The Little Book of Honey

Gowing, Elizabeth

Elbow Publishing

What if a woman from a century ago could help you understand your life now? 'Edith and I; on the trail of an Edwardian traveller in Kosovo' tells the story of how tracking down anthropologist, aid worker and feisty Balkan explorer, Edith Durham, took her biographer to places and decisions she never thought she'd reach.\nIt's the story of two Kosovo journeys a century apart. In 1900, Europe's last wilderness was explored by a most unlikely champion, a stout, stubborn Englishwoman who travelled in her tam o'shanter across the Accursed Mountains into Kosovo. Edith Durham was dubbed 'Queen of the Highlanders' by the Albanians who honoured her for her anthropological writing, her humanitarian aid and her tireless lobbying for their cause.\nOne hundred years later, Elizabeth Gowing came to Kosovo and also fell in love with the country. Dividing her time between there and London, she thought that no-one would understand her identity crisis; but as Elizabeth unravels Edith's story through archives and museum collections in Britain and retraces Edith's steps in Kosovo she learns from her what she should do with her life.\nTracing the revelations in old diaries, jolting along Kosovan roads in a 'motokultivator', learning from Edith the secrets of the harem, and from monks the treasures of Unesco World Heritage Site monasteries, Elizabeth travels on Edith's trail and ends up finding not only an Edwardian heroine but also a guide to her own very twenty-first century dilemma.\nJohn McCarthy says of the book, 'Elizabeth Gowing’s descriptions of people and places will have you wanting to head to Kosovo on the next available flight. Her passion for the country shines through her quest to discover the life of Edith Durham, another British woman who took Kosovo and Kosovars to her heart.'\nElizabeth's first book, 'Travels in Blood and Honey; becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo' (Signal Books, 2011) was described by The Times as 'a sheer delight; a beguiling, bittersweet story of a lively love affair with a traditional world - in transition to new nationhood', and by The Lady as 'a bold, unique stride across genres - with a sense of humour and Famous Five enthusiasm'

Edith and I: On the Trail of an Edwardian Traveller in Kosovo

This is a true story of living and learning - being confused and comforted - with the excluded Ashkali people of Kosovo; an account of the challenges and delights of what happens when you find your community but it's a long way from home.\nHatemja, a rubbish-picker's wife, lives in the poorest community in the poorest country in Europe. When Elizabeth Gowing is befriended by her, the women learn with, from and about one another. How can you find the best rubbish pastures for scavenging? How can you free children to go to school rather than to go out begging? How do you then convince the local school to accept them? Can mayonnaise deal with headlice? How best to teach the 36 letters of the Albanian alphabet? How would Facebook help evacuate a family from a rat-infested hovel? How do you make baklava? And through it all, how do you maintain a precious friendship that's helped you find out the best you can be?

The Rubbish-Picker's Wife: An Unlikely Friendship in Kosovo

Elizabeth Gowing

Death and the Dreadnought (The Gentleman Adventurer)

Literature & Fiction

Wilton, Robert

Genre Fiction

‘A lovely evocation of heady times in America’ – James Naughtie 
In 1969 the 22-year-old Tim Albert spent three happy months on a 12,000 mile road trip around the United States on Greyhound buses. Half a century later - to the day - he set out to revisit his trip, armed with his original 30,000-word diary. Would he find the America of President Donald Trump much altered from the America of President Richard Nixon? How would Greyhound bus travel have changed in a world flooded by motor cars and electronic devices? And would his 72-year-old body last the course? 
In this funny and finely observed account, our game hero tours New York with a 50-year-old Michelin Guide; discovers that bus passengers speak into their phones and not to each other; celebrates the golden jubilees of the moon landings, the gay rights movement and Kermit the Frog; declines the offer of a mail-order AK-47; and is told by half the people he meets that the President is a dangerous embarrassment and by the other half that he is a saviour who never lies. When two older ladies assume our scruffy traveller is homeless and reach into their handbags to give him money for food, he realises that one thing hasn’t changed - the generosity of Americans. 
‘Not just a changed country but a changed narrator’ – Alice Allan

Two Summers: Nixon and Trump by Greyhound Bus

Travel

Albert, Tim

United States

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