Our Book of the Month for November 2022 is 36 Islands: In Search of the Hidden Wonders of the Lake District by Robert Twigger
A journey across the Lake District to discover the secrets of its 36 islands.
Continue reading Book of the Month: 36 Islands: In Search of the Hidden Wonders of the Lake DistrictOur Book of the Month for June 2022 is Where the Wildflowers Grow: My Journey Through Botanical Britain by Leif Bersweden.
‘When was the last time you stopped and noticed a wild plant?’
An intriguing and timely exploration of the importance of Britain and Ireland’s plant life.
Leif Bersweden has always been fascinated by plants. From a young age, his afternoons were spent hunting for and cataloguing the plants in his local area. But it is a landscape that is fast disappearing.
Since the end of the Second World War, 97% of Britain’s wildflower meadows have disappeared. Climate change, habitat destruction and a declining pollinator population mean that the future for plant life looks bleaker than ever before. Many of us are also unable to identify, or even notice, the plants that grow around us.
Our Book of the Month for May 2022 is Exiles: Three Island Journeys by William Atkins.
A luminous exploration of exile – the people who have experienced it, and the places they inhabit – from the Stanford Dolman award-winning travel writer and author of The Immeasurable World and The Moor.
This is the story of three unheralded nineteenth-century dissidents, whose lives were profoundly shaped by the winds of empire, nationalism and autocracy that continue to blow strongly today: Louise Michel, a leader of the radical socialist government known as the Paris Commune; Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, an enemy of British colonialism in Zululand; and Lev Shternberg, a militant campaigner against Russian tsarism.
Continue reading Book of the Month: ExilesStanfords Book of the Month for December 2021 is Brilliant Maps: An Atlas for Curious Minds by Ian Wright, illustrated by Infographic.ly with a foreword by Tim Harford.
See the world anew with this unique and beautifully designed infographic atlas.
Which nations have North Korean embassies? Which region has the highest number of death metal bands per capita? How many countries have bigger economies than California? Who drives on the ‘wrong’ side of the road? And where can you find lions in the wild?
Continue reading Book of the Month: Brilliant MapsThe Stanfords November Book of the Month is Allegorizings by Jan Morris. Published one year on from her death, at the age of ninety-four, it is the final despatch from one of the greatest chroniclers of the Twentieth Century. To give you a taste, here is an extract from Allegorizings:
Paradise Somewhere
If paradise is the stuff of the conventional promise, all sweetmeats and complaisant houris, then I certainly have never experienced it. But a nirvana of a different kind I did transiently enter long ago, when I was on my way back to Kathmandu, in Nepal, out of the Himalayas. I was travelling with a Sherpa friend of mine. His name was Sonam. We had come out of the mountains fast, and when we got down into the foothills I began to feel ill and weak – the reverse of altitude sickness, I suppose. The monsoon had broken upon us, and the endless rain did not help, but ‘Come with me to my home village,’ Sonam said, ‘and we will make you better.’
Stanfords Book of the Month for November 2021 is Allegorizings by Jan Morris.
Published one year on from her death, at the age of ninety-four, Jan Morris’ Allegorizings is the final despatch from one of the greatest chroniclers of the Twentieth Century.
‘Almost nothing in life is only what it seems.’
Continue reading Book of the Month: Allegorizings by Jan MorrisOur October Book of the Month is The Amur River by Colin Thubron £20.00
The first travel book in a decade from Colin Thubron, the 2019 recipient of the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing.
In his 80th year, Thubron made an ambitious journey along the 3000-mile river that divides China and Russia.
The Amur River is almost unknown. Yet it is the tenth longest river in the world, rising in the Mongolian mountains and flowing through Siberia to the Pacific. For 1,100 miles it forms the tense border between Russia and China. Haunted by the memory of land-grabs and unequal treaties, this is the most densely fortified frontier on earth.
Continue reading Book of the Month: The Amur River by Colin ThubronSmall Bodies of Water by Nina Mingya Powles £14.99
Our Book of the Month for August, from the winner of the Nan Shepherd Prize, takes us from London to New Zealand, Shanghai to Malaysia via a lyrical, poetic essay collection that blends memoir with powerful writing on the natural world.
Home is many people and places and languages, some separated by oceans.
Continue reading Book of the Month: Small Bodies of Water by Nina Mingya PowlesMinarets in the Mountains: A Journey into Muslim Europe by Tharik Hussain £9.99
In our Book of the Month for July, Londoner Tharik Hussain sets off with his wife and young daughters around the Western Balkans, home to the largest indigenous Muslim population in Europe, and explores the regions of Eastern Europe where Islam has shaped places and people for more than half a millennium. Encountering blonde-haired, blue-eyed Muslims, visiting mystical Islamic lodges clinging to the side of mountains, and praying in mosques older than the Sistine Chapel, he paints a picture of a hidden Muslim Europe, a vibrant place with a breathtaking history, spellbinding culture and unique identity.
Minarets in The Mountains, the first English travel narrative by a Muslim writer on this subject, also explores the historical roots of European Islamophobia. Tharik and his family learn lessons about themselves and their own identity as Britons, Europeans and Muslims. Following in the footsteps of renowned Ottoman traveller Evliya Celebi, they remind us that Europe is as Muslim as it is Christian, Jewish or pagan.
Like William Dalrymple’s In Xanadu, this is a vivid reimagining of a region’s cultural heritage, unveiling forgotten Muslim communities, empires and their rulers; and like Kapka Kassabova’s Border, it is a quest that forces us to consider what makes up our own identities, and more importantly, who decides?
Watch Tharik Hussain introduce Minarets in the Mountains.
Back by popular demand, Stanfords Book of the Month for March celebrates many different types of walks.
Follow the footsteps of writers, artists and musicians in this carefully researched collection of walking routes covering every continent, state, province and territory. Accompanied by full-colour photography and illustrated maps, 500 Walks with Writers, Artists and Musicians takes a culture trip through a series of inspiring strolls, treks and hikes in accessible countryside, national parks, remote wilderness and the great cities of the world.
Continue reading Book of the Month: 500 Walks with Writers, Artists and Musicians
