Synopses & Reviews
"Theroux is at his best when he tells [peoples] stories, happy and sad . . . Therouxs great mission had always been to transport us beyond that reading chair, to challenge himself—and thus, to challenge us." —
Boston GlobeA decade ago, Paul Therouxs best-selling Dark Star Safari chronicled his epic overland voyage from Cairo to Cape Town, providing an insiders look at modern Africa. Now, with The Last Train to Zona Verde, he returns to discover how both he and Africa have changed in the ensuing years.
Traveling alone, Theroux sets out from Cape Town, going north through South Africa, Namibia, then into Angola, encountering a world increasingly removed from tourists itineraries and the hopes of postcolonial independence movements. After covering nearly 2,500 arduous miles, he cuts short his journey, a decision he chronicles with unsparing honesty in a chapter titled “What Am I Doing Here?” Vivid, witty, and beautifully evocative, The Last Train to Zona Verde is a fitting final African adventure from the writer whose gimlet eye and effortless prose have brought the world to generations of readers.
"Everything is under scrutiny in Paul Therouxs latest travel book—not just the people, landscapes and sociopolitical realities of the countries he visits, but his own motivations for going where he goes . . . His readers can only be grateful." — Seattle Times
“If this book is proof, age has not slowed Theroux or encouraged him to rest on his achievements . . . Gutsy, alert to Africa's struggles, its injustices and history.” — San Francisco Chronicle
Review
UK PRAISE FOR THE PLACES IN BETWEEN
"[Stewart's] encounters with Afghans are tragic, touching and terrifying; they all have the ring of unembellished authenticity . . . A mature debut, and an intelligent and illuminating introduction to this fascinating, unfortunate country."
-THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Review
"A splendid tale that is by turns wryly humorous, intensely observant, and humanely unsentimental."
Review
"Stupendous...an instant travel classic."
Review
"Remarkable...Gripping account of a courageous journey, observed with a scholar's eye and a humanitarian's heart."
Review
"Engaging and eminently readable...A masterly job."
Review
"Sets a new standard for cool nerve and hot determination...Sublimely written."
Review
"A flat-out masterpiece...In very nearly every sense, too good to be true."
Review
"Stunning...Contribute[s] greatly not only to our reading pleasure, but to our understanding of Afghanistan."
Review
"Engaging and at times brilliant...he goes places where the rest of us might fear to paddle, often beaching his kayak on a small South Pacific island without the foggiest idea whether those awaiting him will be friendly, indifferent, or anxious to give him a good thwack...well worth reading." USA Today
"A superb blend of sharp-eyed observation and pungently expressed opinion. It's hardly paradise, this lovely part of the world, but Theroux makes it endlessly fascinating." Newsday
"Feisty, eloquent, and vast in scope...a multilayered odyssey." The San Francisco Chronicle
"Perceptive, terribly readable, and wickedly funny...[An] exhilarating book." --Book Review The Los Angeles Times
Review
"Spectacular . . . as much an emotional journey as a physical pilgrimage." — Christian Science Monitor "With the world on a fast train to the godforsaken, Theroux counsels you to take the local — with its longueurs, aromas, riddles, and many stations." — San Francisco Chronicle "Engaging and brilliant . . . can only add to his stature as one of our most original and agile writers." — Minneapolis Star Tribune "An elegy for an epic writing career and a diminishing world . . . few writers can so precisely capture the strange qualities of travel." — Outside "In Ghost Train to the Eastern Star Theroux retraces the path he took 33 years earlier, assessing with his sharp eye and astringent pen what has changed and what has remained the same in the people and cultures he first encountered in his early 30s." — Chicago Tribune "Theroux takes us not to mere places, but to regions in the mind that we likely havent known before." — Rocky Mountain News "Theroux puts the brakes on his relentless momentum long enough to deliver some of his strongest writing and rewarding commentary on his beloved India . . . His prose explodes with texture, depth, and wisdom." — Boston Globe "Traveling 28,000 miles with Paul Theroux is a lot like traveling the world with a long-lost friend." — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "Brilliant. No one writes with Theroux's head-on intensity and raptness, and his descriptions made me want to jump on the next plane to Istanbul (and also, of course, to many of the other places he evokes). I particularly loved the spectral motif, the ghosts and shadows and underground presences that flit through the narrative, giving the whole a half-seen and haunting dimension that no book of travels I've ever read conjures up." — Pico Iyer "Much of his writing reflects affection for the people in whose midst he is apt to find himself, and a spirit of inquiry that is part anthropological and part autobiographical." — Wall Street Journal "Theroux is the ultimate globetrotter, finding something of value wherever he roams." — The Atlantic "Brightly rendered and endlessly informative, it serves up one sharp, insightful anecdote or historical tidbit after another . . . Theroux's fresh phrasing is a treat whether he's evoking the desolation of rural Turkmenistan, the heat of Jodhpur or a massage in Bangkok." — Seattle Times "Mature and thoroughly engrossing . . . We are the authors companions rather than the audience for his tales." — Los Angeles Times "Theroux fans are likely to enjoy every episode of this latest adventure." — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Here's a toast to a career-capping classic from a travel writing mentor and master." —National Geographic Traveler
Review
Engagingly written, sharply observed; another winner from Theroux.
