The hysterical story bestseller about one man's epic Celtic sojourn in search of ancestors, nostalgia, and the world's greatest round of golf By turns hilarious and poetic, A Course Called Ireland is a magnificent tour of a vibrant land and paean to the world's greatest game in the tradition...  more

The hysterical story bestseller about one man's epic Celtic sojourn in search of ancestors, nostalgia, and the world's greatest round of golf By turns hilarious and poetic, A Course Called Ireland is a magnificent tour of a vibrant land and paean to the world's greatest game in the tradition of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. In his thirties, married, and staring down impending fatherhood, Tom Coyne was familiar with the last refuge of the adult male: the golfing trip. Intent on designing a golf trip to end all others, Coyne looked to Ireland, the place where his father has taught him to love the game years before. As he studied a map of the island and plotted his itinerary, it dawn on Coyne that Ireland was ringed with golf holes. The country began to look like one giant round of golf, so Coyne packed up his clubs and set off to play all of it-on foot. A Course Called Ireland is the story of a walking-averse golfer who treks his way around an entire country, spending sixteen weeks playing every seaside hole in Ireland. Along the way, he searches out his family's roots, discovers that a once-poor country has been transformed by an economic boom, and finds that the only thing tougher to escape than Irish sand traps are Irish pubs.

Sparkling with irrepressible wit, City of Djinns peels back the layers of Delhi's centuries-old history, revealing an extraordinary array of characters along the way-from eunuchs to descendants of great Moguls. With refreshingly open-minded curiosity, William Dalrymple explores the seven "dead"...  more

Sparkling with irrepressible wit, City of Djinns peels back the layers of Delhi's centuries-old history, revealing an extraordinary array of characters along the way-from eunuchs to descendants of great Moguls. With refreshingly open-minded curiosity, William Dalrymple explores the seven "dead" cities of Delhi as well as the eighth city-today's Delhi. Underlying his quest is the legend of the djinns, fire-formed spirits that are said to assure the city's Phoenix-like regeneration no matter how many times it is destroyed. Entertaining, fascinating, and informative, City of Djinns is an irresistible blend of research and adventure.

“Let’s go, shall we? Just the two of us?” “I consider Galloway the country’s best kept secret: a place where time holds its breath, where ancient ruins dot the countryside in moss-covered splendor, where the natives are friendly and tourists are few, only because...  more

“Let’s go, shall we? Just the two of us?” “I consider Galloway the country’s best kept secret: a place where time holds its breath, where ancient ruins dot the countryside in moss-covered splendor, where the natives are friendly and tourists are few, only because they don’t know what they’re missing. “So, ten days in bonny Scotland. You’ll join me, aye?” –from My Heart’s in the Lowlands Best-selling novelist Liz Curtis Higgs invites you to take an entertaining journey through the South West of Scotland, known as Dumfries and Galloway. Without crossing the pond, changing time zones, or driving on the left side of the road, you’ll explore quaint villages and crumbling castles, old bookshops and charming tearooms in the delightful company of a guide whose love for this quiet nook of Scotland illuminates every page. The verdant hills and glens of the Lowlands are awash in history, rich with culture, and peopled with engaging characters. The setting for Higgs’s acclaimed series of historical novels, Dumfries and Galloway also serves as her home away from home. Her decade-long love affair with this unique area of the world, combined with her award-winning storytelling skills, makes her the ideal armchair travel companion. Warm, personal, and deeply evocative, My Heart’s in the Lowlands transports you to an unforgettable corner of Scotland that will lay claim to your heart forever.

He's on the road again. This time, Alton Brown and his motorcycle-mounted crew are off on a thousand-mile, south-to-north journey that follows America's first superhighway - the Mississippi. Starting at the great river's delta on the Gulf of Mexico and ending up near its headwaters in Minnesota,...  more

He's on the road again. This time, Alton Brown and his motorcycle-mounted crew are off on a thousand-mile, south-to-north journey that follows America's first superhighway - the Mississippi. Starting at the great river's delta on the Gulf of Mexico and ending up near its headwaters in Minnesota, Alton and buddies travel the heartland's byways to scout out the very best of roadside food - and to get to know the people who spend their lives preparing and serving it. A companion to the six-part Food Network series airing in fall 2007, Feasting on Asphalt: The River Run is a travel diary, photo journal, and, of course, cookbook. Alton's itinerary includes big-city eateries and small-town chat 'n' chews, as well as markets, inns, ice cream parlors, museums, barbecue joints - and even an alligator farm. Louisiana-style Grilled Alligator Tail (served simply, with lemon and butter) is one of the book's forty original road-food recipes. Others include Pecan-Coconut Pie from an Arkansan roadside restaurant; BBQ Pork Ribs in Mississippi that Brown eats over pancakes; Vegetable Borscht from St. Paul's Russian Tea House; and Fried Catfish from a riverside burg in Illinois. When it comes to America's foodways and folkways, there's no better tour guide than Alton Brown.

Isabel Allende's first memory of Chile is of a house she never knew. The "large old house" on the Calle Cueto, where her mother was born and which her grandfather evoked so frequently that Isabel felt as if she had lived there, became the protagonist of her first novel, The House...  more

Isabel Allende's first memory of Chile is of a house she never knew. The "large old house" on the Calle Cueto, where her mother was born and which her grandfather evoked so frequently that Isabel felt as if she had lived there, became the protagonist of her first novel, The House of the Spirits. It appears again at the beginning of Allende's playful, seductively compelling memoir My Invented Country, and leads us into this gifted writer's world. Here are the almost mythic figures of a Chilean family -- grandparents and great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends -- with whom readers of Allende's fiction will feel immediately at home. And here, too, is an unforgettable portrait of a charming, idiosyncratic Chilean people with a violent history and an indomitable spirit. Although she claims to have been an outsider in her native land -- "I never fit in anywhere, not into my family, my social class, or the religion fate bestowed on me" -- Isabel Allende carries with her even today the mark of the politics, myth, and magic of her homeland. In My Invented County, she explores the role of memory and nostalgia in shaping her life, her books, and that most intimate connection to her place of origin. Two life-altering events inflect the peripatetic narration of this book: The military coup and violent death of her uncle, Salvador Allende Gossens, on September 11, 1973, sent her into exile and transformed her into a writer. The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, on her newly adopted homeland, the United States, brought forth from Allende an overdue acknowledgment that she had indeed left home. My Invented Country, whose structure mimics the workings of memory itself, ranges back and forth across that distance accrued between the author's past and present lives. It speaks compellingly to immigrants, and to all of us, who try to retain a coherent inner life in a world full of contradictions.

In August,  2003, at the age of 30, Rory Stewart took a taxi from Jordan to Baghdad, where he was appointed deputy governor of Amara and then Nasiriyah, provinces in the remote marsh regions of southern Iraq.  The Prince of the Marshes tells the story of Stewart's year of...  more

In August,  2003, at the age of 30, Rory Stewart took a taxi from Jordan to Baghdad, where he was appointed deputy governor of Amara and then Nasiriyah, provinces in the remote marsh regions of southern Iraq.  The Prince of the Marshes tells the story of Stewart's year of occupation, as he attempted to splice together some semblance of an infrastructure for a population of millions teetering on the brink of civil war.  By turns funny and harrowing, moving and incisive, it is a unique portrait of heroism and the tragedy that intervention inevitably courts in the modern age.

David Monagan is a restless, middle-aged father of three who for years has dreamed of relocating from the USA to Ireland, the land of his forebears. In his elegantly written, often hilarious narrative, Monagan describes his family's evolving struggle to come to terms with life in a strange...  more

David Monagan is a restless, middle-aged father of three who for years has dreamed of relocating from the USA to Ireland, the land of his forebears. In his elegantly written, often hilarious narrative, Monagan describes his family's evolving struggle to come to terms with life in a strange land. The result is an honest, heartfelt and penetrating portrait of a contemporary Ireland that is so often portrayed through the wistful lens of cliches that no longer apply. Jaywalking with the Irish is a tale of revelations - about donkey carts transformed into BMWs, about great blessings of warmth sometimes laced with begrudgery, about what happens to a family that ditches stability for the tricky task of fitting in abroad.

