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WHAT'S ON
All events take place at:
The Travel Book Company, Chaldicott Barns, Semley, Dorset SP7 9AW
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Revd Dr RICHARD FRAZER
"Travels With a Stick"
THURSDAY 22nd FEBRUARY 2024
6:30pm
SOLD OUT
Tickets have sold out fast for seats but if you would like to be put on the waiting list, just let us know.
Richard Frazer has been minister at Greyfriars Kirk, (Church of Scotland) since 2003. During that time, he founded the Grassmarket Community Project which supports some of the city’s most vulnerable adults and also established the Greyfriars Charteris Centre, a place for wellbeing, social enterprise and building community.
He has a passion for pilgrimage walking and is an accomplished writer which has led to one of The Travel Book Company's best-selling books, "Travels With a Stick".
Almost 300,000 people 'officially' complete the journey to Santiago each year - hundreds of thousands more travel at least part of the way. In this book, Richard Frazer discovers on his pilgrimage to the shrine of St James the Great how a journey - wherever it is made - undertaken with an open and hospitable heart can provide spiritual renewal and transformation, filling what many people see as the spiritual void in 21st century life. This absorbing account reveals how the pilgrim journey can be nourishment for the human heart.
It connects us to landscape and brings us to the mystery of what it is to be human and vulnerable and open to the kindness of strangers and the gift of the new and the unexpected.
We are absolutely delighted to have Richard come to speak to us as our first author of 2024.
If you would like to attend, please follow the link below to book your free place, or email us at:
anna@thetravelbookcompany.co.uk
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PAST EVENTS
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ALICE LUSHINGTON
"Cycling Proficiency"
Friday 8th December - 6:30pm
We are absolutely delighted to host Alice Lushington's first talk on her debut book, "Cycling Proficiency".
As revealing as a bikini made of tooth floss, "Cycling Proficiency" is a 4,482 mile illustrated story of pedal-powered redemption.
It follows the wilfully ridiculous travels of a just-turned 22-year-old on a freebie bike who doesn’t yet know how to fix a puncture and point-blank refuses to wear Lycra (or pants). Also, she’s crazy. Not ‘cute’ crazy, not ‘bohemian’ crazy, but whereare-the-sandwiches-at-this-picnic, medically approved, crazy. Off she goes on her wonky way, hoping things will be alright.
Fuelled by reckless enthusiasm, many tinned sprouts and just a dash of naivety, Alice hurricanes through Europe meeting a whole pick ‘n’ mix of whacky characters along the way. She returns an inch and a half taller.
This book is proof to all flavours of people that the weathers of the mind are there to be embraced.
One of the most entertaining books I have read in a long time, Alice has a unique style of writing and an utterly addictive personality that shines throughout this book.
Perfect for anyone who loves to cycle or anyone who wants to go on an adventure but just doesn't quite know how to take that first step.
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OLLY WILLIAMS
"Draw of the Wild"
Thursday 30th November
A poet’s wanderings and wonderings in wilderness.
"This, my first collection of poetry, started life as a memoir. Over time that memoir morphed into a series of short stories about my first encounters with endangered predators in remote wilderness over the course of my thirty-year career collaborating with Suzi.
In turn, those tales distilled into the form you have before you now. In this regard my words have been on their own journey. I never intended to become a poet, yet poetry found me; through the physical process of writing, walking, and reflecting on the draw I feel towards nature in all its forms. I realise now, poetry is about as close to the act of drawing and painting from life as I can get with the written word; in fact, to me both forms help conjure images and in this regard are forged of the same magical matter, a language, I now could not imagine living without.
The poems in this book are presented in alphabetical order. I simply wish that each poem be stumbled upon, transmitting their unique signals, as each wild encounter was gifted me."
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WILLIAM FORTESCUE
"THE LAST STAND"
THURSDAY 2nd NOVEMBER
We are beyond thrilled to be joined by William Fortescue, one of the finest wildlife photographers of his generation, here at The Travel Book Company on Thursday 2nd November at 6pm.
William’s remarkable debut book, “The Last Stand” shows his exceptional talent for capturing some of the world’s most iconic animals in uninhibited and unique moments. This has led to his work being critically acclaimed and hung in amongst the likes of Damien Hirst and Banksy in private collections around the world.
It is not only his finished pieces that garner such admiration but the incredible stories and clear depth of thought behind capturing each shot.
We shall be discussing his experience as a photographer, his method and passion for both his art and his subject, so we highly recommend booking your place early to avoid disappointment.
This event is seriously not one to miss and the book alone is the perfect Christmas present for photography and wildlife lovers alike.
