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A Ride In The Neon Sun: A Gaijin in Japan
by Josie DewIt's not easy landing unprepared in a country like Japan. The eccentricities of the calendar, the indecipherable postal system, not to mention the alien alphabet, language and culture, have all to be confronted before the disorientated traveller can feel at ease. Trying to ride a bicycle through the streets of one of the most congested cities in the world would seem to compound your problems. For Josie Dew, however, with over 200,000 miles already clocked up in the saddle few things could be more challenging - or for the reader of A RIDE IN THE NEON SUN, more wonderfully entertaining. From Kawasaki to Kagoshima, Odawara to Okinawa, Josie discovered a nation rich in dazzling contrasts. The neon and concrete were there in greater abundance than even she had imagined, but so too were bottomless baths, love burgers, long-tailed cocks, musical toilet rolls, oriental Elvises, cardboard police and a sense of fun belying the population's rigourous work ethic. Far from being the reserved race that she had heard about, the Japanese welcomed her into their homes with bountiful smiles and bows - and skin-scorching baths.
A Ride In The Neon Sun: A Gaijin in Japan
by Josie DewIt's not easy landing unprepared in a country like Japan. The eccentricities of the calendar, the indecipherable postal system, not to mention the alien alphabet, language and culture, have all to be confronted before the disorientated traveller can feel at ease. Trying to ride a bicycle through the streets of one of the most congested cities in the world would seem to compound your problems. For Josie Dew, however, with over 200,000 miles already clocked up in the saddle few things could be more challenging - or for the reader of A RIDE IN THE NEON SUN, more wonderfully entertaining. From Kawasaki to Kagoshima, Odawara to Okinawa, Josie discovered a nation rich in dazzling contrasts. The neon and concrete were there in greater abundance than even she had imagined, but so too were bottomless baths, love burgers, long-tailed cocks, musical toilet rolls, oriental Elvises, cardboard police and a sense of fun belying the population's rigourous work ethic. Far from being the reserved race that she had heard about, the Japanese welcomed her into their homes with bountiful smiles and bows - and skin-scorching baths.
A Rift in Time: Travels with My Ottoman Uncle
by Raja ShehadehThe quest for his great-uncle Najib Nassar, an Ottoman journalist - the details of his life, and the route of his great escape from occupied Palestine - consumed award-winning writer Raja Shehadeh for two years. As he traces Najib's footsteps, he discovers that today it would be impossible to flee the cage that Palestine has become. "A Rift in Time" is a family memoir written in luminescent prose, but it is also a reflection on how Palestine - in particular the disputed Jordan Rift Valley - has been transformed. Most of Palestine's history and that of its people is buried deep in the ground: whole villages have disappeared and names have been erased from the map. Yet by seeing the bigger picture of the landscape and the unending struggle for freedom as Shehadeh does, it is still possible to look towards a better future, free from Israeli or Ottoman oppression.
A Rising Tide: A Cookbook of Recipes and Stories from Canada's Atlantic Coast
by DL Acken Emily LycopolusA beautiful journey through Canada&’s Atlantic Coast—from the pastorals of Prince Edward Island to the wilds of Newfoundland—celebrating the region&’s rich culinary community, and the innovative chefs and producers who make it.A Rising Tide is a love letter to the culinary renaissance of Canada&’s Atlantic Coast written by DL Acken and Emily Lycopolus—both of whom grew up eating classic Atlantic Canadian dishes and spent months in the region exploring its burgeoning food scene. Whether you are discovering the East Coast&’s countryside, seaside towns, or bustling cities, there is a thriving food scene, united by a revived culinary identity that celebrates the region&’s terroir, and marries heritage with innovation. Enjoy more than 100 inventive recipes, many by beloved local chefs, and travel to meet the fishermen, producers, foragers, and restaurateurs who have come to define the region&’s incredible cuisine. Celebrate local ingredients for each meal of the day no matter where you are thanks to the book&’s ingredient substitutions guide. Featuring seasonal menus as well as gorgeous landscape and food photography throughout, A Rising Tide is a souvenir and a delicious roadmap to enjoy all of Atlantic Canada&’s wonders.
