Pleasures and Landscapes

Pleasures and Landscapes

Author: Sybille Bedford

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781907970405

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Sybille Bedford once wrote that travel writing is inseparable from the writer's tastes, idiosyncrasies, and general temperament - it is what happens to him when he is confronted with a column, a bird, a sage, a cheat, a riot; wine, fruit, dirt; the delay in the dirt, the failing airplane. 'Pleasures and Landscapes' is what happened to Mrs Bedford when, at the peak of her literary powers, she traveled through France, Italy, and the rest of Europe for Vogue, Esquire, and other magazines - eight classic essays that secure her a place at the table with A.J. Liebling and M.F.K. Fisher.


Book Synopsis Pleasures and Landscapes by : Sybille Bedford

Download or read book Pleasures and Landscapes written by Sybille Bedford and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sybille Bedford once wrote that travel writing is inseparable from the writer's tastes, idiosyncrasies, and general temperament - it is what happens to him when he is confronted with a column, a bird, a sage, a cheat, a riot; wine, fruit, dirt; the delay in the dirt, the failing airplane. 'Pleasures and Landscapes' is what happened to Mrs Bedford when, at the peak of her literary powers, she traveled through France, Italy, and the rest of Europe for Vogue, Esquire, and other magazines - eight classic essays that secure her a place at the table with A.J. Liebling and M.F.K. Fisher.


Mediterranean Winter

Mediterranean Winter

Author: Robert D. Kaplan

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2011-11-23

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1588361489

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In Mediterranean Winter, Robert D. Kaplan, the bestselling author of Balkan Ghosts and Eastward to Tartary, relives an austere, haunting journey he took as a youth through the off-season Mediterranean. The awnings are rolled up and the other tourists are gone, so the damp, cold weather takes him back to the 1950s and earlier—a golden, intensely personal age of tourism. Decades ago, Kaplan voyaged from North Africa to Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece, luxuriating in the radical freedom of youth, unaccountable to time because there was always time to make up for a mistake. He recalls that journey in this Persian miniature of a book, less to look inward into his own past than to look outward in order to dissect the process of learning through travel, in which a succession of new landscapes can lead to books and artwork never before encountered. Kaplan first imagines Tunis as the glow of gypsum lamps shimmering against lime-washed mosques; the city he actually discovers is even more intoxicating. He takes the reader to the ramparts of a Turkish kasbah where Carthaginian, Roman, and Byzantine forts once stood: “I could see deep into Algeria over a rib-work of hills so gaunt it seemed the wind had torn the flesh off them.” In these austere and aromatic surroundings he discovers Saint Augustine; the courtyards of Tunis lead him to the historical writings of Ibn Khaldun. Kaplan takes us to the fifth-century Greek temple at Segesta, where he reflects on the ill-fated Athenian invasion of Sicily. At Hadrian’s villa, “Shattered domes revealed clouds moving overhead in countless visions of eternity. It was a place made for silence and for contemplation, where you wanted a book handy. Every corner was a cloister. No view was panoramic: each seemed deliberately composed.” Kaplan’s bus and train travels, his nighttime boat voyages, and his long walks in one archaeological site after another lead him to subjects as varied as the Berber threat to Carthage; the Roman army’s hunt for the warlord Jugurtha; the legacy of Byzantine art; the medieval Greek philosopher Georgios Gemistos Plethon, who helped kindle the Italian Renaissance; twentieth-century British literary writing about Greece; and the links between Rodin and the Croa- tian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. Within these pages are smells, tastes, and the profundity of chance encounters. Mediterranean Winter begins in Rodin’s sculpture garden in Paris, passes through the gritty streets of Marseilles, and ends with a moving epiphany about Greece as the world prepares for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. Mediterranean Winter is the story of an education. It is filled with memories and history, not the author’s alone, but humanity’s as well.


