{"product_id":"the-broken-road-isbn-9781590177792","title":"The Broken Road","description":"\u003cb\u003ePatrick Leigh Fermor recounts the last leg of his epic walk across Europe as he makes his way through Bulgaria, Romania, and finally Greece. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the winter of 1933, eighteen-year-old Patrick (“Paddy”) Leigh Fermor set out on a walk across Europe, starting in Holland and ending in Constantinople. Decades later, Leigh Fermor told the story of that life-changing journey in \u003ci\u003eA Time of Gifts\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBetween the Woods and the Water\u003c\/i\u003e, works now celebrated as among the most vivid, absorbing, and beautifully written travel books of all time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Broken Road\u003c\/i\u003e is the account of the final leg of his journey, catching up with Paddy in the fall of 1934, following him through Bulgaria and Romania and ending in Greece. Days and nights on the road, spectacular landscapes and uncanny cities, friendships lost and found, leading the high life in Bucharest or camping out with fishermen and shepherds—such incidents and escapades are described with all the linguistic bravura and astonishing learning that Leigh Fermor is famous for, but also with a melancholy awareness of the passage of time. Throughout it we can hear the still-ringing voice of an irrepressible young man embarking on a life of adventure.“An unforgettable book, full of strange encounters with a prewar Balkan cast of counts, prostitutes, peasants, priests and castrati. The greatest pleasure of all, as usual, is Leigh Fermor’s own infectious, Rabelaisian hunger for knowledge of almost every kind. His memory seems eidetic; his eyes miss nothing. He seems to carry within himself a whole troupe of sharp-eyed geographers, art historians, ethnologists and multilingual poets.” —Robert F. Worth, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Fermor’s gift of observation transcends time, fusing the classical with the modern in prose of voluminous richness.” —Robert D. Kaplan, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“When you put down \u003ci\u003eThe Broken Road\u003c\/i\u003e you feel what [Leigh Fermor] himself felt on departing from Mount Athos…‘a great deal of regret.’” —Daniel Mendelsohn, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"By any standards, this is a major work. It confirms that Leigh Fermor   was, along with Robert Byron, the greatest travel writer of his   generation, and this final volume assures the place of the trilogy as   one of the masterpieces of the genre, indeed one of the masterworks of    postwar English non-fiction.\" —William Dalrymple, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The   descriptions of waking in unfamiliar places are so seductive that even   the most home-hugging reader will long to wake somewhere unknown. And   some of the evocations of landscapes and views will live long in the   memory.” —Anthony Sattin, \u003ci\u003eThe Observer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In the end, it’s   his moments of joy, his revelling in a young man’s moments of epiphany,   which stay in the mind.” —Neal Ascherson,\u003ci\u003e London Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eThe Broken Road\u003c\/i\u003e is superb, towering about the usual run of travel books....\u003ci\u003eThe Broken Road\u003c\/i\u003e is better than any gleaming capstone: while giving us a more than   satisfactory idea of Leigh Fermor's Balkan adventures, it also, in its   raggedness, accentuates the seamless magic of the books that came   before, and it wraps the whole enterprise in a pathos that humanizes his   superhuman gifts.\" —Ben Downing, \u003ci\u003eThe Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In   a lamplit frenzy of mystic dance and song, among Homeric fisherfolk    and swains, young Paddy discovers the underground ecstasies of rebetika    in all its 'quintessence of fatalism.' Glimpsed from the future, he   sets  a course for the Greece that would keep his prose dancing ever   after.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Independent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The now-complete trilogy  documenting his journey is essential  curriculum for any  traveler….Fermor’s youthful forays across Bulgaria  and Romania to the  coast of the Black Sea make the reader wish all of  life were one long  journey of slow mornings on Turkish divans, welcome  platters of raki  and Turkish delight, crackling firelight and long  conversations in  various languages…Even those who have never seen the  Danube will be  struck with nostalgia—not for the author’s memories, but  for their own,  encapsulated in that same crystal mien of idealized  youth…” —\u003ci\u003eLongitude\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A fitting epilogue to 20th-century travel-writing and essential reading for devotees of Sir Patrick’s other works.