Something fast, silly but possibly of interest.
After all, the Silk Road is one of the themes of this blog, and food is one of the most accessible, and often surprising, facets of culture.
So, here goes – a small collection of Silk Road inspired foods, on Pinterest.
Some authentic, some shamelessly counterfeit.
Enjoy!
Tag Archives: Silk Road
The Silk Road in 15 minutes
A short virtual tour of the Silk Road.
Enjoy!
Cheap without cheapening would be nice…
… and as I am on the subject of doing research for my new story, I think I’ll plug another fine book.
The Shambhala Guide to Taoism*, by Eva Wong, is a wonderful one-stop resource on the history and structure of Taoist thinking. Miss Wong’s guide is a perfect reference to keep handy as I write.
This, in its Italian edition, was the suggested “textbook” for my course, in the days of old, together with Cleary’s Vitality, Energy, Spirit: The Taoist Sourcebook*.
Now, I used to suggest this book because it’s complete, clear and, in its Italian edition, it was rather cheap (less than ten bucks) – perfect for my students.
On the other hand, as I found out while writing this short post (but as I had been suspecting for quite a while), the original edition features about fifty sketches and tables, while the Italian edition only has fourteen.
The quality of the paper is also dismal for the Italian book – but that’s sort of ok.
I can take the cheap paper, but not the elimination of part of the contents as intended by the author – be it text, or figures.
This is the sort of thing I find really irritating.
The same happened with Luce Boulnois Silk Road: Monks, Warriors and Merchants, a wonderful illustrated book I can’t recommend enough, that was published without illustrations and printed on cheap throwaway paper in Italy.
I understand the need to provide high-quality texts at low prices, and I fully support any viable strategy to bring more good books to those that can’t afford high-end editions (heck, I can’t afford them!)
But butchering the books to make them cheaper is not the way to go.
OK, end of pet peeve.
Sorry for the brief rant.
Looks like I’ll have to get me an English-language copy of Eva Wong’s Guide… I’m curious about the missing images.
——————————
* Hmmmm… that’s a lot of Shambhala Publishing books in one day… If it’s any consolation, they are not paying me to plug their excellent books.
Related articles
Back on the (Silk) Road
The great news is, a suitably pulp-ish project is taking shape right as I’m writing this, that promises to bring me back to the Silk Road as a setting for a new story (alas, I’ll be on the Silk Road in spirit, not in person).
So here’s some music to set the mood.
The Silk Road Ensemble featuring Yo-Yo Ma, live.
Enjoy.
Related articles
Asia Overland
Back in 2003, I think, I wrote the following, in an article which appeared in the magazine LibriNuovi, published in Turin…
The day I’ll start writing Clive Cussler-style adventure yarns (ehi, why not?) the Silk Road and the Taklamakan desert will be a central element in my stories.
Well, having written a few sword & sorcery stories set between the Roman Empire and the Chinese Empire, I sort of kept half of that promise.
And now that I’m working on a honest-to-goodness pulp adventure tale set in the Taklamakan area, well, I think I can say the promise is fulfilled completely.
Or it will be as soon as my story gets published. Continue reading
Travel guides
A map indicating trading routes used around the 1st century CE centred on the Silk Road. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Everything finds its use, sooner or later.
And if one’s a writer, everything finds a writing-related use, sooner or later.
Back when I was planning my after-graduation Silk Road adventure that never happened, I got me a few maps and guidebooks.
These went to form the core of my still-growing collection of books on the subject.
As of now, I’m also sort of a Travel Guide collector – as Blondie used to sing, dreaming is free.
Now, almost fifteen years later, I dug out some of the stuff to document a story I’m writing.
Guidebooks are great for local detail – and one can even find out how things change through time by comparing guidebooks from different decades.
Just pitched a new story
And so I did it – I just pitched a story to a big, highly respected American publisher.
The pitch is for a pulp adventure story .
I will not disclose too much, but the proposed story features the Silk Road, a few (mostly dead) dinosaurs, raiders, madmen, and assorted historical weirdness.
And some (hopefully!) not-so-cliché characters.
Having spent years collecting historical facts and assorted informations about the Silk Road and the Silk Road countries, building the setting and the background should be easy – and fun.
Karavansara 