Extract – Page 2 – Stanfords Blog

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:

Extract: Landscapes of Silence: From Childhood to the Arctic by Hugh Brody

Renowned anthropologist and film-maker Hugh Brody weaves a dazzling tapestry of personal memory and distant landscapes: childhood in the Derbyshire hills in the shadow of the Second World War, a kibbutz in Israel and, eventually, the Canadian Arctic.

Conflicted and bewildered by the silence created by his concealed family history, he sought places to which he could escape. Yet everywhere he discovered deep and troubling silences, until he reached the High Arctic, a world far removed from anything he had known. It became a chance to learn, all over again, what it can mean to be alive – yet, even here, he encountered voices that had been silenced by the forces of colonialism.

In defiance of silence, Hugh Brody discovers, through memory and the land, a profound humanity – as well as hope.

Here is an extract from Landscapes of Silence: From Childhood to the Arctic by Hugh Brody:

Extract: Atlas of Vanishing Places by Travis Elborough

To celebrate the paperback launch of the 2020 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award winning Atlas of Vanishing Places by Travis Elborough, here is an extract for you all to read:

Rice and peas recipe from ‘West Winds’ by Riaz Phillips

In West Winds: Recipes, History and Tales from Jamaica , award-winning food writer Riaz Phillips tells countless tales of Jamaica through its dishes, drawing on his memories of growing up in the Caribbean diaspora of London and time living in Jamaica.

With a mix of location and recipe photography by Phillips, West Winds fully immerses readers in the spirit and food of Jamaica. From the “waste not, want not” approach instilled in Riaz by his grandmother, to the Ital food he was introduced to living with the Rastafari community, working at eco-farms as well as reconnecting to his grandfather’s birthplace of downtown Kingston, the 100 plus mouthwatering meals, hearty soups, bakes, and refreshing drinks cover all the different elements of Jamaican cooking.

Recipes rooted in centuries of culture through folktales and anecdotes make West Winds so much more than a cookbook – it is an ode to Jamaica and the diasporas, the people and their heritage, with something for everyone. Here is an extract:

Rice and peas recipe from West Winds: Recipes, History and Tales from Jamaica by Riaz Phillips. Published by DK £25

An extract from Nomads by Anthony Sattin

Nomads by Anthony Sattin tells the ground-breaking story of Nomadic peoples on the move across history.

Humans have been on the move for most of history. Even after the great urban advancement lured people into the great cities of Uruk, Babylon, Rome and Chang’an, most of us continued to live lightly on the move and outside the pages of history. But recent discoveries have revealed another story . . .

Reconnecting with our deepest mythology, our unrecorded antiquity and our natural environment, Nomads is the untold history of civilisation, told through its outsiders.

Here is an extract from Nomads by Anthony Sattin

A young man walks towards me with a stick slung across his shoulders and a flock at his feet. The sheep, in front, beside and behind him, are as chaotic as meltwater in the nearby stream and they carry him down the path like a crowd of rowdy children. An older man follows, weatherworn but still strong, a rifle over his left shoulder. He clicks his tongue to encourage them forward. Behind him are two women on donkeys, one older than the other, and I guess they are his wife and daughter. They look strong women, but then it is a tough life beneath the shard peaks of the Zagros Mountains. Other donkeys carry their belongings, bundled inside heavy rust-and-brown cloth that the women have woven and will soon repurpose as door- flaps when the tents are set up.

An Extract from Soundings

An extract from Soundings: Journeys in the Company of Whales by Doreen Cunningham.

Travelling the grey whale highway

The train ride is a beauty. We shoot out of the station in our capsule, in glorious limbo, past the Wun Fun meat company buildings and a viaduct. Max and I stare out the window, transfixed. Muddy brown snake of river and yellow conveyor- belt- plant flash past. Glittering heaps and in the distance mountains. I can feel the landscape filling my head. This is how my heart is furnished, like the view from a train. I like to be totally occupied in the immediate. And am always, always, longing for something in the distance.

Where My Feet Fall: Going For A Walk In Twenty Stories

Edited by Duncan Minshull. William Collins.

To head for a place on foot is to – meander and wander.. ramble and amble.. stroll and saunter.. strut and scuff.. loiter and lurch.. ambulate and.. well, just walk. Furthermore, don’t we set out across all sorts of landscapes and cityscapes, in all sorts of weathers, for all sorts of reasons? Be they physical or psychological reasons, personal or public, sometimes even political?

And, isn’t it about time we had insight into this?

An extract from the prologue of Crossed off the Map: Travels in Bolivia

-by Shafik Meghji

In 1867, so the story goes, Mariano Melgarejo, the 15th president of Bolivia, asked the British ambassador to pay respects to his latest mistress. When the request was haughtily declined, Melgarejo, whose time in office was marked by brutality and political miscalculation, took great offence. The ambassador was swiftly apprehended, stripped naked, tied to an ass – facing the rear, naturally – and paraded around the main square of La Paz, before being kicked out of the country.

An extract from: Strandings: Confessions of a Whale Scavenger

We are delighted to present an extract from Peter Riley’s new book Strandings: Confessions Of A Whale Scavenger.

…..

When I was thirteen, I helped a woman with blue hair load the jaw of a sperm whale into the back of a yellow Volvo 245. It only just fitted. What she’d got hold of wasn’t quite as big as the one that greets you at the entrance of the Natural History Museum in Oxford; that’s still the most enormous jaw I’ve ever seen. Nevertheless, what I helped carry was big. And heavy. Add to that the pounds of blubber and you get a sense of what we transported that morning – maybe the weight of a tall man. According to the butchers I’ve asked, it must have taken her at least half an hour to saw through. If you’ve ever handled a piece of whalebone, you’ll know how durable and solid it feels – like reinforced, triple-weighted pumice. In the case of a sperm whale, it’s even sturdier, needing to withstand higher water pressures than in other, shallower-diving members of its species. The blue-haired woman had accomplished this at night, alone, and in the steady Norfolk rain.

Brilliant Maps

Maps that help put the last 12 months in some context

-by Ian Wright

I’m honoured that Brilliant Maps An Atlas for Curious Minds has been selected for Stanfords December book of the month. I really enjoyed writing it and hope you’ll enjoy reading it just as much.

Since December is the last month of the year, I thought I’d choose a few maps that help put the last 12 months in some context. And given Christmas is coming I can’t resist including a couple of Christmas themed maps too.