The great travel writer Jan Morris was born James Morris. James Morris distinguished himself in the British military, became a successful and physically daring reporter, climbed mountains, crossed deserts, and established a reputation as a historian of the British empire. He was happily married, with several children. To all appearances, he was not only a man, but a man's man. Except that appearances, as James Morris had known from early childhood,...

"Jan Morris, one of 'Britain's greatest living writers' (Times, UK), returns with this whimsical yet deeply affecting volume on life as a redoubtable nonagenarian. The irrepressible Jan Morris-author of such classics as Venice and Trieste-is at it again: offering a vibrant set of reminiscences that remind us 'what a good, wise and witty companion Jan Morris has been for so many readers for so long' (Alexander McCall Smith, New York Times Book Review)....

"An extraordinary--and strikingly illustrated--reflection on the meaning of war from one of our greatest living writers. The battleship Yamato, of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was the most powerful warship of World War II and represented the climax, as it were, of the Japanese warrior traditions of the samurai--the ideals of honor, discipline, and self-sacrifice that had immemorially ennobled the Japanese national consciousness. Stoically poised for...