A simple story of a rain season in Thailand and a young man at the intersection of two cultures. Six years ago at the age of twenty-one, Jaed Muncharoen Coffin, a half-Thai American man, left New England's privileged Middlebury College to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in his mother's native...  more

A simple story of a rain season in Thailand and a young man at the intersection of two cultures. Six years ago at the age of twenty-one, Jaed Muncharoen Coffin, a half-Thai American man, left New England's privileged Middlebury College to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in his mother's native village of Panomsarakram--thus fulfilling a familial obligation. While addressing the notions of displacement, ethnic identity, and cultural belonging, A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants chronicles his time at the temple that rain season--receiving alms in the streets in saffron robes; bathing in the canals; learning to meditate in a mountaintop hut; and falling in love with Lek, a beautiful Thai woman who comes to represent the life he can have if he stays. Part armchair travel, part coming-of-age story, this debut work transcends the memoir genre and ushers in a brave new voice in American nonfiction.

With a bottomless taste for the absurd, Doug Lansky takes the reader on a global odyssey. In Naples, reputedly the world’s worst place to drive, Lansky rents a car. In Berlin, he dons a latex jumpsuit and spiked collar for a visit to the notoriously erotic Kit Kat Club. And in Tokyo,...  more

With a bottomless taste for the absurd, Doug Lansky takes the reader on a global odyssey. In Naples, reputedly the world’s worst place to drive, Lansky rents a car. In Berlin, he dons a latex jumpsuit and spiked collar for a visit to the notoriously erotic Kit Kat Club. And in Tokyo, determined to deepen his appreciation for sumo wrestling, Lansky takes lessons from a master and rediscovers how it feels to be lifted into the air by a wedgie. Other adventures include climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in ill-fitting hiking boots, competing with the mobs to get picked for The Price Is Right, and tandem hang gliding with a daredevil pilot in New Zealand.

Being inspired to act can take many forms. For some it's taking a weekend to volunteer, but for Shannon Galpin, it meant leaving her career, selling her house, launching a nonprofit and committing her life to advancing education and opportunity for women and girls. Focusing on the...  more

Being inspired to act can take many forms. For some it's taking a weekend to volunteer, but for Shannon Galpin, it meant leaving her career, selling her house, launching a nonprofit and committing her life to advancing education and opportunity for women and girls. Focusing on the war-torn country of Afghanistan, Galpin and her organization, Mountain2Mountain, have touched the lives of hundreds of men, women and children. As if launching a nonprofit wasn't enough, in 2009 Galpin became the first woman to ride a mountain bike in Afghanistan. Now she's using that initial bike ride to gain awareness around the country, encouraging people to use their bikes "as a vehicle for social change and justice to support a country where women don't have the right to ride a bike." In Mountain to Mountain, her lyric and honest memoir, Galpin describes her first forays into fundraising, her deep desire to help women and girls halfway across the world, her love for adventure and sports, and her own inspiration to be so much more than just another rape victim. During her numerous trips to Afghanistan, Shannon reaches out to politicians and journalists as well as everyday Afghans -- teachers, prison inmates, mothers, daughters --  to cross a cultural divide and find common ground. She narrates harrowing encounters, exhilarating bike rides, humorous episodes, and the heartbreak inherent in a country that is still recovering from decades of war and occupation. 

In 1995, Stephen Kirkpatrick joined a five-man expedition into the remote jungles of the Peruvian Amazon. Kirkpatrick's assignment was to document an area of the rainforest that had never before been photographed, nor by most accounts, ever explored by white men. Within hours of their...  more

In 1995, Stephen Kirkpatrick joined a five-man expedition into the remote jungles of the Peruvian Amazon. Kirkpatrick's assignment was to document an area of the rainforest that had never before been photographed, nor by most accounts, ever explored by white men. Within hours of their departure, an inaccurate map and a series of bad decisions leave the group hopelessly lost in the depths of the Amazon jungle. What began as a career-making photo expedition quickly turned into a desperate struggle for survival. The five men battle poisonous reptiles, hungry bugs, torrential rains, brutal heat, and an unforgiving landscape in an attempt to find their way back to civilization. They soon learn that survival is not only a physical, but a mental and spiritual challenge as well. Lost in the Amazon is a gripping, sometimes humorous, and ultimately inspirational story about the human drive to survive, and about clinging to faith in the worst circumstances imaginable.

Alaska is like no other state and few countries; men experience greater risk in her arms. This one-of-a-kind anthology captures the spine tingling adventures of daring men and women who venture into Alaska's vast wilderness and look death in the eye. Danger Stalks the Land relates gripping...  more

Alaska is like no other state and few countries; men experience greater risk in her arms. This one-of-a-kind anthology captures the spine tingling adventures of daring men and women who venture into Alaska's vast wilderness and look death in the eye. Danger Stalks the Land relates gripping episodes of animal attacks, avalanches, aircraft disasters, fishing, hunting, and skiing accidents, and chronicles risky climbs and reckless mountaineering amid Alaska's fantastic peaks. Through exhaustive research and interviews, author Larry Kaniut has captured in one volume, the terror and beauty of man's attempt to explore a vast and unforgiving land.

The stampeding true story of one woman?s journey from timorous equestrian novice to wildly whooping cowgirl?a madcap ride through Argentina that will fascinate horse lovers, travelers, and armchair adventurers alike.As a girl, Polly Evans dreamed about learning to ride?and in her mid-thirties...  more

The stampeding true story of one woman?s journey from timorous equestrian novice to wildly whooping cowgirl?a madcap ride through Argentina that will fascinate horse lovers, travelers, and armchair adventurers alike.As a girl, Polly Evans dreamed about learning to ride?and in her mid-thirties the obsession returned. Determined to finally bite the bullet and saddle up, she set off for Argentina, home of the nomadic gaucho whose spirit still gallops across the plains. In this sprawling country, six-year-olds travel to school on horseback. How difficult could it be? As she learns to sit astride a horse without falling off and befriends the marvelous creatures around her, Polly leaps into the sights and sounds of Argentina past and present: a hair-raising mystery involving Evita Perón becomes a parable about women, politics, and religion; a tango performance in Buenos Aires an occasion for both sorrow and rejoicing. From wine tasting in the Andes to exploring the legendary Perito Moreno Glacier, from investigating the myth of the gaucho to discovering her Welsh roots in Patagonia, Polly takes us along for an exhilarating, unforgettable ride as she finally lives out her dream?at a trot, a canter, and a gallop.

In the travel-writing tradition that made Paul Theroux"s reputation, Dark Star Safari is a rich and insightful book whose itinerary is Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town: down the Nile, through Sudan and Ethiopia, to Kenya, Uganda, and ultimately to the tip of South Africa. Going by train, dugout...  more

In the travel-writing tradition that made Paul Theroux"s reputation, Dark Star Safari is a rich and insightful book whose itinerary is Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town: down the Nile, through Sudan and Ethiopia, to Kenya, Uganda, and ultimately to the tip of South Africa. Going by train, dugout canoe, "chicken bus," and cattle truck, Theroux passes through some of the most beautiful — and often life-threatening — landscapes on earth. This is travel as discovery and also, in part, a sentimental journey. Almost forty years ago, Theroux first went to Africa as a teacher in the Malawi bush. Now he stops at his old school, sees former students, revisits his African friends. He finds astonishing, devastating changes wherever he goes. "Africa is materially more decrepit than it was when I first knew it," he writes, "hungrier, poorer, less educated, more pessimistic, more corrupt, and you can"t tell the politicians from the witch doctors. Not that Africa is one place. It is an assortment of motley republics and seedy chiefdoms. I got sick, I got stranded, but I was never bored. In fact, my trip was a delight and a revelation." Seeing firsthand what is happening across Africa, Theroux is as obsessively curious and wittily observant as always, and his readers will find themselves on an epic and enlightening journey. Dark Star Safari is one of his bravest and best books.

What price would you pay for adventure and knowledge?Chris and Chrissy Rouse, an experienced father-and-son scuba diving team, hoped to achieve widespread recognition for their outstanding but controversial diving skills. Obsessed and ambitious, they sought to solve the secrets of a mysterious,...  more

What price would you pay for adventure and knowledge?Chris and Chrissy Rouse, an experienced father-and-son scuba diving team, hoped to achieve widespread recognition for their outstanding but controversial diving skills. Obsessed and ambitious, they sought to solve the secrets of a mysterious, undocumented World War II German U-boat that lay under 230 feet of water, only a half-day's mission from New York Harbor. They paid the ultimate price in their quest for fame.This gripping narrative recounts the Rouses' growing lust for what many consider the world's most dangerous sport -- as well as for the cowboy culture of the deepdiving community. Father and son were only eighteen years apart in age, and their constant battles of will earned them the nickname "the Bicker Brothers." Many friends wondered which would win out if it came down to a life-or-death diving situation: Chris's protective instincts or Chrissy's desire to surpass his father's successes.In the surreal topographies of underwater caves and shipwrecks, divers can encounter the unfathomable. Some get lost until their air expires, some get hopelessly tangled in cables, some are drawn to deep chambers from which they never emerge, and some make simple human errors. The sport's best may eventually find themselves in silt-filled water, dark as night, and pinned by dislodged wreckage. If they panic and use up their air, they put themselves at risk of drowning or of what divers fear the most-decompression sickness, or "the bends."Author Bernie Chowdhury, himself an expert diver and a dose friend of the Rouses', explores the thrill-seeking world of deep-sea diving, including its legendary figures, most celebrated triumphs, and gruesome tragedies. By examining the diver's psychology through the complex father-and-son dynamic, Chowdhury illuminates the extreme sport diver's push toward -- and sometimes beyond -- the limits of human endurance.

