] offers plenty of recommendations on where to get great tacos…But it offers much more than that.” ?Chicago Tribune“A fast-paced cultural survey and travel guide . . . An exceptional book.” ?TASTE“Fabulous.” ?San Francisco Chronicle
American Visa
by Marcelo RiosecoUna novela hilarante y sarcástica, con un estilo exquisito y rabiosamente contemporáneo, que narra la experiencia de un «latino legal» en Estados Unidos. Marce está a punto de cumplir con su sueño americano. Una novia norteamericana, un prometedor viaje de Los Ángeles a Filadelfia, una beca para estudiar en la Universidad de Pensilvania, una nueva vida lejos del horroroso Chile. Pero el sueño no dura demasiado. Nada más llega a Estados Unidos es abandonado por su novia, sus compañeros de postgrado resultan insoportables, es víctima de una estafa por internet, se queda solo. Estados Unidos resulta ser un desolado y absurdo desierto donde los sueños y los comportamientos están rígidamente ordenados. La única solución es seguir viajando seguir rodando para tratar de volver al mundo de partida. Junto con su amigo argentino, Simón Alejandro -otro latinoamericano extraviado en la universidad-, decide emprender un viaje desenfadado y poético por ese enorme país de carreteras interminables. Con una ironía sin igual y una prosa de inaudita fuerza, esta primera novela de Marcelo Rioseco -premio de poesía Revista de Libros- narra la historia de un desengaño amoroso en un mundo donde los límites se difuminan, como las culturas, las identidades, los idiomas y las extravagantes existencias de los personajes que se entrecruzan con esta inusitada historia. Un libro exquisito y rabiosamente contemporáneo.
American Wino: A Tale of Reds, Whites, and One Man's Blues
by Dan DunnA professional booze writer whose life spins out of control tries to piece it back together by embarking upon an epic wine-fueled adventure that takes him to every corner of the U.S. Part vision quest, part guidebook, part journey into the bizarre tapestry of American life, it will make you laugh, make you cry and teach you a whole lot about wine.Former Playboy magazine nightlife columnist Dan Dunn has a made a career out of drinking. Yet this man’s man—a connoisseur of beer and whiskey—knew next to nothing about one of the major drinks enjoyed the world over: wine. When a fateful tasting experience coincided with a serious existential crisis, Dunn decided to hit the road on a journey of discovery. To quench his thirst for knowledge (and be able to throw down with the experts), he would educate himself about the industry glass by glass, from winery to winery, in nearly every region in the United States.His bold 15,000-mile road trip took Dunn from Sonoma, California, to Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, where he twirled, sniffed, and sipped glass after glass of a vast array of wines with vintners, savants, and celebrities, including Kurt Russell and “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” Jonathan Goldsmith. Dunn’s mission was to transform himself from a heartbroken schlub who barely knew the difference between Merlot and Meritage, into a confident connoisseur capable of wowing others simply by swirling some fermented grape juice around in his mouth and pronouncing it “troubling, yet brilliant.”In American Wino, Dunn shares it all—the good, the bad, the sublime. As his wine knowledge grows and becomes more complex, he shares it with the reader in the form of digestible, actionable nuggets in each chapter. It’s like a wine-tasting course at your local community college extension program, only with more sex and less crushing despair. An intoxicating blend of travel writing, memoir, and booze journalism that pairs earthy humor with fine wine for hilarious and enlightening results, it is the story of one man’s journey to find himself—and everyman’s journey to better understand the true spirit of this divine elixir.
