Travelogue Books

Now in an updated second edition, Sacred Places Around the World: 108 Destinations is a wondrous compilation of one hundred and eight locations that have helped shape the spiritual foundation of humanity. From the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx, to the Silk Road in China, the Himalayas in Bhutan, Temples of Angkor in Cambodia, Easter Island in Chile, Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, Knossos in Greece and much more, each location features a brief yet vivid description and history, as well as recommendations for getting there. Black-and-white and a handful of color illustrations embellish this emotionally moving guide, ideal for spiritual seekers choosing a pilgrimage and armchair travelers alike.

May want to be careful what year you order; 2000 edition, published by the Consortium of Consciousness in San Francisco, is illustrated with drawings only, so this is a caveat if the photos are important to you.

That book is a very decent but not incredibly detailed guide to the main sacred sites of the world. A fine introduction to these places of serenity, mysticism, and inexplicable vibes. Author does not get preachy or weird. Some areas full of how-to-get-there details (Sedona's vortices, eg) but some areas give only general info (Indonesia's Borobudur).

If you want a tour guide style book on sacred places around the world you can't go wrong with "Sacred Places Around the World". Brad Olsen covers sacred places in Africa, the Middle East, Far East, India, Southeast Asia, Australia, Pacific Islands, South America, Central America, North America, and Europe. For each place he discusses history, local traditions, and how to get there. From cave paintings to medicine wheels to cathedrals the destinations run the full gamut of sacred places around the world. He even includes a listing of some tour outfitters who trek to the sacred places mentioned in the book. The ultimate tour book to sacred places, "Sacred Places Around the World" is a recommended read.

La Boatique is a wonderful intimate view of the dream of many weekend sailors -- to make an ocean voyage, visiting all the islands of the Pacific. She tells which anchorages are best, how they fished for dinner during a 23 day passage between islands in the Pacific. They have medical emergencies, boat problems, etc., but as part of the sailing community, they are in touch with other "yachties" making similar passages, and they all help each other. Great story!

I enjoyed reading about the adventures at the exotic tropical islands far off the beaten path.

As a mother of two with a fixer-upper house, my husband and I stay on dry land and do not take risky vacations. Ms. Wagner's book is great in that she shares the stage for being on an exotic get-a-way far from the comforts of home. Sometimes while doing dishes I look out the window and see the ocean - but fortunately for me - I have yet to get sea sick!

I have enjoyed very much reading this book. That's why I award it with 5 stars, it is amongst my favourite books of mountaneering, with Lionel's Terray Conquerers of the useless.

Although it has some chapters with technical details about glaciers, railway tracks and so on, it is amazing to be involved in the gold age of alpinism.

Since I first read this little classic, Edward Whymper's book on scrambling in the Alps has always been my favorite mountaineering book. Something about his style of writing makes one feel they have not only read a delightful tale, they have actually incorporated it into their own memory. His pencil etchings are so evocative, you can almost smell the brisk air of Zermatt and feel the weathered texture of the Swiss dwelling. You can once again experience the thoughts of trepidation and anticipation which accompany a good outing in the mountains. This is Victorian mountain writing at its very best, in an age before high technology and polarfleece added safety and comfort but put some palpable distance between you and the experience and blunted the directness of your perceptions and observations. I've spent many of my own happy hours scrambling in the Alps, but somehow Whymper makes it seem like I'm doing it anew. Sure, it's always interesting to read of the difficulties of Everest or the tales of hardship on Half Dome, but Whymper was among the first, and high technology and modern photography have not allowed us to better put you into the heart of the experience.

A wonderful story of non-technical climbing from the 19th century. Inspiring.

Second Age: A Recall of Things Gone By and a Bit of Now is the true-life memoir of Carl A. Franson, from growing up on the upper Mississippi to the hard times of the Great Depression, his life in a houseboat, his travels across America and to the exotic lands of the Orient, and much more. A handful of black-and-white photographs illustrate this thoughtful reminiscence of a time in life meant for learning, testing, growing, and discovering adventure, after childhood but before the age of devoting oneself to raising a family and serving the community. A vivid and immersive glimpse into and tribute into the challenges and wonders of days long since gone by.

Delightful 1st person account of a young man's adventures floating down the Mississippi in the 1920s. A good read - well worth one's time!
Don and Marilyn Graham

So nice to enjoy an easy-to-read book that's about real life -- no pretensions. You're taken away into a simpler place and time as the author relates experiences he had when he was a young man, for instance traveling with a friend part way down the Mississippi, adventures they had, having to make do, and more. Felt like I was there with them.