After two years as a postgraduate student at Nanjing University in China, Vikram Seth hitch-hiked back to his home in New Delhi, via Tibet.  From Heaven Lake is the story of his remarkable journey and his encounters with nomadic Muslims, Chinese officials, Buddhists and others.

Smith Island is a marshy archipelago in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. Although it is only nine miles from the mainland, it's 150 Waterman and their families live much as their ancestors did 300 years ago, exquisitely attuned to the habits of blue crab, oyster, and waterfowl, knowing...  more

Smith Island is a marshy archipelago in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. Although it is only nine miles from the mainland, it's 150 Waterman and their families live much as their ancestors did 300 years ago, exquisitely attuned to the habits of blue crab, oyster, and waterfowl, knowing that on any given day their lives literally depend on which way the wind is blowing. Tom Horton spent nearly three years on Smith Island. In An Island Out of Time he gives us an intimate portrait of a deeply traditional community that is on the verge of vanishing. Whether he is following the crab harvest or attending a service at the local Methodist Church, eaves-dropping on bawdy kitchen-table gossip or chronicling the Islander' disputes with game wardens and seafood inspectors, Horton tells his stories with marvelous depth and the feeling while staying alert to their wider significance- to what they can teach us about living within nature while maintaining a healthy distance from the rest of the world.

A gold-inscribed invitation to a wedding in a foreign land led Christina Lamb at the age of twenty-one to leave suburban England for Peshawar on the frontier of the Afghan war. Like the Englishmen in the Great Game of the nineteenth century, she was captivated by the Afghans she met. For two...  more

A gold-inscribed invitation to a wedding in a foreign land led Christina Lamb at the age of twenty-one to leave suburban England for Peshawar on the frontier of the Afghan war. Like the Englishmen in the Great Game of the nineteenth century, she was captivated by the Afghans she met. For two years she tracked the final stages of the mujaheddin victory over the Soviets as Afghan friends smuggled her in and out of their country in a variety of guises -- from burqa-clad wife to Kandahari boy -- travelling by foot, on donkeys or hidden under the floor of an ambulance.Among those friends was Abdul Haq, the recently executed Kabul commander, and Hamid Karzai, the new president of Afghanistan, who took Lamb to his hometown of Kandahar, where they rode around on the backs of motorbikes belonging to a group of fighters known as the Mullahs Front. It was these figures who went on to become founding members of the Taliban.Long haunted by her experiences in Afghanistan, Lamb returned there after the attacks on the World Trade Center to find out what had become of the people and places that had marked her life as a young graduate, and to report for Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper.She was now seeing the land anew, through the eyes of a mother and an experienced foreign correspondent who has lived in Africa, South America, Portugal and the United States. Lamb's journey brought her in touch with the people no one else has written about: the abandoned victims of almost a quarter century of war.Among them are the brave women writers of Herat who risked their lives to carry on the literary tradition of this ancient Persian city under the guise of sewing circles; the princess whose palace was surrounded by tanks on the eve of her wedding; the artist who painted out all the people in his works to prevent their being destroyed by the Taliban; and Khalil Ahmed Hassani, a former Taliban torturer who admits to breaking the spines of men then making them stand on their heads.Christina Lamb's evocative reporting brings to life these stories. Her unique perspective on Afghanistan and deep passion for the people she writes about makes this the definitive account of the tragic plight of a proud nation.

Is it possible to drive coast-to-coast without stopping at a single gas pump? Journalist Greg Melville is determined to try. With his college buddy Iggy riding shotgun, this green-thinking guy - who's in love with the idea of free fuel - sets out on an enlightening road trip. The quest: to be...  more

Is it possible to drive coast-to-coast without stopping at a single gas pump? Journalist Greg Melville is determined to try. With his college buddy Iggy riding shotgun, this green-thinking guy - who's in love with the idea of free fuel - sets out on an enlightening road trip. The quest: to be the first people to drive cross-country in a french-fry car. Will they make it from Vermont to California in a beat-up 1985 Mercedes diesel station wagon powered on vegetable oil collected from restaurant grease Dumpsters along the way? More important, can two guys survive 192 consecutive hours together? Their expedition on and off the road includes visits to the solar-powered Google headquarters; the National Ethanol Council; the wind turbines of southwestern Minnesota; the National Renewable Energy Lab; a visit to one of the first houses to receive platinum certification for leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED); an "eco-friendly" Wal-Mart; and the world's largest geothermal heating system. Part adventure and part investigation of what we're doing (or not doing) to preserve the planet, Greasy Rider is upbeat, funny, and full of surprising information about sustainable measures that are within our reach.

Mount Kailas is the most sacred of the world's mountains - holy to one fifth of humanity. Isolated beyond the central Himalayas, it is claimed by myth to be the source of the universe created from cosmic waters and the mind of Brahma. Its summit has never been scaled, but for centuries the...  more

Mount Kailas is the most sacred of the world's mountains - holy to one fifth of humanity. Isolated beyond the central Himalayas, it is claimed by myth to be the source of the universe created from cosmic waters and the mind of Brahma. Its summit has never been scaled, but for centuries the mountain has been ritually circled by Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims. Colin Thubron joins these pilgrims, after an arduous trek from Nepal, through the high passes of Tibet, to the magical lakes beneath the slopes of Kailas itself. This haunting and beautiful travel book links Colin Thubron's sympathetic intuition with the force and poetry of his descriptive writing. He talks to secluded villagers and to monks in their decaying monasteries; he tells the stories of exiles and of eccentric explorers from the West. Yet there is another dimension in "To A Mountain in Tibet". Colin Thubron recently witnessed the death of the last of his family. He is walking on a pilgrimage of his own. His trek around the great mountain, revered by multitudinous others, awakes an inner landscape of solitude, love, grief, restoring precious fragments of his own origins. This is travel writing at its consummate best from an author of unsurpassable experience, sensitivity, and sheer lyrical power.

Wherever Chelsea Handler travels, one thing is certain: she always ends up in the land of the ridiculous. Now, in this uproarious collection, she sneaks her sharp wit through airport security and delivers her most absurd and hilarious stories ever. On safari in Africa, it's anyone's guess as to...  more

Wherever Chelsea Handler travels, one thing is certain: she always ends up in the land of the ridiculous. Now, in this uproarious collection, she sneaks her sharp wit through airport security and delivers her most absurd and hilarious stories ever. On safari in Africa, it's anyone's guess as to what's more dangerous: the wildlife or Chelsea. But whether she's fumbling the seduction of a guide by not knowing where tigers live (Asia, duh) or wearing a bathrobe into the bush because her clothes stopped fitting seven margaritas ago, she's always game for the next misadventure. The situation gets down and dirty as she defiles a kayak in the Bahamas, and outright sweaty as she escapes from a German hospital on crutches. When things get truly scary, like finding herself stuck next to a passenger with bad breath, she knows she can rely on her family to make matters even worse. Thank goodness she has the devoted Chunk by her side-except for the time she loses him in Telluride. Complete with answers to the most frequently asked traveler's questions, hot travel trips, and travel etiquette, none of which should be believed, UGANDA BE KIDDING ME has Chelsea taking on the world, one laugh-out-loud incident at a time.

Swept off to live in Sydney by his Australian bride, American writer Tony Horwitz longs to explore the exotic reaches of his adopted land. So one day, armed only with a backpack and fantasies of the open road, he hitchhikes off into the awesome emptiness of Australia's...  more

Swept off to live in Sydney by his Australian bride, American writer Tony Horwitz longs to explore the exotic reaches of his adopted land. So one day, armed only with a backpack and fantasies of the open road, he hitchhikes off into the awesome emptiness of Australia's outback.  What follows is a hilarious, hair-raising ride into the hot red center of a continent so desolate that civilization dwindles to a gas pump and a pub. While the outback's terrain is inhospitable, its scattered inhabitants are anything but. Horwitz entrusts himself to Aborigines, opal diggers, jackeroos, card sharks, and sunstruck wanderers who measure distance in the number of beers consumed en route. Along the way, Horwitz discovers that the outback is as treacherous as it is colorful. Bug-bitten, sunblasted, dust-choked, and bloodied by a near-fatal accident, Horwitz endures seven thousand miles of the world's most forbidding real estate, and some very bizarre personal encounters, as he winds his way to Queensland, Alice Springs, Perth, Darwin -- and a hundred bush pubs in between.

