Author: Farley Mowat
Publisher: South Royalton, Vt. : Steerforth Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
Walking on the Land brings Mowat's writing full circle, and will stand as a testament to his lifelong passions and unparalleled career."--BOOK JACKET.
Walking on the Land
Author: Farley Mowat
Publisher: South Royalton, Vt. : Steerforth Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
Walking on the Land brings Mowat's writing full circle, and will stand as a testament to his lifelong passions and unparalleled career."--BOOK JACKET.
Publisher: South Royalton, Vt. : Steerforth Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
Walking on the Land brings Mowat's writing full circle, and will stand as a testament to his lifelong passions and unparalleled career."--BOOK JACKET.
The Walking Whales
Author: J. G. M. Hans Thewissen
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520959418
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Hans Thewissen, a leading researcher in the field of whale paleontology and anatomy, gives a sweeping first-person account of the discoveries that brought to light the early fossil record of whales. As evidenced in the record, whales evolved from herbivorous forest-dwelling ancestors that resembled tiny deer to carnivorous monsters stalking lakes and rivers and to serpentlike denizens of the coast. Thewissen reports on his discoveries in the wilds of India and Pakistan, weaving a narrative that reveals the day-to-day adventures of fossil collection, enriching it with local flavors from South Asian culture and society. The reader senses the excitement of the digs as well as the rigors faced by scientific researchers, for whom each new insight gives rise to even more questions, and for whom at times the logistics of just staying alive may trump all science. In his search for an understanding of how modern whales live their lives, Thewissen also journeys to Japan and Alaska to study whales and wild dolphins. He finds answers to his questions about fossils by studying the anatomy of otters and porpoises and examining whale embryos under the microscope. In the book's final chapter, Thewissen argues for approaching whale evolution with the most powerful tools we have and for combining all the fields of science in pursuit of knowledge.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520959418
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Hans Thewissen, a leading researcher in the field of whale paleontology and anatomy, gives a sweeping first-person account of the discoveries that brought to light the early fossil record of whales. As evidenced in the record, whales evolved from herbivorous forest-dwelling ancestors that resembled tiny deer to carnivorous monsters stalking lakes and rivers and to serpentlike denizens of the coast. Thewissen reports on his discoveries in the wilds of India and Pakistan, weaving a narrative that reveals the day-to-day adventures of fossil collection, enriching it with local flavors from South Asian culture and society. The reader senses the excitement of the digs as well as the rigors faced by scientific researchers, for whom each new insight gives rise to even more questions, and for whom at times the logistics of just staying alive may trump all science. In his search for an understanding of how modern whales live their lives, Thewissen also journeys to Japan and Alaska to study whales and wild dolphins. He finds answers to his questions about fossils by studying the anatomy of otters and porpoises and examining whale embryos under the microscope. In the book's final chapter, Thewissen argues for approaching whale evolution with the most powerful tools we have and for combining all the fields of science in pursuit of knowledge.
