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From the French Abbey of St Wandrille to the abandoned and awesome Rock Monasteries of Cappadocia in Turkey, the celebrated travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor studies the rigorous contemplative lives of the monks and the timeless beauty of their monastic surroundings. In his occasional retreats, the peaceful solitude and the calm enchantment of the monasteries was passed on as a kind of ‘supernatural windfall’ which A Time to Keep Silence so effortlessly records.
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Reviews
The English language is still a superb instrument in the hands of a writer who has a virtuoso skill with words, a robust aesthetic passion, an indomitable curiosity and a rapturous historical imagination
The genius of Patrick Leigh Fermor is a many splendoured thing. Soldier, traveller, writer, Phihellene ... he has already dazzled and delighted ... It is some time since more truth and beauty were distilled into a hundred pages
A brilliant book
Delightful ... His book is not only an admirable piece of travel writing; it is also a brilliant piece of human exploration
Introspection, history, reportage have their balanced places in a well-written book ... measured and lucent
Patrick Leigh Fermor is a stylish, superb master of words, which he savours like the choicest vintage
What a delight it is to read a book so beautifully and sensitively written
A most successful attempt to portray the reactions of the man of the world (in the literal sense) when confronted with the monastic life
Delightful, lucidly written work of introspection that evokes the hardship and the rewards of the solitary life, as well as its beauty
John Murray is doing the decent thing and reissuing all of Leigh Fermor's main books ... But what else would you expect from a publisher whose commitment to geography is such that for more than two centuries it has widened our understanding of the world?
A pleasure and an instruction to read
Bringing the landscape alive as no other writer can, he uses his profound and eclectic understanding of cultures and peoples ... to paint vivid pictures - nobody has illuminated the geography of Europe better