About the Book
Jan Morris has been a travel writer for over half a century, know for her ability to capture places and atmospheres. But what about the many people she has encountered along the way?
In Contact! she turns her brilliantly observant eye to the human contacts she has made, across the world and through the decades. In a series of vignettes, some only a few lines long, she records hundreds of brief glimpses and fleeting encounters, celebrating the people who helped spark her view of the world and mould her responses. A vast range of human experience is here: most are anonymous, everyday encounters—children playing, a homeless man in Manhattan, a lascivious taxi-driver—but also remembers celebrated figures, from Yves Saint Laurent to King Hussein of Jordan, President Truman to Peter O’Toole.
Contact! is a must for any fan of Jan Morris’s writing. Her great sense of amusement, shrewd eye for detail and huge enthusiasm make these episodes wonderfully enjoyable—and often profound.