A gripping adventure story and an insightful look at why foreign aid so often fails.

Kinky Friedman, the original Texas Jewboy, takes us on a rollicking, rock-and-rolling tour of his favorite city: Austin.Maybe you want to know which restaurant President Bush rates as his favorite Austin burger joint. Or maybe you want a glimpse of Willie Nelson’s home life (hint: Willie...  more

Kinky Friedman, the original Texas Jewboy, takes us on a rollicking, rock-and-rolling tour of his favorite city: Austin.Maybe you want to know which restaurant President Bush rates as his favorite Austin burger joint. Or maybe you want a glimpse of Willie Nelson’s home life (hint: Willie plays a lot of golf). Perhaps you want to get the best view of the Mexican free-tail bats as they make their nightly flights to and from the Congress Avenue Bridge. Or maybe you’re itching to learn the history of a city that birthed Janis Joplin, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and countless other music legends. It’s all here in The Great Psychedelic Armadillo Picnic, the slightly insane, amazingly practical, and totally kick-ass guide to the coolest city in Texas by none other than Kinky Friedman.This ain’t no ordinary travel guide, neither. “Like most other busy cities these days, Austin is not very effectively traversed by foot,” Kinky explains. “You must understand that ‘a walk in Austin’ is primarily a spiritual sort of thing.” As might be expected from this politically incorrect country-singer-turned-bestselling-mystery-author, the Kinkster’s tour includes a bunch of stuff you won’t ?nd in a Frommer’s guide, from descriptions of Austin’s notable trees and directions to skinny-dipping sites to lists of haunted places and quizzes and puzzles. So put on your cowboy hat and your brontosaurus-foreskin boots and head down south with the only book you need to get to the big heart of this great city.

From the acclaimed author of Nothing to Declare -- a powerful travel memoir chronicling the author’s 1986 trip through China, Russia, and Eastern Europe and her search for roots, family, and her ancestral home in Ukraine. Traveling across China and Mongolia to Russia on the...  more

From the acclaimed author of Nothing to Declare -- a powerful travel memoir chronicling the author’s 1986 trip through China, Russia, and Eastern Europe and her search for roots, family, and her ancestral home in Ukraine. Traveling across China and Mongolia to Russia on the Trans-Siberian Express and finally on to Berlin, Morris views the changing landscapes of nations and history. She encounters and converses with a colorful assortment of people from party-liners to dissidents, from ordinary men and women to the Moscow elite. Her journey, however, occurs against the backdrop of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. On the train and in Russia, Morris hears terrifying, contradictory reports of the condition of the region so near her intended destination outside of Kiev. In midst of this anxious situation, she is forced to make a momentous decision a continent away from family and loved ones, adding a complex inner counterpoint to the public crises unfolding around her. Bringing her skills with foreign languages and her facility with people to this journey, Mary Morris once again proves that she is, in the words of Times magazine, “a fascinating guide, with an eye for the brutal, the garish, the silly and the bizarre.” Wall to Wall is a powerful travel memoir illuminated by the unique sensibility of one of our finest writers.

Tony Cohan’s On Mexican Time, his chronicle of discovering a new life in the small Mexican mountain town of San Miguel de Allende, has beguiled readers and become a travel classic. Now, in Mexican Days, point of arrival becomes point of departure as—faced with the invasion of the...  more

Tony Cohan’s On Mexican Time, his chronicle of discovering a new life in the small Mexican mountain town of San Miguel de Allende, has beguiled readers and become a travel classic. Now, in Mexican Days, point of arrival becomes point of departure as—faced with the invasion of the town by tourists and an entire Hollywood movie crew, a magazine editor’s irresistible invitation, and his own incurable wanderlust—Cohan undertakes a richer, wider exploration of the country he has settled in. Told with the intimate, sensuous insight and broad sweep that captivated readers of On Mexican Time, Mexican Days is set against a changing world as Cohan encounters surprise and adventure in a Mexico both old and new: among the misty mountains and coastal Caribbean towns of Veracruz; the ruins and resorts of Yucatán; the stirring indigenous world of Chiapas; the markets and galleries of Oaxaca; the teeming labyrinth of Mexico City; the remote Sierra Gorda mountains; the haunted city of Guanajuato; and the evocative Mayan ruins of Palenque. Along the way he encounters expatriates and artists, shady operatives and surrealists, and figures from his past. More than an immensely pleasurable and entertaining travel narrative by one of the most vivid, compelling travel voices to emerge in recent years, Mexican Days is both a celebration of the joys and revelations to be found in this inexhaustibly interesting country and a searching investigation of the Mexican landscape and the grip it is coming to have in the North American imagination.

The spirit of adventure sweeps through the chapters of this exciting volume as we encounter the inspiring, sometimes tragic, often humorous tales of adventurous women -- from the 18th century to the 21st century. Selected from National Geographic's rich archives, this colorful group portrait...  more

The spirit of adventure sweeps through the chapters of this exciting volume as we encounter the inspiring, sometimes tragic, often humorous tales of adventurous women -- from the 18th century to the 21st century. Selected from National Geographic's rich archives, this colorful group portrait pairs female adventurers of the past with their contemporary counterparts -- in a "then and now" approach. You'll meet Arctic explorers -- an American heiress who crisscrossed ice fields seven decades ago, along with a celebrated New Zealander who skied alone to both North and South Poles in the 1990s. You'll also join in the atmospheric exploits of Shannon Lucid and Amelia Earhart as they take off on those daring flights that wrote a new pages in the annals of aviation. Tour the world with women who defied Victorian convention to venture alone among the headhunters of Borneo or to see first hand the hidden corners of Africa, India, and Japan. Witness world record-breaking moments by such latterday legends as Sylvia Earle, whose explorations of the ocean floor earned her the nickname, "Her Royal Deepness," and Catherine Destivelle, the beautiful French superstar of modern mountaineering. Featuring photographs, art, and period illustrations, as well as an introduction by Reeve Lindbergh and a 1,500-year time line of women's adventuring, Living With Cannibals offers vivid testimony to the wanderlust, daring, and determination of these intrepid journeyers. Whether kayaking remote Tibetan rivers or bottle-feeding baby orangutans, bicycling to India or battling icebergs off the coast of Greenland, each woman profiled here demonstrates her unswerving devotion to a dream.

Wade Brackenbury wanted an adventure, and he got the journey of a lifetime. Along with a charismatic photographer named Pascal, Wade went seeking the Drung people, a dwindling minority in the vast empire of China, said to live in an obsure valley in Southern Tibet. No Westerner had been to the...  more

Wade Brackenbury wanted an adventure, and he got the journey of a lifetime. Along with a charismatic photographer named Pascal, Wade went seeking the Drung people, a dwindling minority in the vast empire of China, said to live in an obsure valley in Southern Tibet. No Westerner had been to the Drung valley in over a century. Yak Butter & Black Tea is a story of daring and adventure, offering a fascinating glimpse into a hidden corner of contemporary China. And it is the account of a young man, driven by a compulsion he doesn't understand, as he tests himself in this dangerous, exotic land. "A remarkable account of exploration and adventure in forbidden lands. Travel writing of the old school at its best."--Joe Simpson, author of Dark Shadows Falling and Touch of the Void.

The grandson of the great humanitarian and former president Jimmy Carter, Jason Carter writes of a South Africa few people ever see in this eye-opening work of cultural inquiry and investigation. As a Peace Corps volunteer, Carter spent two years with a rural family in a former black homeland...  more

The grandson of the great humanitarian and former president Jimmy Carter, Jason Carter writes of a South Africa few people ever see in this eye-opening work of cultural inquiry and investigation. As a Peace Corps volunteer, Carter spent two years with a rural family in a former black homeland near the Swaziland border. South Africa, in the aftermath of Nelson Mandela’s regime-shattering election as president, is revealed in Power Lines to be a country still struggling to recover from deep racial divides. The whites live under conditions comparable to those in First-World Western countries. But black people, Carter discovered, live in another South Africa: a world of punishing poverty and unemployment, where alienation and powerlessness still prevail. Power Lines is Carter’s story of a community’s quest to dissolve barriers. Armed with a knowledge of Zulu and Siswati he traveled the countryside, immersing himself in the lives of blacks and whites alike. In the process, he found many on both sides who are eager to reach out to each other and heal wounds. Shaping his unique experiences into a powerful and timely volume, Carter demonstrates that even in a society as fragmented as South Africa, peoples’ desire to come together can still triumph.

