Jennifer Barclay

After a breakup with her boyfriend turns her world upside down, the author decides to go to the Greek island of Tilos and manages to regain her sense of self and happiness in the island's natural beauty and simple way of life.

How a Tiny Greek Island Stole My Heart

Falling in Honey

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." --Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own Prepare your senses for a feast of delicious food scenes in literature accompanied with recipes to bring them to life in your very own kitchen, including Turkish delight Edmund wouldn't be able to resist, roast goose the Cratchits would be proud of and cucumber sandwiches Algernon would be loath to share. This book is perfect for anyone who enjoys spending their days with a book in one hand and a saucepan in the other. Includes metric measures.

Recipes Inspired by Novels, Poems and Plays

A Literary Feast

The world knows more about secret North Korea than the free society of the South. As a peace summit heralded a new era for a country divided for 50 years, Jennifer Barclay searched for the spirit of South Korea, discovering a land full of passion, tradition and spirituality, good humour and great food. Jen quit her high-pressure job and followed her musician boyfriend to South Korea, where his band had a contract to play funk at a luxury hotel. But life in Seoul was lonely and bewildering. Desperate to connect with Korean life and the people, she said goodbye to the capital and set off alone to explore the country. With patience and determination she found her way to ancient tombs and Buddhist temples, strangers’ homes and forest-covered mountains, where people’s kindness and pride in their culture began to work magic. They were on a mission to ensure she left with happy memories – and perhaps a new set of values.

Or How I Went to Korea & Learned to Love Kimchi

Meeting Mr Kim

'It is high time that a new book be written about Korea, and Jennifer Barclay's fresh, amusing and light-hearted take on the country seems to be precisely the right approach.' - Simon Winchester. Feeling professionally burned out after turning 30, Jennifer Barclay had a hankering to experience something different. But after quitting her job and moving to South Korea with her boyfriend, she soon found life in Seoul lonely and bewildering. Desperate to connect with Korean life and people, she wandered the country alone, where the people's kindness and pride in their culture slowly began to work its magic.

Meeting Mr Kim ; Or how I Went to Korea and Learned to Love Kimchi

Amy Logan

AWOL: absent without leave; absent from one’s post or duty without official permission but without intending to desert. Originally a military term, it gradually entered the vernacular for when someone goes missing unexpectedly. Jennifer Barclay and Amy Logan thought it fit well with the kind of travel pieces they wanted to publish--irreverent but thoughtful, emotionally honest and opinionated, bold and provocative. For those who dream of having no fixed address, and those happy simply to read about it, AWOL is filled with entertaining, enriching and edifying stories of people getting away from the familiar. AWOL: Tales for Travel-Inspired Minds is dedicated to the perspectives we gain when away from our regular circumstances.

Tales for Travel-Inspired Minds

AWOL

“A vivid and intoxicating account of these beautiful islands” – Victoria Hislop “A must-read for anyone who loves the Greek islands” – Richard Clark ‘There’s something about abandoned places which moves me and captures the imagination.’ So says seasoned travel writer Jennifer Barclay as she walks with her dog and her backpack through the deserted spaces of the Dodecanese, islands that were once bustling but are now half forgotten and reclaimed by the wild due to a mix of misfortune and the lure of opportunity elsewhere. Join her on a journey through abandoned villages and farms, cave-houses and captains’ mansions, the homes of displaced Muslim fishermen and poets, as she discovers beauty in the ruins, emptiness and silence, and inspiration in the stories of people’s lives. A long-term resident of Greece, Jennifer Barclay spent more than four years researching Wild Abandon, visiting islands multiple times and talking to local people to hear their stories. She travels from the very west to the very east of the Dodecanese, from the very south almost to the very north, taking in some of the smallest and the biggest islands, and highlighting different stories along the way to show the complex history behind these havens of tranquillity. She discovers a villa intended for Benito Mussolini’s retirement, an island that links a gramophone from St Petersburg and a portrait in the American National Gallery via a pack of cigarettes, and reflects on the days when an economy based on sponges and burnt rock supported thousands. Wild Abandon is an elegy in praise of abandoned places and a search for lost knowledge through the wildest and most deserted locations.

A Journey to the Deserted Places of the Dodecanese

Wild Abandon

Escape to the sunlight and colour of a wild island in the south Aegean. When Jennifer moves alone into the Honey Factory on a tiny Greek island, bringing a laptop, her hiking boots and plans for a peaceful life, she has no idea what surprises are in store. Diving into an exciting new life with a fisherman, she learns something every day. Joining the dancing at local festivals and helping at a café on the beach, surviving winter storms and finding a canine companion, she is faced with both challenges and rewards, and discovers that to become an island woman she must live small and think big.

Loving Life on a Greek Island

An Octopus in My Ouzo

Hilary Bradt

David Attenborough, Dion Leonard (Finding Gobi), Dervla Murphy and Brian Jackman are just four of the authors whose work features in this new anthology from Bradt focusing on true stories about travelling with animals. In Beastly Journeys, there are 46 tales of extraordinary animal travel experiences, from hilarious holidays with pets to journeys on which wild animals somehow came along for the ride, including: David Attenborough tries to get an armadillo through Paraguayan customs; adventurer Ash Dykes takes a white cockerel to Maromokotro to ward off evil spirits; Mike Gerrard shares a car journey from Belsize Park to Canvey Island with a python; Brian Jackman rides, walks and swims with Abu the elephant; Bradt New Travel Writer of the Year Dom Tulett rows with a kingfisher; and John Rendall travels to Africa with Christian, the lion he bought at Harrods and raised in west London. Also included is a brand new piece of writing from ultramarathon runner Dion Leonard about his experience with Gobi, the stray dog who accompanied him for 80 miles over the treacherous Tian Shian mountains. A mix of new, previously unpublished writers and old favourites are included, with extracts from writers such as Mark Shand (Travels on my Elephant), Dervla Murphy (Eight Feet in the Andes) and Robert Louis Stevenson (Travels with a Donkey), not to mention Gerald Durrell, 19th-century explorer Isabella Bird and renowned publisher Michael Joseph. Compelling, engaging, surprising, humorous and entertaining. if this book proves one thing it's that travel with animals is every bit as unpredictable as you would expect it to be.

Unusual Tales of Travel with Animals

Beastly Journeys

A long-term resident of Greece, Jennifer Barclay spent more than four years researching Wild Abandon, visiting islands multiple times, and hearing the stories of local people. She travels from the very west to the very east of the Dodecanese, from the very south almost to the very north, taking in some of the smallest and the biggest islands, and highlighting different stories along the way to show the complex history behind these havens of tranquility

Jennifer Barclay

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