A River without Banks
by William JohnsonA River without Banks chronicles one family's journey to Idaho, with all of its uncertainties, promises, and hopes. The book explores their encounters with a place still partly wild, whose communities and landscapes teach them how to respect the earth and each other. William Johnson's essays move from a family vacation spent observing moose, to a comparison of the creation myths from Genesis and the Nez Perce, to watching a raptor seeking prey. Johnson meditates on how places, animals, and people teach us "how to see, and how we do, and don't, belong." In prose that reveals a poet's eye, Johnson examines how family relationships affect how we see the natural world. He explores the power of words to divide and to heal. He illuminates the challenges of sustaining a vital relationship with a home place. A River without Banks will appeal to readers interested in the literature of place, ecology, natural history, indigenous culture, and conservation.
A Roman Journal
by Stendhal Haakon ChevalierOne of the world's greatest writers--in love with a great city.In a fascinating travel book, Stendhal carries the reader along with him on a grand tour of Rome. Described with all the wit and sensitivity of a master storyteller, incomparable Rome comes breathtakingly alive. No one but the author of The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma could capture the city's spell so magically: the Colosseum, the Pantheon, St. Peter's, the Forum, fountains, ruins, art treasures, the Italian people--all the pageantry that was once Rome lives again, and for all time!Stendhal: the most original and diverting of all guides to the Eternal City!
A Room of Their Own: Home Museums of Extraordinary Women Around the World
by Marlene Wagman-GellerExplore historic homes of famous women from around the world and learn about their impactful lives in this informative guide. Add to your travel bucket list with A Room of Their Own, the history guide to famous ladies and their estates. Experience the impact of these international residents on history through the artifacts that they left behind. Experience the daily lives of feminist icons. Ever wonder what the most famous women in history did in their spare time? From bestselling author Marlene Wagman-Geller comes a women history book and travel memoir about the home museums of women who helped shape history. From fe-male authors, artists, and public figures, A Room of Their Own has something for everyone want-ing to know more about who these legendary ladies were. Connect with relics of the past. Full of historical facts and stories from thirty-seven different locations around the world, this travel memoir also shares something that can only be found in these historic homes: the preservation of their personal legacy. Each chapter visualizes the emotional journey these residents lived through the personal items left behind. Featuring unknown stories about Frida Kahlo; Lizzie Borden; Diana, Princess of Wales; and more, history lovers will reconnect with these famous women in history as real people with everyday lives. Explore these home museums of famous women in history. The Betsy Ross Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Jane Austen&’s House, Chawton, The United Kingdom; Museo Frida Kahlo, Mexico City, Mexico; Anne Frank House, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Anne of Green Gables House, Prince Edward Island, Canada; Carry A. Nation, Medicine Lodge, Kansas; and more. Inside, you&’ll also find: How these home museums came to be Unique furniture, photographs, letters, and other artifacts History trivia about the daily lives of these famous women If you liked books such as All the Beauty in the World, Women in White Coats, or Unabashed Women, you&’ll love A Room of Their Own.
A Rose for Winter: Travels in Andalusia
by Laurie LeeA passionate ode to the magic of Spain, composed by one of its most ardent admirersFifteen years after the events described in his acclaimed autobiographies, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and A Moment of War, Laurie Lee returned to Spain, the land of his youth and experience. He found a country bowed but not broken, where the heavy gloom of the recent past was shot through with the vibrant rays of tradition: the exquisite ecstasy of the flamenco, the pomp and circumstance of the bullfight, the eternal glory of Christ and church.From the smuggler&’s paradise of Algeciras to the Moorish majesty of Granada, Lee paints the wonders of Spain with a poet&’s brush. To read A Rose for Winter is to be transported to one of the most enchanted places on earth.
A Rosie Life in Italy: Move to Italy. Buy a Rundown Villa. What Could Go Wrong?
by Rosie MeleadyAccidentally buying a derelict 22-room villa in the Italian countryside? What could possibly go wrong?When Rosie Meleady's landlady doubles her rent in cold, wet, overpriced Ireland, she packs up her family, her two dogs, and all her possessions into a camper van and sets off across Europe to sunny Italy, where she plans to grow her destination wedding planning business. Even though it has been a dream she attempted to follow several times, Rosie and her family soon find out moving abroad to start a new life is not all sunshine and gelato.Between a hurricane, a global pandemic, and accidentally buying a massive villa—that has definitely seen better days— from eight cousins in the middle of a long-standing family dispute, Rosie pulls back the curtains on the less glamorous side of moving abroad. Lighthearted, uplifting, and utterly escapist, A Rosie Life in Italy is HGTV meets Under the Tuscan Sun—a delightful peek under the covers of what it's like to throw caution to the wind, take a risk, and build a life you once only dreamed of having.