Published to rave reviews in the United Kingdom and named a Richard & Judy Book Club selection?the only work of nonfiction on the 2008 list?Blood River is the harrowing and audacious story of Tim Butcher's journey in the Congo and his retracing of renowned explorer H. M. Stanley's famous 1874...  more

Published to rave reviews in the United Kingdom and named a Richard & Judy Book Club selection?the only work of nonfiction on the 2008 list?Blood River is the harrowing and audacious story of Tim Butcher's journey in the Congo and his retracing of renowned explorer H. M. Stanley's famous 1874 expedition in which he mapped the Congo River. When Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Butcher was sent to Africa in 2000 he quickly became obsessed with the legendary Congo River and the idea of re-creating Stanley's legendary journey along the three-thousand-mile waterway. Despite warnings that his plan was suicidal, Butcher set out for the Congo's eastern border with just a rucksack and a few thousand dollars hidden in his boots. Making his way in an assortment of vehicles, including a motorbike and a dugout canoe, helped along by a cast of characters from UN aid workers to a pygmy-rights advocate, he followed in the footsteps of the great Victorian adventurers. An utterly absorbing narrative that chronicles Tim Butcher's forty-four-day journey along the Congo River, Blood River is an unforgettable story of exploration and survival.

Fascinating real-life adventure of an American/Russian bicycling team which was the first to cross the entire country of Russia on bicycle. Written during Soviet era, giving a glimpse of a time-gone-by in Russia. Wonderfully descriptive and masterfully written, transporting the reader from...  more

Fascinating real-life adventure of an American/Russian bicycling team which was the first to cross the entire country of Russia on bicycle. Written during Soviet era, giving a glimpse of a time-gone-by in Russia. Wonderfully descriptive and masterfully written, transporting the reader from marshes, to mountains, to peasant villages.

The story of an unspoiled island and an English family making a home by the Aegean Sea.In the early 1960s Emma Tennant's parents, on a cruise, spotted a magical bay and decided to build a house there.This book is the story of that house, Rovinia, set above the bay in Corfu where legend has it...  more

The story of an unspoiled island and an English family making a home by the Aegean Sea.In the early 1960s Emma Tennant's parents, on a cruise, spotted a magical bay and decided to build a house there.This book is the story of that house, Rovinia, set above the bay in Corfu where legend has it Ulysses was shipwrecked and found by Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous. It is also the story of the couple who have been at Rovinia since the feast in the grove that followed the roof-raising-Maria, a miraculous cook and the presiding spirit of the house, and her husband, Thodoros-and of the inhabitants of the local village, high on the hill above the bay.Tennant offers us the delights of quotidian adventures-salt water in the well, roads to nowhere, collapsing walls-all hilariously presented. That the house is still lived in and loved, with new generations coming to understand the delights of Corfu, is a tribute to the people and a special landscape which is distinctly Greek. Full of color and contrast, A House in Corfu shows the huge changes in island life since the time of the Tennants' arrival, and celebrates, equally, the joy of belonging to a timeless world: the world of vine, olive, and sea.

Of all the hardships a traveler might face--war, plague, earthquakes, bad potato salad--few are as daunting as dealing with the Indian civil service. So we learn from Rory Nugent, a journalist and sailor who got it in his head some years ago that he had to catch a glimpse of Rhodonessa...  more

Of all the hardships a traveler might face--war, plague, earthquakes, bad potato salad--few are as daunting as dealing with the Indian civil service. So we learn from Rory Nugent, a journalist and sailor who got it in his head some years ago that he had to catch a glimpse of Rhodonessa caryophyllacea, the Himalayan pink-headed duck last seen in 1935. Having finally made his way through the Calcutta bureaucracy to obtain a visa to northwestern India, Nugent was obliged to survive encounters with pirates, Gurkha separatists, Tantrist necrophiliacs, a curse on his head, suspect food, a raft trip down the malarial Brahmaputra River, and an endless-loop cassette of Jethro Tull's greatest hits. Nugent may or may not have spotted his duck by journey's end (his sighting is unconfirmed), but in this amusing and eventful account, the search for the creature is a worthy end in itself.

The adventure began when a young British photographer, Kevin Muggleton, suggested driving from one end of Africa to the other??You know, the old ?Cape to Cairo? sort of thing.? For the renowned feminist writer Ann Jones, it soon became an expedition with a mission: to find the legendary Lovedu,...  more

The adventure began when a young British photographer, Kevin Muggleton, suggested driving from one end of Africa to the other??You know, the old ?Cape to Cairo? sort of thing.? For the renowned feminist writer Ann Jones, it soon became an expedition with a mission: to find the legendary Lovedu, a tribe ruled by a great rainmaking queen and dedicated to the ?feminine? ideals of compromise, cooperation, tolerance, and peace. Setting out from Tangier in a battered old blue-and-yellow Land Rover, Jones and Muggleton face daunting physical challenges, from shifting sand in the Sahara to deep mud wallows in Zaire. They encounter severe food shortages in Mali, military roadblocks in Nigeria, and corrupt border guards all over. In Mauritania they meet a young girl who offers to give Jones her baby sister. As they pass through the ever-changing face of Africa toward a meeting with the Queen of the Lovedu, Jones is perceptive, funny, moving, astute?everything a good travel writer should be. You?ll feel you?re right there beside her, meeting the people, marveling at the physical beauty of the land, sharing in the grand adventure.

In a series of moving and powerful stories based on her experiences as a private investigator, Kelly James draws us into the mystery that is Africa. A lone woman searching for the lost, she exposes us to a world where truth is ephemeral, and where compassion, though frail, still bleeds through...  more

In a series of moving and powerful stories based on her experiences as a private investigator, Kelly James draws us into the mystery that is Africa. A lone woman searching for the lost, she exposes us to a world where truth is ephemeral, and where compassion, though frail, still bleeds through the grit and dust.In "Detour" she investigates the apparent suicide of a beloved coffee plantation owner in Kenya. In "Gorillas and Banana Beer," James ventures into the jungles of Rwanda to catch a glimpse of the nearly extinct mountain gorillas, only to struggle for survival against merciless poachers in a village of forgotten children. In "Beira," at the edge of Mozambique and anarchy's ground-zero, James searches for a lost woman and her daughter. "Witchdoctor" takes James deep into Turkanaland, otherwise known as "hell on earth," to find a woman doctor who has disappeared. James's sanity and life hang in the balance in a surreal and ferocious closing to this compelling debut work.Dancing with the Witchdoctor is a testimony to the strength of women, one that reveals how even in a land where flesh withers in the sun, there is no better proof of humanity than when it is on the brink.

The wildly various stories in Running After Antelope are connected and illuminated by a singular passion: the author's attempt to run down a pronghorn antelope. His pursuit -- odd, funny, and inspired -- is juxtaposed with stories about sibling rivalry, falling in love, and working as a...  more

The wildly various stories in Running After Antelope are connected and illuminated by a singular passion: the author's attempt to run down a pronghorn antelope. His pursuit -- odd, funny, and inspired -- is juxtaposed with stories about sibling rivalry, falling in love, and working as a journalist in war-torn countries. Scott Carrier provides a most unique record of a most unique life. 1963 -- Little League haiku -- Condor bones -- 1982 -- Windfall -- 1984 -- Come to stay -- 1987 -- Trout stream families -- 1990 -- The friendly man -- 1991 -- The test -- 1992 -- Carpenter -- Hitchhike -- 1993 -- A trip to Cambodia -- 1994 -- Cambodia, revisited -- 1996 -- Kashmir -- 1997 : the Seri -- Chiapas -- 1997 : the chase

In this newest of his engaging travel accounts, British New Yorker writer Bailey ( The Outer Banks ) extends an invitation to join him on a three-week-long, cross-country ramble in spring from the Welsh capital, Cardiff, to Bangor on the north coast. Enhanced by relevant, never pedantic, lore,...  more

In this newest of his engaging travel accounts, British New Yorker writer Bailey ( The Outer Banks ) extends an invitation to join him on a three-week-long, cross-country ramble in spring from the Welsh capital, Cardiff, to Bangor on the north coast. Enhanced by relevant, never pedantic, lore, his account surveys the singular character of this history- and legend-rich land of Roman forts, Norman castles and medieval cathedrals as he hikes along old Roman roads and drovers' trails, up hills and fog-bound peaks, across former coal mining valleys and towns, and as he skirts bogs and rivers. On the road and in pubs, inns and bed-and-board lodgings, Bailey encounters sheep farmers and shearers, a printer turned explosives expert, a retired bus driver now raising goats, the cleric-poet R. J. Thomas, and a fervent nationalist waitress who is one of many Welsh fighting to preserve both a land and a language threatened by an influx of outsiders.

