Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
    Unavailable
    A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
    Unavailable
    A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
    Ebook548 pages8 hours

    A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East

    By Tiziano Terzani

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Warned by a Hong Kong fortune-teller not to risk flying for a whole year, Tiziano Terzani — a vastly experienced Asia correspondent — took what he called “the first step into an unknown world. . . . It turned out to be one of the most extraordinary years I have ever spent: I was marked for death, and instead I was reborn.”

    Traveling by foot, boat, bus, car, and train, he visited Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Mongolia, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. Geography expanded under his feet. He consulted soothsayers, sorcerers, and shamans and received much advice — some wise, some otherwise — about his future. With time to think, he learned to understand, respect, and fear for older ways of life and beliefs now threatened by the crasser forms of Western modernity. He rediscovered a place he had been reporting on for decades. And it reinvigorated him.

    The result is an immensely engaging, insightful, and idiosyncratic journey, filled with unexpected delights and strange encounters. A bestseller and major prizewinner in Italy, A Fortune-Teller Told Me is a powerful warning against the new missionaries of materialism.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateFeb 17, 2010
    ISBN9780307565730
    Unavailable
    A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East

    Related to A Fortune-Teller Told Me

    Related ebooks

    Asia Travel For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Dead Letter

      Dec 31, 2021

      Dead Letter
      38 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Sep 1, 2021

      If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied. —Rudyard Kipling, “Epitaphs of the War,” The Years Between, 1919 She consulted me, a glance, and said: “I think not anything off the wagon. It arrives too quickly. Let’s have somethi

      4 min read

    • Article

      What’s the Point?

      Sep 23, 2019

      What’s the Point?
      5 min read

    • Article

      Everything Happens SOMEWHERE

      Jun 15, 2020

      Everything, even thought, takes place somewhere. When remembering ordinary happenings and previous conversations, most people automatically recall where they took place and at what time. If not, they may ponder, “Now, where was I?” For more important

      8 min read

    • Article

      Solidarity Is Spirituality

      Dec 10, 2019

      Solidarity Is Spirituality
      3 min read

    • Article

      Death

      Mar 1, 2020

      Kids already asleep, the grownups sit out on the deck,a few empty cans, an open bottle of wine on the table, I’m sure, and stacked paper plates with half-eaten buns and dirty napkins.From my backyard next door, I can hear them, the living, chatting.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Dec 1, 2021

      The light from the full moon lent a silky, glacial sheen to the towering front of the cloud, which stretched off to the horizon in both directions. I stood transfixed as it made its way down the street toward me at a little over the town’s speed limi

      3 min read

    • Article

      Growing Up

      Mar 24, 2022

      Growing Up
      5 min read

    • Article

      Hot-Air Balloons Are Useless

      Jul 15, 2018

      Hot-Air Balloons Are Useless
      5 min read

    • Article

      There Is Still Wonder to Be Had in Travel

      Feb 27, 2017

      The biggest lie in travel—greater than “For you my friend a special deal”—is “Every place now looks the same.” Uttering the phrase is a kind of one-upmanship (for such a personal activity, travel can be surprisingly competitive), a way of distinguish

      5 min read

    • Article

      In Orbit

      Dec 1, 2019

      In Orbit
      13 min read

    • Article

      Spaceship Earth

      Oct 29, 2018

      Spaceship Earth
      3 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Jun 1, 2020

      After every war someone has to tidy up. — Wisława Szymborska, “The End and the Beginning,” 1993 The road, just in front of the sidewalk where I sat and played jacks, would be ankle-deep in dust, and seemed to drink up the moonlight like folds of ve

      3 min read

    • Article

      Spellcheck

      Jan 1, 2019

      Whose history I do not know. I do know I’ve been e-upbraided for my fast and loose spelling of Woden, the god whose last worshipper must have slipped under the sod during the medieval period, somewhere in the 10th century—imagine those bog-soaked des

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Gathering Darkness

      Apr 24, 2022

      The Gathering Darkness
      2 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Il’ja Rákoš

      Dec 20, 2022

      Il'ja Rákoš reflects on 2022 through the books he read. The post A Year in Reading: Il’ja Rákoš appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Where Is Black Life Lived?

      Jul 21, 2020

      Where Is Black Life Lived?
      6 min read

    Reviews for A Fortune-Teller Told Me

    4/5

    139 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      interesting book with strange assumptions about the west....and the east. Still interesting, worth reading, and enjoyable.
    • 3/5
      I found this book quite by chance in Heathrow airport and that in itself is apt. How good it would it be if we could all spend at least a year of our lives traveling only by land or sea? Forgive me for saying this but British ‘idiots’, like their American counterparts have sucked all joy out of air travel in their relentless pursuit of higher margins and lower fares and ‘secure’ airports, these days it’s all self-check-in and paying extortionate amounts for your excess baggage, it’s faceless, corporate and incredibly unfriendly. Journalist Tiziano Terzani was told by a fortune teller that he most definitely should not travel by air for a year and he took the advice to heart and spent a year traveling by land, train, cab, bus, steamer, elephant, or cruise ship. As such this is a wonderful book that captures the real rhythm of each Asian country, the smells, the soul, the heart and most of all the warmth of the people. I thought the fact that Terzani goes in search of a local ‘fortune-teller’ in each country he visits would become repetitive but it really didn’t. Well done!
    • 5/5
      This is one of the best travel books I've read and I've read a lot!! I think most readers (whether they travel internationally or not) will find this to be an informative and enjoyable read.
    • 5/5
      One of my favorite books. A fantastic read - I savored it as I backpacked through Cambodia and Vietnam.