Featured Book
Quests
Quests is a volume of 24 personal adventures pursued over more than 50 years— at times obscure, long-gestating, sentimental, and ridiculous.
Quests don’t have to be cinematic or physical. A quest might be as seemingly low-key as getting a degree, eating escargots in Paris, learning a language, or mastering the art of making puff pastry.
I will never climb K2 or windsurf across the Atlantic. I don’t intend to attempt to “discover” an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon, locate the source of the Nile, or find the Holy Grail.
I’d like to know what quests you’ve chosen. Big or small? Distant or close to home? Did you achieve your goal? If not, does it matter?
Featured Photos
Featured Articles
Searching for Orwell
There are worse travel strategies than to visit places with evocative names.
There’s Timbuktu, Congo, and Okavango in Africa; and Salvador de Bahia, Darien, and Patagonia in Latin America, names which purr with history and poetry.
But Asia’s resonant place names beckon to me above all others. There’s Sumatra, Java, and Borneo; Malacca, Vientiane, and Makassar; Kelantan, Kathmandu, and Ayudhya. Not to mention the rivers: Ganges and Yangtze, Mahakam and Mekong. And the one I was headed towards: Ayeyarwady.
My destination was Katha, a small town on the Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) River, which has achieved a modicum of recognition. It was here, between 1926 and 1927, that a British policeman named Eric Blair spent six months as one of 90 British police officers in Burma. Eric Blair, who subsequently took the pen name George Orwell, based his 1934 novel Burmese Days on a fictionalized version of Katha that he dubbed Kyauktada (which is derived from the name of a district in Rangoon).
News & Events
Happy Return to UK for Alfred Russel Wallace
Jilted, Culture Shock, Illness, Writer’s Block, and Unpacking 20,000 Beetles Stress From Alfred Russel Wallace’s Move Caused a Long Delay in Writing His Most Famous Book Happy Return to UK for Alfred Russel Wallace (1862) — April 1 HURSTPIERPOINT, West Sussex, England Moving is one of life’s most stressful activities. Consider Alfred […]
10 November — Opening of COP 30 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Ah, yet another international gathering to discuss progress in addressing the problem of climate change. This year it will be held in Belém, Brazil, and the participants will also focus on nature conservation in the country, including the vast Amazon region. I’ve been following Victorian naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace for some 50 years, including a […]
Intro to a speculative biography of Ali
My speculative biography of Ali, Alfred Russel Wallace’s assistant, was honored as the Best Historical Book of 2024 by the United States Peace Corps Writers. Here’s an excerpt from the book’s introduction. Look Here, Sir, What a Curious Bird Intro to a speculative biography of Ali, Alfred Russel Wallace’s assistant in the Malay Archipelago […]