Americana: Dispatches from the New Frontier
by Hampton SidesHarley-Davidson bikers . . . Grand Canyon river rats. . .Mormon archaeologists. . . Spelling bee prodigies...For more than fifteen years, best-selling author and historian Hampton Sides has traveled widely across the continent exploring the America that lurks just behind the scrim of our mainstream culture. Reporting for Outside, The New Yorker, and NPR, among other national media, the award-winning journalist has established a reputation not only as a wry observer of the contemporary American scene but also as one of our more inventive and versatile practitioners of narrative non-fiction.In these two dozen pieces, collected here for the first time, Sides gives us a fresh, alluring, and at times startling America brimming with fascinating subcultures and bizarre characters who could live nowhere else. Following Sides, we crash the redwood retreat of an apparent cabal of fabulously powerful military-industrialists, drop in on the Indy 500 of bass fishing, and join a giant techno-rave at the lip of the Grand Canyon. We meet a diverse gallery of American visionaries-- from the impossibly perky founder of Tupperware to Indian radical Russell Means to skateboarding legend Tony Hawk. We retrace the route of the historic Bataan Death March with veterans from Sides' acclaimed WWII epic, Ghost Soldiers. Sides also examines the nation that has emerged from the ashes of September 11, recounting the harrowing journeys of three World Trade Center survivors and deciding at the last possible minute not to "embed" on the Iraqi front-lines with the U.S. Marines. Americana gives us a sparkling mosaic of our country today, in all its wild and poignant charm.ist; mushes the Iditarod Trail with Alaska legend Joe Redington. AMERICAN EDENS. . . runs the rapids during a man-made flood in the Grand Canyon; crashes the redwood retreat of California's elite Bohemian Club; debriefs the "bio-nauts" as they emerge from captivity in the Biosphere; dives into America's greatest swimming hole; gets ecstatic with the Zippies at their secret all-night techno-rave. AMERICAN RIDES. . . ponders silver bubbles at the annual Airstream RV convention; revs it up at the Harley-Davidson rally in Sturgis, South Dakota; sails the Chesapeake with snooty owners of a rare antique sailboat known as the log canoe; roams the streets with D.C.'s hard-core band of bike couriers. AMERICAN BY BIRTH, SOUTHERN BY THE GRACE OF . . .. . . speaks in tongues with black Pentecostalists of the Memphis-based Church of God in Christ; fishes for lunkers at the Bassmasters Classic; goes underground with the world's greatest cave rescuer; unravels the mystery of a notorious teen murder in rural Mississippi. AMERICANS ABROAD. . . crosses the Sahara Desert with American endurance runners at the infernal Marathon des Sables; bushwhacks through MesoAmerica with Mormon archaeologists in search of lost tribes of Israel; visits a high school friend who's become an Uzi-toting Zionist pioneer in the West Bank; walks the route of the Bataan Death March with characters from Ghost Soldiers. AMERICAN OBSESSIONS. . . cranks it up with high-end stereophiles at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas; gets bowled over by 5,000 squealing salesladies at the annual Tupperware convention; plumbs the mysteries of the "schwa" at the National Spelling Bee; scrapes at the stucco of the neurotic architectural tradition known as Santa Fe Style. AMERICA, POST 9/11. . . traces the harrowing stories of three World Trade Center survivors; goes off-roading in the Imperial Sand Dunes; almost embeds on the Iraqi frontlines with the U.S. Marines; remembers Shane Childers, the decorated Marine who became the first American combat death in Iraq.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Americans in the Treasure House: Travel to Porfirian Mexico and the Cultural Politics of Empire
by Jason RuizWhen railroads connected the United States and Mexico in 1884 and overland travel between the two countries became easier and cheaper, Americans developed an intense curiosity about Mexico, its people, and its opportunities for business and pleasure. Indeed, so many Americans visited Mexico during the Porfiriato (the long dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, 1876–1911) that observers on both sides of the border called the hordes of tourists and business speculators a “foreign invasion,” an apt phrase for a historical moment when the United States was expanding its territory and influence. Americans in the Treasure House examines travel to Mexico during the Porfiriato, concentrating on the role of travelers in shaping ideas of Mexico as a logical place for Americans to extend their economic and cultural influence in the hemisphere. Analyzing a wealth of evidence ranging from travelogues and literary representations to picture postcards and snapshots, Jason Ruiz demonstrates that American travelers constructed Mexico as a nation at the cusp of modernity, but one requiring foreign intervention to reach its full potential. He shows how they rationalized this supposed need for intervention in a variety of ways, including by representing Mexico as a nation that deviated too dramatically from American ideals of progress, whiteness, and sexual self-control to become a modern “sister republic” on its own. Most importantly, Ruiz relates the rapid rise in travel and travel discourse to complex questions about national identity, state power, and economic relations across the U. S. –Mexico border.
Americashire: a Field Guide to a Marriage
by Jennifer RichardsonWhen an American woman and her British husband decide to buy a two-hundred-year-old cottage in the heart of the Cotswolds, they&’re hoping for an escape from their London lives. Instead, their decision about whether or not to have a child plays out against a backdrop of village fêtes, rural rambles, and a cast of eccentrics clad in corduroy and tweed. Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage begins with the simultaneous purchase of a Cotswold cottage and Richardson&’s ill-advised decision to tell her grandchild-hungry parents that she is going to try to have a baby. As she transitions from urban to rural life, she is forced to confront both her ambivalence about the idea of motherhood and the reality of living with a spouse who suffers from depression. Then, just when she is finally settling into English country life, she is struck by an attack of non-alcohol-related slurring that turns out to be a symptom of multiple sclerosis. Her indecision about moving forward with motherhood is brought to a head when her neurologist tells her that pregnancy may actually decrease her risk of developing full-blown MS. Part memoir, part travelogue—and including field guides to narrative-related Cotswold walks--Americashire is a candid, compelling tale of marriage, illness, and difficult life decisions.