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CHRISTOPHER SOMERVILLE
"THE VIEW FROM THE HILL"
THURSDAY 26th OCTOBER
During the enforced idleness of the Covid-19 pandemic, Christopher Somerville revisited the 450 notebooks whose pages contain the accumulated thoughts and experiences of a career spent exploring Britain on foot over four decades. The View from the Hill pulls together the cream of this unique crop, following the cycle of the seasons from a freezing January to a Christmas sunrise. In between are hundreds of walks that take in magnificent flora and fauna, ancient traditions and folklore, and geological peculiarities and wonders - all narrated with moving and humorous sensitivity.
There's no need to move from your chair to go walking in Christopher's company. Just stir up the fire, fill your glass, and let these spirited tales take you out of here and far away.
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In Conversation with the Editor and Contributors:
"OUT OF ISOLATION"
Thursday 5th October
An evening with the editor of "Out of Isolation", Susie Coreth, along with some of the fantastic contributors including: Amaryllis Earle, Harry Bucknall and Mark Coreth.
Out of Isolation is a collection of writing from the COVID-19 pandemic. From famous names such as Julian Fellowes, Tom Felton, Derren Brown and Alexander McCall Smith to historians, travel authors, poets, screenwriters, actors, the Dean of Canterbury and a Junior Doctor, the pieces range from personal reflections on life during the pandemic, to poems on love, to the diary of a journalist in Goma. This interesting and wide-ranging collection provides a fascinating insight into what was being written whilst the world was in isolation.
Out of Isolation is raising money to support Shout 85258, an important charity that uses a free, 24/7 text messaging service to help anyone struggling to cope with their mental health. Susie Coreth will donate GBP1 from the sale of each book to Mental Health Innovations (reg charity no 1175670) to support its Shout 85258 24/7 mental health support service.
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BENEDICT ROGERS:
"The China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party's Tyranny"
Friday 22nd September
The Travel Book Company, Chaldicott Barns, Semley, Dorset SP7 9AW
Benedict Rogers, born in London, England, first went to China at age eighteen to teach English for six months in Qingdao, three years after the Tiananmen Square massacre. That opened the door to a thirty-year adventure with China, from teaching English in schools and hospitals to working as a journalist in Hong Kong for the first five years after the handover to travelling to China’s borders with Myanmar/Burma and North Korea to document the plight of refugees escaping from Beijing-backed satellite dictatorships and then campaigning for human rights in China, especially for Uyghurs, Christians and Falun Gong practitioners, human rights defenders, journalists and dissidents, and the people of Hong Kong.
This book tells the story of his fight for freedom for the peoples of China and neighbouring countries Myanmar and North Korea and sets out how a global movement for human rights in China is emerging and what the free world should do next. It describes the importance of the “China Nexus” in the author’s journey and geopolitics and its challenges. Pioneering international inquiries into forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, the genocide of the Uyghurs and global action for Hong Kong, as well as highlighting the Vatican’s silence, the author has been at the heart of advocacy for human rights in China in recent years.
“Benedict Rogers has done the world an extremely important service by documenting and exposing the repression of the Chinese Communist Party and the Xi dictatorship in his new book The China Nexus. Through 50 trips to China and 80 interviews with exiles, dissidents and even the Dalai Lama himself, Mr Rogers takes us forensically through the crimes of the Chinese communist party in a way that one can come up with no other conclusion than that the Chinese government must face international justice for these crimes. There are very few people in the world who have the experience, knowledge and authority of Mr Rogers on China and this book is a must read for anyone who wants to know what's really happening there”
- Bill Browder, author of "Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No. 1 Enemy" and "Freezing Order"
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SARAH MURRAY:
"Making an Exit: From the Magnificent to the Macabre - How We Dignify the Dead"
Wednesday 26th July 2023
Writer and journalist Sarah Murray never gave much thought of what might ultimately happen to her remains.
That was until her father died. Puzzled by the choice he made for the disposal of his “organic matter,” she set off on a series of voyages to discover how death is celebrated and commemorated in different cultures. Her accounts of these journeys are engaging, poignant, and funny. But this is also a very personal quest – for on her travels, Murray is seeking inspiration for her own eventual send-off.
An exploration of the extraordinary creativity unleashed when humans dignify the dead.
Sarah encounters everything from a royal Balinese cremation to a Czech chandelier made entirely from human bones and a Sicilian catacomb where the dead are left hanging on the walls. She even goes to Africa to commission her own Ghanaian coffin.
