Туризм. Путешествия. Путеводители (страница 9)

From renowned writer Paul Theroux comes a dazzling novel following a big-wave surfer in Hawaii as he confronts ageing, privilege, mortality, and whose lives we choose to remember

'It was as if in surfing he was carving his name in water, invisibly, joyously.'

Joe Sharkey knows he is passed his prime.

Now in his sixties, the younger surfers around the breaks on the north shore of Oahu still revere him as the once-legendary 'Shark', but his sponsors have moved on, and Joe wonders what new future awaits him on the horizon. Uninterrupted quality time with the ocean, he hopes.

Life has other plans.

When he accidentally hits and kills a man near Waimea while drunk-driving, he fears he will never rebound. Under the direction of his stubbornly loyal girlfriend Olive, he throws himself into uncovering his victim's story. But what they find in Max Mulgrave is entirely unexpected: a shared history - and refuge in the sea.

Set on the stunning Hawaiian coast, Theroux captures the glory and nostalgia of looking back at a rich and adventurous past, whilst learning to ride out life's next unexpected wave.

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The third book from the most gifted young travel writer at work today, author of the best-selling In Xanadu ( one of the best travel books produced in the last twenty years Scotland on Sunday) and City of Djinns ( the best travel book I have ever read George Mackay Brown).
In the spring of 587 AD, two monks set off on an extraordinary journey that would take them in an arc across the entire Byzantine world, from the shores of the Bosphorus to the sand dunes of Egypt. On the way John Moschos and his pupil Sophronius the Sophist stayed in caves, monasteries and remote hermitages, collecting the wisdom of the stylites and the desert fathers before their world shattered under the great eruption of Islam. More than a thousand years later, using Moschos s writings as his guide, William Dalrymple set off to retrace their footsteps.
Despite centuries of isolation, a surprising number of the monasteries and churches visited by the two monks still survive today, surrounded by often hostile populations. Dalrymple s pilgrimage took him through a bloody civil war in eastern Turkey, the ruins of Beirut, the vicious tensions of the West Bank and a fundamentalist uprising in southern Egypt. His book is an elegy to the slowly dying civilisation of Eastern Christianity and the peoples that have kept its flame alive. It is a rich and gripping blend of history and spirituality, adventure and politics, laced with a thread of black comedy familiar to readers of Dalrymple s previous work.

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Just 70 years ago, the Gulf nation of Qatar was a backwater, reliant on pearl diving. Today it is a gas-laden parvenu with seemingly limitless wealth and ambition. Skyscrapers, museums and futuristic football stadiums rise out of the desert and Ferraris race through the streets. But in the shadows, migrant workers toil in the heat for risible amounts.

Inside Qatar reveals how real people live in this surreal place, a land of both great opportunity and great iniquity. Ahead of Qatar's time in the limelight as host of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, anthropologist John McManus lifts a lid on the hidden worlds of its gilded princes, manual labourers and domestic workers, its teachers and policemen, culture vultures and thrill seekers.

This is the real Qatar in all its extremes - crushingly unequal and not just a little outrageous, but also diverse, riotous, pulsing with innovation and life.

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One millennial, six coach trips, one big generation gap.

When Ben Aitken learnt that his gran had enjoyed a four-night holiday including four three-course dinners, four cooked breakfasts, four games of bingo, a pair of excursions, sixteen pints of lager and luxury return coach travel, all for a hundred pounds, he thought, that's the life, and signed himself up. Six times over.

Good value aside, what Ben was really after was the company of his elders - those with more chapters under their belt, with the wisdom granted by experience, the candour gifted by time, and the hard-earned ability to live each day like it's nearly their last.

A series of coach holidays ensued - from Scarborough to St Ives, Killarney to Lake Como - during which Ben attempts to shake off his thirty-something blues by getting old as soon as possible.

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Ghost towns, empty streets, crumbling ruins and lost empires this book reveals these and other deserted places. Many places featured were once populated and now sit unoccupied, modern day ruins, sitting in decay.

Stories, facts and photographs of 60 beautiful and eerie abandoned places from throughout the world. Time has stopped and nature is taking resident in these places mainly due to natural disasters, war or economic reasons.

Places include:

Severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina, Six Flags Jazzland has been abandoned since. Several of the rides still stand, a testimony to the resilience of New Orleans.
Shicheng in China has been under water for 53 years since the Xin'an River Hydro Plant flooded the area. The city was founded 1, 300 years ago.
Chernobyl was totally abandoned after the nearby nuclear disaster in 1986. Due to radiation, it has been left untouched ever since the incident and will be for many thousands of years into the future. Nature now rules the city in what resembles an apocalyptic movie.
Poveglia is an island in the Venetian Lagoon which under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte became a dumping ground for plague victims and later an asylum for the mentally ill.
Plymouth was the capital of the island of Montserrat. The town was overwhelmed by volcanic eruptions starting in 1995 and was abandoned.
St Kilda a remote Scottish Island may have been permanently inhabited for at least two millennia, the population probably never exceeding 180. The entire population was evacuated in 1930.

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