A Route 66 Companion
by David King DunawayEven before there was a road, there was a route. Buffalo trails, Indian paths, the old Santa Fe trace -- all led across the Great Plains and the western mountains to the golden oasis of California. America's insatiable westering urge culminated in Route 66, the highway that ran from Chicago to Los Angeles. Opened in 1926, Route 66 became the quintessential American road. It offered the chance for freedom and a better life, whether you were down-and-out Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl in the 1930s or cool guys cruising in a Corvette in the 1960s. Even though the interstates long ago turned Route 66 into a bylane, it still draws travelers from around the world who long to experience the freedom of the open road. A Route 66 Companion gathers fiction, poetry, memoir, and oral history to present a literary historical portrait of America's most storied highway. From accounts of pioneering trips across the western plains to a sci-fi fantasy of traveling Route 66 in a rocket, here are stories that explore the mystique of the open road, told by master storytellers ranging from Washington Irving to Raymond Chandler, Joan Didion, Sylvia Plath, Leslie Marmon Silko, and John Steinbeck. Interspersed among them are reminiscences that, for the first time, honor the varied cultures -- Native American, Mexican American, and African American, as well as Anglo -- whose experiences run through the Route 66 story like the stripe down the highway. So put the top down, set the cruise control, and "make that California trip" with A Route 66 Companion.
A Route 66 Companion
by David King DunawayA literary history of America&’s most storied highway, featuring work from Raymond Chandler, Joan Didion, John Steinback, Sylvia Plath, and more.Even before there was a road, there was a route. Buffalo trails, Indian paths, the old Santa Fe trace—all led across the Great Plains and the western mountains to the golden oasis of California. America&’s insatiable westering urge culminated in Route 66, the highway that ran from Chicago to Los Angeles. Opened in 1926, Route 66 became the quintessential American road. It offered the chance for freedom and a better life, whether you were down-and-out Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl in the 1930s or cool guys cruising in a Corvette in the 1960s. Even though the interstates long ago turned Route 66 into a by lane, it still draws travelers from around the world who long to experience the freedom of the open road.A Route 66 Companion gathers fiction, poetry, memoir, and oral history to present a literary historical portrait of America&’s most storied highway. From accounts of pioneering trips across the western plains to a sci-fi fantasy of traveling Route 66 in a rocket, here are stories that explore the mystique of the open road, told by master storytellers ranging from Washington Irving to Raymond Chandler, Joan Didion, Sylvia Plath, Leslie Marmon Silko, and John Steinbeck. Interspersed among them are reminiscences that, for the first time, honor the varied cultures—Native American, Mexican American, and African American, as well as Anglo—whose experiences run through the Route 66 story like the stripe down the highway. So put the top down, set the cruise control, and &“make that California trip&” with A Route 66 Companion.&“Route 66 has a long and interesting history, and Dunaway . . . has done a fantastic job selecting works of literature about &‘America&’s Main Street&’ to tell its dynamic story, supplemented by the editor&’s own invaluable commentary. . . . [An]all-around remarkable anthology.&” —Publishers Weekly&“A Route 66 Companion is a great read and should find its way to the hands of any armchair traveler or lover of the history of the American West.&” —Oral History Review
A Russian Journal (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)
by John SteinbeckSteinbeck and Capa&’s account of their journey through Cold War Russia is a classic piece of reportage and travel writing.A Penguin ClassicJust after the Iron Curtain fell on Eastern Europe, Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Steinbeck and acclaimed war photographer Robert Capa ventured into the Soviet Union to report for the New York Herald Tribune. This rare opportunity took the famous travelers not only to Moscow and Stalingrad – now Volgograd – but through the countryside of the Ukraine and the Caucasus. Hailed by the New York Times as "superb" when it first appeared in 1948, A Russian Journal is the distillation of their journey and remains a remarkable memoir and unique historical document.What they saw and movingly recorded in words and on film was what Steinbeck called "the great other side there … the private life of the Russian people." Unlike other Western reporting about Russia at the time, A Russian Journal is free of ideological obsessions. Rather, Steinbeck and Capa recorded the grim realities of factory workers, government clerks, and peasants, as they emerged from the rubble of World War II—represented here in Capa&’s stirring photographs alongside Steinbeck&’s masterful prose. Through it all, we are given intimate glimpses of two artists at the height of their powers, answering their need to document human struggle. This edition features an introduction by Steinbeck scholar Susan Shillinglaw. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
A Sea Full of Turtles: The Search for Optimism in an Epoch of Extinction
by Bill StreeverAn inspired and impassioned story of adventure that explores the richness of marine life and charts a path of resilience and hope. Everyone alive today is witnessing a mass extinction event caused by the more than eight billion humans who share this planet. At times, it seems there is little hope. Climate change, resource exploitation, agrochemicals, overfishing, plastics, dead zones in our oceans, drought and desertification, conversion of habitat to housing, farming, and industrial infrastructure—the list of impacts and insults goes on and on. We are, it seems, on an unalterable path that will continue to decimate biodiversity. A feeling of hopeless, while not unwarranted, is part of the problem. Without hope, without some belief in the possibility of positive outcomes, the fight for nature is over. Why even try if the battle is already lost? While staring the problems squarely in the face, A Sea Full of Turtles offers hope for those who care about our living world. Delivered as a travel narrative set in Mexico&’s Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez), at one level the book focuses on dramatically underfunded but highly successful efforts to protect sea turtles. But the book goes beyond Mexico and beyond sea turtles to look at how some humans have changed their relationship with nature—and how that change can one day end the extinction crisis. Enchanting, galvanizing, and brimming with joy and wonder, A Sea Full of Turtles will inspire immediate action to face the great challenges that lie ahead. Pessimism is the lazy way out. Optimism, it turns out, is both a reasonable and an essential attitude for us all as we fight for the beautiful diversity of life on our Earth.
A Search In Secret India: The classic work on seeking a guru
by Paul Brunton'He found many marvelous things...But now and then a man of real spirituality set his feet on the way that finally led him to what he had looked and hoped for.' New York Times Book Review The late Paul Brunton was one of the twentieth century's greatest explorers of and writers on the spiritual traditions of the East. A Search in Secret India is the story of Paul Brunton's journey around India, living among yogis, mystics and gurus, some of whom he found convincing, others not. He finally finds the peace and tranquility which come with self-knowledge when he meets and studies with the great sage Sri Ramana Maharishi.
A Season for That: Lost and Found in the Other Southern France
by Steve HoffmanIn this poignant, delicious memoir, American tax preparer and food writer Steve Hoffman tells the story of how he and his family move to the French countryside, where the locals upend everything he knows about food, wine, and learning how to belong. Steve Hoffman is a perfectly comfortable middle-aged Minnesotan man who has always been desperately, pretentiously in love with France, more specifically with the idea of France. To follow that love, he and his family move, nearly at random, to the small, rural, scratchy-hot village of Autignac in the south of the country, and he immediately thinks he&’s made a terrible mistake. Life here is not holding your cigarette chest-high while walking to the café and pulling off the trick of pretending to be Parisian, it&’s getting into fights with your wife because you won&’t break character and introduce your very American family to the locals, who can smell you and your perfect city-French from a mile away. But through cooking what the local grocer tells him to cook, he feels more of this place. A neighbor leads him into the world of winemaking, where he learns not as a pedantic oenophile, but bodily, as a grape picker and winemaker&’s apprentice. Along the way, he lets go of the abstract ideas he&’d held about France, discovering instead the beauty of a culture that is one with its landscape, and of becoming one with that culture.