Amerika Ontdekken Serie Alabama - Reisverslag per staat Ervaar zowel het gewone als het onbekende
by Amber Richards Luc WynWanneer plaatselijke bewoners een overzicht willen van wat er zoal gebeurt in hun eigen staat ... keren ze zich naar Amber Richards’ “Amerika verkennen” serie! Daarom beginnen reizigers nu ook in te pikken op deze waardevolle serie. Meer dan alleen maar reisgidsen, zijn deze staat-per-staat edities een deur naar de lokale bewoners, de evenementen, de goederen, het eten, zichten, geluiden en personages die je MOET ervaren als je het recht wil om te zeggen:”Ik ben daar geweest!” Boekbeschrijving Het is niet een typische reisgids in de zin dat de aandacht niet ligt op waar je kan eten en waar je kan verblijven, maar eerder op waar je heen kan gaan en wat je kan ervaren om een authentiek beeld te krijgen van Alabama. In deze editie werkt Amber samen met een plaatselijke bewoner van Alabama om het fijne te weten van de echte wilde grensstreek van Amerika. Van welbekende attrakties en de geschiedenis erachter, tot de onbekende, minder bereisde ervaringen, levert juffrouw Richards U het echte Alabama binnen handbereik! Download uw kopij nu.
Amerika Ontdekken Serie Alaska Reisverslag per staat – Ervaar zowel het gewone als het onbekende
by Amber Richards Luc WynWanneer plaatselijke bewoners een overzicht willen van wat er zoal gebeurt in hun eigen staat ... keren ze zich naar Amber Richards’ “Amerika verkennen” serie! Daarom beginnen reizigers nu ook in te pikken op deze waardevolle serie. Meer dan alleen maar reisgidsen, zijn deze staat-per-staat edities een deur naar de lokale bewoners, de evenementen, de goederen, het eten, zichten, geluiden en personages die je MOET ervaren als je het recht wil om te zeggen:”Ik ben daar geweest!” Het is niet een typische reisgids in de zin dat de aandacht niet ligt op waar je kan eten en waar je kan verblijven, maar eerder op waar je heen kan gaan en wat je kan ervaren om een authentiek beeld te krijgen van Alaska. In deze editie werkt Amber samen met een plaatselijke Alaskaan om het fijne te weten van de echte wilde grensstreek van Amerika. Van welbekende attrakties en de geschiedenis erachter, tot de onbekende minder bereisde ervaringen, levert juffrouw Richards U het echte Alaska binnen handbereik! Een tip van de sluier: Neem beerafweermiddel mee, uw favoriete dansschoenen, watervaste lucifers, een stevig biefstuk mes, en uw favoriete bierkroes. Tot ziens aan de wilde kant. Download uw kopij nu.
Ames: A Ride Through Town on the "Dinkey" (Images of America)
by Farwell T. BrownAmes has been referred to as a railroad town; more correctly the railroad established itself at the same moment that Iowa Agricultural College, now Iowa State University, was taking form. While the railroad helped to develop Ames, it was the college that drew people with names like Welch, Beardshear, "Tama Jim" Wilson, Charles F. Curtiss, and their successors. The flourishing academic community also drew families like the Loughrans and the Tildens, who were attracted by the positive town-gown relationship.In Ames: A Ride Through Town on the "Dinkey," readers will meet some of these people and tour historic Ames, as the narrow-gauge train nicknamed the "Dinkey" weaves its way through the city's history in over 220 vintage photographs. The images in this book, featuring people and landmarks both past and present, include Ames native J. Herman Banning, the first African-American aviator to be licensed in the U.S.; the dramatic 1922 burning and destruction of the Iowa State College Armory; a rare image of the 1895 Iowa State football team, the first to be called the Cyclones; and finally, downtown Ames' growth from dirt streets with wooden sidewalks to a modern college town.