Kirkus Reviews, Starred
His encounters with the natives, aid workers and occasional tourists make for rollicking entertainment, even as they offer a sobering look at the social and political chaos in which much of Africa finds itself.
Publishers Weekly
No mere tale of travel mishaps....Safari is Swahili for journey, and Theroux's is truly fantastic. Library Journal Starred
Few recent books provide such a litany of Africa's ills, even as they make one fall in love with the continent.
The Washington Post
Theroux, one suspects, could be a headache to travel with; resourceful, courageous and indefatigable, as well as crusty, opinionated and contradictory. But listening to him recount his adventures... is another matter. He can make you forget to eat, this man.
The San Francisco Chronicle
Reading Theroux may make you cancel your plane tickets and settle in at home instead for a great read. The sometime novelist is at his most masterful with DARK STAR SAFARI. (A) Entertainment Weekly
Armchair travelers will wish the book went on twice as long -- and that is something, considering that the book runs more than 400 pages. This is a masterwork by a master writer.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Paul Theroux. Travel. Africa. You need a better reason to read?
The San Diego Union-Tribune
The next best thing to going to Africa is to read (compulsively) this account by Paul Theroux of his overland expedition from Cairo to Capetown.
Boston Herald
[Theroux] is at his writerly best when conveying the beauty and wonder of Africa.
The Miami Herald
A gritty lesson in history, politics, aid relief and tourism; a middle-aged man's meditation on life and travel; and, above all, a masterpiece of observations that makes sense of senseless chaos and staggering wonder. Readers will be glad Therous made the trip.
Town and Country
DARK STAR SAFARI reveals the mystery of Africa, a continent of incredible disparity and resilience.
Playboy
This new travelogue ... is perhaps his most captivating work of perigrination since The Great Railway Bazaar.
The Chicago Sun-Times
Theroux is the thinking man's travel writer; in a seemingly casual, wandering fashion, he delivers a complete portrait of a continent's people, politics and economy. Bookpage
Part of "Dark Star Safari" is pure entertainment; travelogue in a grand, epic style. But Theroux also offers a sobering, contemporary look at the social and political morass in which much of Africa is mired.
Sacramento Bee
If you have even the slightest interest in Africa, travel, good writing, the modern world, the future, cities, nature, human society, love, courage--well, life in general--you are going to have to be called to the dinner table six times before you put this book down. The Chicago Tribune
I know and have traveled in Africa, so I can proclaim with admiration that Theroux, the disheveled, often grumpy, sometimes euphoric sojourner who shares his latest adventures in Dark Star Safari, is an intrepid traveler worthy of the reputation that precedes him. The Houston Chronicle
opinionated but informed, and highly readable.
Star Ledger
A marvel of observation.... Theroux is near faultless in his expression of material about Africa, a continent where he taught 40 years ago, and which he clearly loves.
Buffalo News
You won't find this trip advertised in travel brochures, but it's well worth taking vicariously.
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Neither a sensationalistic reveler in the pain of others, nor a hopeless romantic, Theroux chronicles a journey through an Africa full of decay and beauty, fear and joy, misery and perseverance. Denver Rocky Mountain News
Dark Star Safari is by turns hilarious and harrowing. It is an exploration of change, both in Africa -- its ruined cities, its confouding beauty -- and in Theroux's own life.
Austin Chronicle
Have no fear, Paul Theroux is as grumpy as ever. In this maddening, exhilarating, frustrating and thoroughly entertaining journey through Africa, Theroux is at his bracing best...
The Chicago Tribune
This is the most passionate and exciting of Theroux's half-dozen major travel books.
