Books & Links

Books

Here are some books we've read about the regions we've traveled through. Besides these, we've read a lot of other books during our trip, but the ones below are really recommendable!

William Dalrimple - From The Holy Mountain
Excellent and funny written travelbook about the Christians around the Middle East in the time of the Byzantyne Empire and today. Helps you understand the region in a much better way.

William Dalrimple - In Xanadu
Dalrymple is traveling the Marco Polo route from the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to Xanadu near Beijing. Excellently written and so very interesting for his historic notes. We traveled many parts of this route ourselves!

Nick Danziger - Danziger's Travels: beyond forbidden frontiers
Danziger sort of follows the Marco Polo route from London to China in '84. Marco Polo is forgotten as soon as he sneaks his way into Afghanistan with the Mujahadeen, but that leaves one of the most adventerous travelstories about this region

Nick Danziger - Danziger's Adventures: From Miami to Kabul
A collection of travel-tales about the funeral of Khomeiny, his return to Afghanistan, Kurdish refugee camps in Eastern Turkey, and luxerious cruise-ships. Highly entertaining

Peter Marsden - The Taliban: War, Religion and the New Order in Afghanistan
Interesting, objective and well written book, explaining about the Taliban and the recent history of Afghanistan

Rohinton Mistry - A Fine Balance
The most beautiful book about India. Tragic, but very beautiful. Absolutely must read for all India travelers.

Salman Rushdie- Midnight's children
The other most beautiful book about India. Excellently written, funny and really Indian (reads sometimes like a Bollywood masala movie). Story about a boy born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the moment at which India became an independent nation. His lifestory is an interesting mixture of Indian history and an epic of an Indian muslim family.

William Sutcliffe - Are You Experienced
Funny, and entertaining road-trip tale of David on a three month trip through India.

Amy Tan- The Joy Luck Club
Stories about 4 mothers, all born in China and their daughters who grew up in the US. Culture clashess and Chinese-English, also enjoyed by male readers.

Jon Krakauer - Into Thin Air
A thrilling first-hand account of a catastrophic expedition up Mt. Everest in 1996

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