Book Synopsis Mediterranean Winter by : Robert D. Kaplan

Download or read book Mediterranean Winter written by Robert D. Kaplan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-11-23 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Mediterranean Winter, Robert D. Kaplan, the bestselling author of Balkan Ghosts and Eastward to Tartary, relives an austere, haunting journey he took as a youth through the off-season Mediterranean. The awnings are rolled up and the other tourists are gone, so the damp, cold weather takes him back to the 1950s and earlier—a golden, intensely personal age of tourism. Decades ago, Kaplan voyaged from North Africa to Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece, luxuriating in the radical freedom of youth, unaccountable to time because there was always time to make up for a mistake. He recalls that journey in this Persian miniature of a book, less to look inward into his own past than to look outward in order to dissect the process of learning through travel, in which a succession of new landscapes can lead to books and artwork never before encountered. Kaplan first imagines Tunis as the glow of gypsum lamps shimmering against lime-washed mosques; the city he actually discovers is even more intoxicating. He takes the reader to the ramparts of a Turkish kasbah where Carthaginian, Roman, and Byzantine forts once stood: “I could see deep into Algeria over a rib-work of hills so gaunt it seemed the wind had torn the flesh off them.” In these austere and aromatic surroundings he discovers Saint Augustine; the courtyards of Tunis lead him to the historical writings of Ibn Khaldun. Kaplan takes us to the fifth-century Greek temple at Segesta, where he reflects on the ill-fated Athenian invasion of Sicily. At Hadrian’s villa, “Shattered domes revealed clouds moving overhead in countless visions of eternity. It was a place made for silence and for contemplation, where you wanted a book handy. Every corner was a cloister. No view was panoramic: each seemed deliberately composed.” Kaplan’s bus and train travels, his nighttime boat voyages, and his long walks in one archaeological site after another lead him to subjects as varied as the Berber threat to Carthage; the Roman army’s hunt for the warlord Jugurtha; the legacy of Byzantine art; the medieval Greek philosopher Georgios Gemistos Plethon, who helped kindle the Italian Renaissance; twentieth-century British literary writing about Greece; and the links between Rodin and the Croa- tian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. Within these pages are smells, tastes, and the profundity of chance encounters. Mediterranean Winter begins in Rodin’s sculpture garden in Paris, passes through the gritty streets of Marseilles, and ends with a moving epiphany about Greece as the world prepares for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. Mediterranean Winter is the story of an education. It is filled with memories and history, not the author’s alone, but humanity’s as well.


As it was

As it was

Author: Sybille Bedford

Publisher: Picador

Published: 1992-01-01

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 9780330318884

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Book Synopsis As it was by : Sybille Bedford

Download or read book As it was written by Sybille Bedford and published by Picador. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:


Taylor's Master Guide to Landscaping

Taylor's Master Guide to Landscaping

Author: Rita Buchanan

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 9780618055906

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Reveals the vital components of landscape design, offering advice on choosing a site, selecting plants, creating garden accessories, and maintaining a landscape.


Book Synopsis Taylor's Master Guide to Landscaping by : Rita Buchanan

Download or read book Taylor's Master Guide to Landscaping written by Rita Buchanan and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2000 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals the vital components of landscape design, offering advice on choosing a site, selecting plants, creating garden accessories, and maintaining a landscape.


Pleasures of the Cottage Garden

Pleasures of the Cottage Garden

Author: Rand B. Lee

Publisher: Friedman/Fairfax Publishing

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13:

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Filled with sumptuous color photographs and exquisite botanical illustrations, here is a rich visual presentation of a well-loved gardening style. But, it is also a practical guide for those who wish to create a cottage garden tailored to their specific climates and horticultural passions.


Book Synopsis Pleasures of the Cottage Garden by : Rand B. Lee

Download or read book Pleasures of the Cottage Garden written by Rand B. Lee and published by Friedman/Fairfax Publishing. This book was released on 1998 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filled with sumptuous color photographs and exquisite botanical illustrations, here is a rich visual presentation of a well-loved gardening style. But, it is also a practical guide for those who wish to create a cottage garden tailored to their specific climates and horticultural passions.


Landscapes of Privilege

Landscapes of Privilege

Author: Nancy Duncan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-02-24

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1135939284

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James and Nancy Duncan look at how the aesthetics of physical landscapes are fully enmeshed in producing the American class system. Focusing on an archetypal upper class American suburb-Bedford in Westchester County, NY-they show how the physical presentation of a place carries with it a range of markers of inclusion and exclusion.