The Associated Press
an exciting adventure tale, filled with fabulously wonderful characters.
Santa Cruz Sentinal
[Theroux's] witty observations and obvious love and curiosity for Africa should help make this entertaining epic a yardstick for future travel writing.
The Daily Yomiuri
[Theroux's] storytelling and eye for detail are unmatched.
The Los Angeles Times
Still the dean of this genre, the irascible Theroux is the ideal companion for armchair travel.
The Los Angeles Times
Review
PRAISE FOR
THE PLACES IN BETWEEN and#160; "A striding, glorious book . . . Learned but gentle, tough but humane, Stewart . . . writes with a mysticand#8217;s appreciation of the natural world, a novelistand#8217;s sense of character and a comedianand#8217;s sense of timing . . . A flat-out masterpiece . . . The Places in Between is, in very nearly every sense, too good to be true."and#8212;The New York Times Book Review and#160;"A splendid tale that is by turns wryly humorous, intensely observant, and humanely unsentimental."and#8212;Christian Science Monitor and#160; "Stupendous . . . an instant travel classic."and#8212;Entertainment Weekly and#160; "Stewartand#8217;s 36-day walk across Afghanistan, starting just weeks after the fall of the Taliban, sets a new standard for cool nerve and hot determination . . . His description of the landscapes he traverses makes you feel youand#8217;re accompanying him through a shifting, sculpted painting . . . Sublimely written."and#8212;The Seattle Times and#160; "Stunning . . . That he has written a remarkable memoir of his trek might contribute greatly not only to our reading pleasure, but to our understanding of Afghanistan in the 21st century . . . The Places in Between effectively depicts the spectacularly stark landscape, the utter poverty and the devastation of decades of war. But far more interesting are the men . . . Stewart met along the way." and#8212;The Plain Dealer and#160;
and#160;
and#160;
Synopsis
The worlds most acclaimed travel writer journeys through western Africa from Cape Town to the Congo.
Synopsis
A decade ago, Paul Therouxs best-selling
Dark Star Safari chronicled his epic overland voyage from Cairo to Cape Town, providing an insiders look at modern Africa. Now, with
The Last Train to Zona Verde, he returns to discover how Africa—and he—have changed in the ensuing years.
On this trip, Theroux is journeying through West Africa for the first time. From Cape Town, South Africa, to Namibia to Botswana, he covers nearly 2,500 miles before he is forced to give up what is to be his final foreign trip, a decision he chronicles in a delightfully curmudgeonly and unsparing chapter titled “What Am I Doing Here?”
Vivid, witty, and beautifully evocative, The Last Train to Zona Verde is a fitting final African adventure from the writer whose gimlet eye and effortless prose have brought the world to generations of readers.
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
In one of his most exotic and breathtaking journeys, the intrepid traveler Paul Theroux ventures to the South Pacific, exploring fifty-one islands by collapsible kayak. Beginning in New Zealand's rain forests and ultimately coming to shore thousands of miles away in Hawaii, Theroux paddles alone over isolated atolls, through dirty harbors and shark-filled waters, and along treacherous coastlines. This exhilarating tropical epic is full of disarming observations and high adventure.
Synopsis
Thirty years after the epic journey chronicled in his classic work The Great Railway Bazaar, the worlds 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.
Therouxs 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.
Synopsis
Paul Theroux returns to the transcontinental expedition that made Great Railway Bazaar a classic of travel literature and realizes—in rich, anecdotal detail—how much the world has changed.
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 he passed through. In Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Theroux re-creates that earlier journey. His 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, 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). Wherever he goes, his omnivorous curiosity and unerring eye for detail never fail to inspire, enlighten, inform, and entertain.
Synopsis
Starting with a rush-hour subway ride to South Station in Boston to catch the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago, Theroux winds up on the poky, wandering Old Patagonian Express steam engine, which comes to a halt in a desolate land of cracked hills and thorn bushes. But with Theroux the view along the way is what matters: the monologuing Mr. Thornberry in Costa Rica, the bogus priest of Cali, and the blind Jorge Luis Borges, who delights in having Theroux read Robert Louis Stevenson to him.
Synopsis
First published more than thirty years ago, Paul Theroux's strange, unique, and hugely entertaining railway odyssey has become a modern classic of travel literature. Here Theroux recounts his early adventures on an unusual grand continental tour. Asia's fabled trains -- the Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Frontier Mail, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Mandalay Express, the Trans-Siberian Express -- are the stars of a journey that takes him on a loop eastbound from London's Victoria Station to Tokyo Central, then back from Japan on the Trans-Siberian. Brimming with Theroux's signature humor and wry observations, this engrossing chronicle is essential reading for both the ardent adventurer and the armchair traveler.