Amesbury (Images of Modern America)
by Margie WalkerIn 1968, Amesbury celebrated its 300th anniversary. Residents compiled a cookbook, commemorative coins were sold, dances and plays were held, and townspeople dressed in period costume as part of the many events for the town's tercentenary. Since then, Amesbury has grown considerably, with many new businesses--furniture makers, fine food products, Norman's Restaurant, and clothing shops--emerging. Old mills have been reinvented into spaces for artists, photographers, and other creative outlets. The downtown area has been redeveloped and is a welcoming site as one enters Amesbury. One only needs to sit in Market Square, stroll along the Riverwalk, watch the falls of the Powow River in the Millyard, or listen to a concert in the amphitheater to experience Amesbury's charm. Despite a 1996 vote changing the town into a city, this great community retains the same small-town feel it has held for so many years.
Amexica: War Along the Borderline
by Ed VulliamyAmexica is the harrowing story of the extraordinary terror unfolding along the U.S.-Mexico border—"a country in its own right, which belongs to both the United States and Mexico, yet neither"—as the narco-war escalates to a fever pitch there.In 2009, after reporting from the border for many years, Ed Vulliamy traveled the frontier from the Pacific coast to the Gulf of Mexico, from Tijuana to Matamoros, a journey through a kaleidoscopic landscape of corruption and all-out civil war, but also of beauty and joy and resilience. He describes in revelatory detail how the narco gangs work; the smuggling of people, weapons, and drugs back and forth across the border; middle-class flight from Mexico and an American celebrity culture that is feeding the violence; the interrelated economies of drugs and the maquiladora factories; the ruthless, systematic murder of young women in Ciudad Juarez. Heroes, villains, and victims—the brave and rogue police, priests, women, and journalists fighting the violence; the gangs and their freelance killers; the dead and the devastated—all come to life in this singular book.Amexica takes us far beyond today's headlines. It is a street-level portrait, by turns horrific and sublime, of a place and people in a time of war as much as of the war itself.
Amherst
by Joseph A. GrandeAmherst depicts the breathtaking evolution of a small farming community into a major economic, educational, and medical hub of western New York. The book reveals how Amherst's rich soils, rapid falls, and near-Buffalo location led to the community's great progress and growth. In a single century, the population rose from just over four thousand in 1900 to one hundred fifteen thousand in 2000. Today, the town includes the thousand-acre campus of the new State University of New York at Buffalo and the Amherst Museum, visited by more than fifty thousand people each year.
Amherst and Hadley, Massachusetts (Images of America)
by Daniel LombardoOnce part of Hadley, the town of Amherst is known the world over as the home of celebrated poet Emily Dickinson. This photographic portrait of Emily'ssurroundings reveals the beautiful landscape that inspired her art, and also includes less typical but nonetheless significant images of hard-working farmhands, Irish laborers, Italian peanut vendors, riotous college students, and feuding factory workers. These two towns at the heart of the Connecticut River Valley have been appreciated by poets and artists for many years, and their bucolic and pastoral character is celebrated in this marvelous new examination of the towns' historyin photographs from 1860 through the early twentiethcentury. Famous residents of and visitors to the area are featured, including Dickinson, Robert Frost, Henry Ward Beecher and Noah Webster. Mr. Lombardo's book combines a serious look at these historical figures with a humorous perspective on some of the area's more colorful characters, such as Charles King, the Amherst barber who became famous for eating fifty eggs in fifteen minutes.
Amherst and Hadley: Through the Seasons (Images of America)
by Daniel LombardoNestled deep in the Connecticut River Valley areAmherst and Hadley, two New England towns responsible for the inspiration of many classic poets, writers, and thinkers of America. In Amherst and Hadley: Through the Seasons, the landscape changes continuously throughout the seasons. Each season brings its own natural beauty and dangers, from the scorching summers to the bitter winters.This photographic history offers a rare glimpse of Robert Frost's world of fire and ice. Visit a place where Ralph Waldo Emerson ate dinners with Emily Dickinson's family and see the site on which Noah Webster founded Amherst College. Look through a visual record of small towns, where the seasonal changes of the hills, fields, and woods inspired local writer Ray Stannard Baker and area photographer Clifton Johnson. Meander through a place that left fond memories in the hearts and minds of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone and writer Sylvia Plath.
Amherst: 1881-1982 (Images of America)
by Amherst Historical Society Donna M. Deblasio Martha I. PallanteEstablished in 1811, Amherst has been actively engaged in the quarrying of high-quality sandstone since before the American Civil War. The products of the town's quarries have graced buildings and other structures in the United States and around the world. The promise of work at the quarries drew potential employees from the surrounding countryside, as well as from across the ocean, giving the community's population its diverse character. This photographic history presents the unique and fascinating story of Amherst, the self-described "Sandstone Center of the World."