"A Great book...the reader sees through Marty's eyes, feels his joy and his pain, experiences adventure racing close up." - National Geographic. The Raid Gauloises - an eight-to-twelve day adventure race in remarkably inhospitable environments - is an event in which simply finishing is a...  more

"A Great book...the reader sees through Marty's eyes, feels his joy and his pain, experiences adventure racing close up." - National Geographic. The Raid Gauloises - an eight-to-twelve day adventure race in remarkably inhospitable environments - is an event in which simply finishing is a victory. Experience every exhilarating step in Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth, Martin Dugard's highly praised, intensely personal account of this grueling and remarkable journey.

Stories distilling 16 years of living on the coast of Maine, building a home, raising a family, and caring for wounded or orphaned birds and animals.

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What do you do when your boyfriend dumps you and you?re nursing a broken heart? For Trisha Bernard, the answer?s clear: escape to India, armed with a copy of the Kama Sutra. That way you?ll be ready should love (or lust) strike. But, as Bernard explains in her uproarious account of that madcap...  more

What do you do when your boyfriend dumps you and you?re nursing a broken heart? For Trisha Bernard, the answer?s clear: escape to India, armed with a copy of the Kama Sutra. That way you?ll be ready should love (or lust) strike. But, as Bernard explains in her uproarious account of that madcap adventure, not everything goes quite as planned. At the last minute, she?s joined by her long-lost friend Sally?an eccentric shopaholic who travels with a jam-packed monster suitcase. Then, there?s India itself, where the two women end up almost marooned in the Thar Desert, practically camel-napped in Rajasthan, and attacked by an amorous monkey in Delhi. And that?s just the beginning.?With her ardor for architecture and history, and her Kama Sutra to inspire passion, Trisha Bernard leads us on a wacky, witty, and wonderful romp through one of the world?s most fascinating cultures.

Most British travel writers head south for a destination that is hot, exotic, dangerous or all three. Harry Pearson chose to head in the opposite direction for a country which is damp, safe and of legendary banality: Belgium. But can any nation whose most famous monument is a statue of a...  more

Most British travel writers head south for a destination that is hot, exotic, dangerous or all three. Harry Pearson chose to head in the opposite direction for a country which is damp, safe and of legendary banality: Belgium. But can any nation whose most famous monument is a statue of a small boy urinating really be that dull? Pearson lived there for several months, burying himself in the local culture. He drank many of the 800 different beers the Belgians produce; ate local delicacies such as kip kap (jellied pig cheeks) and a mighty tonnage of chicory and chips. In one restaurant the house speciality was 'Hare in the style of grandmother'. 'I didn't order it. I quite like hare, but had no wish to see one wearing zip-up boots and a blue beret.' A Tall Man in a Low Land commemorates strange events such as The Festival of Shrimps at Oostduinkerke and laments the passing of the Underpant Museum in Brussels. No reader will go away from A Tall Man in a Low Land without being able to name at least ten famous Belgians. Mixing evocative description and low-grade buffoonery Harry Pearson paints a portrait of Belgium that is more rounded than a Smurf after a night on the mussels.

"POETIC . . . REMARKABLY HONEST . . . Mori describes her experiences with an admirable mixture of forthrightness and restraint."--The Wall Street JournalIn an extraordinary memoir that is both a search for belonging and a search for understanding, Japanese-American author Kyoko Mori travels back...  more

"POETIC . . . REMARKABLY HONEST . . . Mori describes her experiences with an admirable mixture of forthrightness and restraint."--The Wall Street JournalIn an extraordinary memoir that is both a search for belonging and a search for understanding, Japanese-American author Kyoko Mori travels back to Kobe, Japan, the city of her birth, in an unspoken desire to come to terms with the memory of her mother's suicide and the family she left behind thirteen years before.Throughout her seven-week trip, Kyoko struggles with her ever-present past and the lasting guilt over her mother's death. Although she meets with beloved cousins and other relatives, she agonizes over the frustrating relationship she barely maintains with her fierce father and selfish stepmother. Searching for answers, Kyoko attempts to find a new understanding of what her father is really like, and how it has affected her own place in two distinct worlds. As her time to leave draws near, Kyoko begins to understand that her family connections may be a powerful cry of the heart, but it is the new world that has given her escape from a lonely past and the power to believe in herself."[A] COMPELLING MEMOIR . . . LYRICAL."--Seattle Times-Post Intelligencer"ASTONISHINGLY BEAUTIFUL . . . Through the clarity filters the beauty of a large heritage that Mori is by now too American to share, but still Japanese enough to appreciate its redeeming value and to be in some measure restored by it."--Los Angeles Times Book Review"MAGICAL . . . ENLIGHTENING."--San Francisco Chronicle

In 1913, when she was fifty-four years old, Daisy Bates went to live in the deserts of South Australia. And there she stayed, with occasional interruptions, for almost thirty years. She left a detailed record of her life in her letters, her published articles, her book The Passing of the...  more

In 1913, when she was fifty-four years old, Daisy Bates went to live in the deserts of South Australia. And there she stayed, with occasional interruptions, for almost thirty years. She left a detailed record of her life in her letters, her published articles, her book The Passing of the Aborigines, and in notes scribbled on paper bags, old railway timetables, and even scraps of newspaper. But very little of what this strange woman tells about herself is true. For her there were no boundaries separating experience from imagination; she inhabited a world filled with events that could not have taken place, with people she had never met. In Daisy Bates in the Desert Julia Blackburn explores the ancient and desolate landscape where Mrs. Bates says she was most happy. There are meetings with the Aborigines and whites who knew her or about her, and slowly the facts of her life are allowed to emerge. But what makes this book so extraordinary is the way that, almost imperceptibly, the author fuses her own imagination and experience with that of Daisy Bates, until she seems to be recalling this other life as if it were her own, until she is able to bring us the feeling of sitting in a tent near a railway line, staring out across a red desert, where the boundary between experience and imagination disappears.

Without railroads or domestic airlines, Niger's roads are its lifeline. For a year, Peter Chilson traveled this desert country by automobile, detouring occasionally into Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast, in order to tell the story of West African road culture. He crisscrossed the same...  more

Without railroads or domestic airlines, Niger's roads are its lifeline. For a year, Peter Chilson traveled this desert country by automobile, detouring occasionally into Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast, in order to tell the story of West African road culture. He crisscrossed the same roads again and again with bush taxi driver Issoufou Garba in order to learn one driver's story inside and out. He hitchhiked, riding in cotton trucks, and he also traveled with other bush taxi drivers, truckers, road engineers, an anthropologist, Niger's only licensed woman commercial driver, and a customs officer.The road in Africa, says Chilson, is more than a direction or a path to take. Once you've booked passage and taken your seat, the road becomes the center of your life. Hurtling along at 80 miles an hour in a bush taxi equipped with bald tires, no windows, and sometimes no doors, travelers realize that they've surrendered everything. Soldiers collect "taxes" at checkpoints, and black-market gasoline salesmen appear mysteriously from the roadside bush. Courageous drivers -- who come across in the book as rogue folk heroes -- negotiate endless checkpoints; ingenious mechanics repair cars with nothing. The road is also about blood and fear, and the ecstasy of arrival. On African roads, car wrecks are as common as mile markers, and the wreckage can stand in monument for months or years: a minibus upended against a tree, as if attempting escape; a charred truck overturned in a ditch. Chilson uses the road not to reinforce Africa's worn image of decay but to 'reveal how people endure political and economic chaos, poverty, and disease. The road has reflected the struggle for survival inNiger since the first automobile arrived there at the turn of the century, and it remains a useful metaphor for the fight for stability and prosperity across Africa.

