Wanderings and Sojourns - on Five Continents and Three Oceans - Book 1


Book Description

In this, the first of the Wanderings and Sojourns series, the reader is taken on a variety of journeys spanning all the continents of the world except Antarctica and Australasia. They'll travel by sea and land through Caribbean islands and sub-Saharan savannah, South American mountain ranges and rivers of Asia, North African markets and verdant English valleys, all the while living the adventures and experiences that gave rise to the unique philosophies shared within these pages. Interspersed between these true stories are works of lyrical verse; songs as varied as the wanderings and sojourns from which they were born. Themes vary from sharing of wisdom among travelers to respect for one's rifle during insurgent war, transition of a boy into manhood or the last portage two adventurers will ever share. The world beyond convention is the canvas upon which these unusual stories and songs are painted, the pallet comprises an entire spectra from shipwreck to war, spirituality to atavism, Aboriginals to ghosts, and the resulting pictures provide a fascinating view of the world as seen through unusual windows by someone who doesn't quite conform to the norms of society....




The Immeasurable World


Book Description

Winner of the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year (UK) "William Atkins is an erudite writer with a wonderful wit and gaze and this is a new and exciting beast of a travel book."—Joy Williams In the classic literary tradition of Bruce Chatwin and Geoff Dyer, a rich and exquisitely written account of travels in eight deserts on five continents that evokes the timeless allure of these remote and forbidding places. One-third of the earth's surface is classified as desert. Restless, unhappy in love, and intrigued by the Desert Fathers who forged Christian monasticism in the Egyptian desert, William Atkins decided to travel in eight of the world's driest, hottest places: the Empty Quarter of Oman, the Gobi Desert and Taklamakan deserts of northwest China, the Great Victoria Desert of Australia, the man-made desert of the Aral Sea in Kazkahstan, the Black Rock and Sonoran Deserts of the American Southwest, and Egypt's Eastern Desert. Each of his travel narratives effortlessly weaves aspects of natural history, historical background, and present-day reportage into a compelling tapestry that reveals the human appeal of these often inhuman landscapes.




Sophie's World


Book Description

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.



















The Publishers Weekly


Book Description