Amish Cooks Across America: Recipes and Traditions from Maine to Montana
by Kevin Williams Lovina EicherA culinary tour of Amish America with photos, stories, and recipes for Shoofly Pie and much more—from a wide range of unique communities.In this blend of recipe book and travelogue, the celebrated columnist and cookbook author known as The Amish Cook explores why one Amish community in the Northeast makes Shoofly Pie while another settlement in the South favors Muscadine Pie. Divided into chapters highlighting Amish groups in the North, South, East, West, and Midwest, with side trips to Canada and Central America, this it provides a sample of the cultural and culinary differences among Amish and Mennonite communities across the nation.The Amish are the original locavores. In this collection of fascinating recipes, you’ll find favorites from middle America, such as Scalloped Corn, alongside coastal specialties including Grilled Lime Fish Fillets and Avocado Egg Scramble, as well as Western staples like Elk Stew and Huckleberry Pancakes and Southern classics such as Sweet Potato Surprise Cake.This more-than-a-cookbook is filled with full-color photographs of food and the places visited, along with profiles that explore the origins and cooking traditions of each community. This is a book like no other—a delicious melting pot and a fascinating armchair tour of Amish America.
Amish Cooks Across America: Recipes and Traditions from Maine to Montana
by Kevin Williams Lovina EicherA culinary tour of Amish America with photos, stories, and recipes for Shoofly Pie and much more—from a wide range of unique communities.In this blend of recipe book and travelogue, the celebrated columnist and cookbook author known as The Amish Cook explores why one Amish community in the Northeast makes Shoofly Pie while another settlement in the South favors Muscadine Pie. Divided into chapters highlighting Amish groups in the North, South, East, West, and Midwest, with side trips to Canada and Central America, this it provides a sample of the cultural and culinary differences among Amish and Mennonite communities across the nation.The Amish are the original locavores. In this collection of fascinating recipes, you’ll find favorites from middle America, such as Scalloped Corn, alongside coastal specialties including Grilled Lime Fish Fillets and Avocado Egg Scramble, as well as Western staples like Elk Stew and Huckleberry Pancakes and Southern classics such as Sweet Potato Surprise Cake.This more-than-a-cookbook is filled with full-color photographs of food and the places visited, along with profiles that explore the origins and cooking traditions of each community. This is a book like no other—a delicious melting pot and a fascinating armchair tour of Amish America.
Amish Houses & Barns (People's Place Bks.)
by Stephen ScottA study of three Amish homesteads: one in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, one in Holmes County, Ohio, and one in LaGrange County, Indiana. Scott examines the history and cultural development of a typical Amish house and barn, one in each of the three largest Amish communities in North America. Home is the center of Amish life and most life events:birth, marriage, daily work and play, retirement, and even death happen there. Stephen Scott explores the history and cultural development of three Amish homesteads, each of which has been occupied by the current family of residence for at least four generations. The Stoltzfus Farm of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the Yoder-Miller Farm of Holmes County, Ohio, the Bontrager-Miller Farm of LaGrange County, Indiana. Amish Houses and Barns also includes a photographic essay of typical Amish architecture in each of the three communities. Its numerous anecdotal stories,"Barn Fire," "The Farm Is Strip-Mined," and "Amish Style Graffiti", enhance the human story.
Among Flowers
by Jamaica KincaidIn this delightful hybrid of a book-part memoir and part travel journal-the bestselling author takes us deep into the mountains of Nepal with a trio of botanist friends in search of native Himalayan plants that will grow in her Vermont garden. Alighting from a plane in the dramatic Annapurna Valley, the ominous signs of Nepal's Maoist guerrillas are all around-an alarming presence that accompanies the travelers throughout their trek. Undaunted, the group sets off into the mountains with Sherpas and bearers, entering an exotic world of spectacular landscapes, vertiginous slopes, isolated villages, herds of yaks, and giant rhododendron, thirty feet tall. The landscape and flora and so much else of what Kincaid finds in the Himalaya-including fruit bats, colorful Buddhist prayer flags, and the hated leeches that plague much of the trip-are new to her, and she approaches it all with an acute sense of wonder and a deft eye for detail. In beautiful, introspective prose, Kincaid intertwines the harrowing Maoist encounters with exciting botanical discoveries, fascinating daily details, and lyrical musings on gardens, nature, home, and family.
Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya
by Jamaica KincaidAnyone familiar with Jamaica Kincaid's work knows that the natural world and in particular, plants and gardening are especially close to her heart. In this vivid account she invites us to accompany her on a seed-gathering trek in the Himalaya. For Kincaid and three botanist friends, Nepal is a paradise a place where a single day's hike can traverse climate zones from sub-tropical to alpine encompassing flora suitable for growing in their home grounds from Wales to Vermont. A wonderful blend of introspective insight and beautifully rendered description, Among Flowers is a seriously entertaining thoroughly engaging and characteristically frank memoir from one of the most distinctive and striking voices writing today.
Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya
by Jamaica KincaidIn this delightful hybrid of a book - part memoir and part travel journal - the bestselling author takes us deep into the mountains of Nepal with a trio of botanist friends in search of native Himalayan plants that will grow in her Vermont garden. Alighting from a plane in the dramatic Annapurna Valley, the ominous signs of Nepal's Maoist guerrillas are all around - an alarming presence that accompanies the travelers throughout their trek. Undaunted, the group sets off into the mountains with Sherpas and bearers, entering an exotic world of spectacular landscapes, vertiginous slopes, isolated villages, herds of yaks, and giant rhododendron, thirty feet tall. The landscape and flora and so much else of what Kincaid finds in the Himalaya - including fruit bats, colourful Buddhist prayer flags, and the hated leeches that plague much of the trip - are new to her, and she approaches it all with an acute sense of wonder and a deft eye for detail. In beautiful, introspective prose, Kincaid intertwines the harrowing Maoist encounters with exciting botanical discoveries, fascinating daily details, and lyrical musings on gardens, nature, home, and family.
Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya (National Geographic Directions Ser.)
by Jamaica KincaidIn this travel memoir, the acclaimed novelist Jamaica Kincaid chronicles a three-week trek through Nepal, the spectacular and exotic Himalayan land, where she and her companions are gathering seeds for planting at home. The natural world and, in particular, plants and gardening are central to Kincaid’s work; in addition to such novels as Annie John and Lucy, Kincaid is the author of My Garden (Book): a collection of essays about her love of cultivating plants and gardens throughout her life. Among Flowers intertwines meditations on nature and stunning descriptions of the Himalayan landscape with observations on the ironies, difficulties, and dangers of this magnificent journey.For Kincaid and three botanist friends, Nepal is a paradise, a place where a single day’s hike can traverse climate zones, from subtropical to alpine, encompassing flora suitable for growing at their homes, from Wales to Vermont. Yet as she makes clear, there is far more to this foreign world than rhododendrons that grow thirty feet high. Danger, too, is a constant companion—and the leeches are the least of the worries. Unpredictable Maoist guerillas live in these perilous mountains, and when they do appear—as they do more than once—their enigmatic presence lingers long after they have melted back into the landscape. And Kincaid, who writes of the looming, lasting effects of colonialism in her works, necessarily explores the irony of her status as memsahib with Sherpas and bearers.A wonderful blend of introspective insight and beautifully rendered description, Among Flowers is a vivid, engrossing, and characteristically frank memoir from one of our most striking voices.
Among Warriors: A Woman Martial Artist in Tibet
by Pamela LoganPamela Logan, a recognized expert in the martial arts, gives a breathtaking account of her journey across the windswept plateaus and icy mountain passes of eastern Tibet.
Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey
by V. S. NaipaulThe Nobel Prize-winning author gives us – on the basis of his own intensive seventeen month journey across the Asian continent – an unprecedented revelation of the Islamic world. • &“A brilliant report…. A book of scathing inquiry and judgment, whose tragic power is being continually reinforced by current events&” (Newsweek).With all the narrative power and intellectual authority that have distinguished his earlier books and won him international acclaim (&“There can hardly be a writer alive who surpasses him&” – Irving Howe, The New York Times Book Review), Naipaul explores the life, the culture, the ferment inside the nations of Islam – in a book that combines the fascinations of the great works of travel literature with the insights of a uniquely sharp, original, and idiosyncratic political mind. He takes us into four countries in the throes of &“Islamization&” – countries that, in their ardor to build new societies based entirely on the fundamental laws of Islam, have violently rejected the &“materialism&” of the technologically advanced nations that have long supported them. He brings us close to the people of Islam – how they live and work, the role of faith in their lives, how they see their place in the modern world.