Asia Books

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

Elizabeth Gilbert

Amazon Price: $26.37 List Price: $39.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin Audio Amazon Marketplace: 63 new & used starting at $10.24

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Specific Groups -> Adventurers & Explorers
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Specific Groups -> Women

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1731 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

An Insult to Thinking Women Everywhere 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Sadly, the fact that this book is by a woman mostly aimed at women is embarrassing. This book was planned by the publisher and by the author; it was no true journey of the soul but more like a carefully crafted publicity angled journey.

Gilbert has a problem with the Bible, but easily accepts the doctrines (teachings) of her Guru, the Balinese medicine man, and others, including written Hindu scripture like the Upanishads. The only doctrine Gilbert has any problems with is that which denies that there are many ways to God or teaches that there is only one way to God. This is what she is talking about.

Let us consider where you end up if you think doctrine doesn't matter. It can take you to a place where there are no distinctions between anything because there are no authoritative boundaries between what is good or evil, or what is true or false. Everything is determined subjectively. This is exemplified in the medicine man in Bali, Ketut, who thinks all religions are "same-same," and heaven and hell are ultimately the same, as well. In fact, he says that hell is love. This is even startling for Gilbert, although she believes everyone is divine. So if that is true, and if there is a hell, then it would be full of divine beings as well. No distinction between good and evil means that good and evil don't ultimately matter.

Gilbert gives the idea that everything is spiritual as you long as you "feel" it. This book exalts that which is shallow and self-absorbed, not what is truly spiritual.

Editorial Review:

The celebrated author of The Last American Man creates an irresistible, candid, and eloquent account of her pursuit of worldly pleasure and spiritual devotion.

Unabridged CDs - 13 CDs, 15 hours

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster

Jon Krakauer

Amazon Price: $17.79 List Price: $26.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Villard Books Amazon Marketplace: 569 new & used starting at $0.01

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Specific Groups -> General AAS
Subjects -> Sports -> Biographies -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1492 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top.  No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, in 70-knot winds and blinding snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning, he learned that six of his fellow climbers hadn't made it back to their camp and were desperately struggling for their lives. When the storm finally passed, five of them would be dead, and the sixth so horribly frostbitten that his right hand would have to be amputated.

Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world.  A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.

Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.

Into the Wild is available on audio, read by actor Campbell Scott.

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar

Paul Theroux

Amazon Price: $18.48 List Price: $28.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Houghton Mifflin Amazon Marketplace: 57 new & used starting at $13.75

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Transportation -> Railroads -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Transportation -> Railroads -> General AAS
Subjects -> Travel -> Asia -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Thirty years after the epic journey chronicled in his classic work The Great Railway Bazaar, the world's most acclaimed travel writer re-creates his 25,000-mile journey through eastern Europe, central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, China, Japan, and Siberia.

Half a lifetime ago, Paul Theroux virtually invented the modern travel narrative by recounting his grand tour by train through Asia. In the three decades since, the world he recorded in that book has undergone phenomenal change. The Soviet Union has collapsed and China has risen; India booms while Burma smothers under dictatorship; Vietnam flourishes in the aftermath of the havoc America was unleashing on it the last time Theroux passed through. And no one is better able to capture the texture, sights, smells, and sounds of that changing landscape than Theroux.
Theroux's odyssey takes him from eastern Europe, still hung-over from communism, through tense but thriving Turkey into the Caucasus, where Georgia limps back toward feudalism while its neighbor Azerbaijan revels in oil-fueled capitalism. Theroux is firsthand witness to it all, traveling as the locals do—by stifling train, rattletrap bus, illicit taxi, and mud-caked foot—encountering adventures only he could have: from the literary (sparring with the incisive Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk) to the dissolute (surviving a week-long bender on the Trans-Siberian Railroad). And wherever he goes, his omnivorous curiosity and unerring eye for detail never fail to inspire, enlighten, inform, and entertain.

