Silk, Spices, Veils and Vodka by Felicity Timcke  

Felicity Timcke’s missive publication, “Silk, Spices, Veils and Vodka” brings both a refreshing and new approach to life on the expat trail. South African by origin, Timcke has lived in some very exotic places, mostly along the more challenging countries of the Silk Road. Although the book’s content, which is entirely composed of letters to the author’s friends and family, is directed primarily at this group, it provides “20 years of musings” that will enthral and delight those who have either experienced a similar expatriate existence or who are nervously about to depart for one. Starting in Uzbekistan, Timcke’s world of “firsts”, the excitement of a new posting and a new place to explore are clear in the style and tone of her early letters written from the home of an Uzbek family that she and her husband live with. Her shopping visits to the stationery shop to buy toilet paper and of her first pay check arriving in a carrier bag of small notes gloss over the more sinister bureaucracy and control she discovers as she goes deeper under the country’s skin. With interludes in a more familiar England, Timcke soon finds herself in Maputo, Mozambique chasing art deco buildings and avoiding being dragged into the local school musical extravaganza, before heading to Kabul, Afghanistan and being held hostage…by Americans.