{"title":"Jonathan Raban","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJonathan Raban\u003c\/strong\u003e crafts compelling narratives that blend travel, memoir, and fiction with rich, evocative prose. His works invite readers on immersive journeys, from the deserts of Arabia to the coastlines of Britain, exploring landscapes both external and deeply personal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith a keen eye for detail and a reflective voice, Raban reveals the complexities of place and identity, weaving together thoughtful observations and heartfelt storytelling. His writing is ideal for those who appreciate introspective travel writing and nuanced character studies.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"arabia-through-the-looking-glass-by-jonathan-raban-9781780601397","title":"Arabia through the Looking Glass","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eOf all his generation's travellers, Jonathan Raban is the most sophisticated, writing with a subtle and imaginative brilliance.\u003c\/em\u003e — Colin Thubron\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eOne of the most humane and visionary of all travel writers.\u003c\/em\u003e — Jeremy Seal\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eInto Jonathan Raban's familiar Earls Court neighbourhood after the 1970s oil boom came new visitors from the Arab world, dressed in floor-length robes and yashmaks. A people apart, little known, Raban wanted to get behind the myth and the rumour to discover the reality of their lives and world. His journey took him through Bahrain, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Yemen, Egypt and Jordan. What he discovered was a far cry from the camel, tent and sand dune archetypes of early European explorers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOil wealth had seeped into almost every corner, and Bedouin encampments had been replaced by cosmopolitan boomtowns, camels by Range Rovers. The sons of Bedouin nomads were now studying medicine in Europe and engineering in New York. Yet in this fast-moving world, old certainties remained, and cultural innovation lagged miles behind economic change.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRaban's gift for friendship introduces us to a series of memorable individuals, rich and poor, set against the feel, the smells, the sounds and the nuances of Arabia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47072127418604,"sku":"9781780601397","price":78.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/26800383482821.jpg?v=1765079293"},{"product_id":"coasting-by-jonathan-raban-9781780601380","title":"Coasting","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA valuable book and a necessary one. One of the funniest and cleverest voyages on record.\u003c\/em\u003e — Christopher Hitchens, \u003cem\u003eNew Statesman\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe finest writer afloat since Conrad.\u003c\/em\u003e — Geoffrey Moorhouse, \u003cem\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eUnfailingly witty and entertaining.\u003c\/em\u003e — Salman Rushdie\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCoasting\u003c\/em\u003e around Britain single-handed in an antique two-masted sailing boat, Jonathan Raban conducts a masterly exploration of England and the English at the time of Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands War. He moves seamlessly between awkward memories of childhood as the son of a vicar, a vivid chronicle of the shape-shifting sea, and incisive descriptions of the people and communities he encounters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs he faces his terror of racing water, eddies, offshore sandbars, and ferries on a collision course, so he navigates the complex and turbulent waters of his own middle age. \u003cem\u003eCoasting\u003c\/em\u003e is a fearless attempt to discover the meaning of belonging and of his English homeland.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47072162939116,"sku":"9781780601380","price":34.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/26800213482821.jpg?v=1765082744"},{"product_id":"eothen-by-jonathan-raban-9781780601427","title":"Eothen","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eEothen\u003c\/i\u003e, which means 'news from the east', started out as a few notes scribbled on the back of a map, to amuse a friend who wanted some advice for his own youthful 'year off' travels, but it became one of the most influential, witty and idiosyncratic of travel books. It took Kinglake seven years before he had finished crafting this 'lively, brilliant and rather insolent' tale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe physical details of the journey, undertaken in 1834 across the Balkan frontiers of the Ottoman Empire, through Constantinople, Smyrna, Cyprus into the Near Eastern cities of Jerusalem, Cairo, and Damascus, are never as significant as the conversations, chance encounters, and attitudes of the author. Packed full of an infectious charm and a youthful delight at the world, it is above all things funny as it lampoons the pomposity of earnest, middle-aged travellers seeking to establish themselves as professional authorities.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'One of the most deliciously nasty books in English literature.' - Jonathan Raban\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'One of the most original, graceful and creative of all travel books... sparkling, ironic and terrific fun.' - Jan Morris\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette New Zealand Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47072215662828,"sku":"9781780601427","price":39.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/26800683482821.jpg?v=1765086307"},{"product_id":"for-love-or-money-by-jonathan-raban-9781780601403","title":"For Love or Money","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eJonathan Raban is the only person I listen to in matters of travel and books and writing in general. Reading him, talking to him as I have over fifty years, he has made my work better and me happier.\u003c\/em\u003e - Paul Theroux\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFor Love and Money\u003c\/em\u003e is as good a book as there is about the writing life. Delighted that it will be safeguarded in print by Eland. - Tim Hannigan\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis collection of writing undertaken for love and money is about books and travel, and makes for an engrossing and candid exploration of what it means to live from writing. Jonathan Raban weighs up the advantages of maintaining an independent spirit against problems of insolvency and self-worth, confesses to travel as an escape from the blank page, ponders the true art of the book review, admires the role of the literary editor, and remembers with affection and hilarity events from his eccentric life at the heart of literary London. Reading it is like embarking on a humane, rigorous, and witty conversation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47072259932396,"sku":"9781780601403","price":83.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/26800443482821.jpg?v=1765089395"},{"product_id":"old-glory-by-jonathan-raban-9781780601366","title":"Old Glory","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eJonathan Raban is one of the world's greatest living travel writers.\u003c\/em\u003e – William Dalrymple\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe best book of travel ever written by an Englishman about the United States.