To a Mountain in Tibet, Colin Thubron
To a Mountain in Tibet, Colin Thubron
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To a Mountain in Tibet

Author: Colin Thubron

Narrator: Steven Crossley

Unabridged: 7 hr

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/01/2011


Synopsis

This is the account of a journey to the holiest mountain on earth, the solitary peak of Kailas in Tibet, sacred to one-fifth of humankind. To both Buddhists and Hindus it is the mystic heart of the world and an ancient site of pilgrimage. It has never been climbed. Even today, under Chinese domination, the people of four religions circle the mountain in devotion to different gods.

Colin Thubron reached it by foot along the Karnali River, the highest source of the Ganges. His journey is an entry into the culture of today's Tibet, and a pilgrimage in the wake his mother's death and the loss of his family. He undertakes it in order to mark the event, to leave a sign of their passage. He also explores his own need for solitude, which has shaped his career as a writer—one who travels to places beyond his own history and culture, writing about them and about the journey. To a Mountain in Tibet is at once a powerful travelogue, a fascinated encounter with alien faith, and an intimate personal voyage.

It is a haunting and beautiful book, a rare mix of discovery and loss. In its evocation of landscape and variety of exotic peoples, of mythic and spiritual traditions foreign to our own, it is a spectacular achievement from our greatest living travel writer, an artist of formidable literary gifts, uncanny intuition, and wondrous insight.

About Colin Thubron

Colin Thubron is an award-winning travel writer and novelist. He is the author of Mirror to Damascus, The Hills of Adonis, Jerusalem, Among the Russians, Shadow of the Silk Road, and Behind the Wall, which won both the Hawthornden Prize and the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award. In addition to travelogues, Colin is also the author of several novels, including Emperor, Turning Back the Sun, To the Last City, and A Cruel Madness, which earned him the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature since 1969, Colin lives in London.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Will on October 18, 2022

To a Mountain in Tibet tells two stories. One is the great travel writer’s observations along his trek to a significant physical and religious site. The other is his inner journey of coming to terms with the death of his mother, whose passing prompted this adventure. The sights, smells and sounds of......more

Goodreads review by Joshua on July 23, 2015

Brilliant. It is a short book about three intertwined mysteries: the mysteries of culture, of death, and of human personality. It offers no easy answers--no answers at all, really. It is a pilgrimage finished, but unfulfilled. Thubron is a famed travel writer, and he left to visit Mt. Kailas shortly a......more

Goodreads review by robin on November 20, 2023

A Sacred Mountain Located in remote southwestern Tibet on the border with Nepal, the 22,000 foot high Mount Kailas is sacred to four religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and the ancient Tibetan Bon. The mountain is regarded as the center of the world, and as the concrete realization of the mythica......more

Goodreads review by Joanka on April 20, 2018

3.5 stars. Oh, what a private, intimate book it was! I'm slightly embarrassed to confess it was the first book by Thubron that I’ve read, although I own a few. My relationship with the author is somewhat turned upside down. Firstly, I took part in a meeting with him a few years ago in Warsaw. He was......more

Goodreads review by Kim on April 07, 2011

I'm still trying to figure out what I got out of this book. The Tibetan facts/history were not effectively organized, I didn't get to know any interesting characters, and although this book is billed as a sort of elegy for the author's deceased family, other than a few pages on the father's travels......more