Book Synopsis Landscapes of Privilege by : Nancy Duncan

Download or read book Landscapes of Privilege written by Nancy Duncan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-02-24 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James and Nancy Duncan look at how the aesthetics of physical landscapes are fully enmeshed in producing the American class system. Focusing on an archetypal upper class American suburb-Bedford in Westchester County, NY-they show how the physical presentation of a place carries with it a range of markers of inclusion and exclusion.


Poets in a Landscape

Poets in a Landscape

Author: Gilbert Highet

Publisher: New York : Knopf

Published: 1957

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13:

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Gilbert Highet was a legendary teacher at Columbia University, admired both for his scholarship and his charisma as a lecturer. Poets in a Landscape is his delightful exploration of Latin literature and the Italian landscape. As Highet writes in his introduction, I have endeavored to recall some of the greatest Roman poets by describing the places were they lived, recreating their characters and evoking the essence of their work. The poets are Catullus, Vergil, Propertius, Horace, Tibullus, Ovid, and Juvenal. Highet brings them life, setting them in their historical context and locating them in the physical world, while also offering crisp modern translations of the poets finest work. The result is an entirely sui generis amalgam of travel writing, biography, criticism, and pure poetry altogether an unexcelled introduction to the world of the classics. -- Amazon.com.


Book Synopsis Poets in a Landscape by : Gilbert Highet

Download or read book Poets in a Landscape written by Gilbert Highet and published by New York : Knopf. This book was released on 1957 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gilbert Highet was a legendary teacher at Columbia University, admired both for his scholarship and his charisma as a lecturer. Poets in a Landscape is his delightful exploration of Latin literature and the Italian landscape. As Highet writes in his introduction, I have endeavored to recall some of the greatest Roman poets by describing the places were they lived, recreating their characters and evoking the essence of their work. The poets are Catullus, Vergil, Propertius, Horace, Tibullus, Ovid, and Juvenal. Highet brings them life, setting them in their historical context and locating them in the physical world, while also offering crisp modern translations of the poets finest work. The result is an entirely sui generis amalgam of travel writing, biography, criticism, and pure poetry altogether an unexcelled introduction to the world of the classics. -- Amazon.com.


Drive

Drive

Author: Iain Borden

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 2013-02-15

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 1780230710

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“The open road”—it’s a phrase that calls to mind a sense of freedom, adventure, and new possibilities that make driving one of our most liberating activities. In Drive, Iain Borden explores the way driving allows us to encounter landscapes and cities around the world. He takes particular notice of how driving is portrayed in film from America to Europe to Asia and from Hollywood to the avant-garde, covering over a century of history and referencing hundreds of movies. From the dusty landscapes of The Grapes of Wrath to the city streets of The Italian Job; from the aesthetic delights of Rain Man and Traffic to the existential musings of Thelma and Louise and Vanishing Point;from the freeway pleasures of Radio On and London Orbital to the high-speed dangers of Crash, Bullitt, and C’était un Rendezvous; this book shows how driving with different speeds, cars, roads, and cities provides experiences and challenges beyond compare. Borden concludes that as an integral part of modern life, car driving is something to be celebrated and even encouraged, making Drive a timely riposte to anti-car attitudes, and those blind to the richness of life behind the wheel.


Book Synopsis Drive by : Iain Borden

Download or read book Drive written by Iain Borden and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2013-02-15 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The open road”—it’s a phrase that calls to mind a sense of freedom, adventure, and new possibilities that make driving one of our most liberating activities. In Drive, Iain Borden explores the way driving allows us to encounter landscapes and cities around the world. He takes particular notice of how driving is portrayed in film from America to Europe to Asia and from Hollywood to the avant-garde, covering over a century of history and referencing hundreds of movies. From the dusty landscapes of The Grapes of Wrath to the city streets of The Italian Job; from the aesthetic delights of Rain Man and Traffic to the existential musings of Thelma and Louise and Vanishing Point;from the freeway pleasures of Radio On and London Orbital to the high-speed dangers of Crash, Bullitt, and C’était un Rendezvous; this book shows how driving with different speeds, cars, roads, and cities provides experiences and challenges beyond compare. Borden concludes that as an integral part of modern life, car driving is something to be celebrated and even encouraged, making Drive a timely riposte to anti-car attitudes, and those blind to the richness of life behind the wheel.


