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

English

ISBN: 0547237936

EAN: 9780547237930

Category: Travel / General/Travel / Essays & Travelogues/Travel / Asia / General/

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade & Reference Publishers

Release Date: 07/28/2009

Synopsis: Paul Theroux returns to the transcontinental expedition that made Great Railway Bazaara classic of travel literature and realizesin rich, anecdotal detailhow 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.

Excerpt: Unknown Property Excerpt

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

Illustrated: No

Format: Paperback

Width: 5.31 inches

Length: 8.0 inches

Weight: 16.68 oz

Pages: 512