Books about Kashmir from Amazon.com

"Laxness brought the Icelandic novel out from the saga's shadow. . . . To read Laxness is also to understand why he haunts Iceland-he writes the unearthly prose of a poet cased in the perfection of a shell of plot, wit, and clarity."-Guardian

"Laxness is a poet who writes at the edge of the pages, a visionary who allows us a plot: He takes a Tolstoyan overview, he weaves in a Waugh-like humor: it is not possible to be unimpressed."-Daily Telegraph

"Laxness is a beacon in twentieth-century literature, a writer of splendid originality, wit, and feeling."-Alice Munro

Halldr Laxness' first major novel propels Iceland into the modern world. A young poet leaves the physical and cultural confines of Iceland's shores for the jumbled world of post-WWI Europe. His journey leads the reader through a huge range of moral, philosophical, religious, political, and social realms, exploring, as Laxness expressed it, the "far-ranging variety in the life of a soul, with the swings of a pendulum oscillating between angel and devil." Published when Laxness was twenty-five years old, The Great Weaver from Kashmir's radical experimentation caused a stir in Iceland.

Halldr Laxness is the master of modern Icelandic fiction. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955 for his "vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland."

Philip Roughton's translations include Laxness' Iceland's Bell, for which he won the American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Prize in 2001.

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Price: $9.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Translation and commentary of one of the most important texts of the Kashmirian Shivaism tradition of Tantra

• Author was a student of the late Kalu Rinpoche

• Explores the transmission of Mahamudra, the Great Cosmic Gesture

• Includes the Vijnanabhaïrava Tantra, which contains the totality of the oldest source text on Yoga

The Spandakarika, the "Tantric Song of the Divine Pulsation," is said to have been transmitted directly to the sage Vasugupta from the hands of Shiva on Mount Kailas. In his commentary on these fifty-two stanzas, the sage Ksemaraja described them as the heart of the Mahamudra.

The oldest masters of Spandakarika viewed everything in the universe, including matter, as consciousness and created a yoga practice in accordance with this realization. The sacred dance of Yoga Spandakarika, Tandava, is extremely subtle and difficult, requiring thousands of hours of practice to master, yet it surpasses any other physical practice, allowing the practitioner to touch the divine inner pulse. Once its third stage has been mastered, the yogi or yogini is able to manifest the dance of Shiva in space, a tradition visible in the statuary of Tantric temples in India and Tibet. Energy is no longer contracted by the perception of duality, and the mind and body become unbounded, forming a sphere that contains all that was formerly outside. In Yoga Spandakarika Daniel Odier passes on these vanishing teachings as he received them from his Tibetan master, Kalu Rinpoche, and Kashmiri yogi Lalita Devi.

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Price: $10.22 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A world-renowned photographer's spectacular tribute to the land and people of this remote region.

The Vale of Kashmir celebrates the people and landscape of Kashmir and the unique way of life that has developed there. John Isaac set out to create a work that would honor both the cultural complexity and the breathtaking beauty of this exotic region. In lush color, he captures the varied details of daily life: canals crowded with houseboats and floating gardens on Dal Lake, the ancient city of Srinagar, the harvesting of saffron, Hindu pilgrimages through the mountains, shepherds on the Himalayan slopes, prayers at the mosque, and the private realm of family life. Isaac writes: "There is something very magical about this place." Here is historical Kashmir, not the country torn apart by war. This is an enchanted and enchanting land seen in 160 magnificent color images from a master photographer..
Price: $37.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

What will the post-Taliban government of Afghanistan look like? How will the war in Afghanistan affect the already unstable politics of Central Asia? In War at the Top of the World, veteran foreign correspondent Eric Margolis presents a revelatory history of the complicated and volatile conflicts that have entangled Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States, the Soviet Union, and many others.

By 1999, Pakistan had proven they have medium-range nuclear weapons, and now the threat that their government could be taken over by a radical Islamic fundamentalist faction is stronger than ever. In fact, Osama bin Laden has already claimed to have a nuclear weapon. How could this have happened? Margolis plays witness to the escalating conflicts of the past decade, tracing disputes over Afghanistan, as well as those ever neighboring Kashmir and Tibet, back to their Cold War roots, exploring clashes that continue to threaten to destabilize the region today.

Combining vivid first-hand accounts of a war correspondent with a historical and strategic overview of the region, Margolis guides the reader through the geopolitical complexities of the area and its key players. He offers a clear, concise analysis of a complicated and little-understood part of the world that is home to a quarter of the world's population. Fascinating and now more timely than ever, War at the Top of the World is an extraordinary read for anyone interested in the current global balance of power..
Price: $8.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Shiva Sutras is one of the most important spiritual treasures of the Tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism. The secret teachings and potent spiritual practices it contains are revealed for the first time by the great philosopher saint Swami Lakshmanjoo..
Price: $14.23 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Originally published in 1936, News from Tartary is the story of a 3,500-mile trip across China: from Peking, through the mysterious province of Sinkiang, to India. One of the most difficult trips that could have been made in the 1930s, or even today, the journey took Peter Fleming and his fellow traveler, Kini Maillart, a young female journalist from Switzerland, through some of the most desolate country of central Asia, over passes more than 15,000 feet high, through burning deserts, and among some of the world's most exotic peoples. It is all told by Fleming in his inimitable manner, which underemphasizes the difficulties and describes keenly interesting events and developments with humor and brilliant color. Made without the knowledge of the Chinese government, the trip often endangered the lives of the travelers, and on several occasions the chances of their return seemed slight. Fortunately, Fleming proved adept with a .22-caliber rook rifle, and Maillart's amateur medical skills more than once won the favor of the local residents. No writer has given a sharper picture of the unchanging Tartary than has Fleming. His account has become a major classic of travel writing and a definitive description of a now-vanished way of life. It is filled with endurance and adventure, with strange encounters in the wilderness, with tales of Chinese, Mongol tribesmen, and Indians, and with a spirited sense of levity and indomitable courage..
Price: $10.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]