Jeffrey Tayler

In prose that evokes a "haunting lyricism", (Washington Post) Tayler writes of his unauthorized travels across post-Glasnost Russia in Siberian Dawn. "No guidebook existed for my route; no one had ever done it before", writes Tayler. Nominated as an ALA Notable Book of the Year and for the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Prize, this engaging travel memoir animates both the disturbing ramifications of totalitarianism and the color and warmth of the people Tayler encountered on his journey.

A Journey Across the New Russia

Siberian Dawn

One of the rising stars of travel writing takes readers into one of the least Westernized and travel-friendly regions of the planet--the Sahel, the lower region of the Sahara and the belt where Islam meets Central Africa.

Through Muslim Black Africa by Truck, Bus, Boat, and Camel

Angry Wind

Nina Khrushcheva

In Putin’s Footsteps is Nina Khrushcheva and Jeffrey Tayler’s unique combination of travelogue, current affairs, and history, showing how Russia’s dimensions have shaped its identity and culture through the decades. With exclusive insider status as Nikita Khrushchev’s great grand-daughter, and an ex-pat living and reporting on Russia and the Soviet Union since 1993, Nina Khrushcheva and Jeffrey Tayler offer a poignant exploration of the largest country on earth through their recreation of Vladimir Putin’s fabled New Year’s Eve speech planned across all eleven time zones. After taking over from Yeltsin in 1999, and then being elected president in a landslide, Putin traveled to almost two dozen countries and a quarter of Russia’s eighty-nine regions to connect with ordinary Russians. His travels inspired the idea of a rousing New Year’s Eve address delivered every hour at midnight throughout Russia’s eleven time zones. The idea was beautiful, but quickly abandoned as an impossible feat. He correctly intuited, however, that the success of his presidency would rest on how the country’s outback citizens viewed their place on the world stage. Today more than ever, Putin is even more determined to present Russia as a formidable nation. We need to understand why Russia has for centuries been an adversary of the West. Its size, nuclear arsenal, arms industry, and scientific community (including cyber-experts), guarantees its influence.

Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia's Eleven Time Zones

In Putin's Footsteps

Describes the author's perilous 2,400-mile journey down the Lena River, from Lake Baikal above the Arctic Circle through the heart of Siberia, re-creating an odyssey first made by the Cossacks more than three centuries earlier, and details his close encounters with the region's primeval beauty, Cossack villages, Soviet outposts, ruined gulags, and a surly guide.

Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny

River of No Reprieve

The author describes his 1,100-mile journey down central Africa's Congo River in a dugout canoe and his encounters with lush jungles, corrupt officials and soldiers, difficult climatic conditions, and untold natural wonders.

A Modern-day Journey Into the Heart of Darkness

Facing the Congo

Focuses on the vast expanse of remote, challenging terrain from the steppes of southern Russia and the turbulent Caucasus Mountains to the deserts of central Asia and northern China to reveal the diverse lands and peoples of the region, detailing the rise of new autocratic states and revealing why democracy has yet to thrive in the area.

Riding the Back Roads of Empire Between Moscow and Beijing

Murderers in Mausoleums

Describes the author's perilous 2,400-mile journey down the Lena River, from Lake Baikal above the Arctic Circle through the heart of Siberia, re-creating an odyssey first made by the Cossacks more than three centuries earlier, and details his close encounters with the region's primeval beauty, Cossack villages, Soviet outposts, ruined gulags, and a surly guide. Reprint.

Jeffrey Tayler's intrepid journey up the Lena - a river closed to the world during the Soviet era - took him through some of Siberia's wildest and most hauntingly beautiful regions and brought him into contact with many groups of isolated villagers. These people survive in this region - now a wild frontier that lives off the diamond trade - cut off from the world by lack of roads, neglected by the Russian government and prey to alcoholism. Their untold stories form the the focus of the book, set against the backdrop of Tayler's descriptions of incredibly harsh weather conditions and his adventures in negotiating permission to travel in the region with Russian authorities and then navigating the Lena to its mouth in the Laptev Sea, above the arctic circle.

Jeffrey Tayler

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