Related Items: Search

Average Rating:

.Venice

by: Jan Morris

October 07, 2004
I decided to read "Venice" in preparation for a week-long stay in the Italian city.

Broken into three sections -- The People, The City, The Lagoon -- "Venice" is not a chronological history of the city but a meandering look at its past, present and future. Nor is it a guidebook, although it does contain a mine of information about what to see and where to go.

I think "The Times" probably described it best when they said it was "a classic love letter to Italy's most iconic city", because it is, indeed, a beautiful missive dripping with exquisite descriptions. I found it an enormously engaging and evocative read by an accomplished writer who really knows how to string a simile or two together.For example: "Venice is ... Read More:
>>See More Reviews & Details on Venice

Used Price: £3.32

Average Rating:

.A Writer's World: Travels 1950-2000

by: Jan Morris

October 07, 2004
Jan (formerly James) Morris is a writer mainly about places. This is a book that takes selections of her writings from the five decades from the 1950s to the 1990s. Although it's a book mainly about places there is also some reportage from a long, exciting and courageous life. The first selection is from her book Coronation Everest and provides some details of her adventures with Sir James Hunt's Everest expedition in 1953 when Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tenzig Norkay became the first people to successfully climb the summit. This is seen as an imperial adventure and it is apt that the final extract is about the effective end of an empire with a piece about the British handover of Hong Kong to the Chinese government in 1997. The book contains little ... Read More:
>>See More Reviews & Details on A Writer's World: Travels 1950-2000

Used Price: £3.00

Average Rating:

.Europe

by: Jan Morris

August 17, 2006
Jan Morris paints a very interesting view. Drawing on visits during many decades she succesfully conveys the images and feelings of places all over the continent. As is many times the case in such cases, one should not expect this picture to be impartial. Rather personal feelings, the mood of the day, her heritage and most importantly the time she spent in each place (like Trieste) dictates the positive or negative tones she uses to portray each stop of her long journey. Depending on this places are seen either through a romantic prism (where nothing is negative) or throught the harsh lens of a distorting every-day routine.
This is not an account of someone with an open mind, but a graphic portayal of personal experiences through a long journey round ... Read More:
>>See More Reviews & Details on Europe

Used Price: £0.01

Average Rating:

.Pax Britannica: The Climax of an Empire (Pax Britannica)

by: Jan Morris

February 03, 2003
This, together with the other 2 books in this trilogy by Morris remain among my favourite books. The rich storytelling, the attention to detail and the many amusing footnotes to the history of the British Empire are fascinating. I have been to many of the places Morris describes, and he brings them to life, even now.
>>See More Reviews & Details on Pax Britannica: The Climax of an Empire (Pax Britannica)

Used Price: £5.00

Average Rating:

.Conundrum

by: Jan Morris

April 08, 2002
Transsexual biographies are a mixed bunch. Jan Morris's Conundrum is one of the few by a really good writer. Much of what she said resonated with my own experience of gender dysphoria and reading her book helped me through my own sex change.
>>See More Reviews & Details on Conundrum

Used Price: £1.30

Average Rating:

.Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress (Pax Britannica)

by: Jan Morris

February 03, 2003
The great thing about Jan Morris is that she brings so many different qualities to her books. Nostalgia, humour, insight, and wonderful storytelling, all of which are present in abundance in this marvelous account of the Genesis of that most remarkable of Empires. It was an Empire that was cruel, repressive, civilising, gracious and compassionate depending on which subject of the Crown was dispensing the rules to the natives. Being a native of one of the former colonies (Ireland) I am all too familiar with the negative aspects of the Empire. Our famine is at once an epic tragedy and also an indictment of the British Empires lack of compassion. On the other hand when you read this book you cannot but admire the great energy and sacrifice of so many loyal British ... Read More:
>>See More Reviews & Details on Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress (Pax Britannica)

Used Price: £1.63

Average Rating:

.Farewell the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat (Pax Britannica)

by: Jan Morris

February 03, 2003
This trilogy of history made interesting and amusing with wonderfull odd letters and accounts poems and songs makes this the bast history read ever.I now understand so much more of my country and why things happened excellent.
>>See More Reviews & Details on Farewell the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat (Pax Britannica)

Used Price: £4.50

Average Rating:

.The Venetian Empire: A Sea Voyage

by: Jan Morris

January 04, 1990
This trilogy of history made interesting and amusing with wonderfull odd letters and accounts poems and songs makes this the bast history read ever.I now understand so much more of my country and why things happened excellent.
>>See More Reviews & Details on The Venetian Empire: A Sea Voyage

Used Price: £0.33

Average Rating:

.Hav

by: Jan Morris

June 07, 2007
This trilogy of history made interesting and amusing with wonderfull odd letters and accounts poems and songs makes this the bast history read ever.I now understand so much more of my country and why things happened excellent.
>>See More Reviews & Details on Hav

Used Price: £0.01

Average Rating:

.Shadow of the Silk Road

by: Colin Thubron

October 04, 2007
The London based author, Colin Thubron, travelled through China, Central Asia, northern Afghanistan, Western Asia, and reached the capital of Silk Road, Antakya (Anoioch) in 8 months. He travelled with donkey, camels, third-class trains, buses, and jeep.

He describes an abundance of fascinating accounts in relation to those countries' history, politics, commerce, industry, and the history of the Silk Road. Having visited many relatively unknown parts of these countries and discovered a series of the factual events, he conveys a number of untold stories of kings, aristocrats, and landowners. The descriptions include the dramatic change of Xian between the beginning of the 1980s and 2000, a number of half-constructed or largely decayed villages, displaced ... Read More:
>>See More Reviews & Details on Shadow of the Silk Road

Used Price: £3.58