Hearing Birds Fly: A Nomadic Year in Mongolia (Paperback)

by Louisa Waugh (Author) "The word tsengel means 'delight'..." (more)
Key Phrases: Tavan Bogd, Mongol Kazakhs, New Year (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
'With a skill and art quite extraordinary for a first book . the reader is drawn into the world she describes through the warmth of her friendships and the sympathy and generosity with which she treats all aspects of her subject. I put the book down finally with a sense of absolute satisfaction, having spent the last few hours beneath the spell of a writer of real integrity and power' - Chris Stewart 'With a skill and art quite extraordinary for a first book . the reader is drawn into the world she describes through the warmth of her friendships and the sympathy and generosity with which she treats all aspects of her subject. I put the book down finally with a sense of absolute satisfaction, having spent the last few hours beneath the spell of a writer of real integrity and power' - Chris Stewart

Product Description
A wonderfully accessible memoir of an inaccessible country: Outer Mongolia.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 270 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group (January 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 034911580X
• ISBN-13: 978-0349115801
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #37,973 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #2 in	Books > Travel > Asia > Mongolia
  #23 in	Books > Travel > Asia > India
  #32 in	Books > Travel > Asia > China

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Capturing the spirit of Mongolian women, November 11, 2004

By	Amy Thomson "Amy Thomson" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Mongolia is the kind of place that captures the imagination. So big, so cold, so remote. I have had the incredible good fortune to travel there myself. Louisa Waugh does an exceptional job of evoking a sense of the remote village where she lived, and the tough, resourceful people who teach her to survive. There are other writers who have done this, but Waugh has captured the spirit of Mongolian women better than any other writer on the subject. This is a marvelous, beautiful book that makes me miss Mongolia all over again.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Spirit of Place, June 4, 2004

By	mdo (SF Bay Area) - See all my reviews

This book gave me an intense experience of Tsengel, a village of a few thousand on the farthest western edge of Mongolia. I loved spending four seasons there with Louisa Waugh. The author won the first Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize for a work of fiction or non-fiction (this is non-fiction) "evoking the spirit of a place". Waugh has done this superbly. The reader is there with her so fully because she has added her own joys and hardships of that year in Tsengel without a hint of solipsism. She is a generous woman and a generous author. Reading this boook is a great experience.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well done., August 31, 2006

By	A. Galperin - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Nice book - for once a travel author who isn't full of her (him)self and bores us with the difficulties of adaptating to a different culture or who has to show off her/ his magnificent sense of humor. Simple and well written and most importantly captures the magic of the place and its people. Thanks!