Kasuo Ishiguro - Never let me go

In one of the most memorable novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewered version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now XNUMX, Never Let Me Go hauntingly dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life.

The film version inevitably cannot deal with the development of the complex characters, but is still shocking in its description of a dystopian world that seems frighteningly close ...

This is one of the saddest books I've ever read. But it's not only sad, it's also unsettling in describing a world that may not be that far away ...

 

Vernor Vinge - A Fire upon the Deep (Zones of Thought)

An ancient threat.

In FIRE 'Vinge presents a galaxy divided into Zones - regions where different physical constraints allow very different technological and mental possibilities. Earth remains in the "Slowness" zone, where nothing can travel faster than light and minds are fairly limited. The action of the book is in the "Beyond", where translight travel and other marvels exist, and humans are one of many intelligent species. One human colony has been experimenting to find a path to the "Transcend", where intelligence and power are so great as to seem godlike. Instead they release the Blight, an evil power, from a billion-year captivity.

The printed version would have been a real heavy weight stone. Especially because it also contains the second volume of the Zones of Thought (A Deepness in the Sky), i.e. more than one kilogram. So I have to admit, in this particular case, the electronic version was indeed a gift from heaven (apart from being a masterful Space Opera).

 

Eric Newby - A short Walk in the Hindukush

It was 50, and Eric Newby was earning an improbable living in the chaotic family business of London haute couture. Pining for adventure, Newby sent his friend Hugh Carless the now-famous cable - CAN YOU TRAVEL NURISTAN JUNE? - setting in motion a legendary journey from Mayfair to Afghanistan, and the mountains of the Hindu Kush, north-east of Kabul. Inexperienced and ill prepared (their preparations involved nothing more than some tips from a Welsh waitress), the amateurish rogues embark on a month of adventure and hardship in one of the most beautiful wildernesses on earth - a journey that adventurers with more experience and sense may never have undertaken. With good humour, sharp wit and keen observation, the charming narrative style of ‘A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush’ would soon crystallise Newby's reputation as one of the greatest travel writers of all time.

Travellers and hikers looking for suitable travel literature will sooner or later come across Eric Newby and his wonderfully funny travel books. One follows the two naïve friends on their journeys through the Hindu Kush, suffers and laughs with them. You can't expect more …

 

Daniel Kehlmann - Measuring the World (Die Vermessung der Welt)

At the end of the 18th century, two young Germans set out to discover the world. One, Alexander von Humboldt, fights his way through jungle and steppe, travels the Orinoco, tastes poisons, counts head lice, crawls into holes in the ground, climbs volcanoes and meets sea monsters and man-eaters. The other, the mathematician and astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss, who cannot spend his life without women and yet jumps out of bed on the wedding night to write down a formula – he also proves in his native Göttingen that space bends. Old, famous and a little strange, the two 1828 meet in Berlin.

With profound humor Daniel Kehlmann portrays the life of two geniuses: Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Friedrich Gauss. He describes their desires and weaknesses, their tightrope walk between ridicule and grandeur, failure and success. A philosophical adventure novel of rare imagination, power and brilliance.

Another book about traveling, albeit at a time when getting away from familiar surroundings was rather special. And don't forget - the world was big and far away back then ...

 

And here are more books that have accompanied me on my travels:

The Southindia Books

The Laos Books

The Southeast Asia Books

The Burma Books

The Ladakh Books

The South America Books

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