London: William Heinemann, (1994) dj. Hardcover first edition - A book on the newly-emergent countries of central Asia which contain the magical cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, the Kazakh Steppes, the deserts of Karakum and the Pamir Mountains. The five Central Asian republics - the five "Stans": Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan - cut loose from Moscow in the fall oft the Soviet Union, discover that their newly found freedom plays tug-o-war with despair and a nostalgia for the certainties of the Soviet past. "Thubron finds the heart of Asia in the hearts of its people, swimming in a sea of tea, vodka, and hospitality. From the oldest-known Quran to a deserted Soviet naval base on the shores of a high mountain lake 1,500 miles from the ocean (used to test torpedoes far from spying eyes), [his] writing echoes the melancholy emptiness of the wide spaces he passes through. . . a rare meeting of a marvelous writer and a mysterious land.(Ken Peavler) Maps. Index. 374 pp. Map endpapers. ISBN: 0-434779768.