Written just after the Second World War, Perseus in the Wind (named after the constellation) is perhaps the most personal, and haunting, of all Freya Stark's writings. She muses on the seasons, the effect light has on a landscape at a particular time of day, the smell of the earth after rain, Muslim saints, Indian temples, war and old age. Each chapter is devoted to a particular theme: happiness (simple pleasures, like her father's passion for the view from his cabin in Canada); education (to be able to command happiness, recognize beauty, value death, increase enjoyment); beauty (incongruous, flighty and elusive - a description of the stars, the burst of flowers in a park); death (a childhood awareness of the finality of time, the meaningfulness of the end); memory (the jewelled quality of literature, pleasure, love, an echo or a scent when aged by the passage of time). For those who have loved her travel writing, Perseus in the Wind illuminates the motivations behind her journeys and the woman behind the traveller.

"A Book of Myths" deals in a most entertaining manner with the mythology of Greece and Rome and many other noted lands. Added to the pleasure of the story there is the lure of the legend and the spell of old ways and customs. Not only many of the most celebrated are retold, but also many of the less well-known tales. The aim of the author, it is stated, has been to simplify for those who are not erudite scholars the stories of mythology, to which constant reference is made not only in classic, but in modern poetry, and to direct the attention of readers to poems which are not already known to them. Included are tales of Prometheus, Pygmalion, Orpheus, Perseus, King Midas, Pan, the Lorelei, Baldur and many more.

The Olympians must face the fierce giant Typhon in order to find magic seeds that will help grow the earth after the terrible drought brought upon the land by Hyperion.

I was born in December 1954 or January 1955 (‘when the first snow fell’) as the third child of a Kurdish family living in a remote village of Eastern Turkey. My father died of tuberculosis at the age of 31 when I was six years old. My mother was 34, never married again, dedicated her life to her children. From the moment I learned how to read and write I became a passionate reader of the books; books of literature, books of history, books of travel, books of philosophy, books of memoirs, books of biographies, books of politics… This book contains some of the excerpts that I noted while reading. Excerpts of wisdom and reflection from Barack Obama to Haji Ali (Nurmadhar of Korphe Village in Karakoram) from Edward Gibbon to Abdul Sattar Edhi (Pakistani Philanthropist). Excerpts on life, on love, on humanity, on civilization, on courage, on art, on ideas, on faith, on democracy, on freedom, on nations, on education, on war, on peace... Just a few short examples: For only in death are we alone-Rabindranath Tagore *** Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness-Samuel Jonson *** Serious literature is no less of a life preserver, even if the society is all but oblivious of it-Philip Roth *** It bothers me a little that at 99 you’re going to die any minute, because I have a lot of other things I want to do-Delmer Berg Sezai Arli Doha, November 2020

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - If there had been no real heroes there would have been created imaginary ones, for men cannot live without them. The hero is just as necessary as the farmer, the sailor, the carpenter and the doctor; society could not get on without him. There have been a great many different kinds of heroes, for in every age and among every people the hero has stood for the qualities that were most admired and sought after by the bravest and best; and all ages and peoples have imagined or produced heroes as inevitably as they have made ploughs for turning the soil or ships for getting through the water or weapons with which to fight their enemies. To be some kind of a hero has been the ambition of spirited boys from the beginning of history; and if you want to know what the men and women of a country care for most, you must study their heroes. To the boy the hero stands for the highest success: to the grown man and woman he stands for the deepest and richest life.