PAUL THEROUX was born in Medford, Massachusetts, in 1941 and published his first novel, Waldo, in 1967. His fiction includes The Mosquito Coast, My Secret History, My Other Life, Kowloon Tong, Blinding Light, and most recently, The Elephanta Suite. His highly acclaimed travel books include Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, Fresh Air Fiend, and Dark Star Safari. He has been the guest editor of The Best American Travel Writing and is a frequent contributor to various magazines, including The New Yorker. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.

The Places In Between

Rory Stewart

Amazon Price: $11.20 List Price: $14.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harvest Books Amazon Marketplace: 196 new & used starting at $2.25

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Subjects -> History -> Asia -> Afghanistan
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> General
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 154 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Total Disappointment 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This was a truly awful book on Afghanistan. It provided little new information about the country, its people, or its history. The book also was dull and lacked a coherent theme. The best part of the book was the short anecdotes on Babur Shah and the brief descriptions of the Ghorid dynasty, which once ruled parts of central Afghanistan. While I acknowledge that the author took great risk in walking from Herat to Kabul shortly after the fall of the Taliban, I question his motives and am fairly convinced that his self-promoting journey did little to improve the lot of the Afghan people.

Editorial Review:

In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was also adopted by an unexpected companion-a retired fighting mastiff he named Babur in honor of Afghanistan's first Mughal emperor, in whose footsteps the pair was following.

Through these encounters-by turns touching, con-founding, surprising, and funny-Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between.

The long walk (Ulverscroft large print series)

Slavomir Rawicz

By: Ulverscroft Amazon Marketplace: 1 new & used starting at $210.00

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Subjects -> History -> Military -> World War II -> General
Subjects -> History -> Military -> World War II -> General AAS
Subjects -> Travel -> Asia -> Russia -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 296 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Outstanding Read! 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Rawicz's trek is an amazing story, and a great read. His voice comes through so strongly, and authentically that you find ourself with him almost every step of his journey.

A real page turner 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The long walk is one hell of an adventure. It is well written and is difficult to put down once you start to read it. I am sceptical whether it is true. Walking across the Kobi desert with no food or water is a bit difficult to believe. I think a bit more research needs to be done to vouch for the veracity of this story. Whether the book is fact or fiction it is still a very interesting story to read.

Editorial Review:

Twenty-six-year-old cavalry officer Slavomir Rawicz was captured by the Red Army in 1939 during the German-Soviet partition of Poland and sent to the Siberian Gulag. In the spring of 1941, he escaped with six of his fellow prisoners, including one American. Thus began their astonishing trek to freedom.

With no map or compass but only an ax head, a homemade knife, and a week's supply of food, the compatriots spent a year making their way on foot to British India, through four thousand miles of the most forbidding terrain on earth. They braved the Himalayas, the desolate Siberian tundra, icy rivers, and the great Gobi Desert, always a hair's breadth from death. Finally arriving, Rawicz reenlisted in the Polish army to fight the Germans.

Lonely Planet Thailand

China Williams

Amazon Price: $17.81 List Price: $26.99 Not yet published By: Lonely Planet Publications

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Tiny font, too thin paper, biased towards low budget travelers 1 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This is the worst guidebook I've had the misfortune to buy; if I had the time, I would have returned it. Unless you have perfect vision the entire book is printed in a tiny font on very thin paper, making it hard on the eyes. The reviews are incredibly biased, totally slanted towards travelers who want to eat street food, stay in backpacker or budget accommodations... It does not take disabilities, age or food allergies into consideration & assumes, in a rather mean-spirited manner, that if you don't want to stay in a low budget place or eat, very spicy street food, that something is wrong with you. Being a disabled traveler who is unable to stay in low budget accommodations because they aren't accessible, I was stunned by the lack of information on moderately priced hotels (let alone pricey ones). If you want to try the haute cuisine of Bangkok, stay in moderate or upscale hotels, instead of backpacking, buy Fodor's guide, as there's no information here, just judgments on your inability to 'slum it'. TERRIBLE.

Editorial Review:

Discover Thailand

Uncover Bangkok's best street stalls or enjoy a skyscraping gourmet dinner.
Climb aboard a long-tail boat and island hop to your own isolated beach paradise.
Get soaked at Songkran, the Thai celebration that becomes the world's biggest water fight.
Trek off the beaten path in remote Isan to watch a rare solar alignment at an ancient Angkor temple.

