Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive

In this vibrant debut travelogue, BBC Travel journalist Stein crisscrosses the globe to spotlight 10 “cultural marvels on the edge of disappearance” and the people charged with preserving them. Subjects include Balla Kouyate, a Malian djeli, or bard, who uses the balafon, a wind instrument, to perform “national epics [and] recall family genealogies”; Paola Abraini, who wakes daily at 7 a.m. to make su filindeu, “the rarest pasta in the world,” from a 300-year-old recipe passed down by her Sardinian family; and Taiwanese artist Yan Jhen-fa, one of the last people to hand-paint film posters. A particularly fascinating chapter details how Peru’s Victoriano Arizapana maintains a woven suspension bridge dating from the Inca empire; once a year, he oversees thousands of villagers as they prepare braided grass cable to rebuild the bridge, offering a blessing to “Pachamama (Mother Earth)” to honor the “Incan bond with nature.” Stein’s reverent prose conveys the awe-inspiring nature of these arcane cultural traditions without exoticizing them (“There’s something truly singular about witnessing someone do something that nearly nobody else in the world knows how to do. It’s like watching a secret”). This is worth seeking out. (Dec.)