Walking the Bible
Author: Bruce Feiler
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062390899
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
“An instant classic. . . . A pure joy to read.” —Washington Post Book World Both a heart-racing adventure and an uplifting quest, Walking the Bible presents one man’s epic journey- by foot, jeep, rowboat, and camel- through the greatest stories ever told. From crossing the Red Sea to climbing Mount Sinai to touching the burning bush, Bruce Feiler’s inspiring odyssey will forever change your view of history’s most legendary events. The stories in the first five books of the Bible, also known as the Torah, come alive as Feiler searches across three continents for the stories and heroes shared by Christians and Jews. You’ll visit the slopes of Mount Ararat, where Noah’s ark landed, trek to the desert outpost where Abraham first heard the words of God, and scale the summit where Moses received the Ten Commandments. Using the latest archeological research, Feiler explores how physical location affects the larger narrative of the Bible and ultimately realizes how much these places, as well as his experience, have affected his faith. A once-in-a-lifetime journey, Walking the Bible offers new insights into the roots of our common faith and uncovers fresh answers to the most profound questions of the human spirit. “Smart and savvy, insightful and illuminating.” —Los Angeles Times “An exciting, well-told story informed by Feiler’s boundless intellectual curiosity . . . [and] sense of adventure.” —Miami Herald
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062390899
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
“An instant classic. . . . A pure joy to read.” —Washington Post Book World Both a heart-racing adventure and an uplifting quest, Walking the Bible presents one man’s epic journey- by foot, jeep, rowboat, and camel- through the greatest stories ever told. From crossing the Red Sea to climbing Mount Sinai to touching the burning bush, Bruce Feiler’s inspiring odyssey will forever change your view of history’s most legendary events. The stories in the first five books of the Bible, also known as the Torah, come alive as Feiler searches across three continents for the stories and heroes shared by Christians and Jews. You’ll visit the slopes of Mount Ararat, where Noah’s ark landed, trek to the desert outpost where Abraham first heard the words of God, and scale the summit where Moses received the Ten Commandments. Using the latest archeological research, Feiler explores how physical location affects the larger narrative of the Bible and ultimately realizes how much these places, as well as his experience, have affected his faith. A once-in-a-lifetime journey, Walking the Bible offers new insights into the roots of our common faith and uncovers fresh answers to the most profound questions of the human spirit. “Smart and savvy, insightful and illuminating.” —Los Angeles Times “An exciting, well-told story informed by Feiler’s boundless intellectual curiosity . . . [and] sense of adventure.” —Miami Herald
Walking Off The Land
Author: Anne McMaster
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781913499389
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 70
Book Description
Walking Off the Land offers a series of glimpses into a disappearing way of life - a rural childhood on a small Ulster farm. Drawing a soft echo of remembrance into the present moment, this collection of poems explores the seasonal rituals and traditions that once shaped the days and lives of those who worked the land. It also traces the gradual decline of a family and an old farm. Walking Off the Land is a loving history of country life, of loss and of letting go.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781913499389
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 70
Book Description
Walking Off the Land offers a series of glimpses into a disappearing way of life - a rural childhood on a small Ulster farm. Drawing a soft echo of remembrance into the present moment, this collection of poems explores the seasonal rituals and traditions that once shaped the days and lives of those who worked the land. It also traces the gradual decline of a family and an old farm. Walking Off the Land is a loving history of country life, of loss and of letting go.
Whitemud Walking
Author: Matthew James Weigel
Publisher: Coach House Books
ISBN: 1770567127
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 170
Book Description
WINNER OF THE 2020/2021 ALCUIN SOCIETY BOOK DESIGN AWARD FOR POETRY WINNER OF THE ROBERT KROETSCH CITY OF EDMONTON BOOK PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2023 STEPHAN G. STEPHANSSON AWARD FOR POETRY WINNER OF THE GERALD LAMPERT MEMORIAL AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE DAYNE OGILVIE PRIZE FOR LGBTQ2S+ EMERGING WRITERS LONGLISTED FOR THE RAYMOND SOUSTER AWARD WINNER OF THE INDIGENOUS VOICES AWARD FOR PUBLISHED POETRY IN ENGLISH An Indigenous resistance historiography, poetry that interrogates the colonial violence of the archive Whitemud Walking is about the land Matthew Weigel was born on and the institutions that occupy that land. It is about the interrelatedness of his own story with that of the colonial history of Canada, which considers the numbered treaties of