Synopsis
In Dark Star Safari the wittily observant and endearingly irascible Paul Theroux takes readers the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, dugout canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, ferry, and train. In the course of his epic and enlightening journey, he endures danger, delay, and dismaying circumstances.
Gauging the state of affairs, he talks to Africans, aid workers, missionaries, and tourists. What results is an insightful meditation on the history, politics, and beauty of Africa and its people, and "a vivid portrayal of the secret sweetness, the hidden vitality, and the long-patient hope that lies just beneath the surface" (Rocky Mountain News). In a new postscript, Theroux recounts the dramatic events of a return to Africa to visit Zimbabwe.
About the Author
RORY STEWART is the bestselling author of The Places in Between andandnbsp;The Prince of the Marshes. A former director of the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy andandnbsp;Ryan Professor of Human Rights atandnbsp;Harvardand#39;s Kennedy School of Government, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire for services in Iraq.andnbsp;Heandnbsp;is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Penrith and The Border, a constituency in Northern Cumbria, where he lives with his wife.
Table of Contents
Contents
and#160;
Prefaceand#160;andshy;xi
The New Civil andshy;Serviceand#160;1
Tanks into andshy;Sticksand#160;6
Whether on the Shores of andshy;Asiaand#160;10
and#160;
Part andshy;Oneand#160;15
Chicago and andshy;Parisand#160;17
Humaand#160;19
Fare andshy;Forwardand#160;23
These andshy;Bootsand#160;30
and#160;
Part andshy;Twoand#160;35
Qasimand#160;37
Impersonal andshy;Pronounand#160;44
A Tajik andshy;Villageand#160;48
The Emir of the andshy;Westand#160;50
Caravanserai, Whose andshy;Portals . . .and#160;56To a Blind Manand#8217;s andshy;Eyeand#160;62
Genealogiesand#160;69
Lest He Returning Chide . . .and#160;74
Crown andshy;Jewelsand#160;85
Bread and andshy;Waterand#160;90
The Fighting Man andshy;Shalland#160;95
A Nothing andshy;Manand#160;99
and#160;
Part Threeand#160;103
Highland andshy;Buildingsand#160;105
The Missionary andshy;Danceand#160;112
Mirrored Catand#8217;sandshy;-andshy;Eye andshy;Shadesand#160;117
Marrying a andshy;Muslimand#160;120
War andshy;Dogand#160;127
Commandant Haji (Moalem) Mohsin Khan of andshy;Kamenjand#160;134
Cousinsand#160;141
and#160;
Part Fourand#160;145
The Minaret of andshy;Jamand#160;147
Traces in the andshy;Groundand#160;157
Between Jam and andshy;Chaghcharanand#160;161
Dawn andshy;Prayersand#160;164
Little andshy;Lordand#160;167
Frogsand#160;172
The Windy andshy;Placeand#160;177and#160;
Part andshy;Fiveand#160;183
Name andshy;Navigationand#160;185
The Greeting of andshy;Strangersand#160;192
Leaves on the andshy;Ceilingand#160;197
Flamesand#160;200
Zia of andshy;Katlishand#160;203
The Sacred andshy;Guestand#160;208
The Cave of andshy;Zarinand#160;212
Devotionsand#160;217
The Defiles of the andshy;Valleyand#160;220
and#160;
Part Sixand#160;227
The Intermediate Stages of andshy;Deathand#160;229
Winged andshy;Footprintsand#160;231
Blair and the andshy;Koranand#160;234
Salt Ground and andshy;Spikenardand#160;239
Pale Circles in andshy;Wallsand#160;242
@afghangov.organd#160;245
While the Note andshy;Lastsand#160;250
Part Sevenand#160;255
Footprints on the andshy;Ceilingand#160;257
I Am the andshy;Zoomand#160;260
Karamanand#160;262
Khaliliand#8217;s andshy;Troopsand#160;266
And I Have andshy;Mineand#160;270
The Scheme of andshy;Generationand#160;273
The Source of the Kabul andshy;Riverand#160;276
Talibanand#160;279
Toesand#160;285
Marbleand#160;289
and#160;
Epilogueand#160;295
and#160;
Acknowledgmentsand#160;299