From the golden pen of Nicolas Bouvier, author of iconic travel book The Way of the World, comes a collection of travel writings translated here for the first time into English.

In these stories he experiences the Aran isles in mid-winter, glorying outside in the extremities of the wind while he listens, feverish, to local stories which hum like a kettle on the fire. In Xian, he is blown away by the civilised brilliance and understatement of his guide, while in Korea he experiences the unchanging beauty of the Buddhist temple at Haeinsa and is marked forever by his climb of volcanic Halla-San. And the roots of his restless curiosity, his interminable amusment, are traced back to his childhood reading, and to the bitter war he conducted at the age of eight to rid himself of his arch-nemesis, Bertha.