Jude Brosnan

Children’s Book of the Month: Atlas of Dogs

Our Children’s Book of the Month for September 2022 is Atlas of Dogs written by Frances Evans, illustrated by Kelsey Heaton, published by Lonely Planet Kids.

We love dogs here at Stanfords. We are a dog friendly shop and you are welcome to bring your dogs inside. Here are just a few of our favourite customers pictured on our map floors over the years:

When we heard about the Atlas of Dogs, we knew we had to make it our Children’s Book of the Month.

Book of the Month: High: A Journey Across the Himalayas Through Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal and China

Our Book of the Month for September 2022 is High: A Journey Across the Himalayas Through Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal and China by Erika Fatland, translated by Kari Dickson.

An ambitious and magnificent new travelogue by internationally bestselling, prizewinning writer Erika Fatland, on a journey along the Himalayas.

The Himalayas meander for more than two thousand kilometres through many different countries, from Pakistan to Myanmar via Nepal, India, Tibet and Bhutan, where the world religions of Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism are interspersed with ancient shamanic beliefs. Countless languages and vastly different cultures exist in these isolated mountain valleys. Modernity and tradition collide, while the great powers fight for influence.

Extract: My Family and Other Enemies

My Family and Other Enemies is part travelogue, part memoir that dives into the hinterland of Croatia. Mary Novakovich explores her ongoing relationship with the region of Lika in central Croatia, where her parents were born. In recounting her own family’s tumultuous history, Novakovich opens up a world that is little known outside the Balkans, telling the stories of people whose experiences weren’t widely reported at the time, when the devastation in Croatia was superseded by the Bosnian conflict and media attention moved elsewhere.

Here is an extract:

Launch of Journeys

Online event to celebrate the Launch of John Murray Journeys

On July 11th 2022 we teamed up with John Murray Press for an online event celebrating the republication of three titles for their Journeys series: In a Land Far from Home by Syed Mujtaba Ali, introduced by Taran Khan; Desert Soul by Isabelle Eberhardt, introduced by William Atkins; and Through Khiva to Golden Samarkand by Ella Christie, introduced by Caroline Eden.

The event was hosted by Nick Hunt (author of Outlandish) with Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award-winning authors; William Atkins, Taran Khan and Caroline Eden who introduce us to these three remarkable stories, sharing with us the reasons they love them and reading some short extracts. We were also joined by translator Nazes Afroz who translated In a Land Far from Home from Bengali to English.

European Cycling Maps

“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them.” -Ernest Hemingway.

If you are feeling inspired to plan a cycling adventure, here are some of our favourite cycling maps to take you around Europe.

Small Island by Philip Parker

To celebrate the launch of Small Island: 12 Maps that Explain the History of Britain , here, the author Philip Parker briefly explains some of the changes Britain has gone through since 500,000 BCE.

Life on board an ocean liner in the early 20th Century

Judith Eagle, author of Children’s Book of the Month, The Accidental Stowaway, describes what life was like on board an ocean liner at the beginning of the Twentieth Century.

In The Accidental Stowaway, Patch stows away on RMS Glorious, a ship that is sailing from Liverpool to New York. RMS Glorious (or Glory, for short) is based on the steamships that went back and forth across the Atlantic in Edwardian times.

The transatlantic liners were nicknamed ‘floating palaces’ because they were so luxurious. They were fitted out to look like the grandest hotels in Europe, with electric elevators, restaurants, libraries, music rooms, and lounges. They were decorated in the latest styles; the menus were created by the most fashionable chefs; and some of them even had special ‘extras’ like newspapers printed at sea!

Extract: The Edge of the Plain: How Borders Make and Break Our World by James Crawford

In this extract from The Edge of the Plain: How Borders Make and Break Our World, James Crawford goes in search of the Grafferner glacier in the Italian-Austrian Alps. Straddling the border between the two nations, when this glacier moves, the border moves too. It is what is known in Italian as a confine mobile – constituted in law by Italy and Austria as a ‘moving border’. A border defined and shaped by gravity, and now melting at an alarming rate due to the impacts of climate change…

Extract: Free to Go: Across the World on a Motorbike by Esa Aldegheri

When Esa Aldegheri and her husband left their home in Orkney, Esa didn’t know that their eighteen-month motorbike adventure would take them through twenty international frontiers – between Europe and the Middle East, through Pakistan, China and India – many of which are now impassable.

Charting a story of shrinking and expanding liberties and horizons, of motherhood, womanhood, xenophobia and changing geopolitical situations, Free to Go examines the challenges of navigating a world where many assume that women ride pillion, both on a motorbike and within relationships. Part around-the-world adventure, part-literary exploration of womanhood, Free to Go is about the journeys that shape and transform us.

Here is an extract from Free to Go: Across the World on a Motorbike by Esa Aldegheri:

Children’s Book of the Month: The Accidental Stowaway

Stanfords Children’s Book of the Month for August 2022 is The Accidental Stowaway by Judith Eagle.

By the celebrated author of The Pear Affair and The Secret Starling – Patch finds adventure on every deck of the ‘floating palace’ she accidentally stows away on.