The Lycian Shore (Freya Stark Collection)
“Readers of Stark’s reissued works...will find a writer who endows everyone in her field of vision with the heightened interest that she felt herself.” --The New Yorker "Her books make Stark a remarkable figure under any circumstances. Having been a woman whose roamings through Middle Eastern deserts and mountains put her in the top ranks of the fabled Royal Geographical Society makes her more so." -- Richard Bernstein,The New York Times "It was rare to leave her company without feeling that the world was somehow larger and more promising. Her life was something of a work of art… The books in which she recorded her journeys were seductively individual… Nomad and social lioness, public servant and private essayist, emotional victim and mythmaker.’ -- Colin Thubron,The New York Times "Dame Freya’s was a passionate imagination, and her embrace of landscape was fierce... [She] was often called a “travel writer”. The adjective, however, limits the accomplishment." --The New York Times "[Freya Stark] writes angelically in the great tradition of Charles Doughty and T. E. Lawrence. The pulse quickens as you read, because she can bring the sights and sounds of incredible countries before you in the twinkling of an eye." –The New York Times Book Review "It’s hard to think of a writer in the travel game who most closely demonstrates the merits of Flaubert’s three rules for good writing: clarity, clarity and finally clarity. Re-reading her now, her restrained powers of description shine as brightly as they ever did, and they will continue to shine until the next Ice Age... Her books are more relevant than ever. Besides sheer enjoyment, one should read her for a fresh perspective on the intractable issues dogging Christian-Muslim relations. She was able to see both sides and what she found was similarity, not difference. The greatest woman traveller of the 20th century? I think so." -- Sara Wheeler,The Times "She has written the best travel books of her generation and her name will survive as an artist in prose." --The Observer