With dry, laconic wit, Norman Lewis remembers his transformation from stammering Welsh schoolboy to worldy wise, multilingual sergeant in the Intelligence Corps, on the cusp of becoming a writer. With a calm, observant gaze from the start, the young Norman moves from Spiritualist parents in Enfield to live with supremely dotty aunts in Carmarthen, whose baking of a weekly cake to feed the jackdaws gives the book its title. Escaping his eccentric family by marrying the daughter of a Sicilian associate of the Mafia, Norman made a living as a wedding photographer and by dealing in cameras, while restoring and racing Bugattis for pleasure. Here we see his first journeys in Spain, Cuba and the Yemen and a wartime spent in Algeria, Sicily and Italy, all of which acted as an apprenticeship for his career as one of the twentieth century's greatest travel writers.
A Goddess in the Stones : Travels in India
Norman Lewis
bookIn Sicily
Norman Lewis
bookThe Tomb in Seville
Norman Lewis
bookAn Empire of the East : Travels in Indonesia
Norman Lewis
bookThe Missionaries : God against the Indians
Norman Lewis
bookVoices of the Old Sea
Norman Lewis
bookJackdaw Cake : An Autobiography
Norman Lewis
bookNaples '44 : An intelligence officer in the Italian labyrinth
Norman Lewis
bookDragon Apparent : Travels in Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam
Norman Lewis
bookGolden Earth : Travels in Burma
Norman Lewis
bookView of the World : Selected Journalism
Norman Lewis
bookHonoured Society : The Sicilian Mafia observed
Norman Lewis
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