Rupert Isaacson

Heart-breaking, uplifting and full of adventure, The Long Ride Home is the long-awaited sequel to the international bestseller The Horse Boy. Rowan came back from the shamans in Mongolia a changed boy. The three most debilitating effects of his autism - his incontinence, his endless tantruming, and his inability to make friends - were gone.But a year almost to the day since Rowan's improvement he started regressing: the accidents and tantrums reappeared, terrifying his father Rupert. Something had to be done.Father and son embarked on a new quest, journeying from the bushmen of Namibia to the coastal rainforests of Queensland, Australia and finally to the Navajo reservations of the American southwest, where Rowan was transformed - they had begun the Long Ride Home.'It is probably only once in a critical lifetime that one will be moved almost to tears ... a triumph of the human spirit' Telegraph (on The Horse Boy)'Magical, miraculous, uplifting' Daily Mail (on The Horse Boy)'Amazing, astonishing' Sunday Times (on The Horse Boy)Rupert Isaacson is British but lives with his family in Texas, USA. He is an ex-professional horse trainer and founder of The Horse Boy Foundation, which helps to make horses and nature available to other children, autistic or not, all over the world, including the UK. The Horse Boy was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller.

When his son Rowan was diagnosed with autism, Rupert Isaacson was devastated, afraid he might never be able to communicate with his child. But when Isaacson, a lifelong horseman, rode their neighbor's horse with Rowan, Rowan improved immeasurably. He was struck with a crazy idea: why not take Rowan to Mongolia, the one place in the world where horses and shamanic healing intersected? The Horse Boy is the dramatic and heartwarming story of that impossible adventure. In Mongolia, the family found undreamed of landscapes and people, unbearable setbacks, and advances beyond their wildest dreams. This is a deeply moving, truly one-of-a-kind story -- of a family willing to go to the ends of the earth to help their son, and of a boy learning to connect with the world for the first time.

Rupert Isaacson's The Horse Boy is one family's epic journey to rescue their son.Rupert and Kirstin Isaacson were heartbroken when they learned that their two-year-old son Rowan was autistic. And with each passing day, Rowan's growing isolation, his uncontrollable fits, each failed treatment, filled them with despair.Then one day Rowan escaped and ran into a field of horses. Rupert watched in horror - but saw a miracle occur. The horses responded lovingly to Rowan - and he to them. Could Rowan's affinity with these animals save their son from his condition?The Isaacsons left their home in Texas and travelled to the plains and mountains of Mongolia - the spiritual home of the horse - risking everything - their happiness, future and sanity - on an arduous epic horseback journey in search of a cure for Rowan . . .'An elegant, affecting narrative...a triumph of the human spirit' Daily Telegraph'Captivating, incredible, a magical journey, an impossible dream'Telegraph Weekend'It is probably only once in a critical lifetime that one will be moved almost to tears by [such] an account ... the excellence of his writing [creates an] elegant, affecting narrative ... a triumph of the human spirit'Telegraph'Magical, miraculous, uplifting'Daily MailRupert Isaacson is British but lives with his family in Texas, USA. He is an ex-professional horse trainer and founding director of the Indigenous Land Rights Fund. He is the author of The Healing Land: A Kalahari Journey and his journalism and travel writing has appeared in the Daily Telegraph, Esquire, National Geographic, Independent on Sunday, Conde Nast Traveller, Daily Mail and The Field.

A brilliantly written exploration – part travel writing, part personal quest – of Africa’s oldest and most famous population The Bushmen have long been mythologised and are firmly entrenched in the Western mind. But what is it about hunter-gatherers that is so attractive us, and why do we need these myths? Fascinated by this disappearing population, Rupert Isaacson has been venturing into the Kalahari since he was a child and his book is a search for this truth about the Bushmen through Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. Part travel writing, part history of the Bushmen, part personal quest, it will record what he finds there, the landscapes he travels through, the wildlife he hunted and ate, the characters, corruption and confusion of a people who have wrenched themselves out of the Stone Age (it wasn’t until 1948 that it became illegal to kill Bushmen) into a cash economy over the past ten years.

Follows the author's sojourn into the grasslands of South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia to investigate Kalahari Bushmen myths, describing his encounters with the last living groups of traditional Bushmen, immersion in their world of ritual and prophecy, and witness to incredible healings and tragic social problems. Reprint.