Shadow of the Silk Road

By Colin Thubron
(Harper Perennial, Paperback, 9780061231773, 400pp.)

Publication Date: July 2008

Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Hardcover, Compact Disc, Audio Cassette, Compact Disc

Categories: Asia - Central, Essays & Travelogues, Middle East - General

Selected by Indie Booksellers for the Fall '08/Winter '09 Reading Group List

“Exploring a largely unknown part of the world (the silk route between China and Turkey) with Thubron is quite an adventure. You will come away from this book with a better understanding of the people, religions, and cultures that are of great importance in our world today. To be able to discuss the complexities with others only enhances the trip. I had a great time!”

-- Mary McHale, Fox Tale Books, New Durham, NH

Description

To travel the Silk Road, the greatest land route on earth, is to trace the passage not only of trade and armies but also of ideas, religions, and inventions. Making his way by local bus, truck, car, donkey cart, and camel, Colin Thubron covered some seven thousand miles in eight months—out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran into Kurdish Turkey—and explored an ancient world in modern ferment.

About the Author

Colin Thubron is an acknowledged master of travel writing. His first books were about the Middle East—Damascus, Lebanon, and Cyprus. In 1982 he traveled in the Soviet Union, pursued by the KGB. From these early experiences developed his great travel books on the landmass that makes up Russia and Asia: Among the Russians; Behind the Wall: A Journey through China; The Lost Heart of Asia; In Siberia; and most recently, Shadow of the Silk Road.

Colin Thubron is an award-winning novelist as well as, arguably, the most admired travel writer of our time. He lives in London.

Praise For Shadow of the Silk Road…

“Thubron has done it all, with sparkling grace . . . He is a brilliant brooder, artful in his melancholy.”
-San Francisco Chronicle

“An exhausting journey and a marvelous book.”
-Harper's Magazine

“[Thubron is] intrepid, resourceful . . . and immensely talented . . . a splendid book.”
-Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World

“Moving in a way that’s rare in travel literature...Thubron goes to places most other sojourners can’t.”
-Lorraine Adams, New York Times Book Review

“A fantastically descriptive writer, Thubron digs through the history of Central Asia...Perfect for vicarious travelers.”
-New York magazine

“Splendid…Sumptuously detailed, elegantly written and riveting...Thubron misses nothing.”
-Providence Journal

“[Thubron] augments his trenchant narrative with impressive historical background and evocative, lyrical prose…An impressive, rewarding...trek.”
-Kirkus Reviews

“An illuminating account of a breathtaking journey.”
-Booklist

“[An] absorbing travel epic…Thubron’s poetic eye still teases out gorgeous subtleties in the panorama.””
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

This book is on these lists:

IndyReader's Wish List by IndyReader
Travel by fibernglass
Fiction by fibernglass
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