For "Darwin Year," a fresh-eyed and enchanting journey through South America in his footsteps One snowy day in Ushuaia, Argentina, the self-proclaimed "southernmost city in the world," writer Eric Simons picked up a copy of Charles Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle. Simons had just hiked the...  more

For "Darwin Year," a fresh-eyed and enchanting journey through South America in his footsteps One snowy day in Ushuaia, Argentina, the self-proclaimed "southernmost city in the world," writer Eric Simons picked up a copy of Charles Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle. Simons had just hiked the mountains overlooking Beagle Channel, and he found himself engrossed in Darwin's account. Like Simons, Darwin was in his mid-twenties when he traveled to the continent. Simons followed Darwin further into South America--to stand where Darwin had stood and to explore the histories, legends and people that had fascinated him two centuries before. Simons trekked to as many of the locations Darwin wrote about as he could find to see if he could see these places through Darwin's eyes, and to learn what South Americans know about Darwin. 2009 is a double-anniversary year for Darwin: the 200th anniversary of his birth in February, and the 150th anniversary of publication of The Origin of Species. Darwin Slept Here is an innovative and thrilling new look at a familiar subject from a compelling new writer to watch.

Having given up a high-powered job and the lifestyle to match, Tessa Hainsworth had no idea how hard she would struggle when, full of optimism, she fulfilled her dream of moving to rural Cornwall with her young family one September. In the first book "Up With the Larks Tessa" charted her first...  more

Having given up a high-powered job and the lifestyle to match, Tessa Hainsworth had no idea how hard she would struggle when, full of optimism, she fulfilled her dream of moving to rural Cornwall with her young family one September. In the first book "Up With the Larks Tessa" charted her first turbulent year with the "Royal Mail", and her transformation from outsider to 'Posh Postie', adopted Cornishwoman and much-loved member of her new community. In "Seagulls in the Attic" Tessa is now a pillar of the community, or so she thinks. Life is becoming hard for her and her family as they realise that being part of a small community is not quite the idyll she had been lead to believe, as lack of money and the demands of family life take their toll. But, as with the first book, Tessa finds the fun and resilience to turn all the hardships to her advantage - eventually. It is rapidly becoming a must-read book for all those who hanker for an escape to the country.

Ackerman delivers a book about discovering natural life at the ocean's edge--Cape Henlopen, at the southern lip of the Delaware Bay across from Cape May, New Jersey--and the habits of shorebirds and seabirds, the movement of sand and water, the wealth of creatures that survive amid storm and...  more

Ackerman delivers a book about discovering natural life at the ocean's edge--Cape Henlopen, at the southern lip of the Delaware Bay across from Cape May, New Jersey--and the habits of shorebirds and seabirds, the movement of sand and water, the wealth of creatures that survive amid storm and surf. It weaves together science and description with personal observation and reflection, exploring the way that landscape shapes our thoughts and perceptions.

As they travel around the sea at the centre of Western history, Eric Newby and his wife Wanda visit not only the better-known Mediterranean sights and cities but also venture into places where Westerners are few: Albania under Hoxha, the holy Muslim city of Fez, and a country about to disappear...  more

As they travel around the sea at the centre of Western history, Eric Newby and his wife Wanda visit not only the better-known Mediterranean sights and cities but also venture into places where Westerners are few: Albania under Hoxha, the holy Muslim city of Fez, and a country about to disappear in civil war -- the former Yugoslavia. Eric Newby entertains and enlightens as he follows in the footsteps of Cleopatra and St John, and waits for a meeting with Colonel Gaddafi. With his customary flair for description, he is equally at ease pondering King David's choice of Jerusalem as the site for a capital city or enjoying a meal cooked by one of France's finest chefs. His acute curiosity and encyclopedic knowledge combine to make absorbing reading, whether he is explaining the workings of a defunct Turkish harem or the contemporary Mafia. From antiquity to the present, Eric Newby's erudite, engaging tale is not a simple tour but a tour de force.

"WHEN YOU LOOK BACK AT ITS HISTORY, YOU CAN SEE A PROGRESSION IN PROVINCETOWN, THINGS GETTING WILDER AND WILDER, THE OUTLAW ELEMENT BECOMING THE NORM."Provincetown, Massachusetts, has long been one of the country's most celebrated enclaves for the rich, creative, and infamous. Acclaimed writer...  more

"WHEN YOU LOOK BACK AT ITS HISTORY, YOU CAN SEE A PROGRESSION IN PROVINCETOWN, THINGS GETTING WILDER AND WILDER, THE OUTLAW ELEMENT BECOMING THE NORM."Provincetown, Massachusetts, has long been one of the country's most celebrated enclaves for the rich, creative, and infamous. Acclaimed writer and longtime Provincetown resident Peter Manso brings fifty years of life and observation to this engaging, at times scandalous, portrait of the unique seaside town located at the furthermost tip of Cape Cod.Filled with lively and intriguing anecdotes about some of its most notorious residents -- from Norman Mailer and Robert Motherwell to Tennessee Williams, John Waters, and Congressman Gerry Studds -- Ptown gives readers a rare and revealing glimpse into the lives of this eccentric community. Home for decades to pirates, communists, fishermen, drug smugglers, and artists, Provincetown has been a maverick society since its beginning, with residents who have always valued liberty over law. Its live-and-let-live mentality has enabled local fishermen to live side by side with America's most famous painters, novelists, and playwrights, making Provincetown an object of fascination throughout the country and a thriving tourist spot that brings more than one million visitors to the area each year. Provincetown today also has one of the largest homosexual populations per capita of any single city in the United States, a demographic shift that has altered the town's businesses, buildings, and schools -- only one birth took place in 2000, out of a year-round population of about 3,500.Drawing on Provincetown's rich and diverse cultural history, Manso brings his razor-sharp perception to this compulsively readable account of a people and a town as it evolved from a rustic fishing village to one of America's most exclusive resorts with the highest real estate values on the Cape. From the everyday lives of the store owners, restaurateurs, Realtors, and local police to the scandal that erupted over the recent murder of heiress Christa Worthington, Ptown offers an unparalleled glimpse into a rarefied world where old traditions and new money can create unusual -- and at times uneasy -- bedfellows.Lively, penetrating, and occasionally shocking, Ptown: Art, Sex, and Money on the Outer Cape captures Provincetown as never before.

Having decided to explore Ireland by bicycle, Eric and Wanda Newby set out one December - not the best time to ride a bike around the highways and by-ways of the Emerald Isle, even when protected by thermal underwear. From the Cliffs of Moher to St Brigid's Vat, Dublin, the Aran Islands, the...  more

Having decided to explore Ireland by bicycle, Eric and Wanda Newby set out one December - not the best time to ride a bike around the highways and by-ways of the Emerald Isle, even when protected by thermal underwear. From the Cliffs of Moher to St Brigid's Vat, Dublin, the Aran Islands, the Ring of Kerry and Croagh Patrick, their rain-soaked journey is beset by minor disasters ranging from ferocious storms to even more ferocious dogs. Along the way they come across a moving, miracle-working statue of the Virgin, spectacular ruins and the traces of twentieth-century violence, in between stops for Guiness, tea and soda bread. Woven into the narrative is a wealth of information around Irish history and custom - hermits, horse-fairs, peat-cutting and poetry are all touched on in this deft and dazzling blend of myth, fact and quirky details. And, as usual with Eric Newby, this beguiling account is enlivened by a cast of eccentric and utterly engaging characters.

Mention the Galápagos Islands to almost anyone, and the first things that come to mind are iguanas, tortoises, volcanic beaches, and, of course, Charles Darwin. That's what Michael D'Orso imagined when he first traveled there three years ago. What he discovered on these idyllic islands,...  more

Mention the Galápagos Islands to almost anyone, and the first things that come to mind are iguanas, tortoises, volcanic beaches, and, of course, Charles Darwin. That's what Michael D'Orso imagined when he first traveled there three years ago. What he discovered on these idyllic islands, though, was a tropical paradise under siege from an onslaught of desperately poor South American refugees and corrupt fishing fleets that have brought crime, crowding, pollution, and violence.In a narrative as rich and exotic as the landscape and creatures that frame it, D'Orso tells the story of the odd European adventurers who first settled the Galápagos in the early twentieth century, of the eccentric Americans who arrived in the mid-1950s, of the scientists who dug in a decade after that, and of the ecotourism industry that has burgeoned over the last twenty years.As he explores the conflicts on land and at sea that now threaten to destroy this fabled "Eden of Evolution," D'Orso follows a group of offbeat modern-day islanders: From Jack Nelson, owner and manager of the Hotel Galápagos, who came here in the late sixties to escape the Vietnam draft, to the local prostitutes who are sometimes paid with precious sea cucumbers rather than cash. From British biologist Godfrey Merlen and his colleagues at the rustic Darwin Research Station to the armed poachers and illegal hunters who evade park service rangers as they roam the islands' jungled hillsides and crystalline inlets in pursuit of their prey. From old-timers such as Gus Angermeyer, who fled Hitler's Germany in the 1930s at age twenty-three to sail to the Galápagos with his three brothers, to the teenaged islanders of today who surf the archipelago's worldclass waves by day and frequent its pulsing discotheques at night.Plundering Paradise is an inside look at the Galápagos as seen through the eyes of the people who actually live there. It is a story of alarm and of crisis, but also of hope, as the men and women who treasure the beauty and wonder of these ageless islands gather their forces to fight to protect them.

