In our ever growing list of book recommendations, be sure to check out these eight travel books that will make you want to pack your bags and travel. It's part 26!
The Carbon Cycle: Crossing the Great Divide - Kate Rawles
In 2006 “outdoor philosopher” Kate Rawles cycled 4553 miles from Texas to Alaska, following the spine of the Rocky Mountains as closely as possible. Cycling across unforgiving but starkly beautiful landscapes in both the United States and Canada – deserts, high mountain passes, glaciers and eventually down to the sea – she encountered bears, wolves, moose, cliff-swallows, aspens and a single, astonishing lynx. Along the way, she talked to North Americans about climate change – from truck drivers to politicians – to find out what they knew about it, whether they cared, and if they did, what they thought they could do. Kate tells the story of a trip in which she has to deal with the rigours of cycling for ten hours a day in temperatures often in excess of 100° F, fighting punctures, endless repairs and inescapable, grinding fatigue … . But in recounting the physical struggle of such a journey, she also does constant battle with her own ideas and assumptions, helping us to cross the great divide between where we are on climate change and where we need to be. Can we tackle climate change while still keeping our modern Western lifestyles intact? Should we put biofuel in our camper vans and RVs? Or do we need much deeper shifts in lifestyles, values and worldviews?
Adventure Coordinators review: An engaging read that inspired me to replace my old cranky bike with a great riding machine! 8.5 out of 10
The half known life - in search of paradise - Pico Iyer
Paradise: that elusive place where the anxieties, struggles, and burdens of life fall away. Most of us dream of it, but each of us has very different ideas about where it is to be found. For some it can be enjoyed only after death; for others, it’s in our midst—or just across the ocean—if only we can find eyes to see it.
Traveling from Iran to North Korea, from the Dalai Lama’s Himalayas to the ghostly temples of Japan, Pico Iyer brings together a lifetime of explorations to upend our ideas of utopia and ask how we might find peace in the midst of difficulty and suffering. Does religion lead us back to Eden or only into constant contention? Why do so many seeming paradises turn into warzones? And does paradise exist only in the afterworld – or can it be found in the here and now?
For almost fifty years Iyer has been roaming the world, mixing a global soul’s delight in observing cultures with a pilgrim’s readiness to be transformed. In this culminating work, he brings together the outer world and the inner to offer us a surprising, original, often beautiful exploration of how we might come upon paradise in the midst of our very real lives.
Adventure Coordinators review: Beautifully written and immensely recognizable. 8.5 out of 10
Island - Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen
A young Danish woman explores her family's past and Faroe Islands ancestry across three generations. In the process she uncovers details of the passions and challenges her grandparents and their siblings confronted when they were her age, and considers universal themes of home and identity.
Lush, lyrical prose transports the reader.
Family brings the young woman back to the Faroe Islands - the windswept, rocky northern archipelago where she has never lived but which she has always called home. There she finds her stories entwining with those of her ancestors as she searches for a way to connect with the culture and her kin. Rooted in the wild beauty of the islands and the author's own history, this is a bewitching tale of exile, homecoming, and what it means to belong.
Adventure Coordinators review: you need to focus when you read this book as it moves seamlessly between eras, places and characters. You may have to read it twice. Written in a unique style this is mandatory reading for anyone visiting the Faroe islands. 7.5 out of 10
The January Man: A Year of Walking - Christopher Somerville
In January 2006, a month or two after my father died, I thought I saw him again – a momentary impression of an old man, a little stooped, setting off for a walk in his characteristic fawn corduroys and shabby quilted jacket. After teenage rifts it was walking that brought us closer as father and son; and this ‘ghost’ of Dad has been walking at my elbow since his death, as I have ruminated on his great love of walking, his prodigious need to do it – and how and why I walk myself.
The January Man is the story of a year of walks that was inspired by a song, Dave Goulder’s ‘The January Man’. Month by month, season by season and region by region, Christopher Somerville walks the British Isles, following routes that continually bring his father to mind. As he travels the country – from the winter floodlands of the River Severn to the lambing pastures of Nidderdale, the towering seabird cliffs on the Shetland Isle of Foula in June and the ancient oaks of Sherwood Forest in autumn – he describes the history, wildlife, landscapes and people he encounters, down back lanes and old paths, in rain and fair weather.