A Season on the Trail
by Lynn SetzerA compilation of stories from thru-hikers, a unique group of people who every year brave a 2,100 mile trail through every type of weather, every type of circumstance. Gathered from trail registers, postcards, and personal interviews, these voices come alive and evoke the true spirit of the Appalachian Trail, from the lows of ten consecutive days of rain and cold, to the highs of beautiful sunsets and camaraderie.Each spring, a group of people attempt a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. Setzer follows these determined hikers from Georgia to Maine. In this new edition, hikers reveal five years later how their experiences on the Trail changed their lives.'Originally, I was attracted to the AT for the adventure of walking the whole thing at once... Even as I finished, I did not understand those who chose to repeat the walk. But the next spring I found I wanted to go. And I understood that you never walk the same trail twice... I learned that I walk to fill my heart with wonder, to feed my soul.' - Merlin 'I know I'll be out there again. I don't know when and I don't know with whom. But I know, once more I'll live the nomadic life I loved on the Appalachian Trail.' - Trail GimpWhether documenting their journey or contemplating its impact on their lives, the voices in A Season on the Appalachian Trail will entrance you with their honesty and humanity.
A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful
by Gideon Lewis-KrausIn medieval times, a pilgrimage gave the average Joe his only break from the daily grind. For Gideon Lewis-Kraus, it promises a different kind of escape. Determined to avoid the kind of constraint that kept his father, a gay rabbi, closeted until midlife, he has moved to anything-goes Berlin. But the surfeit of freedom there has begun to paralyze him, and when a friend extends a drunken invitation to join him on an ancient pilgrimage route across Spain, he grabs his sneakers, glad of the chance to be committed to something and someone. Irreverent, moving, hilarious, and thought-provoking, A Sense of Direction is Lewis-Kraus's dazzling riff on the perpetual war between discipline and desire, and its attendant casualties. Across three pilgrimages and many hundreds of miles - the thousand-year-old Camino de Santiago, a solo circuit of eighty-eight Buddhist temples on the Japanese island of Shikoku, and, together with his father and brother, an annual mass migration to the tomb of a famous Hasidic mystic in the Ukraine - he completes an idiosyncratic odyssey to the heart of a family mystery and a human dilemma: How do we come to terms with what has been and what is - and find a way forward, with purpose? .
A Sense of Place
by Michael ShapiroGreat writers inspire readers to head out in search of foreign sunsets, but in this instance, they inspired travel writer Michael Shapiro to head out for the great writers themselves. A Sense of Place is one writer's journey to visit all the heroes who have motivated him - to pack a pen and toothbrush, to find out where they live, why they chose the place, and how it influences their writing.
A Sense of Place: A journey around Scotland’s whisky
by Dave BroomIn this beautifully crafted narrative, award-winning writer Dave Broom examines Scotch whisky from the point of view of its terroir - the land, weather, history, craft and culture that feed and enhance the whisky itself. Travelling around his native Scotland and visiting distilleries from Islay and Harris to Orkney and Speyside, Dave explores the whiskies made there and the elements in their distilling, and locality, which make them what they are. Along the way he tells the story of whisky's history and considers what whisky is now, and where it is going. With stunning specially commissioned photography by Christina Kernohan, A Sense of Place will enhance and deepen every whisky drinker's understanding of just what is in their glass.
A Sense of Place: A journey around Scotland’s whisky
by Dave BroomIn this beautifully crafted narrative, award-winning writer Dave Broom examines Scotch whisky from the point of view of its terroir - the land, weather, history, craft and culture that feed and enhance the whisky itself. Travelling around his native Scotland and visiting distilleries from Islay and Harris to Orkney and Speyside, Dave explores the whiskies made there and the elements in their distilling, and locality, which make them what they are. Along the way he tells the story of whisky's history and considers what whisky is now, and where it is going. With stunning specially commissioned photography by Christina Kernohan, A Sense of Place will enhance and deepen every whisky drinker's understanding of just what is in their glass.