Austere Gardens

Austere Gardens

Author: Marc Treib

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781935935384

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Austere Gardens suggests another way to look at the landscape, the garden, and perhaps the entire world around us. It suggests that being open to other ways of observing and sensing can yield new insights and rewards, and that interest is found in places unassuming and overlooked as well as those complex and assertive. Perceiving is only one half the story, however. Realizing places using simple acts and reduced means is the other half. The history of garden-making reveals continued attempts to create an Eden, to surpass our given environment in abundance and delight, and by selected instruments transcend the constraints of site, topography, and climate. The alternative to this garden of inclusion lies in the landscapes of reduction and compression, for example the dry gardens of Japan. These might be termed austere gardens. The word "austere," as used in this essay, does not imply asceticism, but merely modesty and restraint. Austere landscapes may first appear devoid of interest if noticed at all. To those who do not look beyond their surfaces, these sites, and the world outside them, usually appear plain and uninteresting, or even lacking of the very properties by which we define a garden. But there are sensual, aesthetic, and even philosophical, pleasures to be gained from these seemingly dull fields should we attempt to appreciate them. These qualities, normally associated with abundance and complexity, may be found in a different way, and at a different level, in austere terrain. Although the subject of the small book is gardens, or more broadly taken, landscapes that may be read as gardens, many of the examples are nonetheless drawn from art and architecture, from history as well as contemporary times. The images that accompany the text tell their own stories, illustrating what can be accomplished using frugal means or through basic acts like digging, piling, planting, cutting, and clearing. In an era where resources appear to be dwindling and populations growing, attitudes that value simplicity and reduction also gain a moral dimension.


Book Synopsis Austere Gardens by : Marc Treib

Download or read book Austere Gardens written by Marc Treib and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Austere Gardens suggests another way to look at the landscape, the garden, and perhaps the entire world around us. It suggests that being open to other ways of observing and sensing can yield new insights and rewards, and that interest is found in places unassuming and overlooked as well as those complex and assertive. Perceiving is only one half the story, however. Realizing places using simple acts and reduced means is the other half. The history of garden-making reveals continued attempts to create an Eden, to surpass our given environment in abundance and delight, and by selected instruments transcend the constraints of site, topography, and climate. The alternative to this garden of inclusion lies in the landscapes of reduction and compression, for example the dry gardens of Japan. These might be termed austere gardens. The word "austere," as used in this essay, does not imply asceticism, but merely modesty and restraint. Austere landscapes may first appear devoid of interest if noticed at all. To those who do not look beyond their surfaces, these sites, and the world outside them, usually appear plain and uninteresting, or even lacking of the very properties by which we define a garden. But there are sensual, aesthetic, and even philosophical, pleasures to be gained from these seemingly dull fields should we attempt to appreciate them. These qualities, normally associated with abundance and complexity, may be found in a different way, and at a different level, in austere terrain. Although the subject of the small book is gardens, or more broadly taken, landscapes that may be read as gardens, many of the examples are nonetheless drawn from art and architecture, from history as well as contemporary times. The images that accompany the text tell their own stories, illustrating what can be accomplished using frugal means or through basic acts like digging, piling, planting, cutting, and clearing. In an era where resources appear to be dwindling and populations growing, attitudes that value simplicity and reduction also gain a moral dimension.


Globalizing Automobilism

Globalizing Automobilism

Author: Gijs Mom

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2020-08-07

Total Pages: 688

ISBN-13: 1789204623

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Why has “car society” proven so durable, even in the face of mounting environmental and economic crises? In this follow-up to his magisterial Atlantic Automobilism, Gijs Mom traces the global spread of the automobile in the postwar era and investigates why adopting more sustainable forms of mobility has proven so difficult. Drawing on archival research as well as wide-ranging forays into popular culture, Mom reveals here the roots of the exuberance, excess, and danger that define modern automotive culture.


Book Synopsis Globalizing Automobilism by : Gijs Mom

Download or read book Globalizing Automobilism written by Gijs Mom and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2020-08-07 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why has “car society” proven so durable, even in the face of mounting environmental and economic crises? In this follow-up to his magisterial Atlantic Automobilism, Gijs Mom traces the global spread of the automobile in the postwar era and investigates why adopting more sustainable forms of mobility has proven so difficult. Drawing on archival research as well as wide-ranging forays into popular culture, Mom reveals here the roots of the exuberance, excess, and danger that define modern automotive culture.