Matthew Karanian and Robert Kurkjian will present their book, Armenia and Karabakh: The Stone Garden Travel Guide, and will be on hand for a talk and book signing on February 21, at the Consulate General of Armenia in Los Angeles.
The event is the world premiere launch for the new edition of the book, which is Armenia’s best-selling travel guide. This third edition was published this week and contains 320 pages illustrated with 150 color photographs and 30 detailed maps. A never-before published map of historic Armenia, which was created shortly after the Genocide, is also featured in the book.
The Stone Garden Travel Guide is the only guidebook for the region that emphasizes conservation and ecology. The book is also the only photo-based guide to Armenia.
Karanian and Kurkjian have each spent nearly two decades living and working in Armenia while researching and writing this and previous editions of the book. Each of them first traveled to Armenia in 1995 to work as professors at the AmericanUniversity of Armenia. Karanian is an attorney, and he served as Associate Dean of the law program. Kurkjian is an environmental scientist, and he was Director of the university’s Environmental Conservation and ResearchCenter. The book is illustrated with color maps produced by AUA’s Birds of Armenia Project.
Their writing and photography about Armenia has also been featured in magazines and newspapers of wide distribution in the US, Europe, and Canada, including in CNN Traveller magazine, Geographical, Photo District News, and Photo Life. Karanian is also a co-author of “Catching Fire: Containing Forced Migration in a Volatile World,” published by Lexington Books.
