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The Land that Disappeared
by Christopher Robbins
A funny and revealing travelogue of Kazakhstan, a country rich with wild tulips, oil, nomads who hunt with golden eagles, and a disappearing landlocked sea.
Closed to foreigners under Tsar and Soviet rule, Kazakhstan has remained largely hidden from the world, a remarkable feat for a country the size of Western Europe. Few would guess that Kazakhstan—a blank in Westerners' collective geography—turns out to be diverse, tolerant, and surprisingly modern, the country that gave the world apples, trousers, and even, perhaps, King Arthur.
Christopher Robbins enjoyed unprecedented access to the Kazakh president while crafting this travelogue, and he relates a story by turns hilarious and grim. He finds Eminem-worship by a shrinking Aral Sea, hears the Kazakh John Lennon play in a dusty desert town, joins nomads hunting eagles, eats boiled sheep's head (a delicacy), and explores some of the most beautiful, unspoiled places on earth. Observant and culturally attuned, Robbins is a master stylist in the tradition of travel writing as literature, a companion to V. S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux.
"This book will do for Kazakhstan what John Gimlette's At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig did for Paraguay. Highly recommended for all libraries." - Library Journal.
"Starred Review. Everything you always wanted to know about this vast, sparsely populated former Soviet republic but didn't learn from Borat ... A captivating read notable for off-the-cuff candor and measured, eloquent prose." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about Apples Are from Kazakhstan was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Christopher Robbins is the author of five non-fiction books, including the The Empress of Ireland. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, The New York Times, The Times Magazine (UK), the Guardian (UK), and many others. He lives in London.
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