This exquisitely written account of the British countryside not only inspires us to don our boots and explore the 140,000 miles of footpaths across the British Isles, but also illustrates how, on long-distance walks, we can come to an understanding of ourselves and our fellow walkers. Over the hills and along the byways, Christopher Somerville examines what moulded the men of his father’s generation – so reticent about their wartime experiences, so self-effacing, upright and dutiful – as he searches for ‘the man inside the man’ that his own father really was.
Adventure Coordinators review: A wonderful read, both a naturalist and walker's essay as well as a memoir of the author's deepening relationship with his father. 9.5 out of 10
The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman - Nancy Marie Brown
Five hundred years before Columbus, a Viking woman named Gudrid sailed off the edge of the known world. She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say. Even after archaeologists found a Viking longhouse in Newfoundland, no one believed that the details of Gudrid’s story were true. Then, in 2001, a team of scientists discovered what may have been this pioneering woman’s last house, buried under a hay field in Iceland, just where the sagas suggested it could be. Joining scientists experimenting with cutting-edge technology and the latest archaeological techniques, and tracing Gudrid’s steps on land and in the sagas, Nancy Marie Brown reconstructs a life that spanned—and expanded—the bounds of the then-known world. She also sheds new light on the society that gave rise to a woman even more extraordinary than legend has painted her and illuminates the reasons for its collapse.
Adventure Coordinators review: while the title is a bit misleading - the book is not so much about the travels of a Viking woman as it is about what archaeology tells us about how Vikings in the north-Atlantic lived - this book is nevertheless an interesting read for travellers keen to learn more about the subject. 8 out of 10
Gone Viking - a travel saga - Bill Arnott
Bill Arnott guides readers on this bestselling literary odyssey, following history’s most feared and misunderstood voyageurs - the Vikings. To “go viking” is to embark on an epic journey. For eight years Bill Arnott journeyed throughout the northern hemisphere, discovering sites Scandinavian explorers raided, traded, and settled – finding Viking history in a wider swath of the planet than most anthropologists and historians ever imagined.
With a small pack and weatherproof journal, Bill explores and writes with a journalist’s eye, songwriter’s prose, poet’s perspective, and a comedian’s take on everything else. Prepare yourself for an armchair adventure like no other!
Adventure Coordinators review: It took me a while to get into this book but later on I didn't want it to end. Strip away the quotes from other authors and the references to TV shows and you are still left with a delightful book full of interesting encounters, discoveries and information. 8.5 out of 10
The wild places - Robert MacFarlane
Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland? That is the question that Robert Macfarlane poses to himself as he embarks on a series of breathtaking journeys through some of the archipelago's most remarkable landscapes. He climbs, walks, and swims by day and spends his nights sleeping on cliff-tops and in ancient meadows and wildwoods. With elegance and passion he entwines history, memory, and landscape in a bewitching evocation of wildness and its vital importance. A unique travelogue that will intrigue readers of natural history and adventure, The Wild Places solidifies Macfarlane's reputation as a young writer to watch.
Adventure Coordinators review: As always, insightful in it's discovery of hidden places and beautifully written. 9 out of 10
On the Road to Kandahar: Travels Through Conflict in the Islamic - Jason Burke
A daring reporter's quest through the "living history" of Islam amid the War on Terrorism. In 1991, a British university student spent his summer break fighting alongside Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq. Now a prize-winning reporter and author of a book on al Qaeda, Jason Burke travels from the Sahara to the Himalayas and meets with refugees, mujahideen, and government ministers in a probing search to understand Islam, and Islamic radicalism, in the context of the "War on Terrorism." Praised by London's Daily Mail as "intensely personal and accessible," this is the gripping story of a search for answers to some of the most urgent questions of our time: What drives Islamic fundamentalism, and how should the West respond? Are we so fundamentally different that we can't coexist? Although much of his book concerns war and violence, Burke reaches an optimistic conclusion.
Adventure Coordinators review: Insightful and fascinating. The conclusion at the end of the book is one many travellers will come to at some point during their travels. 8 out of 10
Comments