Reading Semi True is almost as good as taking your own relaxed, spontaneous road trip --better, really, because Ringsak stops at more unlikely places, discovers more remarkable people and elicits their stories better than anyone. I raced through the book too fast; I was enjoying it too much to slow down and when I finished I wanted nothing more than to randomly select a road to anywhere and take it.

Twelve years of hauling stage equipment for public radio's Prairie Home Companion show led hauler/author Ross Ringsak to become privy to some amazing stories gleaned from truck stops, blues bars and more. Fans of Prairie Home Companion will be the likely audience for his social survey of factual tales encountered during the course of truck driving. Semi True: Seasons On The Road With A Prairie Home Companion's Resident Writer And Truck Driver a lively first-person account of close encounters of the folk kind.

You could take a video tour or even a driving tour of this country and miss most of what the author sees, hears and tastes. Avoiding the common roads, eateries, entertainment and attitudes most of us travelers fall prey to out of habit and convenience, he seeks out the unique. Rather than avoiding conversation with strangers he engages them until they come forward with stories and secrets. And there are some great stories here.
I have been awed and impressed in my travels to places that have left an indellible impression, but I have missed the details, the subtle shifts in the landscape and the weather and the people, that this author perceives and writes about so naturally.
This is a truck driver with suprising sensitivity to his surroundings. These stories will make you wish you could ride shotgun and get the personal tour. If this book doesn't make you yearn to travel to places you've never experienced, or even to familiar places with new eyes, nothing will.
In the end though, the ultimate feeling he leaves with the reader is the warmth at the end of the journey... arriving home, even if means being greeted by a bitter Minnesota blizzard.
If you are a fan of books by authors like Studs Terkel, who make the common man interesting and even heroic, you will like this book.

One of my book club friends loaned me this book and it is a marvel! What an amazing man! His descriptions are seductive and his enthusiasm is infectious. I recommend this book to everyone who loves adventure and is interested in history - obviously these are his tales from his perspective but then what history book isn't in the end. It is just so much fun to read! (You don't have to be young boy - I'm an older woman)

I read this book when I was about 10 or 11, but it is most suitable for boys 12-14 who are decent readers. It is full of non-stop dering-do and accurately describes the author's real life adventures. I highly recommend it!

Richard Halliburton belongs to a lost generation of adventurer/writers. His books enthralled me sixty years ago and still he does not disappoint. Today it would be politically and geographically impossible to follow in all his footsteps which makes this book (and his others) a modern-day adventure.

This is a great book about a people who have been overlooked by modern society, CC is an exceptional writer who applies her passion and experience as a world traveller.

St. Paul island, one of the remote Pribilof Islands far off the coast of mainland Alaska, is just 14 miles long and eight miles wide. For over a decade, the author worked, lived on, and came to love this place, its fierce weather, its wildlife, and its people. Her spare, imagistic prose illuminates the darkness and beauty of the subarctic landscape.

Alaska's Pribilof Islands are incredibly beautiful and surreal. Seven Words for the Wind captures a piece of that beauty through a series of essays and field notes. Having lived in the Pribilofs for four years I was most impressed by the thoughtful nature of this book as well as the insights provided by the author. I would highly suggest this book for anyone intending to visit the islands, see the seal or bird rookeries or just interested in learning about a different culture.

That's my mom!!!I'm so glad she got to write this book, and got to enjoy the world travels that she has done, and the others that she will be doing. She is a great mentor to me. She raised me and my sister the best she could, we got to travel alot, going to motorcycle races, etc. I hope everyone reads this book, it is really great, and proves that dreams can become reality.

This book was very inspiring, a single woman, who raised 2 daughters on her own, and still had time to fulfil her dreams (without a man, no doubt). To race motorcycles, you go girl!!! I am really looking forward to your next book, keep on writing, and keep your dreams alive.

This book is great. How a young single woman with 2 daughters, who did everything she always wanted in her life,(without a man, no doubt) I truly admire her in her accomplishments, and to race motorcycles, you go girl! Keep on writing, looking forward to your next book.......

I came across this book as recommendation by the Curator of Turkish and Persian Manuscripts in the British Library and told me something about the authors background, at the time I was only able to find a copy online and unable to read it therefore was ecstatics to have found a hardback copy.

I am not good for words but it comes highly recommended by myself who is an afghan and found it hard to find reliable information about the country and its people which is mostly drawn on through ideological lines. This is a story of one person who goes literally at times endangering his own life, with a open heart and the process witness the dawn of the militant Islam in Afghanistan and the marginalization of spirituality and the high open-minded Muslim culture which once dominated the region and why. Valor, courage, integrity, honesty, hardworking, keeping once word, run deep through out the story. Robert so shows its importance in age self interested. the it is serious and funny at times which makes a good travelogue to keep the reader glued on to the book.