In This Guide

Ten authors, 259 days of in-country research and 150 maps.
Trek, dive or monkey-watch with our detailed coverage of national parks and natural wonders.
Visit lonelyplanet.com for up-to-the-minute reviews, updates and traveler suggestions.

Thailand (Country Guide)

China Williams, Aaron Anderson, Brett Atkinson, Tim Bewer, Becca Blond, Virginia Jealous, Lisa Steer

Amazon Price: $17.81 List Price: $26.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Lonely Planet Amazon Marketplace: 59 new & used starting at $16.37

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Subjects -> Travel -> Asia -> Thailand -> General
Subjects -> Travel -> Asia -> Thailand -> General AAS
Subjects -> Travel -> Asia -> Southeast

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Tiny font, too thin paper, biased towards low budget travelers 1 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This is the worst guidebook I've had the misfortune to buy; if I had the time, I would have returned it. Unless you have perfect vision the entire book is printed in a tiny font on very thin paper, making it hard on the eyes. The reviews are incredibly biased, totally slanted towards travelers who want to eat street food, stay in backpacker or budget accommodations... It does not take disabilities, age or food allergies into consideration & assumes, in a rather mean-spirited manner, that if you don't want to stay in a low budget place or eat, very spicy street food, that something is wrong with you. Being a disabled traveler who is unable to stay in low budget accommodations because they aren't accessible, I was stunned by the lack of information on moderately priced hotels (let alone pricey ones). If you want to try the haute cuisine of Bangkok, stay in moderate or upscale hotels, instead of backpacking, buy Fodor's guide, as there's no information here, just judgments on your inability to 'slum it'. TERRIBLE.

Editorial Review:

Discover Thailand

Uncover Bangkok's best street stalls or enjoy a skyscraping gourmet dinner.
Climb aboard a long-tail boat and island hop to your own isolated beach paradise.
Get soaked at Songkran, the Thai celebration that becomes the world's biggest water fight.
Trek off the beaten path in remote Isan to watch a rare solar alignment at an ancient Angkor temple.

In This Guide

Ten authors, 259 days of in-country research and 150 maps.
Trek, dive or monkey-watch with our detailed coverage of national parks and natural wonders.
Visit lonelyplanet.com for up-to-the-minute reviews, updates and traveler suggestions.

The Snow Leopard

Peter Matthiessen

List Price: $16.50 By: Vintage Amazon Marketplace: 22 new & used starting at $3.51

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Subjects -> Reference -> Writing -> Travel
Subjects -> Travel -> Asia -> India -> General
Subjects -> Travel -> Asia -> India -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 68 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

a great travel log with a little zen 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Matthiessen is a talented writer who consistently manages to capture the essence of what he sees. He insists that he is a fiction writer, first and foremost, but the honesty and vibrance of his words in nonfiction are phenomenal. As an "travel log"-type book, this is one of the best. His interactions with the sherpas and his colleague, GS, are human and believable. There are extremely personal moments throughout the book, concerning his first wife and kids and missed opportunities with them, since he spent so much time traveling. A section about a bowl makes me sad even now. The discussion of the animals of the region ( not just the leopard) are very detailed and accurate. Particularly, sections that are devoted to Schaller's attempt to distinguish between goats and sheep. While the leopard, itself, adds a magical quality, a more intriguing creature is the yeti. I became a full-time fan when he spoke of it.
Beyond the actual journey is the constant discussion of Zen. The history and facts he gives are deep, at times. There are many footnotes. It is an excellent resource for Zen students and it's interesting to see how it fits into his life. Zazen in his tent, for instance. Zen isn't something to be learned, but this book and Cave of Tigers are two that every aspiring student of zen should read.
He talks about his wilder days and where he finds himself going at the time (metaphysically speaking, of course.) I picked up this book because I had seen the film At Play in the Fields of the Lord. It is like nothing I have ever read. I still randomly reread passages to experience it again. This is a book that changes how people feel.

