Stanfords Blog

The Atlas of Unusual Languages

Following on from the hugely successful, 2020 Edward Stanfords Travel Writing Awards shortlisted The Atlas of Unusual Borders, Zoran Nikolic is back with a new atlas all about discovering intriguing linguistic oddities and language islands.

We communicate through the spoken and written word and language has evolved over the centuries. Many languages have survived although only in small pockets throughout the world. The Atlas of Unusual Languages explores a selection of those languages and some that have now been lost forever.

Here, Zoran Nikolic tells Stanfords about his latest book:

‘Unlost’ by Gail Muller

Hello, I’m Gail Muller and I’m delighted to introduce my book ‘Unlost’ and share some of my favourite top tips for getting outside and exploring. These tips are practical and actionable, even if you don’t feel confident or experienced. The great outdoors is for all of us, and there is joy, learning, resilience, and peace to be found out there – just beyond your doorstep.

An extract from ‘On Gallows Down’ by Nicola Chester

The following is an extract from On Gallows Down: Place, Protest and Belonging (Chelsea Green Publishing, October 2021) by Nicola Chester and is reprinted with permission from the publisher.

Bird in a Landscape

It is St George’s Day, late April, two days shy of my birthday. The sky is the colour of a pheasant’s egg and skylarks are singing against it at such a height I can’t see them. A just discernible shimmer of heat blurs the near horizon of orange gravel that marks the old runway of this former US airbase. I am sitting on my hands on top of an old American fire hydrant, its once-smooth sides speckled with rust and yellow and red paint curled and crusted like lichen. I can’t quite reach the ground and sit swinging my legs, a toe occasionally reaching a knobbly chunk of flint to kick away. I think I’ve been stood up.

Atlas of Imagined Places: From Lilliput to Gotham City

Atlas of Imagined Places: From Lilliput to Gotham City is a stunning map collection of invented geography and topography drawn from the world’s imagination.

The maps feature fictional buildings, towns, cities and countries plus mountains and rivers, oceans and seas. Ever wondered where the Bates Motel was based? Or Bedford Falls in It’s a Wonderful Life? The authors have taken years to research the likely geography of thousands of popular culture locations that have become almost real to us.

Here is an extract from the chapter on CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN by Matt Brown & Rhys B. Davies with maps by Mike Hall.

Book of the Month: The Amur River by Colin Thubron

Our 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.

The Long Field by Pamela Petro

Wales, and the Presence of Absence – A Memoir

by Pamela Petro

The Long Field burrows into the Welsh countryside to tell how the small country of Wales became a big part of American writer Pamela Petro’s life. Petro, author of Travels in an Old Tongue – Touring the World Speaking Welsh, writes about herself and Wales through the lens of hiraeth, a Welsh word famously hard to translate. (It can mean, literally, “long field.”) Hiraeth refers to a bone-deep longing for someone or something–a home, culture, language, a younger self–that you’ve lost or left behind or that was imaginary to begin with, hovering always in the future. It’s a name for the presence of absence.

London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City

London Clay is an exploration of the stories that make a city. Written in rich and vivid prose, Tom Chivers leads us on a journey to find the source of his memories, and to discover lost rivers, secret woodlands, the marshes and islands long buried beneath the city he loves.

Here, Tom explains the importance of mapping in his work:

The Book of Reykjavik: A City in Short Fiction

West Camel presents the online launch of The Book of Reykjavik, A City in Short Fiction.

Recorded on the 1st September 2021.

Part of Comma’s popular ‘Reading the City’ series, this beautiful collection includes ten stories, translated into English for the first time capturing the essence of contemporary Iceland and its writing.

Life Lessons From the Amazon by Pip Stewart

Last night we made the most of a beautiful balmy evening in Covent Garden by hosting the launch of Life Lessons From the Amazon: A Guide to Life From One Epic Jungle Adventure by Pip Stewart.

A walk in the park life…

Inspired by the scenery, hidden histories and encounters in his local park in London during the lockdowns – and with nowhere to go – Tom Chesshyre set off on a “voyage of the imagination” around parks he has enjoyed across the globe in his new book Park Life, a celebration of all things park:

It was somewhere between my tenth and twentieth weekly circumnavigation of Richmond Park, having not gone anywhere else much for months (other than my Sainsbury’s Local), that I began to slip into the rhythm of “park life”.

During that period from March 2020, I watched the landscape of London’s largest park (2,400 acres) subtly shift as green shoots of spring slowly emerged, the stark outline of ancient oaks seemingly sprinkled by heavenly herbs.