Книги, похожие на «Susan Loomis, On Rue Tatin: The Simple Pleasures of Life in a Small French Town»

My eyes lifted to the horizon and the unmistakable snowy outline of Everest.Everest, the mountain of my childhood dreams. A mountain that has haunted me my whole life. A mountain I have seen hundreds of times in photographs and films but never in real life.In April 2018, seasoned adventurer Ben Fogle and Olympic cycling gold medallist Victoria Pendleton, along with mountaineer Kenton Cool, took on their most exhausting challenge yet – climbing Everest for the British Red Cross to highlight the environmental challenges mountains face. It would be harrowing and exhilarating in equal measure as they walked the fine line between life and death 8,000 metres above sea level.For Ben, the seven-week expedition into the death zone was to become the adventure of a lifetime, as well as a humbling and enlightening journey. For his wife Marina, holding the family together at home, it was an agonising wait for news. Together, they dedicated the experience to their son, Willem Fogle, stillborn at eight months.Cradling little Willem to say goodbye, Ben and Marina made a promise to live brightly. To embrace every day. To always smile. To be positive and to inspire. And from the depths of their grief and dedication, Ben’s Everest dream was born.Up, from here the only way was Up.Part memoir, part thrilling adventure, Ben and Marina’s account of his ascent to the roof of the world is told with their signature humour and warmth, as well as with profound compassion.

Agatha Christie’s personal memoirs about her travels to Syria and Iraq in the 1930s with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan, where she worked on the digs and wrote some of her most evocative novels.Think you know Agatha Christie? Think again!To the world she was Agatha Christie, legendary author of bestselling whodunits. But in the 1930s she wore a different hat, travelling with her husband, renowned archaeologist Max Mallowan, as he investigated the buried ruins and ancient wonders of Syria and Iraq. When friends asked what this strange ‘other life’ was like, she decided to answer their questions by writing down her adventures in this eye-opening book.Described by the author as a ‘meandering chronicle of life on an archaeological dig’, Come, Tell Me How You Live is Agatha Christie's very personal memoir of her time spent in this breathtaking corner of the globe, living among the working men in tents in the desert where recorded human history began. Acclaimed as ‘a pure pleasure to read’, it is an altogether remarkable and increasingly poignant narrative, a fascinating, vibrant and vivid portrait of everyday life in a world now long since vanished.

This book is a lush and beautiful memoir of a very special house and a superb recreation of a bygone era.In 1967, veteran travel writer Eric Newby and his heroic wife Wanda fulfiled their dream of a return to life in the Italian hills where they first met during World War II. But this fulfilment would not come easy. The dream materialised in the form of I Castagni ('The Chestnuts'), a small, decrepit farmhouse with no roof, an abandoned septic tank and its own indigenous wildlife reluctant to give up their home. But in the foothills of the Apuan Alps on the border of Liguria and Northern Tuscany, this ramshackle house would soon become a hub of love, friendship and activity.Whether recounting dangerous expeditions through Afghanistan or everyday life in a country house, Newby's talent shines through as one of the foremost writers of the comic travel genre. Full of Newby's sharp wit and good humour, ‘A Small Place’ in Italy returns, twenty years later, to the life of Newby's much-cherished classic, Love and War in the Apennines. It lovingly recounts the quickly disappearing lifestyle of the idiosyncratic locals, and the enduring friendships they forge, whether sharing in growing their first wine harvest as novices or frying poisonous mushrooms for a feast.

'You've had some pretty crazy ideas in your life, Newby, but this is the craziest.' Grandmother Wanda Newby was exasperated after continuous rain, snow, and gales that knocked from her bike. Twice.To avoid other tourists, Eric Newby had decided that the depths of winter would be the very best time to explore Ireland by mountain bike. More astonishing still, he managed to persuade Wanda, his long-suffering wife and life-long co-traveller, to accompany him – mainly, she admitted, to 'keep him out of trouble'. Lashed by winter storms, fuelled by Guinness and warmed by thermal underwear, their panniers laden with antique books on Ireland, the elderly adventurers cycle the highways and byways, encountering hospitable locals, swaying saints and ferocious dogs.From the shores of Donegal to the holy mountains, Newby guides the reader on a tale of mishap and magic, all in his own peculiar style of humour and charm, relishing his never-ending curiosity of the world and his insatiable quest for adventure.

A deliciously different travelogueIn 2005, Cathy and Jason threw in successful careers as TV presenters and producers to become olive farmers in Italy. With their one year old daughter and Italian dictionary in tow, they found themselves in the middle of a European nowhere untouched by modernity. They were on a steep learning curve in more-or-less everything – finding out how to prune an olive tree so that a sparrow can pass through its branches, learning what beauty products are de rigeur in the changing rooms of a local Italian football team, being trained, by a local Italian choir, how to sing in English but with an Italian accent – and learning the rigorous rules of when one is allowed to consume a cappuccino. Armed with their indefatigable love of food, they headed off many a potentially tricky situation by cooking their way out of it, a sure route to the heart of any Italian.They discover that olive farming is dominated by the big boys and desperate to turn their new home into a way of making a living they cast around for ideas of how they can do so. A flash of inspiration led them to launch an 'Adopt-an-Olive-Tree' scheme. For a fee buyers could adopt a tree, receive produce from it and even go and visit it to give it a hug. The scheme became hugely popular with trees selling out way ahead of expectations. A contract with Selfridges followed and suddenly Cathy and Jason's dream is realised. Or nearly anyway. It's a hard slog and they meet every challenge with fortitude and humour but what they hadn't expected was that the biggest challenge would be the quiet of the countryside. Soon they find themselves hankering for the sounds and stench of the city and facing a difficult decision on what they should do next.