The Bird Man

Isabella Tree

Biographies & Memoirs

Ebury Press

Behind the façade of sombreros and tequila, tourist traps and holiday resorts, there lies a very different Mexico. In Sliced Iguana Isabella Tree explores a country that is the heart and lifeblood of the Americas, a country of extremes and contradictions. In a land so markedly shaped by machismo, she finds a town controlled by arm-wrestling matriarchs and party-mad transvestites and in war-torn Chiapas she discovers shamans worshipping Mayan gods inside Catholic churches and conducting exorcisms with the aid of Pepsi. At a graveside vigil on the Night of the Dead she encounters the last delicate vestige of a pre-Columbian cult that elsewhere has morphed into an Americanised Halloween. With a group of Huichol Indians, perhaps the last truly autonomous tribe in the entire American continent, she participates in rituals using peyote, the hallucinogenic cactus, to bring rain to the drought-stricken sierra and appease the forces of Nature so recklessly abused by the conquistadors and their successors. Through her narrative Isabella Tree threads the brightly coloured history of Mexico and tells the stories of the people that have defined its fractured past and will shape its future - kings and conquistadors, politicians and rebels, shamans and priests, mestizos and indigenous Indians. This is a story of Mexico like no other, capturing the essence of its psyche and illuminating the struggles and hopes of a people and a country on the cusp of change.

Sliced Iguana: Travels in Mexico

Travel

Reference

Penguin Books, Ltd.

LIVING GODDESS

Penguin

<p>A journey into the heart of Mexico, with all its conflicting cultures and its distinctive clash of the old and the new. The unifying themes of the book and Mexico's universal loves and hates, its underlying religious faith and superstition, its obsession with death and disguise, feelings of isolation and community, sense of outrage and betryal is its passion for fantasy, idolatry and fiesta, and its love of the land. Isabella visits some of the most intriguing regions of Mexico, from Juchitan, where mothers encourage their sons to be homosexual to avoid paying dowries, to Atotonilco, scene of Easter humiliations and to the Sierra Madre Occidental - home of the Peyote.</p>

Sliced Iguana

Language: EnglishPages: 382About The BookIn a small medieval palace on Kathamandus Durba Square lives Nepals famous Living Goddess- a child chosen from the Buddhist caste of goldsmiths whose role is to watch over the country and protect its people. Once she attains puberty, another girl takes her place.To Nepalis she is the embodiment of Devi and for centuries the kings of Nepal have sought her blessing to rule. Legends swirl about her. But the facts remain shrouded in secrecy and closely guarded by the Living Goddesss priests and caretakers. Why are Buddhist girls worshipped by Hindu monarchs? Are the initiation rituals as macabre as they are rumoured to be? And what happens to Living Goddesses once they attain puberty?Using myth, religion, history and her unprecedented access to the priests, caretakers and former Living Goddesses, Isabella Tree takes us deep into this hidden world. Through it she draws a vivid portrait of the girl-goddess, the beliefs and practices of traditional Nepal, and ht uneasy journey it now makes towards modernity. Deeply felt and written over many years of travel and research, The Living Goddess is a profound, compelling and extremely moving book.About The AuthorIsabella Tree is a writer and journalist based in the UK. She is the author of three other non-fiction books and writes frequently for publications such as Conde Nast Traveler, the Sunday Times and the Observer. She has been travelling regularly to Nepal since the 1980s.ContentsTimelinexi Part One A Living Goddess3 The jewel of beginnings16 The newars24 Supreme Goddess35 The Glorious Ninth42 The Goddess's Yantra55 Taleju Temple62 Taleju's Flight from India69 Rashmila, ex-kumari76 Part Two A kingdom in Mourning95 Gorakhnath's prophecy103 The way of the diamond thunderbolt107

The Living Goddess (A Journey into The Heart of Kathmandu)

Literature & Fiction

Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd.

When The Storks Came Home (Nature’s Wisdom)

Ivy Kids Eco

<p>john gould was author and publisher of some of the most magnificent illustrated works on birds ever to have been created. the 2,999 imperial folio size illustrations that he produced during his lifetime was considered to eclipse even the beautiful birds of john james audubon</p>

The Bird Man: A Biography of John Gould

Wilding

Bolinda/Macmillan audio

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Books by Isabella Tree