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Shadow of the Silk Road
A journey along the greatest land route on earth, from the master of travel writing Colin Thubron On buses, donkey carts, trains, jeeps and camels, Colin Thubron traces the drifts of the first great trade route out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran into Kurdish Turkey. Covering over 7000 miles in eight months Thubron recounts extraordinary adventures - a near-miss with a drunk-driver, incarceration in a Chinese cell during the SARS epidemic, undergoing root canal treatment without anaesthetic in Iran - in inimitable prose. Shadow of the Silk Road is about Asia today; a magnificent account of an ancient world in modern ferment. 'It is hard to think of a better travel book written this century' Times 'Thubron is the pre-eminent travel writer of his generation' Sunday Telegraph
The Amur River
"A gripping read with fascinating political insight." (Sunday Times, London) "Elegant, elegiac and poignant...Thubron is an intrepid traveler, a shrewd observer and a lyrical guide... to the river, much of it along the border between these two powers at a time of rapid and tense reconfiguration of global geopolitics." (Washington Post) The most admired travel writer of our time—author of Shadow of the Silk Road and To a Mountain in Tibet—recounts an eye-opening, often perilous journey along a little known Far East Asian river that for over a thousand miles forms the highly contested border between Russia and China. The Amur River is almost unknown. Yet it is the tenth longest river in th...
To a Mountain in Tibet
**TOP TEN BESTSELLER** 'I would rather read Colin Thubron than any other travel writer alive' John Simpson Mount Kailas is the most sacred of the world's mountains - holy to one fifth of humanity. Isolated beyond the central Himalayas, its summit has never been scaled, but for centuries the mountain has been ritually circled by Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims. Colin Thubron joins these pilgrims, after an arduous trek from Nepal, through the high passes of Tibet, to the magical lakes beneath the slopes of Kailas itself. He talks to secluded villagers and to monks in their decaying monasteries; he tells the stories of exiles and of eccentric explorers from the West. Yet he is also walking on a pilgrimage of his own. Having recently witnessed the death of the last of his family, his trek around the great mountain awakes an inner landscape of love and grief, restoring precious fragments of his own past.
In Siberia
As mysterious as its beautiful, as forbidding as it is populated with warm-hearted people, Syberia is a land few Westerners know, and even fewer will ever visit. Traveling alone, by train, boat, car, and on foot, Colin Thubron traversed this vast territory, talking to everyone he encountered about the state of the beauty, whose natural resources have been savagely exploited for decades; a terrain tainted by nuclear waste but filled with citizens who both welcomed him and fed him—despite their own tragic poverty. From Mongoloia to the Artic Circle, from Rasputin's village in the west through tundra, taiga, mountains, lakes, rivers, and finally to a derelict Jewish community in the country's far eastern reaches, Colin Thubron penetrates a little-understood part of the world in a way that no writer ever has.
Journey Into Cyprus
Cyprus, spring 1972. Tensions are rising between the Greek South and the Turkish North. Within two years, the country will become divided. It is at this distinctive time in history British travel writer Colin Thubron embarks on a 600 mile trek across the country. Moving from Greek villages to Turkish towns, the author of Shadow of the Silk Road and Night of Fire provides a profound look into the people of Cyprus – from Orthodox monks to wedding parties to peasant families – against the landscape of a beautiful Mediterranean island on the eve of chaos and tragedy. A remarkable quest rich in literature, classics and architecture, Journey Into Cyprus ingeniously intertwines the history and politics of Cyprus and its mythical past with the tumultuous present – from the master of travel books and writing, Colin Thubron. ‘An accomplished linguist and historian, his passionate concern for antiquity in all its aspects - mythological, architectural, conceptual - lends weight and warmth to every chapter’ Financial Times
Night of Fire
It began with a spark... A house is burning. Its six tenants include a failed priest, a naturalist, a neurosurgeon and a photographer. Their landlord's relationship to them is both intimate and shadowy. At times he shares their obsessions and memories. He will also share their fate. The passions of these individuals reach beyond the dying house that holds them. One recalls a lonely childhood, another the cremation grounds of India, another an African refugee camp. But will their stories be consumed forever by the flames?
Turning Back The Sun
Far away from the city of his birth, in a frontier town on the edge of tribal wilderness, a doctor tries to resolve the seemingly unreconcilable demands of his public career and his personal feelings. He believes his exile her to be temporary, and youthful memories of the distant city torment him with an unbearable sense of loss. Yet he has grown to love a fellow exile, a woman of fierce independence and strong will, who belongs by nature to the warmth and chaos of the frontier? But, during a summer of drought and disease, the desert erupts into savagery and he is at last confronted by the choice of returning to the city or of remaining with her.
Mirror To Damascus
A 50th anniversary edition of Colin Thubron's celebrated first book, a portrait of Syria's capital city, with a new introduction by the author. Described by the author as simply 'a work of love', Mirror to Damascus provides a rich and fascinating history of Damascus from the Amorites of the Bible to the revolution of 1966, and is also a charming and witty personal record of an extraordinary city. In explaining how modern Damascus is rooted in immemorial layers of culture and tradition, Colin Thubron explores the historical, artistic, social and religious inheritance of its people. Along the way, he shares unforgettable stories about the enterprising travellers of bygone days. Mirror to Damascus is a unique portrait of a city now obscured by recent upheavals, by one of the most indefatigable and popular of travel writers.
Distance
Edward has lost his short term-memory. He hopes it will return when he sees the cottage in which he lives. He recognizes his overcoat on the hook, his books, the double bed. The mystery however, is Naomi. Edward has no recollection of who she is or why she has left him a love letter. With Thubron's customary clarity he draws a bleak, amnesiac world in which a young man must face again old griefs and linger 'like a coward, just this side of knowing'. On the other side, the memory of a destructive, obsessive relationship looms.
Among the Russians
'A magnificent achievement' Nikolai Tolstoy, The Times Among the Russians is a marvellous account of a solitary journey by car from St. Petersburg and the Baltic States south to Georgia and Armenia. A gifted writer and intrepid traveller, Thubron grapples with the complexities of Russian identity and relays his extraordinary journey in characteristically lyrical style. This is an enthralling and revealing account of the habits and idiosyncrasies of a fascinating nation along with a sharp and insightful social commentary of Russian life. 'Superb... one of the best books on Russia to appear in years' New York Times