Editorial Review:

'In 1973, [Matthiessen] journeyed with George Schaller, a field biologist, to Crystal Mountain in the Himalayas, to study the wild blue sheep of the region called bharal. They also hoped to see the rare snow leopard, an almost mythical creature which Schaller once glimpsed on a previous visit. Matthiessen is a student of Zen Buddhism and for him this was as much an inner journey as a field trip. He succeeds well in blending the spiritual with the earthly and his book is an evocative account of a remote and timeless place and its people' - "Sunday Times".

India (Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit)

Geoff Crowther

List Price: $19.95 By: Lonely Planet Publications Amazon Marketplace: 24 new & used starting at $0.44

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 60 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Buy another book 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I was one of those people who took lonely planet books everywhere, all over Europe, to Iceland, the Philippines, Cuba and now Delhi. I trusted the brand so it was the only book I brought, big mistake.
I'll only speak for Delhi because thats where I spent two weeks. So I hope this specifically helps travelers to Delhi.

The restaurants were pretty much awful, the hotel prices were wrong, the massage treatment place recommended so out of the way that it cost the cost of the massage to get there and back. I was working so I only wasted my weekends following the book. My work lunches were at far better restaurants and a aimless walk in the daytime in Old Delhi was far better than any guided tour. I also didn't appreciate the tone of this book and how much time it wasted on smug reviews and lame humor.
I think the individual country books depend really on the authors/editors, the other lonely planet guides I have were of great help. For India(or Delhi at least), try another title.

Editorial Review:

India promises travel on a grand scale: colorful, exciting, at times exasperating, but never dull. This bestselling and indispensable guide is revered for its practical information on the complexities of travel in India, exquisitely detailed maps, good-value listings for all budgets, and essential advice on Indian culture, solo travel, language, and bargaining color. 200 maps.

China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power

Rob Gifford

Amazon Price: $11.56 List Price: $17.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Trade Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $9.82

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Economic Conditions
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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 62 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Route 312 is the Chinese Route 66. It flows three thousand miles from east to west, passing through the factory towns of the coastal areas, through the rural heart of China, then up into the Gobi Desert, where it merges with the Old Silk Road. The highway witnesses every part of the social and economic revolution that is turning China upside down.

In this utterly surprising and deeply personal book, acclaimed National Public Radio reporter Rob Gifford, a fluent Mandarin speaker, takes the dramatic journey along Route 312 from its start in the boomtown of Shanghai to its end on the border with Kazakhstan. Gifford reveals the rich mosaic of modern Chinese life in all its contradictions, as he poses the crucial questions that all of us are asking about China: Will it really be the next global superpower? Is it as solid and as powerful as it looks from the outside? And who are the ordinary Chinese people, to whom the twenty-first century is supposed to belong?

Gifford is not alone on his journey. The largest migration in human history is taking place along highways such as Route 312, as tens of millions of people leave their homes in search of work. He sees signs of the booming urban economy everywhere, but he also uncovers many of the country’s frailties, and some of the deep-seated problems that could derail China’s rise.

The whole compelling adventure is told through the cast of colorful characters Gifford meets: garrulous talk-show hosts and ambitious yuppies, impoverished peasants and tragic prostitutes, cell-phone salesmen, AIDS patients, and Tibetan monks. He rides with members of a Shanghai jeep club, hitchhikes across the Gobi desert, and sings karaoke with migrant workers at truck stops along the way.

As he recounts his travels along Route 312, Rob Gifford gives a face to what has historically, for Westerners, been a faceless country and breathes life into a nation that is so often reduced to economic statistics. Finally, he sounds a warning that all is not well in the Chinese heartlands, that serious problems lie ahead, and that the future of the West has become inextricably linked with the fate of 1.3 billion Chinese people.

“Informative, delightful, and powerfully moving . . . Rob Gifford’s acute powers of observation, his sense of humor and adventure, and his determination to explore the wrenching dilemmas of China’s explosive development open readers’ eyes and reward their minds.”
–Robert A. Kapp, president, U.S.-China Business Council, 1994-2004


From the Hardcover edition.