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NICHOLAS ALLAN:
"When Dreams Collide: Travels in Yugoslavia with Rebecca West"
Tuesday 4th July
"When Dreams Collide" is Allan’s intimate pilgrimage across the former states of Yugoslavia. Shedding the received knowledge of headlines, he explores the splintered co-evolution of these lands over the last ten centuries, guided by the inimitable Rebecca West’s masterpiece, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.
• Written 80 years in the past, West’s account serves as a fascinating reference for the optimistic interwar years of the 20th century between the Ottoman decline and the Nazi onset. The evolving balancing act of Tito’s Yugoslav experiment and the atrocities following its break-up were still to come.
• Collapsing empires and proud young nations, monasteries and mosques, brotherhood, hatred, war, music, frescoes, food, costume, people, mountains, rivers and seas, the distant rumbles of the centuries take many forms.
• At a turning point in his own life, Allan is drawn to explore this complex area, through the lens of his part Eastern European heritage. He records personal encounters and richly drawn characters interwoven with history and art, politics and religion (too often one and the same).
“Nick Allan is the best sort of traveller - thoughtful, curious, observant, self-effacing and highly intelligent. When Dreams Collide is a wonderful odyssey of discovery and self-discovery, by turns poignant and celebratory, and a most memorable debut.” WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
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MARK WESTON - "The Saviour Fish"
Thursday 8th June 2023
Sent to live on a remote island in the Tanzanian half of Lake Victoria, Mark Weston finds a community grappling with one of the world’s great unknown environmental crises.
"You used to be able to stand on the beach and fish. In my father’s time, you could catch them with your bare hands."
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NICHOLAS JUBBER - "The Fairy Tellers"
Thursday 18th May 2023
“His cornucopia of tellers and tales is a delight, a riveting celebration of a genre that revels in its own hybridity & the imaginative riches produced by the crossing of cultural and literary borders” – Financial Times
You know the fairy tales: Hansel and Gretel, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp. But do you know the fairy tellers? Have you heard of the men and women who took the kernel of a story, the structure of an ancient folk tale, and added the nuance, context, and colour that moulded it into the recognizable narrative we know today? In The Fairy Tellers: A Journey into the Secret History of Fairy Tales, author Nicholas Jubber wanders from Scandinavia to South Asia, along the way camping in the Black Forest, meeting reindeer herders in Lapland and witnessing witches dancing around a village square. In the process, he takes us into the lives and minds of the mostly unknown storytellers behind some of the world's most famous stories.
Anyone interested in the history of storytelling, a culturally-inclusive look at the narratives that shape our modern culture, and strange and fascinating tales themselves will thrill to this well-researched and entertaining book.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nicholas Jubber has travelled in the Middle East, Central Asia, North and East Africa and across Europe. Along the way, he has worked as a teacher, carpet-washer and even had a stint as a tannery assistant. He has written four previous books, Epic Continent (shortlisted for the Dolman award, The Timbuktu School for Nomads, The Prester Quest (winner of the Dolman Travel Book Award), and Drinking Arak off an Ayatollah's Beard (shortlisted for the Dolman Award). He has written for numerous publications, including the Guardian, Observer, Globe and Mail, Irish Times and BBC History.
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ROGER MORGAN-GRENVILLE - "Across a Waking Land"
Wednesday 3rd May 2023
Roger Morgan-Grenville is a conservation writer, storyteller and environmental campaigner with a deep interest in the restoration of British biodiversity and a passion for birds. During his time as a soldier, he successfully retraced Shackleton's journey across South Georgia for the first time and is a founder of the charity Curlew Action. During the spring of 2022, Roger undertook a 1,000 mile solo walk from Lymington to Cape Wrath. In a highly personal account of his adventure, Roger will explain why he went, what he learned and what lessons he drew from the many people he met and the wildlife that he observed.
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** NEW YEAR, NEW SPACE **
We are extremely excited to announce that work has begun on expanding The Travel Book Company. We will still be in the same place (1 Chaldicott Barns), but are making some changes internally that will enable us to fit in many more fabulous books as well as host an ever-expanding list of events such as author talks, book signings and more.
We want to take the opportunity to thank every single one of our customers for supporting us over the last couple of years. We sincerely appreciate your encouragement and hope that these developments will prove as exciting to you as they do to us.
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Chaldicott Advent Fair
Thursday 1st December, 4 - 8pm
Pick up a warming glass of mulled wine and peruse an array of fabulous stalls from local artisans, craftsmen and our fellow Chaldicott Barn neighbours.
From festive favourites to rousing new releases, we will be there with books to inspire each member of the family.
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