{"product_id":"a-time-of-gifts-isbn-9781590171653","title":"A Time of Gifts","description":"\u003cb\u003eThis beloved account about an intrepid young Englishman on the first leg of his walk from London to Constantinople is simply one of the best works of travel literature ever written. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the age of eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor  set off from the heart of London on an epic journey—to walk to Constantinople.  \u003ci\u003eA Time of Gifts\u003c\/i\u003e is the rich account of his adventures as far as Hungary,  after which \u003ci\u003eBetween the Woods and the Water\u003c\/i\u003e continues the story to the Iron Gates that divide the Carpathian and  Balkan mountains. Acclaimed for its sweep and  intelligence, Leigh  Fermor’s book explores a remarkable moment in time. Hitler  has just  come to power but war is still ahead, as he walks through a Europe soon   to be forever changed—through the Lowlands to Mitteleuropa, to Teutonic  and  Slav heartlands, through the baroque remains of the Holy Roman  Empire; up the Rhine,  and down to the Danube.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At once a memoir of coming-of-age,  an account of a journey, and a dazzling exposition of the English language, \u003ci\u003eA  Time of Gifts\u003c\/i\u003e is also a portrait of a continent already showing ominous signs  of the holocaust to come.\"This is a glorious feast, the account of a walk in 1934 from  the Hook of Holland to what was then Constantinople. The 18-year-old  Fermor began by sleeping in barns but, after meeting some landowners  early on, got occasional introductions to castles. So he experienced  life from both sides, and with all the senses, absorbing everything:  flora and fauna, art and architecture, geography, clothing, music,  foods, religions, languages. Writing the book decades after the fact, in  a baroque style that is always rigorous, never flowery, he was able to  inject historical depth while still retaining the feeling of boyish  enthusiasm and boundless curiosity. This is the first of a still  uncompleted trilogy; the second volume, \u003ci\u003eBetween the Woods and the Water\u003c\/i\u003e,  takes him through Hungary and Romania; together they capture better  than any books I know the remedial, intoxicating joy of travel.\" — Thomas Swick, \u003ci\u003eSouth Florida Sun-Sentinel\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Recovers  the innocence and the excitement of youth, when everything was possible  and the world seemed luminescent with promise. ...Even  more magical...through Hungary, its lost province of Transylvania,  and into Romania... sampling the tail end of a languid, urbane and  anglophile way of life that would soon be swept away forever.” —Jeremy  Lewis, \u003ci\u003eLiterary Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A book so good you resent finishing it.” —Norman Stone\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"The greatest of living travel writers…an amazingly complex and subtle evocation of a place that is no more.\" — Jan Morris \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"In these two volumes of extraordinary lyrical beauty and discursive,  staggering erudition, Leigh Fermor recounted his first great excursion…  They’re partially about an older author’s encounter with his young self,  but they’re mostly an evocation of a lost Mitteleuropa of wild horses  and dark forests, of ancient synagogues and vivacious Jewish  coffeehouses, of Hussars and Uhlans, and of high-spirited and deeply  eccentric patricians with vast libraries (such as the Transylvanian  count who was a famous entomologist specializing in Far Eastern moths  and who spoke perfect English, though with a heavy Scottish accent,  thanks to his Highland nanny). These books amply display Leigh Fermor’s  keen eye and preternatural ear for languages, but what sets them apart,  besides the utterly engaging persona of their narrator, is his  historical imagination and intricate sense of historical linkage…Few  writers are as alive to the persistence of the past (he’s ever alert to  the historical forces that account for the shifts in custom, language,  architecture, and costume that he discerns), and I’ve read none who are  so sensitive to the layers of invasion that define the part of Europe he  depicts here. The unusual vantage point of these books lends them great  poignancy, for we and the author know what the youthful Leigh Fermor  cannot: that the war will tear the scenery and shatter the buildings he  evokes; that German and Soviet occupation will uproot the beguiling  world of those Tolstoyan nobles; and that in fact very few people who  became his friends on this marvelous and sunny journey will survive the  coming catastrophe.\" — Benjamin Schwarz, \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for  Patrick Leigh Fermor: \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"One of the greatest travel writers of all time”–\u003ci\u003eThe Sunday  Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e “A unique mixture of hero, historian, traveler and writer; the last and      the greatest of a generation whose like we won't see again.”–\u003ci\u003eGeographical\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e “The finest  traveling companion we could ever have . . . His head is     stocked with enough cultural  lore and poetic fancy to make every   league   an adventure.” –\u003ci\u003eEvening Standard\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf all Europe   were   laid waste tomorrow, one might do worse than attempt  to recreate   it, or   at least to preserve some sense of historical  splendor and   variety,  by  immersing oneself in the travel books of  Patrick Leigh   Fermor.”—Ben   Downing, \u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003ePatrick Leigh Fermor\u003c\/b\u003e (1915-2011) was an intrepid  traveler, a heroic soldier, and a writer with a unique prose style.  After his stormy schooldays, followed by the walk across Europe to  Constantinople that begins in \u003ci\u003eA Time of Gifts\u003c\/i\u003e (1977) and continues through \u003ci\u003eBetween the Woods and the Water\u003c\/i\u003e (1986), he lived and traveled in the Balkans and the Greek Archipelago. His books \u003ci\u003eMani\u003c\/i\u003e (1958) and \u003ci\u003eRoumeli\u003c\/i\u003e (1966) attest to his deep interest in languages and remote places. In  the Second World War he joined the Irish Guards, became a liaison officer  in Albania, and fought in Greece and Crete. He was awarded the DSO and  OBE. He lived partly in Greece—in the house he designed with his wife,  Joan, in an olive grove in the Mani—and partly in Worcestershire. He was  knighted in 2004 for his services to literature and to British–Greek  relations.  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJan Morris\u003c\/b\u003e was born in 1926, is Anglo-Welsh, and lives in  Wales.  She has written some forty books, including the Pax Britannica  trilogy about the British Empire; studies of Wales, Spain, Venice,  Oxford, Manhattan, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Trieste; six volumes of  collected travel essays; two memoirs; two capricious biographies; and a  couple of novels—but she defines her entire oeuvre as “disguised  autobiography.” She is an honorary D.Litt. of the University of Wales  and a Commander of the British Empire.  Her memoir \u003ci\u003eConundrum\u003c\/i\u003e is available as a New York Review Book Classic.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301324869861,"sku":"NP9781590171653","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590171653.jpg?v=1767720861","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/a-time-of-gifts-isbn-9781590171653","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}