Books by James McConnachie
The Book of Love: The Story of the Kamasutra
An engaging, enlightening “biography” of the ancient Hindu manuscript that became the world’s most famous sex manual The Kamasutra is one of the world’s best-known yet least-understood texts, its title instantly familiar but its actual contents widely misconstrued. In the popular imagination, it is a work of practical pornography, a how-to guide of absurdly acrobatic sexual techniques. Yet the book began its long life in third-century India as something quite different: a seven-volume vision of an ideal life of urbane sophistication, offering advice on matters from friendship to household decoration. Over the ensuing centuries, the Kamasutra was first celebrated, then neglected, and very nearly lost—until an outrageous adventurer introduced it to the West and earned literary immortality.
In lively and lucid prose, James McConnachie provides a rare, intimate look at the exquisite civilization that produced this cultural cornerstone. He details the quest of famed explorer Richard F. Burton, who—along with his clandestine coterie of libertines and iconoclasts—unleashed the Kamasutra on English society as a deliberate slap at Victorian prudishness and paternalism. And he describes how the Kamasutra was driven underground into the hands of pirate pornographers, until the end of the Lady Chatterley obscenity ban thrust it once more into contentious daylight. The first work to tell the full story of the Kamasutra, The Book of Love explores how a remarkable way of looking at the world came to be cradled between book covers—and survived.
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The Rough Guide to Nepal
by James McConnachie, Shafik Meghji
The Rough Guide to Nepal is the most passionate and knowledgeable guidebook to this inspiring country. It offers an insider's guide to Kathmandu, from its Tantric temples to its lively bar scene. It details all the finest Himalayan treks, with practical, up-to-date and expert advice on when and where to go, and what to take. It covers all the National Parks, offering advice and information on everything from tracking wildlife to hiring elephants.
Dedicated chapters are devoted to mountain biking, white water rafting, and other adventure sports, and there is unrivaled detail on Buddhism, Hinduism, and the many ethnic groups that make Nepal a unique destination. For ex-pats and visitors alike, the advice on health and cultural etiquette is second to none.
The Rough Guide to Nepal also contains scores of detailed maps that have been checked by hand on the ground, covering everything from Pokhara and the Chitwan National Park to the Everest Base Camp trek. Make the most of your time with The Rough Guide to Nepal.
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