Pleasures And Landscapes

Description

A glorious collection of essays from one of Britain's most beloved travel writers, Pleasures and Landscapes features eight stunningly realized essays on Sybille Bedford's enviable and unpredictable travels through Europe. With elegant prose and razor sharp insight, Bedford whisks us up the winding streets of 1953 Switzerland, plops us into the passenger seat as she drives across the immense and empty landscapes of Western Spain, and makes our mouths water as she describes cheek-puckering tannins and her countless sips of velvety wine while touring the vineyards and chateaus of Bordeaux. Packed with excitement and adventure on every page, along with an omnipresent understanding of a traveller's self-awareness while abroad, Bedford shows us the world through her eyes - in all its beauty and wonder. Pleasures and Landscapes is a satisfyingly sensuous literary expedition.

Sybille Bedford was born in 1911 in Charlottenburg, Germany, the daughter of a German father and an English mother. She grew up in Italy, France and England. The account of her travels in Mexico A Visit to Don Otavio was her first published book in 1953, and she followed it with three novels, A Legacy (1956), A Favourite of the Gods (1963) and A Compass Error (1968). Her semi-autobiographical novel, Jigsaw, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989. Her memoir, Quicksands, was published in 2005. Sybille Bedford died in 2006.