Colin Thubron Knihy

Colin Thubron, autor několika knih o Středním východě, se vydal na objevnou cestu po Sibiři, která zůstává pro západní cestovatele stále exotická a neznámá. Jeho putování od hranic s Mongolskem k severnímu polárnímu kruhu zahrnuje návštěvu Rasputinovy rodné vesnice a prozkoumání tundry, tajgy, pohoří, jezer a řek, až po zapomenutou židovskou enklávu v Birobidžanu. Kniha není pouhým cestopisem, ale zasvěceným obrazem regionu s bohatou historií a kulturními směry. Thubron cestuje bez doprovodu, využívá různé dopravní prostředky a mluví s místními lidmi, aby zjistil, jaké to je žít na Sibiři. Zobrazuje krásnou přírodu poznamenanou hrůzami Gulagu a devastací přírodního bohatství za sovětských časů, přičemž v zemi jsou uloženy lidské kosti i jaderný odpad. Přesto autor nachází v místních lidech neobyčejnou srdečnost a vstřícnost, i když žijí v chudobě. Thubron hledá "podstatu Sibiře", která spočívá v neotřesitelné potřebě ruského lidu věřit a doufat, vznikající z křesťanské víry. Tato kniha, napsaná elegantním jazykem, nabízí hluboký pohled na krásu a utrpení Sibiře, včetně osudů vězňů Gulagu.

'Thubron on top form. Richly detailed, immaculately written and full of insights and encounters that bring a complex corner of the world to life' Michael Palin A dramatic and ambitious new journey for our greatest travel writer 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. In his eightieth year, Colin Thubron takes a dramatic journey from the Amur's secret source to its giant mouth, covering almost 3,000 miles. Harassed by injury and by arrest from the local police, he makes his way along both the Russian and Chinese shores, starting out by Mongolian horse, then hitchhiking, sailing on poacher's sloops or travelling the Trans-Siberian Express. Having revived his Russian and Mandarin, he talks to everyone he meets, from Chinese traders to Russian fishermen, from monks to indigenous peoples. By the time he reaches the river's desolate end, where Russia's nineteenth-century imperial dream petered out, a whole, pivotal world has come alive. The Amur River is a shining masterpiece by the acknowledged laureate of travel writing, an urgent lesson in history and the culmination of an astonishing career.

An acclaimed travel writer and novelist, in his eightieth year, takes a dramatic journey on the little-known Far East Asian river that forms the highly contested border between Russia and China, covering almost 3,000 miles

A journey to the heart of and ancient city.An extract from 'The Lost Heart of Asia'.

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.

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHORDescribed 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.

Having learned Mandarin, and travelling alone by foot, bicycle and train, Colin Thubron sets off on a 10,000 mile journey from Beijing to Tibet, starting from a tropical paradise near the Burmese border to the windswept wastes of the Gobi desert and the far end of the Great Wall. What Thubron reveals is an astonishing diversity, a land whose still unmeasured resources strain to meet an awesome demand, and an ancient people still reeling from the devastation of the Cultural Revolution.

Beautifully packaged reissue of Colin Thubron's classic which bring the whole of his backlist into Vintage, The people, their history and the beauty of an island on the brink of tragedy. This is the account of a unique journey -- a six-hundred-mile trek on foot around Cyprus in the last year of the island's peace. Colin Thubron intertwines myth, history and personal anecdote in a quest from which the characters and places, architecture and landscape all spring vividly to the reader's eye.

Offers an intimate travelogue of the author's trek to Kailas, the holiest mountain in Tibet, in the wake of the death of his mother and the loss of his family.

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