the North-West to be historical and completed events. But they are eternal agreements that entail complex reciprocity and obligations. The state and archival institutions work together to sequester documents and knowledge in ways that resonate violently in people’s lives, including the dispossession and extinguishment of Indigenous title to land. Using photos, documents, and recordings that are about or involve his ancestors, but are kept in archives, Weigel examines the consequences of this erasure and sequestration. Memories cling to documents and sometimes this palimpsest can be read, other times the margins must be centered to gain a fuller picture. Whitemud Walking is a genre-bending work of visual and lyric poetry, non-fiction prose, photography, and digital art and design. "Whitemud Walking is so smart and so ceaselessly innovative. It represents for me a fully assured instantiation of the Indigenous literary project: a confrontation of history's terrors head on and an articulation in the present of our beauty and indomitability. Weigel refuses the archive's efforts to flatten Indigenous subjectivity and, in so doing, opens up a kind of boundless space to remember and grieve but also to hope and imagine otherwise. A deeply felt accomplishment." –Billy-Ray Belcourt, author of A History of My Brief Body "Whitemud Walking is a testament to the power of grief and outrage that so much theft has been allowed to bulldoze Indigenous land rights. Matthew James Weigel's passion for research both honours and mourns what has been trampled and lied about. This is a devastating read but one to learn from. Mahsi cho, Matthew. Your grief is our call to action to learn our own histories and build upon our own Indigenous testimonies of what really happened and when and who was there to witness it. Mahsi cho." –Richard Van Camp, Tlicho Dene author of The Lesser Blessed and Moccasin Square Gardens "Whitemud Walking is a textual ecology, that through archival troubling, sampling, and reframing, allows the material, human, truly cellular historicity of treaty to enter as a living presence in our contemporary moment. Weigel writes, 'Here treaty means reciprocity and obligation. Here, treaty lasts forever'. This book is not the document you may hold in your hands but the shift in consciousness it foments within you. It is a gift." –Liz Howard, author of Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent "Echoing the caw and grackle of magpies, Matthew James Weigel’s Whitemud Walking lives the sound of Treaty 6. Voices whisper sanctuary in creekbeds, papers rustle precedence in archives; there’s a buzz in your ear, a catch in your throat – listen." –Derek Beaulieu, Banff Poet Laureate
Publisher: Coach House Books
ISBN: 1770567127
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 170
Book Description
WINNER OF THE 2020/2021 ALCUIN SOCIETY BOOK DESIGN AWARD FOR POETRY WINNER OF THE ROBERT KROETSCH CITY OF EDMONTON BOOK PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2023 STEPHAN G. STEPHANSSON AWARD FOR POETRY WINNER OF THE GERALD LAMPERT MEMORIAL AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE DAYNE OGILVIE PRIZE FOR LGBTQ2S+ EMERGING WRITERS LONGLISTED FOR THE RAYMOND SOUSTER AWARD WINNER OF THE INDIGENOUS VOICES AWARD FOR PUBLISHED POETRY IN ENGLISH An Indigenous resistance historiography, poetry that interrogates the colonial violence of the archive Whitemud Walking is about the land Matthew Weigel was born on and the institutions that occupy that land. It is about the interrelatedness of his own story with that of the colonial history of Canada, which considers the numbered treaties of the North-West to be historical and completed events. But they are eternal agreements that entail complex reciprocity and obligations. The state and archival institutions work together to sequester documents and knowledge in ways that resonate violently in people’s lives, including the dispossession and extinguishment of Indigenous title to land. Using photos, documents, and recordings that are about or involve his ancestors, but are kept in archives, Weigel examines the consequences of this erasure and sequestration. Memories cling to documents and sometimes this palimpsest can be read, other times the margins must be centered to gain a fuller picture. Whitemud Walking is a genre-bending work of visual and lyric poetry, non-fiction prose, photography, and digital art and design. "Whitemud Walking is so smart and so ceaselessly innovative. It represents for me a fully assured instantiation of the Indigenous literary project: a confrontation of history's terrors head on and an articulation in the present of our beauty and indomitability. Weigel refuses the archive's efforts to flatten Indigenous subjectivity and, in so doing, opens up a kind of boundless space to remember and grieve but also to hope and imagine otherwise. A deeply felt accomplishment." –Billy-Ray Belcourt, author of A History of My Brief Body "Whitemud Walking is a testament to the power of grief and outrage that so much theft has been allowed to bulldoze Indigenous land rights. Matthew James Weigel's passion for research both honours and mourns what has been trampled and lied about. This is a devastating read but one to learn from. Mahsi cho, Matthew. Your grief is our call to action to learn our own histories