NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “With winning candor, Jedidiah Jenkins takes us with him as he bicycles across two continents and delves deeply into his own beautiful heart.”—Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things On the eve of turning thirty, terrified of being funneled into a life he didn’t choose, Jedidiah Jenkins quit his dream job and spent sixteen months cycling from Oregon to Patagonia. He chronicled the trip on Instagram, where his photos and reflections drew hundreds of thousands of followers, all gathered around the question: What makes a life worth living? In this unflinchingly honest memoir, Jed narrates his adventure—the people and places he encountered on his way to the bottom of the world—as well as the internal journey that started it all. As he traverses cities, mountains, and inner boundaries, Jenkins grapples with the question of what it means to be an adult, his struggle to reconcile his sexual identity with his conservative Christian upbringing, and his belief in travel as a way to wake us up to life back home. A soul-stirring read for the wanderer in each of us, To Shake the Sleeping Self is an unforgettable reflection on adventure, identity, and a life lived without regret. Praise for To Shake the Sleeping Self “[Jenkins is] a guy deeply connected to his personal truth and just so refreshingly present.”—Rich Roll, author of Finding Ultra “This is much more than a book about a bike ride. This is a deep soul deepening us. Jedidiah Jenkins is a mystic disguised as a millennial.”—Tom Shadyac, author of Life’s Operating Manual “Thought-provoking and inspirational . . . This uplifting memoir and travelogue will remind readers of the power of movement for the body and the soul.”—Publishers Weekly
2022 Maine Literary Award Finalist. Moroccan tour guide Ibrahim brings a busload of students from a summer Arabic program to stay in the medina (old city) of Fez, right next door to a newly-opened time portal. When a student goes missing, Ibrahim looks for him and slips into the past, where they find themselves in a fight to save the city. Along the way they come face to face with the mysteries of the medina, where history lives around every corner.
In his first book, "Searching for the Holy Grail," Brian Walters takes the reader on a compelling modern-day Grand Tour of Western Europe and in his second book, "Fallen," he embarks on an introspective journey through Ireland and Eastern Europe during the tragic events of September 11. In his new book, "Call to Prayer," he sets off on his next great adventure, a three-week tour of Spain, Portugal ad Morocco. Join the author and his eclectic band of young travelers as they listen to haunting fado melodies in Lisbon, witness a bullfight in Spain, barter with Berber carpet salesmen in F?'s Medina, and ride camels in the Sahara.Along the way, you will bask in the fascinating history of the Moors, delve into the horrors of the Reconquista and Spanish Inquisition, and learn about Islam from a man named Mohammed. Once again, Brian Walters uses his keen insight, wry wit and passion for travel to take the reader on an unforgettable journey.
Marrakech is the heart and lifeblood of Morocco's ancient storytelling tradition. For nearly a thousand years, storytellers have gathered in the Jemaa el Fna, the legendary square of the city, to recount ancient folktales and fables to rapt audiences. But this unique chain of oral tradition that has passed seamlessly from generation to generation is teetering on the brink of extinction. The competing distractions of television, movies and the internet have drawn the crowds away from the storytellers and few have the desire to learn the stories and continue their legacy. Richard Hamilton has witnessed at first hand the death throes of this rich and captivating tradition and, in the labyrinth of the Marrakech medina, has tracked down the last few remaining storytellers, recording stories that are replete with the mysteries and beauty of the Maghreb.
Until attention shifted to the Middle East in the early 1970s, Americans turned most often toward the Maghreb—Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and the Sahara—for their understanding of “the Arab.” In Morocco Bound, Brian T. Edwards examines American representations of the Maghreb during three pivotal decades—from 1942, when the United States entered the North African campaign of World War II, through 1973. He reveals how American film and literary, historical, journalistic, and anthropological accounts of the region imagined the role of the United States in a world it seemed to dominate at the same time that they displaced domestic social concerns—particularly about race relations—onto an “exotic” North Africa. Edwards reads a broad range of texts to recuperate the disorienting possibilities for rethinking American empire. Examining work by William Burroughs, Jane Bowles, Ernie Pyle, A. J. Liebling, Jane Kramer, Alfred Hitchcock, Clifford Geertz, James Michener, Ornette Coleman, General George S. Patton, and others, he puts American texts in conversation with an archive of Maghrebi responses. Whether considering Warner Brothers’ marketing of the movie Casablanca in 1942, journalistic representations of Tangier as a city of excess and queerness, Paul Bowles’s collaboration with the Moroccan artist Mohammed Mrabet, the hippie communities in and around Marrakech in the 1960s and early 1970s, or the writings of young American anthropologists working nearby at the same time, Edwards illuminates the circulation of American texts, their relationship to Maghrebi history, and the ways they might be read so as to reimagine the role of American culture in the world.
Moroccan Musings considers Moroccan culture through a collection of contemplative vignettes. Relationships formed during visits to this country transformed an educational journey into magical experiences. Part travel essay, part journal, part tribute to an ancient civilization, Moroccan Musings leads the reader to discover some of life's challenges, beauties, and lessons to be learned daily against the backdrop of Morocco's desert sands, cork trees, date palms, bustling markets, calls to prayer, and warm-hearted people.