Jeremy Seal – Jill Grinberg Literary Management

Jeremy Seal

Jeremy Seal is an award-winning travel writer, journalist, reviewer, and tour leader. He is the author of five books of nonfiction: A Fez of the Heart: Travels around Turkey in Search of a Hat, The Snakebite Survivors’ Club: Travels Among Serpents, Treachery at Sharpnose Point: Unraveling the Mystery of the Caledonia’s Final Voyage, Nicholas: The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus, and Meander: East to West, Indirectly, Along a Turkish River. He has written about and traveled extensively in Turkey, and runs numerous tours and holidays there annually. He lives in Bath with his family.

Agent

Jill Grinberg

Meander: East to West, Indirectly, Along a Turkish River

The Meander is a river so famously winding that its name has long since come to signify the frustrations and the virtues of the indirect approach; an approach that the author makes use of while traveling the length of the river alone and by kayak.

Jeremy Seal, a natural raconteur, takes readers from the Meander’s source in the uplands of Central Turkey to its mouth on the Aegean, with as many historical, cultural, and personal asides as there are bends in the river.

The river itself has largely been forgotten, but the Meander was the original conduit by which the cultures of Europe and Asia first met, then clashed. The city at the river’s mouth saw the first great flowering of western philosophical thought, 2500 years ago. The city at the river’s source commanded the mountain pass that carried the world’s earliest roads leading to Mesopotamia and on to India. All manner of legendary adventurers, soldiers, and visionaries passed through: the Persian King Xerxes on his way to defeat at Salamis, Alexander the Great en route to his conquest of Asia, and St. Paul establishing the earliest of the Christian churches, to name just a few.

Today the Meander valley is the home to an extraordinary mix of people, some ethnic Turks but many others, too, who were resetteled during times of Ottoman upheaval. Although the river hasn’t ferried goods or people (due to too many twists and turns), its shores are home to fishermen and farmers, bandits and classicists, a group as varied and interesting as the river’s storied past.

Present day will sit beside past, ideas will give way to anecdote, and characters will abound in this atmospheric, incident-rich, and free-flowing portrayal of the essential meeting point between East and West.

Praise for Meander

“Enlightening tour through Anatolia, rich in history and visceral detail.” –Kirkus

“Meander is an excellent introduction to Turkish history for anyone planning a summer holiday.” –The Guardian

Publisher

Bloomsbury

Publication Date

June 5, 2012

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Nonfiction/Travel

Rights

JGLM

Nicholas: The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus

An elegantly written, idiosyncratic biography of Santa Claus, from his saintly origins in Turkey to his current reign as the king of Christmas.

Nicholas is a biographical travelogue tracing the evolution of one of the greatest cults of modern times―the rise of Santa Claus from his origins in Byzantine Turkey to his role as the jolly man who grants every child’s wish. It is a compelling story of religious worship and strife, cultural interpretation, and mass commercialization brilliantly framed by Jeremy Seal’s modern-day voyage in Santa’s footsteps. Saint Nicholas, as Santa was originally known, lived and worked in Myra on the southern coast of Turkey 1,700 years ago. He became a revered figure in the Orthodox and Catholic churches, attracting devotees across the Christian world as his cult shifted westward with the centuries. The saint’s bones are said to still exist, and Seal’s dogged pursuit of these relics launches his quest for Santa’s true lineage―one that takes him through present-day Turkey, Italy, Holland, England, America, and finally Lapland as he pieces together the history of this extraordinary man-to-myth transformation. In the tradition of Bruce Chatwin and Tony Horowitz, Jeremy Seal is a natural storyteller, weaving fascinating history and intrepid travelogue into a book every bit as enchanting as its subject.

Praise for Nicholas

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Here is evidence in an investigative report on who he was before he became the cult personage in the polar parsonage.” –Kirkus

“Told as if the generous saint were orchestrating his own popularity from a heavenly perch, Seal’s account is chockablock with historical detail and dry humor.” –Booklist

Publisher

Bloomsbury

Publication Date

November 1, 2005

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Nonfiction/History

Rights

JGLM

Treachery at Sharpnose Point: Unraveling the Mystery of the Caledonia's Final Voyage

While walking through a cliff-top graveyard in the town of Morwenstow on the coast of Cornwall, the author encounters a wooden Scottish figurehead that once adorned the Caledonia, a ship wrecked on the English coast in 1842. Through further investigation, Seal begins to suspect the townspeople, and chiefly the town’s parson, Robert Hawker, for the Caledonia‘s demise on the jagged shores below. Though no one has ever been brought to court for “wrecking”—luring ships ashore to loot the cargo—it’s a commonly held belief that this sort of cruelty did take place. But, is that what happened in Morwenstow?

Having meticulously researched maritime logs, broadsides of the day, and other first-hand documents, Seal weaves history, travelogue, and imaginative reconstruction into this marvelous piece of detective work, bringing us a mystery of the best kind—the sort that really did happen.

Praise for Treachery at Sharpnose Point

“This lively, well-paced book is highly recommended for all public libraries.” –Library Journal

Publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Publication Date

October 15, 2001

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Nonfiction/History

Rights

HMH

The Snakebite Survivors' Club: Travels Among Serpents

A world traveler, attempting to overcome his deadly fear of snakes, journeys to Australia, India, Africa, and America in search of the world’s deadliest serpents and the people who live among them, finding a wealth of spellbinding information and experience along the way.

Praise for The Snakebite Survivors’ Club

“Seal’s delightful book may forever change the way readers think about snakes; his serpentine forays into human folly, superstition, courage, fear, cruelty and benevolence verge on the Monty Pythonesque, and his footloose, open-minded spirit recalls Bruce Chatwin.” –Publishers Weekly

Publisher

Harcourt

Publication Date

February 1, 2000

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Nonfiction/Travel

Rights

JGLM

A Fez of the Heart: Travels around Turkey in Search of a Hat

Inspired by a dusty fez in his parents’ attic, Jeremy Seal set off in 1993 to trace the astonishing history of this cone-shaped hat. Soon, the quintessentially Turkish headgear became the key to understanding a country beset by contradictions.

Praise for A Fez of the Heart

“A modern travel classic.” –Herald Express

“An adventure firmly predicated on the almost extirpated fez, yet far more than the story of a hat, Seal’s book is an unerring pleasure to read.” –Kirkus

“[A]ided by fluent Turkish (it fails him once when he believes a host has invited him to hunt Kurds, only to discover that the game is kurts, or wolves) and wry sensibility, he does offer both an engaging, often very funny travelogue and real insights into Turkey’s troubled balancing act between modernity and tradition, between Europe and Islam. For those who were surprised by the plurality gained by Turkey’s pro-Islamic Refah (or Welfare) Party in the most recent elections, Seal’s book shows that we could all learn a lot from a hat.” –Publishers Weekly

Publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Publication Date

March 28, 1996

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Nonfiction/Travel

Rights

HMH