and build upon our own Indigenous testimonies of what really happened and when and who was there to witness it. Mahsi cho." –Richard Van Camp, Tlicho Dene author of The Lesser Blessed and Moccasin Square Gardens "Whitemud Walking is a textual ecology, that through archival troubling, sampling, and reframing, allows the material, human, truly cellular historicity of treaty to enter as a living presence in our contemporary moment. Weigel writes, 'Here treaty means reciprocity and obligation. Here, treaty lasts forever'. This book is not the document you may hold in your hands but the shift in consciousness it foments within you. It is a gift." –Liz Howard, author of Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent "Echoing the caw and grackle of magpies, Matthew James Weigel’s Whitemud Walking lives the sound of Treaty 6. Voices whisper sanctuary in creekbeds, papers rustle precedence in archives; there’s a buzz in your ear, a catch in your throat – listen." –Derek Beaulieu, Banff Poet Laureate
Freedom Day: Vincent Lingiari and the Story of the Wave Hill Walk-Off
Author: Thomas Mayo
Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing
ISBN: 1743587848
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 53
Book Description
When many voices are joined together, with courage, change can happen. In 1966, more than two hundred courageous Aboriginal people walked off the Wave Hill Cattle Station in the Northern Territory. Led by Vincent Lingiari, these stockmen and their families were walking together to fight for equal pay and land rights. Exquisitely illustrated and designed, this non-fiction picture book brings a landmark historical event to a new generation. Many people have seen the iconic photograph of Gough Whitlam pouring a handful of red soil into the hands of Vincent Lingiari – a symbol of the legal transfer of Gurindji land back to the Gurindji people – and recognise this as a key moment in the ongoing land rights movement. Freedom Day delves into the events that led up to this moment, and makes a rallying cry for the things that still need to change in its wake. Thomas Mayor co-authors this book with Rosie, Vincent Lingiari’s granddaughter, to bring this vital story to life. The story has been written in close consultation with the Lingiari family.
Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing
ISBN: 1743587848
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 53
Book Description
When many voices are joined together, with courage, change can happen. In 1966, more than two hundred courageous Aboriginal people walked off the Wave Hill Cattle Station in the Northern Territory. Led by Vincent Lingiari, these stockmen and their families were walking together to fight for equal pay and land rights. Exquisitely illustrated and designed, this non-fiction picture book brings a landmark historical event to a new generation. Many people have seen the iconic photograph of Gough Whitlam pouring a handful of red soil into the hands of Vincent Lingiari – a symbol of the legal transfer of Gurindji land back to the Gurindji people – and recognise this as a key moment in the ongoing land rights movement. Freedom Day delves into the events that led up to this moment, and makes a rallying cry for the things that still need to change in its wake. Thomas Mayor co-authors this book with Rosie, Vincent Lingiari’s granddaughter, to bring this vital story to life. The story has been written in close consultation with the Lingiari family.
Walking Where Jesus Walked
Author: Hillary Kaell
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814738257
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
Since the 1950s, millions of American Christians have traveled to the Holy Land to visit places in Israel and the Palestinian territories associated with JesusOCOs life and death. Why do these pilgrims choose to journey halfway around the world? How do they react to what they encounter, and how do they understand the trip upon return? This book places the answers to these questions into the context of broad historical trends, analyzing how the growth of mass-market evangelical and Catholic pilgrimage relates to changes in American Christian theology and culture over the last sixty years, including shifts in Jewish-Christian relations, the growth of small group spirituality, and the development of a Christian leisure industry. Drawing on five years of research with pilgrims before, during and after their trips, a Walking Where Jesus Walked aoffers a lived religion approach that explores the tripOCOs hybrid nature for pilgrims themselves: both ordinaryOCotied to their everyday role as the familyOCOs ritual specialists, and extraordinaryOCosince they leave home in a dramatic way, often for the first time. Their experiences illuminate key tensions in contemporary US Christianity between material evidence and transcendent divinity, commoditization and religious authority, domestic relationships and global experience. Hillary Kaell crafts the first in-depth study of the cultural and religious significance of American Holy Land pilgrimage after 1948. The result sheds light on how Christian pilgrims, especially women, make sense of their experience in Israel-Palestine, offering an important complement to top-down approaches in studies of Christian Zionism and foreign policy."
