New York. 1991. Knopf. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0394583108. 273 pages. hardcover. keywords: Travel Monsoon India. DESCRIPTION - Each year, on the first of June, the summer monsoon arrives over Trivandrum at the southernmost tip of India. Its majestic progress north towards the Himalayas, marked by celebrations, processions, festivals and a lot of released personal emotion, brings it ultimately to the old British hill station of Cherrapunji, listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the wettest place on Earth. In 1987 Alexander Frater determined to follow the monsoon all the way up the subcontinent. This book is a record of his journey, and his growing awareness of the monsoon's towering influence on every aspect of Indian life. While awaiting the burst in Trivandrum he investigated the local monsoon cures, in Goa he joined rich socialites for one of their famously wild monsoon parties, at drought-stricken Deeg in Rajasthan he gained access to an astonishing monsoon pavilion where 3,000 coloured fountains gave the illusion of bountiful monsoon rain. When he reached Delhi, visited during Parliament's Monsoon Session, he found officials curiously reluctant to let him into Cherrapunji - and finally, having got there as an illegal immigrant and found a graveyard full of British suicides, he discovered why. inventory #15356

Author bio
Author bio	Alexander Russell Frater (born New Hebrides, 3 January 1937) is a travel writer and journalist. Frater's grandfather and his father were Scottish Presbyterian missionaries in the New Hebrides, now Vanuatu. His grandfather Maurice was based on the island of Paama, which had previously been hostile to all outsiders, from 1900-1939. His father Alexander, who became a doctor after training in Sydney, established a hospital on the island of Iririki, offshore from Parliament House in Port Vila, training many Pacific Islanders in the treatment of tropical diseases. His mother established and ran two schools in Vanuatu. In 1946 the family moved to Suva, Fiji, where Frater Snr. became Professor at the Central Medical School (he later took a post in New Zealand and died there). After primary school Frater was sent to Scotch College in Melbourne, and then attended the University of Melbourne as an undergraduate in the late 1950s. He married Marlis (d. 19 October 2011) in 1962 and moved to the UK to pursue a career as a journalist (with further study, Durham and Perugia). They had 2 children, Tania and John. He lives in south west London. Frater is noted for three well-regarded travel books, the most recent, Tales from the Torrid Zone, is in part an autobiography (of his childhood in Vanuatu) and a travelogue, was reviewed by the New York Times and described as a pleasing grab bag of a book, a jumble of funny encounters, strange sights, forgotten history and really bad food. Chasing the Monsoon (1990) is another notable work in which he follows the Monsoon in India. It was made into a BBC documentary in which he featured. In the book Beyond the Blue Horizon (1984) the author in went to Statesman-Aldwych Travel in London and asked them to provide him with a ticket to all the airfields that Imperial Airways used on their route from London to Australia in 1935. He succeeded in visiting most of the many strange airfields used then, and also describes the many intermediate flights between them with local airlines unknown to most readers. The book also covers how it was to travel as a passenger to these far-away and forgotten places back in 1935. His latest book to date, published in 2008, is The Balloon Factory. It focuses on the pioneers of aviation based at The Balloon Factory in Farnborough, UK

Author bio

Author bio

Alexander Russell Frater (born New Hebrides, 3 January 1937) is a travel writer and journalist. Frater's grandfather and his father were Scottish Presbyterian missionaries in the New Hebrides, now Vanuatu. His grandfather Maurice was based on the island of Paama, which had previously been hostile to all outsiders, from 1900-1939. His father Alexander, who became a doctor after training in Sydney, established a hospital on the island of Iririki, offshore from Parliament House in Port Vila, training many Pacific Islanders in the treatment of tropical diseases. His mother established and ran two schools in Vanuatu. In 1946 the family moved to Suva, Fiji, where Frater Snr. became Professor at the Central Medical School (he later took a post in New Zealand and died there). After primary school Frater was sent to Scotch College in Melbourne, and then attended the University of Melbourne as an undergraduate in the late 1950s. He married Marlis (d. 19 October 2011) in 1962 and moved to the UK to pursue a career as a journalist (with further study, Durham and Perugia). They had 2 children, Tania and John. He lives in south west London. Frater is noted for three well-regarded travel books, the most recent, Tales from the Torrid Zone, is in part an autobiography (of his childhood in Vanuatu) and a travelogue, was reviewed by the New York Times and described as a pleasing grab bag of a book, a jumble of funny encounters, strange sights, forgotten history and really bad food. Chasing the Monsoon (1990) is another notable work in which he follows the Monsoon in India. It was made into a BBC documentary in which he featured. In the book Beyond the Blue Horizon (1984) the author in went to Statesman-Aldwych Travel in London and asked them to provide him with a ticket to all the airfields that Imperial Airways used on their route from London to Australia in 1935. He succeeded in visiting most of the many strange airfields used then, and also describes the many intermediate flights between them with local airlines unknown to most readers. The book also covers how it was to travel as a passenger to these far-away and forgotten places back in 1935. His latest book to date, published in 2008, is The Balloon Factory. It focuses on the pioneers of aviation based at The Balloon Factory in Farnborough, UK

Frater, Alexander. Chasing the Monsoon

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