Books : In Xanadu: A Quest
|
|
In association with Amazon.com
|
by: Permissions, HarperCollins (UK) Publishers
List Price: $14.95Amazon.com's Price: $10.17 You Save: $4.78 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.04428
EAN: 9781864501735
ISBN: 1864501731
Label: Lonely Planet
Manufacturer: Lonely Planet
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: April 01, 2000
Publisher: Lonely Planet
Sales Rank: 270993
Studio: Lonely Planet
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
While waiting for the results of his college exams, William Dalrymple decides to fill in his summer break with a trip. But the vacation he plans is no light-hearted student jaunt - he decides to retrace the epic journey of Marco Polo from Jerusalem to Xanadu, the ruined palace of Kubla Kahn, north of Peking. For the first half of the trip he is accompanied by Laura, whom he met at a dinner party two weeks before he left; for the second half he is accompanied by Louisa, his very recently ex-girlfriend. Intelligent and funny, In Xanadu is travel writing at its best.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - over rated
i started reading this book because i found his other books really good. but In Xanadu was a disappointment. I was shocked to read that the writer is simply saying things like Mongolians are ugly and stupid. i dont know how can a critically accliamed book contain such things. it also mostly talks about dirt, filth and urine, which is not very flattering for the inhabitants of these places. last, the title is misleading. it says In Xanadu, but Towards Xanadu would be a better title. Xanadu covers ... Read More
Rating:  - Somewhat interesting, but could have been better
In the mid 1980s, William Dalrymple (then in his early 20s) made a journey retracing the steps of Marco Polo's famous journey during the 1200s, from the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to the site of Shangdu (or Xanadu, as is better known in literature), the summer palace of Kublai Khan, in Outer Mongolia, China. In reality, though, since Soviet Central Asia was then barred to western travel, he deviated in part from Marco Polo's route, going through the Baluchi desert, in southern Iran ... Read More
Rating:  - A delightful and hilarious travel memoir.
I read this book on an airplane journey, and laughed so hard at some entries that I cried.
And then I got depressed, because I realized that at the author's age, I would have been incapable of the deft writing and erudition he displayed.
Rating: - Dean Moriarty in a Burqa
Well not quite, but sort of.
At least this is what I kept thinking of as the author (referred to as Fatso by Mick, an expatriate hippie in Kashgar) and his travel companion Laura (she's the one clad in black) head out across Iran.
They are on a madcap quest, ostensibly to retrace the tracks of Marco Polo in his journey from Jerusalem to the seat of power of Kublai Khan in Xanadu, bearing oil from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Dalrymple, a student at ... Read More
Rating: - Rugged travels on the silk route
Even if you did not know that this was one of Dalrymple's earlier works, there is quite a bit in the narrative to suggest this. That is not to say that book is not really worth your time - it definitely is - but what is even more interesting is to see & observe the elements of erudition & wonder, & story-telling, that have always been so compelling about WD.
But this is also personal story of a twenty-two year old - complete with a heartbreak - dashing across two continents. ... Read More
|
|
|