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814738257
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
Since the 1950s, millions of American Christians have traveled to the Holy Land to visit places in Israel and the Palestinian territories associated with JesusOCOs life and death. Why do these pilgrims choose to journey halfway around the world? How do they react to what they encounter, and how do they understand the trip upon return? This book places the answers to these questions into the context of broad historical trends, analyzing how the growth of mass-market evangelical and Catholic pilgrimage relates to changes in American Christian theology and culture over the last sixty years, including shifts in Jewish-Christian relations, the growth of small group spirituality, and the development of a Christian leisure industry. Drawing on five years of research with pilgrims before, during and after their trips, a Walking Where Jesus Walked aoffers a lived religion approach that explores the tripOCOs hybrid nature for pilgrims themselves: both ordinaryOCotied to their everyday role as the familyOCOs ritual specialists, and extraordinaryOCosince they leave home in a dramatic way, often for the first time. Their experiences illuminate key tensions in contemporary US Christianity between material evidence and transcendent divinity, commoditization and religious authority, domestic relationships and global experience. Hillary Kaell crafts the first in-depth study of the cultural and religious significance of American Holy Land pilgrimage after 1948. The result sheds light on how Christian pilgrims, especially women, make sense of their experience in Israel-Palestine, offering an important complement to top-down approaches in studies of Christian Zionism and foreign policy."
Walking to the Promised Land
Author: Lori Boyd
Publisher: Start2finish Books
ISBN: 9781944704285
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
On the eve of the first Passover, behind a doorway marked with lamb's blood, God's people were commanded to prepare themselves for a journey to the Promised Land. Today, protected by the blood of Christ our Passover lamb, Christians are also called to prepare for a life of "wilderness walking" that will lead them to the Promised Land. The Bible often speaks of the Christian life as a "walk." Walking as a Christian is not always easy-in fact, it can be both frustrating and painful at times. But the reward is worth the journey, and there is much happiness to be found along the way. WALKING TO THE PROMISED LAND is a book that explores the challenges-and joys-of daily Christian living. Through 16 lessons, Lori Belihar Boyd encourages you to become intentional in your journey to eternity!
Publisher: Start2finish Books
ISBN: 9781944704285
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
On the eve of the first Passover, behind a doorway marked with lamb's blood, God's people were commanded to prepare themselves for a journey to the Promised Land. Today, protected by the blood of Christ our Passover lamb, Christians are also called to prepare for a life of "wilderness walking" that will lead them to the Promised Land. The Bible often speaks of the Christian life as a "walk." Walking as a Christian is not always easy-in fact, it can be both frustrating and painful at times. But the reward is worth the journey, and there is much happiness to be found along the way. WALKING TO THE PROMISED LAND is a book that explores the challenges-and joys-of daily Christian living. Through 16 lessons, Lori Belihar Boyd encourages you to become intentional in your journey to eternity!
The Rule of the Land
Author: Garrett Carr
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571313361
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
In the wake of the EU referendum, the United Kingdom's border with Ireland has gained greater significance: it is set to become the frontier with the European Union. Over the past year, Garrett Carr has travelled this border, on foot and by canoe, to uncover a landscape with a troubled past and an uncertain future. Across this thinly populated line, travelling down hidden pathways and among ancient monuments, Carr encounters a variety of characters who have made this liminal space their home. He reveals the turbulent history of this landscape and changes the way we look at nationhood, land and power. The book incorporates Carr's own maps and photographs.
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571313361
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
In the wake of the EU referendum, the United Kingdom's border with Ireland has gained greater significance: it is set to become the frontier with the European Union. Over the past year, Garrett Carr has travelled this border, on foot and by canoe, to uncover a landscape with a troubled past and an uncertain future. Across this thinly populated line, travelling down hidden pathways and among ancient monuments, Carr encounters a variety of characters who have made this liminal space their home. He reveals the turbulent history of this landscape and changes the way we look at nationhood, land and power. The book incorporates Carr's own maps and photographs.
