Mongolia: Nomad Empire of the Eternal Blue Sky

The reader who picks up this book and flicks through the photographs with out reading a word would come away almost fully satisfied, of such good quality they capture the amazing scenery, people and animals fantastically. I have read plenty of books about Mongolia, and visited for just over two weeks, and these are the best collection I have seen. They cover the whole spectrum of peoples and places, and the vast variance in landscape with seasonal effects.

The reader who reads even the ‘special topics' boxed texts will learn detailed information about interesting or key features of Mongolian life and culture. These are written not just by the author but other specialists with deeper knowledge to share, and are well curated. Running from a page to 3 or 4 pages, topics such as the Reindeer People, the Nadaam festival, the eagle hunting festival, cultural taboos, the roads of Mongolia, the Mongolian Yeti (the Almas) and fishing (for Taiman) are covered. As well, there are ‘literary excerpts' throughout from some well known authors (Ben Kozel, Roy Chapman Andrews, Ewan McGregor) telling of their experiences in Mongolia.

A typical guidebook this is not, but it does have a dozen pages at the end which conform a bit more to the where to stay, facts for the visitor, practical information data. Beyond that is a narrative split up into the administrative divisions of Mongolia (it is as good any any geographical split up I suppose) providing plenty of detail.

It is probably not the guidebook I would use to plan travel, but it certainly provides plenty of inspiration to chose your own ‘must see's' should you be lucky enough to be heading to Mongolia. You could do worse than take it with you (or at least the relevant parts of it) for use there too. That said it is not at all troublesome for the arm-chair traveller to spend a good few hours reading through it. I certainly brushed up on a lot of knowledge, and picked up things I had never known, and I consider myself fairly well researched on the places I visit (usually!).

4 stars, which could have been 5 if it was ‘just' a photography book!