The Afghan Amulet: Travels from the Hindu Kush (Tauris Parke Paperbacks) - Softcover

Sheila Paine is the author of several acclaimed books, including Embroidery from India and Pakistan, The Linen Goddess and The Golden Horde (also Tauris Parke Paperbacks).

*The Afghan Amulet is an outstanding book of travel writing.* --Publisher's Weekly

*Ultimately Paine's quest, which is solved with a twist, merely provides a pretext for a fascinating and beautifully written account of an odyssey through extreme physical, cultural and spiritual wildernesses. Paine displays the courage of a frontierswoman and the prose of a poet.* --Kirkus Reviews

*This travel narrative has a unique inspiration...a delight to read.* --Library Journal

*Her endurance is awesome, her courage remarkable and her prose excellent.* --The Washington Post

*An eminently refined writer...This is travel writing of the highest calibre with incisive descriptions and admirably spare prose.* --Booklist

*Paine is in the direct line of intrepid English women travellers.* --International Herald Tribune

‘Original and lively, full of short, punchy vignettes of people and places... Vivid and immediate reporting is the great strength of this book... Paine's is a fascinating description of the attitudes and lives of people whose values and perceptions are very different from most of ours.* --
*Paine combines worthy scholarship, tracing the roots of Indo-European civilisation, with a colourful and moving narrative that provides a poignant glimpse into an almost vanished world.* --Sunday Telegraph

*Remarkable... Paine's travels have a point to them, a narrative which bespeaks a deep significance about both the history and nature of humanity. She writes beautifully... A spirited, perceptive exploration of some of the least-known parts of the world, conducted by a woman whose pioneering spirit and coolness under fire seem like a relic from another age.*--The Sunday Times

‘...armed with nothing but pluck and a good prose style, Paine traces the roots of Indo-European civilisation at the same time as writing a gripping travel book.* --The Guardian

‘An unusual travel book that should get a lot of attention.' Bookseller, Star ratings

‘This is real travel writing ... perceptive, informative, witty.' Robin Hanbury Tenison

‘She came back with a tale told so wonderfully The Afghan Amulet has become the best book I've read in the past decade.' Southern Daily Echo

‘This is a glorious read from a real-life female Indiana Jones.' Huddersfield Daily Examiner

*Sheila Paine relates her remarkably intrepid adventure with humour and interest, and with fascinating descriptions of an area that this so rarely visited or written about except as a war report.* --The Good Book Guide
‘The lasting interest of this book is the succession of snapshots that illuminate how these societies are coping with the violent impact of Western economics and ideas.' Country Living