English Summary/英文概要： The course of the Meander is so famously indirect that the river’s name has come to signify digression - an invitation Jeremy Seal is duty-bound to accept while travelling the length of it in a one-man canoe. At every twist and turn of his journey, from the Meander’s source in the uplands of Central Turkey to its mouth on the Aegean Sea, Seal illuminates his account with a wealth of cultural, historical and personal asides. It is a journey that takes him from Turkey’s steppe interior - the stamping ground of such illustrious adventurers as Xerxes, Alexander the Great and the Crusader Kings - to the great port city of Miletus, home of the earliest Western philosophers. Along the way Seal unpicks the history of this remarkable region, but he also encounters a rich assortment of contemporary characters who reveal a rural Turkey on the cusp of change. Above all, this is the story of a river that first brought the cultures of East and West into contact - and conflict - with one another, its banks littered with the spoil of empires, the marks of war, and the detritus of recent industrialisation. At once epic, intimate and insightful, "Meander" is a brilliant evocation of a land between two worlds.

Awards/获奖情况： Shortlisted for the 2013 Dolman Travel Book of the Year

Jeremy Seal returns to his beloved Turkey and brings us a funny, fascinating, expertly crafted travel narrative

His love of, and in depth knowledge about, the country makes Jeremy the perfect person to explore Turkey. William Dalrymple described Jeremy’s acclaimed A Fez of the Heart as ’extremely funny’ and ’arguably the best portrait of contemporary Turkey currently available in English’

The Meander, like Turkey itself, has for centuries symbolised the boundary between the ancient traditions of the East and the liberal developments of the West, and Jeremy’s journey transports him from one extreme to the other

Beautifully written and packed with history and anecdote, as well as Jeremy’s own impressive journey, this should have very wide appeal - to fans of Tim Butcher, William Dalrymple and Colin Thubron

’This is a wonderful book by a wonderful writer’ - Robert Macfarlane

> ’Meander is both the tale of a quixotic journey down a river and a wonderfully affectionate, funny, intimate and knowledgeable portrait of Turkey’ - Barnaby Rogerson, Times Literary Supplement

’There are few better travel writers than Jeremy Seal writing today, and none better on Turkey’ - Geographical Magazine

’Success and enjoyment in this book spring from the fact that Seal is equally at home in the past as the present... his great ability here is to convey something of the lives, the concerns and the nature of the people of the region’ - Anthony Sattin, Spectator