Palestinian Walks
Author: Raja Shehadeh
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416570098
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
“A rare historical insight into the tragic changes taking place in Palestine.” —Jimmy Carter From one of Palestine’s leading writers, a lyrical, elegiac account of one man’s wanderings through the landscape he loves—once pristine, now forever changed by settlements and walls—updated with a new afterword by the author. “I often come to walk in these hills,” I said to the man who was doing all the talking and seemed to be the commander. “In fact I was once here with my wife, it was 1999, and some of your soldiers shot at us.” “It was over on that side,” the soldier pointed out. “I was there,” he said, smiling. When Raja Shehadeh first started hill walking in Palestine, in the late 1970s, he was not aware that he was traveling through a vanishing landscape. In recent years, his hikes have become less than bucolic and sometimes downright dangerous. That is because his home is Ramallah, on the Palestinian West Bank, and the landscape he traverses is now the site of a tense standoff between his fellow Palestinians and settlers newly arrived from Israel. In this original and evocative book, we accompany Raja on six walks taken between 1978 and 2006. The earlier forays are peaceful affairs, allowing our guide to meditate at length on the character of his native land, a terrain of olive trees on terraced hillsides, luxuriant valleys carved by sacred springs, carpets of wild iris and hyacinth and ancient monasteries built more than a thousand years ago. Shehadeh's love for this magical place saturates his renderings of its history and topography. But latterly, as seemingly endless concrete is poured to build settlements and their surrounding walls, he finds the old trails are now impassable and the countryside he once traversed freely has become contested ground. He is harassed by Israeli border patrols, watches in terror as a young hiking companion picks up an unexploded missile and even, on one occasion when accompanied by his wife, comes under prolonged gunfire. Amid the many and varied tragedies of the Middle East, the loss of a simple pleasure such as the ability to roam the countryside at will may seem a minor matter. But in Palestinian Walks, Raja Shehadeh's elegy for his lost footpaths becomes a heartbreaking metaphor for the deprivations of an entire people estranged from their land.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416570098
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
“A rare historical insight into the tragic changes taking place in Palestine.” —Jimmy Carter From one of Palestine’s leading writers, a lyrical, elegiac account of one man’s wanderings through the landscape he loves—once pristine, now forever changed by settlements and walls—updated with a new afterword by the author. “I often come to walk in these hills,” I said to the man who was doing all the talking and seemed to be the commander. “In fact I was once here with my wife, it was 1999, and some of your soldiers shot at us.” “It was over on that side,” the soldier pointed out. “I was there,” he said, smiling. When Raja Shehadeh first started hill walking in Palestine, in the late 1970s, he was not aware that he was traveling through a vanishing landscape. In recent years, his hikes have become less than bucolic and sometimes downright dangerous. That is because his home is Ramallah, on the Palestinian West Bank, and the landscape he traverses is now the site of a tense standoff between his fellow Palestinians and settlers newly arrived from Israel. In this original and evocative book, we accompany Raja on six walks taken between 1978 and 2006. The earlier forays are peaceful affairs, allowing our guide to meditate at length on the character of his native land, a terrain of olive trees on terraced hillsides, luxuriant valleys carved by sacred springs, carpets of wild iris and hyacinth and ancient monasteries built more than a thousand years ago. Shehadeh's love for this magical place saturates his renderings of its history and topography. But latterly, as seemingly endless concrete is poured to build settlements and their surrounding walls, he finds the old trails are now impassable and the countryside he once traversed freely has become contested ground. He is harassed by Israeli border patrols, watches in terror as a young hiking companion picks up an unexploded missile and even, on one occasion when accompanied by his wife, comes under prolonged gunfire. Amid the many and varied tragedies of the Middle East, the loss of a simple pleasure such as the ability to roam the countryside at will may seem a minor matter. But in Palestinian Walks, Raja Shehadeh's elegy for his lost footpaths becomes a heartbreaking metaphor for the deprivations of an entire people estranged from their land.