by Nimish Dubey The world knows him as an intrepid adventurer, who last month became the oldest Briton to stand atop Mount Everest. But the 65-year-old Sir Ranulph Fiennes is also a fine author with a dry sense of humour and a narrative skill that matches his flair for adventure. So even as Sir...
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by Nimish Dubey His effort on Everest in 1924 might have cost him his life, but it made George Mallory a legend. Speculation is rife as to whether he actually made it to the top or failed while doing so, and almost every year an author tries to unravel the mystery of what has...
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It started out as a serious travel guide, but by the time Jerome K Jerome finished Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), it was arguably the most humorous book ever written on travel. Basically a narrative revolving around three friends – the author, George and Harris, (and their dog,...
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By Nimish Dubey Whatever you associate Sir Sean Connery with, it is certainly not writing about a country, even his own. The man, who many (us at Kunzum.com included) consider to have been not just the first but the best Bond of them all, however, does have a writing streak in him. And it...
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Contributed by Nimish Dubey It is rare to see an adventure or travel being hailed as a literary classic, but this status has been accorded to Apsley George Bennet Cherry-Garrard’s The Worst Journey in the World. Apsley Cherry-Garrard is best known for being part of Robert Scott’s ill-fated 1910-13 Antarctica expedition in which Scott...
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By Nimish Dubey How do you reach the center of the earth? And while on the subject, why on earth (pun intended) would you like to travel down the bowels of the planet? Well, both questions were answered in spectacular style by Jules Verne when he wrote A Journey to the Center of the...
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By Nimish Dubey Few events have generated as much interest (albeit morbid) as the 1996 disaster on Mount Everest when several climbers perished in an attempt to make the summit. One of the main reasons for this interest is the fact that it inspired arguably the best mountaineering book in terms of narration, Into...
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By Nimish Dubey Jon Krakauer added a whole dimension to mountaineering and travel literature when he wrote Into Thin Air in 1996, describing the disaster that claimed the lives of eight climbers on Mount Everest earlier that year. A dozen years later, eleven climbers died on the second highest peak in the world, K2....
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By Nimish Dubey There have been many books written on the Indian capital. Some have veered to the utterly academic, others to the spiritual, yet others to the role of a simple “see-this-do-that” travel guide and some (alas a very few) have just looked the city through the eyes of a resident. Sam Miller’s...
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By Nimish Dubey Most people become famous by being the first to do something. Or doing something a certain (record) number of times. And yet one of the most famous names in travel history is a man whose greatest achievement is surrounded in mystery. George Herbert Leigh Mallory was one of the best climbers...
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