A Sense of Place: An Intimate Portrait of the Niebaum-Coppola Winery and the Napa Valley
by Steven KolpanIn A Sense of Place, renowned wine expert and writer Steven Kolpan tells the story of how Francis Ford Coppola brought California's most distinguished and historic vineyard back to life. Gustave Niebaum's Inglenook Estate, started in 1879, was one of the Napa Valley's first established vineyards and the birthplace of its premium wine industry. Generations after Niebaum's death, the vineyard was sold to Heublein, the wine and spirits monolith, who broke up the land and changed the Inglenook brand from a premium, connoisseur wine to a mass-market jug wine. In 1975, Francis Coppola bought the Niebaum residence and the surrounding estate. Along with the original estate's reputation, he also brought back some of its original workers, including Rafael Rodriquez, who, in h is late seventies, now serves as the vineyard manager and historian. Coppola overcame naysayers, red tape, and financial turmoil to reestablish the winery as a defender of quality, producing wine under four different labels, including the revered wine Rubicon. In 1995, Coppola purchased the Inglenook Chateau and its adjacent vineyards, fulfilling his dream of reuniting the original Napa Valley estate. Kolpan's luscious, flavorful narrative is worth enjoying now and keeping for later.
A Sense of the Beginning
by Norbert GstreinA poignant novel of political-religious awakening by one of Germany's literary starsAn anonymous phone call, an unattended bag discovered in the station of a small Austrian town, a piece of paper saying, "Repent!" and "Next time it will be for real!" A C.C.T.V. image of a young man. What was it that made the teacher think it was his old student, Daniel?Ten years earlier Daniel had spent time with the teacher in his remote house by the river. The town had talked. Anton had recently returned from two years teaching in Istanbul - he was unsettled, subversive, solitary. Daniel was on the brink of adulthood - idealistic, unrequitedly in love with Judith, vulnerable to influence. Those summer weeks by the river were an idyll. But did they also sow the seeds of Daniel's later obsessiveness, his biblical attitudes, his political dogmatism? As the bomb threat excites the community with all the tension of a witch hunt, and Anton himself becomes a focus for suspicion and gossip, he anatomises his memories of the preceding decade. What went wrong for Daniel, and could he have stopped it?
A Sense of the Beginning
by Norbert GstreinA poignant novel of political-religious awakening by one of Germany's literary starsAn anonymous phone call, an unattended bag discovered in the station of a small Austrian town, a piece of paper saying, "Repent!" and "Next time it will be for real!" A C.C.T.V. image of a young man. What was it that made the teacher think it was his old student, Daniel?Ten years earlier Daniel had spent time with the teacher in his remote house by the river. The town had talked. Anton had recently returned from two years teaching in Istanbul - he was unsettled, subversive, solitary. Daniel was on the brink of adulthood - idealistic, unrequitedly in love with Judith, vulnerable to influence. Those summer weeks by the river were an idyll. But did they also sow the seeds of Daniel's later obsessiveness, his biblical attitudes, his political dogmatism? As the bomb threat excites the community with all the tension of a witch hunt, and Anton himself becomes a focus for suspicion and gossip, he anatomises his memories of the preceding decade. What went wrong for Daniel, and could he have stopped it?
A Sense of the Beginning
by Norbert GstreinA bomb threat is made at a provincial Austrian village station. An unattended bag placed next to three messages: "Repent!", "First and final warning!" and "Next time it will be for real!. But no-one takes it too seriously, not even the police. Then a teacher in the village thinks he recognises his favourite pupil Daniel on a wanted notice in a newspaper. The teacher befriended Daniel when they spent a summer together at his house by the river, but Daniel has been growing increasingly obsessive of late, losing himself in religious and political dogmatism after a trip to Israel. For his teacher, this marks the start of a spiral of introspection and self doubt, reinforced by his inability to feel at home anywhere after spending several years in Istanbul. What's more, he is suddenly swamped by memories of the pivotal moments of his own adolescence, which floor him completely. Was it Daniel's love for Judith and his fascination with an American fire-and-brimstone evangelist who is passing through on his way to Jerusalem or could it have been the complex relationship between the two of them that led the boy astray? Norbert Gstrein examines the crucial decisions we take as we start out in life and the omnipresent reference points of childhood. This is a moving and absorbing story, told by an unparalleled author at the height of his powers. (P)2016 W F Howes Ltd
A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler
by Jason RobertsA biography of James Holman (1786-1857). James Holman was a 19th-century British naval officer who became blind at 25, but nevertheless became the greatest traveler of his time. With little money, and long before motorized conveyances made travel easy or popular, James Holman independently traveled over a quarter of a million miles, visiting more than 200 distinct cultures. Be forewarned, this book also contains some rather graphic and disturbing descriptions of the treatment of the Blind in the 19th century.