\u003c\/em\u003e – Jan Morris, \u003ci\u003eIndependent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNavigating the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to New Orleans, Raban opens himself to experience the river in all her turbulent and unpredictable old glory. Going wherever the current takes him, he joins a coon-hunt in Savana, falls for a girl in St Louis, worships with black Baptists in Memphis, hangs out with the housewives of Pemiscot, and the hog-king of Dubuque. Through tears of laughter, we are led into the heartland of America with its hunger and hospitality, its inventive energy, and its charming lethargy, coming to know something of its soul.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe journey is as much the story of Raban as it is of the Mississippi. Navigating the dangerous, ever-changing waters in an unsuitably fragile aluminium skiff, he immerses himself with an irresistible emotional intensity as he tries to give shape to the river and the story, finding himself by turns vulnerable, curious, angry and, like all of us, sometimes foolishly in love.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47072348668140,"sku":"9781780601366","price":85.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/26800073482821.jpg?v=1765095383"},{"product_id":"bad-land-by-jonathan-raban-9781035034529","title":"Bad Land","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eJonathan Raban's\u003c\/em\u003e enthralling journey into the history of the Great Plains of Montana - the least populated, most uncharted region of the United States - uncovers the heart and soul of the country.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBringing to life the extraordinary landscape of the prairie and the homesteaders whose dreams foundered there, and reaching through history to the present day, \u003cem\u003eBad Land\u003c\/em\u003e uncovers the dangerous legacy of American innocence gone sour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eReissued with a new introduction from Jane Smiley, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning \u003cem\u003eA Thousand Acres\u003c\/em\u003e, this is Jonathan Raban at his finest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'Bad Land\u003c\/em\u003e should be recognized as a blazing classic' - \u003cem\u003eSunday Telegraph\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Macmillan Publishers New Zealand Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48240715825388,"sku":"9781035034529","price":24.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781035034529-bad-land-1.jpg?v=1787925110"},{"product_id":"father-and-son-by-jonathan-raban-9780330418416","title":"Father and Son","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA beautiful, compelling memoir . . . This, Raban's final work, is a gorgeous achievement\u003c\/em\u003e - Ian McEwan\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOn 11 June 2011, three days short of his sixty-ninth birthday, Jonathan Raban suffered a stroke which left him unable to use the right side of his body. Learning to use a wheelchair in a rehab facility outside Seattle and resisting the ministrations of the nurses overseeing his recovery, Raban began to reflect upon the measure of his own life in the face of his own mortality. Together with the chronicle of his recovery is the extraordinary story of his parents' marriage, the early years of which were conducted by letter while his father fought in the Second World War.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eJonathan Raban engages profoundly and candidly with some of the biggest questions at the heart of what it means to be alive, laying bare the human capacity to withstand trauma, as well as the warmth, strength, and humour that persist despite it. \u003cem\u003eFather and Son\u003c\/em\u003e, the final work from the peerless man of letters, is a tremendous, continent-sweeping story of love and resilience in the face of immense loss.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Macmillan Publishers New Zealand Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48241198530796,"sku":"9780330418416","price":27.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780330418416-father-and-son-1.jpg?v=1787936762"},{"product_id":"father-and-son-by-jonathan-raban-9781529035704","title":"Father and Son","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFather and Son\u003c\/em\u003e is a beautiful, compelling memoir. It presents an exquisite, sometimes lunatic tension between powerful emotions and carnage on one side, and on the other, the conventional codes of what must remain unsaid. This, Raban's final work, is a gorgeous achievement. - Ian McEwan\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOn 11 June 2011, three days short of his sixty-ninth birthday, Jonathan Raban suffered a stroke which left him unable to use the right side of his body, wheelchair-bound in a rehab facility and endlessly frustrated by his newfound physical limitations. As he resisted the overbearing ministrations of the nurses helping him along the road to recovery, Raban began to reflect not only on the measure of his own life but the extraordinary story of his parents' early marriage, conducted for three years by letter while his father fought in the Second World War.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eJonathan Raban engages profoundly and honestly with the biggest questions at the heart of what it means to be alive, laying bare the human capacity to adapt to trauma, as well as the warmth, strength, and humour that persist despite it. The result is \u003cem\u003eFather and Son\u003c\/em\u003e, a tremendous story of resilience in the face of loss.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Macmillan Publishers New Zealand Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48241198727404,"sku":"9781529035704","price":39.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781529035704-father-and-son-1.jpg?v=1787936771"},{"product_id":"waxwings-by-jonathan-raban-9781035091539","title":"Waxwings","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eLonglisted for the 2003 Man Booker Prize\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAt the turn of the millennium, two immigrants are drawn to the United States by their own versions of the American Dream.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFor Tom Janeway — a Hungarian-born English intellectual most at home with his books — it's the family he thought he'd never have. For Chick — an illegal alien newly escaped from a cargo container — it's the land of plenty he imagined back in China.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut as the stock market hits a new high, anti-globalist riots break out in the streets, a terrorist is arrested, and a child disappears, the two men's dreams collide in a way neither could have anticipated. Unjustly accused of a horrific crime, estranged from his wife and his beloved young son, Tom's life is rapidly unravelling. Chick, meanwhile, has a burgeoning business by day but no safe place to lay his bed at night. For both, the New World proves surprisingly full of old ways.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMoving, funny, and hugely entertaining, Jonathan Raban's \u003cem\u003eWaxwings\u003c\/em\u003e brilliantly captures the landscape and life of contemporary America.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePart of the Picador Collection, a series celebrating fifty years of Picador books and showcasing the best of modern literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Macmillan Publishers New Zealand Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":68042894115052,"sku":"9781035091539","price":30.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781035091539-waxwings-1.jpg?v=1793683016"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/jonathan-raban.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}