Fascinating adventure and travel story by a noted magazine writer-think Jon Ronson meets David Grann. Entertaining accounts of how culture can make us go insane.
Frank Bures' stories have appeared in Harper's, Esquire, Outside, Bicycling, Wired and have been included in the Best American Travel Writing 2004, Best American Travel Writing 2009 and selected as "Notable" picks for Best American Sports Writing 2012 and the Best American Essays 2013. He speaks several languages, has lived in countries around the world, and currently lives in Minneapolis.
“Frank Bures has some of the widest (and wildest) curiosities of
any writer out there. This is a man who truly wants to know the
world, in all its strange and beautiful variations. He is fearless
in his reporting, generous in his spirit, and brilliant in his
prose. I would follow him anywhere.”
—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love
“It would be easy just to gawk at the strangeness of these
syndromes, or to dismiss them as unscientific or psychosomatic.
Bures doesn’t do that. He carefully considers the relationships
between culture, health, the mind, and the body, which can
lead people to experience seemingly impossible things.”—THE
ATLANTIC
“What Bures has achieved here is a complex, nuanced and original
meditation on our species and how we manage to coexist on a planet
where we are all the same, yet each so different.” —THE
AUSTRALIAN
“The premise for The Geography of Madness is so irresistible you
are left wondering why you never thought of it yourself. It is a
travel book with a quest.” —NEW SCIENTIST
“In The Geography Of Madness, journalist Frank Bures shows that
what such “culture-bound syndromes” demonstrate is the astonishing
power of culture and belief – on all of us.” —THE GUARDIAN
“Bures asks what forces are at the root of people’s suffering. How
is mental and physical health intertwined? Along the way, readers
get an entertaining history of the study of culture...bombshells
from his own family history...give the story
heart.” —MACLEAN'S
“Bures, a Minneapolis-based travel writer, turns in a reportorial
tour de force in this examination of culture, belief and
madness.” —MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
“Wonderfully weird." —TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL
“An insightful journey deep into the science of culture and
belief...Bures deftly navigates the geographically defined contours
of the mind.” —LONGITUDE
“With The Geography of Madness, Frank Bures has created a
literary, thoughtful study that explores the connections between
culture and psychology, storytelling and health. It’s also,
to my knowledge, the most pleasant and least painful way to learn
about penis theft.”
—Peter Hessler, author of Oracle of Bones: A Journey Through
Time in China
“Penis theft. Vampires. Black magic. These are not exactly prime
ingredients for a hilarious, empathetic travel book, but Frank
Bures has pulled off something incredible in The Geography of
Madness. In demonstrating how culture-bound concepts of ‘madness’
and ‘sickness’ really are, he reminds us what we human beings have
in common, which is to say, we're all beautifully, fascinatingly
nuts.”
—Tom Bissell, author of Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter
“Frank Bures has a brave, hungry mind and a heavily inked passport
that have taken him to the far reaches of the world and human
behavior. You’ll be glad to join him on his quest in The Geography
of Madness, a book that reads like a magical treasure map. The
chapters take us through the quirky, the wondrous, the horrifying,
but ultimately leave us with a better understanding of
ourselves. Bures writes as some combination
of investigative journalist, cultural anthropologist,
daredevil, and empath.”
—Benjamin Percy, author of Red Moon
“In a world coming unstitched, Frank Bures travels the globe
gathering threads, weaving the odd and the otherworldly into
something whole. I would follow Bures to the far corners of the
earth for his stories—finally, in The Geography of Madness, I
can.”
—Michael Perry, author of Population: 485—Meeting Your Neighbors
One Siren at a Time
“By turns harrowing and hilarious, Bures’s global journey explores
the deep complexities of how culture influences the way we see the
world.”
—Rolf Potts, author of Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of
Long-Term World Travel
“Frank Bures has written a potent, unique narrative about how
culture and our own thinking can do very strange things to us. This
enjoyable and informative book takes us to places some truly
bizarre places -- both in the world and in our minds.”
—David Farley, author of An Irreverent Curiosity
“With the drive of an investigative reporter, a researcher’s
patience, and a poet’s gift for words, Frank Bures teases out the
logic and sanity behind madness. In going into the histories and
psychologies of some of the world’s strangest maladies, he shows us
that it takes a village to make a penis disappear.”
—Mukoma Wa Ngugi, author of Nairobi Heat
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
