The Search for Shangri-la: A Journey into Tibetan History Book

From the author of the quite wonderful Plain Tales From the Raj, here is a journey much deeper into the ancient history of Asia. It all starts with a potboiler of a novel published in 1933 by James Hilton, called Lost Horizon. In this story, Hilton invented a happy, hidden valley called Shangri-La. Except--did he just invent it, or had his own extensive reading on ancient Tibet provided some real-life inspiration? This rather Indiana Jones-sounding premise turns out to be the thrilling start of Allen's journey to discover a lost earthly paradise beyond the Himalayas. Telling you whether he succeeds would be giving too much away, but it is an absolutely compulsive read. The secret to it all, apparently, lies in the mysterious religion that lies behind both Buddhism and Hinduism, called Bon--which originated somewhere beyond the snow-capped Himalayas. Allen tells an exciting story, leavened with plenty of self-deprecating humour and erudite digressions on such subjects as the origin of the swastika (an ancient Indian good-luck symbol), the philosophy of Carl Jung and a possible glimpse of that rarest of all carnivores, the snow leopard. And the photographs are stunning. --Christopher HartRead More