To the Moon and Timbuktu: A Trek Through the Heart of Africa - Hardcover

Sovich, Nina

3.68

671 ratings by Goodreads

9780544025950: To the Moon and Timbuktu: A Trek Through the Heart of Africa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0544025954 ISBN 13: 9780544025950

Publisher: New Harvest, 2013

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To the Moon and Timbuktu Feeling directionless in Paris and inspired by the explorers of another era, Nina Sovich packs her bags and hops on the next plane to West Africa in search of adventure, where a fast-paced trek through Mali, Mauritania, and Niger prove that it's the traveler's journey, not the destination, that is the reward. Full description

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Review:

"Sovich's journeys are page-turning and suspenseful. Her travels are uncomfortable, often frightening, always illuminating and so beautifully conveyed that the reader feels present, as if she herself is watching a sunrise over the Nile." —Bookpage

"In her astute travel memoir, Sovich examines the dilemma so many women face: how to choose between a life of domesticity and one of adventure. An engaging, suspenseful, deeply philosophical anatomy of the process of making—and making peace with—life's major choices." —Rosemary Mahoney, MORE Magazine

"An epic journey." —Elle

"In a world of thousands of travel blogs, with blank spaces on the map that have been mostly filled in, Sovich proves that the question is not whether the travel genre has already been done but if it can still be done well. In Timbuktu, she does it well — and gets some answers along the way." —Washington Independent Review of Books

"Has a place ever gotten more mileage out of its name than Timbuktu? Nina Sovich also fell under the city's spell as a child, when her father referred to it in passing. Her long, fitful pilgrimage is the subject of her first book...[which] has its share of quietly appealing scenes and crisp observations." —Wall Street Journal

"To the Moon and Timbuktu traverses the wide open expanses of the desert and the interior labyrinths of the travelling id with a lyrical, wonderful and heartfelt generosity of spirit. Nina Sovich is a new kind of travel writer: honest, open and brave. Here are the soaring vistas and the warm funny details that would draw us all to the open road and up-and-down adventures along the way. I loved every page."—Wendell Steavenson, writer for The New Yorker and author of Stories I Stole

"Nina Sovich's spare, uninhibited writing blasts through journalistic cliches. There are sentences that recall Andre Gide's The Immoralist. Her soaring description of the Niger River in Mali is exactly as I experienced it. Her description of Mauritania's utter desolation makes me want to go there." —Robert D. Kaplan, author of The Revenge of Geography

"In reading To the Moon and Timbuktu I constantly had to fight off the call to pack up my suitcases and book the next flight to Bhutan, Iceland or Laos. Nina Sovich’s luscious, intelligent and deeply philosophical memoir of a solo trip to the almost-mythical land of Timbuktu reminds me of my own wild side. She is the perfect companion to this faraway place—equal parts questing, compassionate, graceful and literary. She reminds us that it is in exploration that we find freedom, humanity and our true selves again." —Alison Singh Gee, author of Where the Peacock Sings: A Palace, a Prince, and the Search for Home

About the Author:

Over the past decade, NINA SOVICH has written for The Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, TIME, Fortune Small Business, and The Patriot Ledger. Most recently she was a wire reporter at Dow Jones and then at Reuters in Paris where she covered everything from fashion shows to banking reform.

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