What I come to realize and I hope everyone that does read it will to, is Robert seized on to life, those opportunities that presented him no matter how much risky or impossible they looked and so he won at the end. At one point it reminded me of Davidson, in 'Only Fools and Horses' a British comedy in which his favorite catchphrase is 'he who dares wins' but in different light. I have not done much a service to his book by writing this for 'his a remarkable man' as the curator told me.

Disclaimer. I know author. I'm giving this book a good rating, not because he is a friend, but because it is actually a fascinating story. It is an adventure, a spiritual journey, and astute political observation rolled into one easy to read travelogue.

Robert helped distribute supplies for the UN in Afghanistan during the soviet war in the late 80's. I knew him for many years without knowing this side to him. His book chronicles his time there and shows how the seeds of militant Islam were sown during this time. This isn't a guy who drove around in a white land-rover with a blue helmet. He spoke the language, blended with the locals, and herded bags of money across mountains on donkeys avoiding mujahadeen and feuding warlords.

I most enjoyed the adventure, but Robert also tells of his spiritual journey, and how he came to understand Islam and ultimately convert. He is a poet and connects with the graceful face of Islam. He makes no apologies for the corruption being done in it's name.

I'm not religious, but this book opened my eyes on Afghanistan, Islam, and a fascinating character who has taught me a lot.

Review by Leonard Lewisohn
"Do any books on contemporary Sufism in Afghanistan exist? In any European language at least, this is the first one to my knowledge.

Robert Darr's The Spy of the Heart chronicles his years of travels, many adventures, imprisonment among Afghan warlords and tribes-people during the Soviet occupation just before the rise of the Taliban. This fascinating autobiographical travelogue, which presents a more positive view of Islam than currently represented in the Western press or by the more literalist exponents of Islam, details the author's spiritual search that led him ultimately to convert to Islam, but not without asking many questions about the purpose and problems inherent in adopting any religion. Between 1985 and 1990, Darr, an American, was in and out of Afghanistan working with aid organizations delivering medicines and humanitarian aid to those affected by the war with the Soviet Union. He had already been a student of Islamic culture for more than a decade, with a particular interest in Sufism. During these years in Afghanistan Darr became fluent in Persian and immersed himself deeply in the Afghan culture, going completely native in a way that few Westerners ever have--the priceless photos of Darr in Afghan turban and shalvar that illustrate the book recall Edward Browne in A Year among the Persians (1893) decked out in dervish regalia.

Not an historical survey of Sufi orders like Trimingham's The Sufi Orders of Islam (1971), nor monograph on a particular Sufi order like Pourjavady's and Wilson's Kings of Love (1978), nor research anthropological fieldwork like Valerie Hoffman's Sufism, Mystics and Saints in Modern Egypt (1995), Robert Darr's The Spy of the Heart yet represents a unique account of experiential Sufism lived and practiced in war-torn Afghanistan during the 1980s--the kind of living esoteric Islam promised but never delivered in Idries Shah's works or in Gurdjieff's Meetings with Remarkable Men. Darr's account of Sufism offers no extravagant fabula with dramatic effect and novelesque style--certainly no attempt to hoodwink the naïve student with Blavatskyian tall-tales of secret masters in hidden monasteries, or treasure maps of lost civilizations concealed in dilapidated houses, a la Gurdjieff et Shah.

The Spy of the Heart is a simply told, but an intensely gripping story of study and later initiation into Sufism vis-à-vis the author's association with the greatest modern Afghan poet Khalilullah Khalili and the miniaturist painter Homayon Etemadi and encounters with Sufis of the Naqshbandi Order in northern Afghanistan. Although casual and non-academic, Robert Darr's narrative yet manages to explore many themes of interest in the study of Islamic spirituality and history, militant Islam, the role of ethnicity in socio-cultural relations, current affairs, and international relations, making it a good text for undergraduate students seeking an understanding of contemporary Islamic spirituality of the Persianate variety, as well as students of modern Afghan history and politics."

Really enjoyed this. Surprised it hasn't done better

As an astrologer myself I found this an excellent book for telling one about the history of astrology and how it originated in India. There are an incredible number of different types of predicition written about here, and it all makes run of the mill Western astrology look mighty tame.

A very enjoyable read this. Holt interviews endless different kinds of experts in prediction, as well as asking about his own future. The Rajastani shadow reader is fascinating, as is the author's account of the Asta Mangela, a South Indian astrological ceremony to discover what is going wrong with a family or a temple. Highly recommended.