The Silent Traveller in Lakeland


Book Description

Chiang Yee was exiled from his homeland of China for over 40 years, during which time he wrote and illustrated a number of travel classics. 'The Silent Traveller' series, which also includes titles on London and Edinburgh, began with this book about the Lake District.




倫敦襍碎


Book Description

Chiang Yee's account of London, first published in 1938, is original in more ways than one. Not only one of the first widely available books written by a Chinese author in English, it also reverses the conventions of travel writing. For here the "exotic" subject matter is none other than London and its people, quizzically observed as an alien culture by a foreign writer.




The Silent Traveller in Boston


Book Description

The Silent Traveller Returns Distinguished author, artist, calligrapher, and poet Chiang Yee wrote and illustrated a dozen "Silent Traveller" books, from 1937-1972. The second to focus on an American city was The Silent Traveller in Boston, originally published in 1959. Long out-of-print, the book captures Mr. Chiang's quiet and observant views, a new take on an old city, from Beacon Hill to the Fenway, from Copley Square to Jamaica Pond. Mr. Chiang travels further afield to neighboring towns on Cape Cod & the Islands, as well as to Concord, Salem, Rockport, and Plymouth. Illustrated with 16 color and 60 black-and-white illustrations by Mr. Chaing, the book presents a city that is both fresh and familiar. The reader who knows all about Boston will find new charms; the reader who knows only a little will find an urbane guide with a warm regard for the traditional and a refreshing interest in the human side of the city's past and present. "This not-so-silent travel book is more than a pleasant guide for perceptive, leisurely tourists, more than an attractive piece of bookmaking; it is a guide to understanding." --The New York Times Book Review




Beatrix Potter


Book Description

In this remarkable biography, Linda Lear offers a new look at the extraordinary woman who gave us some of the most beloved children's books of all time. Potter found freedom from her conventional Victorian upbringing in the countryside. Nature inspired her imagination as an artist and scientific illustrator, but The Tale of Peter Rabbit brought her fame, financial success, and the promise of happiness when she fell in love with her editor Norman Warne. After his tragic and untimely death, Potter embraced a new life as the owner of Hill Top Farm in the English Lake District and a second chance at happiness. As a visionary landowner, successful farmer and sheep-breeder, she was able to preserve the landscape that had inspired her art. Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature reveals a lively, independent and passionate woman, whose art was timeless, and whose generosity left an indelible imprint on the countryside.




Shadow Dispatches


Book Description

Casgliad byr o gerddi gan Polly Atkin. Yma mae'n sylwi'n graff ac yn cynnig gogwydd gwahanol ar bethau a digwyddiadau bob dydd. -- Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru




The Silent Traveller in Oxford


Book Description

In 1940 the Chinese writer Chiang Yee arrived in Oxford as a refugee from the London Blitz, his lodgings having been bombed. He came to Oxford, he writes, in rather a turmoil. What was meant to be a brief escape turned into a five-year stay, an affectionate relationship with the city, and the fifth in the hugely successful Silent Traveller series. Looking at the city and its historic university with the curiosity and openness of a complete stranger, Chiang Yee paints a revealing picture of Oxford's particular atmosphere, its rituals and traditions. He mixes with undergraduates and dons, visits pubs and restaurants, witnesses Union debates and punting on the river, all with a gentle astonishment and perceptive eye for detail. Chiang Yee explores the colleges and other student haunts, but also the city and its surrounds, from Port Meadow to Headington and Hinksey. First published in 1944, The Silent Traveller in Oxford evokes a wartime city of shortages and blackouts. It also captures an earlier age of university life, when students drank sherry and scaled college walls to escape prowling Bulldogs. Throughout Chiang Yee draws parallels between Oxford and his native China, compari




The Silent Traveller in San Francisco


Book Description

The Silent Traveller Returns! Distinguished author, artist, calligrapher, and poet Chiang Yee wrote and illustrated a dozen "Silent Traveller" books, from 1937-1972. The last to focus on an American city was The Silent Traveller in San Francisco, originally published in 1964. Long out-of-print, the book reveals Mr. Chiang's special affection for a city whose fog-draped hills and winding streets recall for him the poetic beauty and mystery of his much loved Chinese landscape. From Market Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf to Telegraph Hill, Chinatown to Berkeley, Oakland, and the Napa Valley, Mr. Chiang always charms the reader with his quizzical, quiet observations which fuse the old with the new, the historical with the present. Illustrated with 16 color and 50 black-and-white illustrations by Mr. Chiang, the book presents a unique view of one of the world's most enchanting and picturesque cities.




The Chinese Eye


Book Description




The Wild Swans


Book Description

This very beautiful and lyrical extended version of the fairy tale 'The Wild Swans' by Hans Christian Andersen is the much anticipated companion to East of the Sun, West of the Moon. With strong characterization of the heroine and also with more rounded characterisation of the wicked stepmother than in the original version, and with delicate watercolor paintings throughout, this is both a wonderful story and delightful gift. Beautifully presented in a jacketed edition with foiled title.




The Biographer's Tale


Book Description

Phineas G. sets out to write a biography of a great biographer. But a "whole life" is hard to find. Everywhere he looks he finds fragments and gaps: bones and husks, boxes of marbles, collections of coins and undated postcards. Trails run cold and mysteries are unresolved. Phineas feels he is hunting shadows. Like a shaman flying across the globe, his mind tracks the journeys of his subjects to the deserts of Africa and the maelstroms of the Arctic. He meets others building wholes from bits and pieces: taxonomists, ecologists, travel agents offering the trip of your dreams. In the process he also puzzles out his own future - but how will he find his way out of the labyrinth? Tantalizing, comic and rueful, The Biographer's Tale is a modern delight, a colour-filled novel of detection and desire.