Minner

Travel writing matters This anthology is a collection of the 30 best travel stories published in British media over the last two decades, as judged by some of the top names in the game today. It is a celebration of the craft of travel writing, and its ability to educate, inspire and build understanding between people and cultures.

In 1865, art collector and philanthropist Isabella Stewart Gardner lost her only child to pneumonia at less than two years old. In an effort to rouse her from depression, Gardner and her husband, Jack, travelled to northern Europe and Russia. It was the first of many trips abroad that would eventually take her from the Middle East to Asia, trips that she documented in exquisitely crafted collaged travel albums. Fellow Wanderer brings together nearly thirty of Gardner's striking travelogues, spanning some thirty-nine countries and offering invaluable perspective on the global influences on this legendary collector and patron of the arts. This book features beautiful facsimiles of Gardner's travel albums, largely unpublished until now, along with essays by leading scholars who place these diaries and sketchbooks within the context of the art and culture of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia in the nineteenth century. The essays explore a host of topics, such as Gardner's engagement with world religions while abroad, how she incorporated designs and ideas from around the globe into her Boston museum, and the ways in which the imperial power structures of the era facilitated her travels. Lushly illustrated, Fellow Wanderer provides a uniquely intimate look at how Gardner's rich and diverse experiences abroad instilled her collecting and patronage with a truly global vision of art.

The Inuit Way - travel narrative of a polar expedition. A gripping account of living with the Inuit in northwest Greenland, before journeying to Canadian Arctic islands. Confronting snow blindness, frostbite and hungry polar bears, explorer Edward Cooper's mesmerising take on polar travel is part travelogue, part adventure, part cultural history.

An imaginative and beautifully observed travelogue of Lewis and Harris

A vivid journey around England's great seaside resorts, exploring their history and current struggle, and what they reveal about England, from the award-winning author of Love of Country.

Follow the life and experiences of an adventurer on distant, more enchanting shores as he discovers his true self while living independently in Greece, Bahrain and New York, and travels the world.

"Like Ron Davis' first book, Shiny Side Up, Rubber Side Down: The Improbable Inclination to Travel on Two Wheels is a compilation of stories with some connection to the motorcycle life; however, it also includes not only new motorcycling stories, but reviews, personality profiles, and a few memoirs"--

A veteran nature writer walks the length of Britain in pursuit of spring, and of hope

'A gripping read for anyone who cares about what we're doing to the planet and how we can change it' DAVID SHUKMAN, FORMER BBC NEWS SCIENCE EDITOR'Searing observations focused on our need to protect biodiversity - A tour de force' SIR TIM SMIT OBE, CO-FOUNDER OF THE EDEN PROJECT'An informative, uplifting and truly important book' JONATHON PORRITT, AUTHOR AND CAMPAIGNEROne woman's journey through South America - and the devastating story of our planet's disappearing biodiversityPedalling hard for thirteen months, eco adventurer Kate Rawles cycled the length of the Andes on an eccentric bicycle she built herself. The Life Cycle charts her mission to find out why biodiversity is so important, what's happening to it, and what can be done to protect it. From the Pacific Ocean to rainforests and salt flats, Kate learns that armadillos can cross rivers by holding their breath, that Colombia has more species of birds than North America and Europe combined, and that in threatening ecosystems, we're tearing down our own life support system. En route, she witnesses the devastation of goldmining and oil drilling but finds hope in the incredible people working to regenerate habitats and communities. As she reaches the 'end of the world', she realises that to tackle biodiversity loss we all have a role to play.

Fully-illustrated, The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, art and reportage from around the world.IN THIS VOLUME: Still Becoming by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie・A Nation called Ineba by A. Igoni Barrett・The Niger Delta by Noo Saro-Wiwa・plus: independent cinema and the do-it-yourself society; indiscriminate abductions and discrimination against women; the discrete charm of repair shops and the irresistible fascination with Afrobeat, and much more...Since gaining independence Nigeria has been in a state of permanent crisis. Even the arrival of democracy in the 1990s failed to bring much improvement. It's estimated that over 100 million Nigerians, half of the country's population, live below the poverty line.Violence is widespread: from the Boko Haram terrorists to the new armed secessionist movements and the growing scourge of kidnappings. How to live in a country where the state is, at best, absent? With regular power cuts, virtually non-existent health care and education, and where the army, present in every one of the 36 states of the federation, is not able to control the violence?In these circumstances, the only possible society is a do-it-yourself one that blossoms wherever and however it can. At the first glimmer of opportunity, Nigerians bring out all their dynamism, entrepreneurial skills, and inventiveness. They develop apps to get around the inaccessibility of the banking system, use solar power to render themselves independent from the unreliable public energy grid, sometimes even resorting to artisanal (but deeply polluting) methods to refine oil/petrol, embrace e-commerce and social media to sell their goods, while films produced on shoestring budgets, books and music find success all over the world.Nigeria's energy is unlike that of any other African country. As the generation of generals who won the civil war and governed the country for 60 years dies out, and younger citizens refuse to ignore injustice and violence, the hope is born that a new, vibrant generation will take the country's future into their hands. And, as they are accustomed to doing, fix it.

What is a meaningful life? What does it mean to flourish? Antonia Case, the co-founder of New Philosopher and Womankind magazines, quits her corporate job in the city and, with her partner, travels across the world in search of meaning. In a quest to find answers, she turns off the soundtrack of the media, rids herself of technology, and with little more than books as carry-on luggage, she journeys from Buenos Aires to Paris, from Barcelona to Byron Bay, seeking guidance from ancient philosophers and modern-day psychologists on what is a good life, and what is a life worth living. Along the way she discovers why winning the lottery doesn't make you happy, why making is better than having, and how love and belonging are vital to our sense of selves.Packed with insight into life's big questions, Flourish will take you on a riveting journey in search of what matters most.

A pilot's love letter to the world's greatest cities from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Skyfaring'A journey around both the author's mind and the planet's great cities that leaves us energised, open to new experiences and ready to return more hopefully to our lives' ALAIN DE BOTTONGrowing up in his small hometown, Mark Vanhoenacker spun the illuminated globe in his bedroom and dreamt of elsewhere - of distant, real cities, and a perfect metropolis that existed only in his imagination. Now, as a commercial airline pilot, Mark has spent more than two decades crossing the skies of our planet and touching down in the cities he'd always longed to see. Imagine a City celebrates the metropolises he has come to know and love through the lens of the hometown his heart has never left. From the sweeping roads of Los Angeles and the old gates of Jeddah to the intricate, dream-inspired plan of Brasília, he shows us with warmth and fresh eyes the extraordinary places that billions of us call home. 'Vanhoenacker... has a near-bottomless appetite for fresh sights and guidebook curiosities... Intimate and thoughtful' PICO IYER, AIR MAIL'A love letter to the cities he's returned to again and again... Vanhoenacker captivates when describing the silent beauty of a world glimpsed from above' Washington Post'Eloquent... A love song to cities the world over' Wall Street Journal