What do jumping cats have to do with Buddhism's Middle Path? Did Orwell really hate everyone in Burma? How did Myanmar's ruling junta use white elephants to consolidate their power? Will a synagogue caretaker's improbable dream ever come true? What arrogance drives western travelers to seek the "unknown"? And why should you never disrespect the nat spirits who guard a sacred forest? This is Myanmar as you've probably never imagined, full of curious people, startling happenings, and unexpected moments of humanity and introspection, giddiness and solemnity, avarice and ambition.
What do jumping cats have to do with Buddhism's Middle Path? Did Orwell really hate everyone in Burma? How did Myanmar's ruling junta use white ele...
Why do prominent modern Indonesian sultans continue love affairs with the Mermaid Queen? Why is the island of Flores Ground Zero for Hobbit sightings? How does a Papuan hunter juggle the four religions which want a piece of his soul? Why did a now-neglected spice cause historic mayhem among greedy Europeans? Why does it make good business sense to make friends with the dragon princess? Why is discovering a new species almost as good as sex? What is the allure of Waltzing Banana Island? Can an elderly village woman armed with just a broom and gumption kill giant mosquitoes 'til they're...
Why do prominent modern Indonesian sultans continue love affairs with the Mermaid Queen? Why is the island of Flores Ground Zero for Hobbit sightin...
Your hero's journey can take many forms. Perhaps you met your soulmate at a cooking class in Tuscany and now make fresh pasta every evening -- you're 40 kilos overweight but happy. You took your eight-year-old daughter to the lake where your parents took you as a child -- she caught her first fish. Or maybe you want to record your family's history. How Grandfather Ishmael escaped Lithuania hours before he was to be arrested for horse theft, how Grandma Chen left China penniless, then through hard work and a deft touch at the mahjong table, became one of Singapore's leading real estate...
Your hero's journey can take many forms. Perhaps you met your soulmate at a cooking class in Tuscany and now make fresh pasta every evening -- you'...
Distant Greens travels to the highest golf course in the world, where breathless Tibetan precepts come face to face with the oxymoron of Indian military intelligence. To a golf course in the Amazon rainforest, near the source of rubber, which revolutionized the game. To the Middle Kingdom, to examine claims that it was the Chinese, and not the Scots, who invented golf. And to a volcanic Indonesian course where the Mermaid Queen ensures that "her" sultan always has good weather when he plays.
Distant Greens also travels into the soul of golf, the rituals, the belief that a...
Distant Greens travels to the highest golf course in the world, where breathless Tibetan precepts come face to face with the oxymoron of Indian mil...
An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles follows the Victorian-era explorations of Alfred Russel Wallace through Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. While Wallace is recognized as co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection (and was perhaps deliberately sidelined by Darwin), he was also an edgy social commentator and a voracious collector of "natural productions"--he caught, skinned, and pickled 125,660 specimens, including 212 new species of birds and 900 new species of beetles.
Sochaczewski has created an innovative form of storytelling, combining incisive biography and personal...
An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles follows the Victorian-era explorations of Alfred Russel Wallace through Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. Whil...