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Economist\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"How   fitting, for a man so young at heart, with such a boundless appetite    for life, that his last published words should be those of a wide-eyed    20-year-old, embarking on what will be a lifelong love affair with    Greece. His editors, Colin Thubron and Artemis Cooper, have put this    book to bed with skill and sensitivity. Friends and fans, acolytes,    devotees and disciples can all rest easy. It was worth the wait.\"   --Justin Marozzi, \u003ci\u003eThe Spectator\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"The youthful joy shines   through, and the deep cultural learning that was  superimposed in later   years is there in sufficient quantity to lend  wonder to this  fragmented  tale....Anybody who loved its two preceding volumes will  fall upon it  hungrily.  Anybody who has not read the two preceding  volumes should do  so without  delay.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Scotsman\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\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eA Time of Gifts\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBetween the Woods and the Water\u003c\/i\u003e, the first two volume in the trilogy:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"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\u003cbr\u003e\"Those   for whom Paddy’s prose  is still an undiscovered country  are   to be   envied for what lies  ahead-hours with one of the most buoyant   and    curious personalities  one can find in English.\" — \u003ci\u003eThe New York Sun\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Mr. Fermor…is a peerless companion, unbound by timetable or convention, relentless in his high spirits and curiosity.\" — Richard B. Woodward, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"We are aware at every step that his adventure can never be       duplicated: only this extraordinary person at this pivotal time could       have experienced and recorded many of these sights. Distant  lightening      from events in Germany weirdly illuminates the trail of  this free      spirit.\" — \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"The young Fermor appears to have been as delightful a traveling companion as the much older Fermor a raconteur.\" — \u003ci\u003eThe Houston Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[\u003ci\u003eA Time of Gifts\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBetween the Woods and the Water\u003c\/i\u003e]       are absolutely delightful volumes, both for those who want to   better     understand what was lost in the violence of Europe’s   20th-century     divisions and for those who appreciate the beauty and   thrill of travel     writing at its best.\" — \u003ci\u003eThe Houston Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Leigh Fermor is recognizably that figure many writers of the past century have yearned to be, the man of action.\" — \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"He was, and remains, an Englishman, with so much living to his credit       that the lives conducted by the rest of us seem barely     sentient-pinched   and paltry things, laughably provincial in their     scope, and no more   fruitful than sleepwalks. We fret about our kids’     S.A.T. scores, whereas   this man, when he was barely more than a kid     himself, shouldered a   rucksack and walked from Rotterdam to   Istanbul.\"   — Anthony Lane, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“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\u003cb\u003ePatrick Leigh Fermor\u003c\/b\u003e (1915–2011) was an intrepid traveler and a heroic soldier who is widely considered to be one of the finest travel writers of the twentieth century. After his stormy school days, 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)  and \u003ci\u003eThe Broken Road \u003c\/i\u003e(published posthumously in 2013), 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. During 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. Leigh Fermor lived partly in Greece—in the house he designed with his wife, Joan, in an olive grove in the Mani—and partly in Worcestershire. In 2004 he was knighted for his services to literature and to British–Greek relations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e  \u003cbr\u003eColin Thubron\u003c\/b\u003e is the president of the Royal Society of Literature. Among his books are \u003ci\u003eThe Lost Heart of Asia\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eShadow of the Silk Road\u003c\/i\u003e, and most recently, \u003ci\u003eTo a Mountain in Tibet\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eArtemis Cooper\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of the biography \u003ci\u003ePatrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure \u003c\/i\u003eas well as the editor of \u003ci\u003eWords of Mercury\u003c\/i\u003e, a collection of Leigh Fermor's writings. She has written several works of history, including Cairo in the War.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300404515045,"sku":"NP9781590177792","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590177792.jpg?v=1767738544","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-broken-road-isbn-9781590177792","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}