In late 1979, the writer and naturalist Peter Matthiessen and the wildlife photographer Hugo van Lawick joined a safari into the Selous Game reserve in southern Tanzania, one of the largest yet least-known strongholds of wild animals left on earth.  Sand Rivers is their beautiful account of...  more

In late 1979, the writer and naturalist Peter Matthiessen and the wildlife photographer Hugo van Lawick joined a safari into the Selous Game reserve in southern Tanzania, one of the largest yet least-known strongholds of wild animals left on earth.  Sand Rivers is their beautiful account of a remarkable trip into this quintessential East African wilderness. Here, along the glinting sand rivers, among the hills littered with stone tools, in the endless miombo woodlands, are the lion and antelope, the hippos, elephants, crocodiles, rhinos, and dazzling birds that are the glory of the African landscape.  But in the coppery autumnal light there is also a great silence, and in the silence resound harsh questions that we must ask about the future of all the earth's wildernesses. A foot safari into its roadless inner spaces is the climax of Mr. Matthiessen's extraordinary portrait of the Selous and of the fierce, lonely men who shaped its history and are shaping its future.  His text evokes with characteristic brilliance not only the natural beauties but also the human and social realities of the Selous; it is spectacularly matched by Hugo van Lawick's photography in full color.

A harrowing story documents the journey and troubled relationship of a man and woman in kayaks along the arid coastline of the Sea of Cortes off Baja California.

The Distance to the Moon is about America's love affair with the car and the open road--what James Morgan calls "the epic entanglement that's defined this century and reshaped the face of America." Morgan takes us on an unforgettable road trip from Florida to Oregon, interviewing everyone from...  more

The Distance to the Moon is about America's love affair with the car and the open road--what James Morgan calls "the epic entanglement that's defined this century and reshaped the face of America." Morgan takes us on an unforgettable road trip from Florida to Oregon, interviewing everyone from automobile collectors and designers, historians, psychologists, road builders, city planners, and barflies in an attempt to reveal why we're so obsessed with our automobiles. These car stories, he found, serve as our common mythology, and tell of our collective coming of age, our youthful aspirations, our loves and losses. Morgan also discovered that the simplicity of life on the road can give us the clearest picture of who we are as Americans."The human case for the automobile has never been more persuasively presented."--New York Times Book Review"I was immediately caught up in The Distance to the Moon. It's a fine reflection on America's complex relationship with cars and the road."--Larry McMurtry"An entertaining traveling companion...The book's title...comes courtesy of John Updike [who] calculated that the average American male drives the equivalent of the distance to the moon every 17 years. Morgan's book takes us a long way toward understanding why."--Bruce McCall, The New York Times Book Review"A thoughtful, eloquent contribution to the road book canon."--Forbes FYI

Rick Kogan celebrates the colorful history and endearing characters of Chicago's iconic Billy Goat Tavern. It's the story of how hard work, antics, good fortune, and a losing ball team brought one family the American dream and one city a beloved tavern.

Rehema, a nine-year-old girl who lives in the mountains of Tanzania, accompanies her father to Arusha City and visits the Ngorongoro Crater.  

Spanning several decades and three continents, Modoc is one of the most amazing true animal stories ever told. Raised together in a small German circus town, a boy and an elephant formed a bond that would last their entire lives, and would be tested time and again; through a near-fatal shipwreck...  more

Spanning several decades and three continents, Modoc is one of the most amazing true animal stories ever told. Raised together in a small German circus town, a boy and an elephant formed a bond that would last their entire lives, and would be tested time and again; through a near-fatal shipwreck in the Indian Ocean, an apprenticeship with the legendary Mahout elephant trainers in the Indian teak forests, and their eventual rise to circus stardom in 1940s New York City. Modoc is a captivating true story of loyalty, friendship, and high adventure, to be treasured by animal lovers everywhere.

No profession pits man against nature more brutally than king crab fishing in the frigid, unpredictable waters of the Bering Sea. The yearly death toll is staggering (forty-two men in 1988 alone); the conditions are beyond most imaginations (90-mph Arctic winds, 25-foot seas, and super-human...  more

No profession pits man against nature more brutally than king crab fishing in the frigid, unpredictable waters of the Bering Sea. The yearly death toll is staggering (forty-two men in 1988 alone); the conditions are beyond most imaginations (90-mph Arctic winds, 25-foot seas, and super-human stretches of on-deck labor); but the payback, if one survives can be tens of thousands of dollars for a month-long season.In a breathtaking, action-packed account that combines his personal story with the stories of survivors of the industry's most harrowing disasters, Spike Walker re-creates the boom years of Alaskan crab fishing--a modern-day gold rush that drew hundreds of fortune-and adventure-hunters to Alaska's dangerous waters--and the crash that followed.

From the incredible rush of bagging "the big one" to standing in awe of God's magnificent creation, Steve Chapman captures the spirit of the hunt.  In short chapters filled excitement and humor, he takes you on his successful -- and not-so-successful -- forays into the heart...  more

From the incredible rush of bagging "the big one" to standing in awe of God's magnificent creation, Steve Chapman captures the spirit of the hunt.  In short chapters filled excitement and humor, he takes you on his successful -- and not-so-successful -- forays into the heart of deer country.  As you experience the joy of scouting a trophy buck, you'll discover how the skills necessary for great hunting can help you draw closer to the Lord.

DESCRIPTION: Like the bestselling Fast Food Nation, GARBAGE LAND lifts the lid off a world we take for granted, revealing its complicated, surprising underbelly. In this highly unconventional travel book, Elizabeth Royte leads the reader on a cultural tour guided and informed by the things she...  more

DESCRIPTION: Like the bestselling Fast Food Nation, GARBAGE LAND lifts the lid off a world we take for granted, revealing its complicated, surprising underbelly. In this highly unconventional travel book, Elizabeth Royte leads the reader on a cultural tour guided and informed by the things she throws away. Structured around four separate journeys--those of Royte’s household trash, compostable matter, recyclables, and sewage--GARBAGE LAND is a literary investigation of the truly dirty side of consumption. Royte melds science, anthropology, and a strong dose of clear-headed analysis in her appraisal of America’s relationship with its garbage, examining the uncomfortable subject of waste in much the same way Mary Roach’s Stiff tackled corpses. By showing us what really happens to the things we’ve "disposed of," Royte reminds us that our decisions about consumption and waste have a very real impact--and that, like it or not, the garbage we create will always be with us.

The classic man-eating story of the lions that halted construction of a railway line an reportedly killed one hundred people, told by the man who risked his life to successfully shoot them. Considered one of the greatest man-eating sagas of all time, this book is the firsthand account of the...  more

The classic man-eating story of the lions that halted construction of a railway line an reportedly killed one hundred people, told by the man who risked his life to successfully shoot them. Considered one of the greatest man-eating sagas of all time, this book is the firsthand account of the infamous Tsavo lions. Written by the legendary officer who shot these lions and risked death several times in the attempt, this is not only the story of this breathtaking hunt, but of Lieutenant-Colonel Patterson's other adventures in the African bush.

Borden's father has lost his job at the logging company due to conservationists' efforts to save the spotted owl. As a result, Borden has sworn to hate all spotted owls forever. One day Borden finds an orphaned owlet on the side of the road. Assuming it is a barred owl, he takes it home and...  more

Borden's father has lost his job at the logging company due to conservationists' efforts to save the spotted owl. As a result, Borden has sworn to hate all spotted owls forever. One day Borden finds an orphaned owlet on the side of the road. Assuming it is a barred owl, he takes it home and nurses it back to health. Slowly as the owl begins to grow, and long after the entire family has already grown to love him, Borden realizes that his pet is indeed a spotted owl.

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson’s groundbreaking bestseller, When Elephants Weep, was the first book since Darwin’s time to explore emotions in the animal kingdom, particularly from animals in the wild. Now, he focuses exclusively on the contained world of the farm animal, revealing...  more

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson’s groundbreaking bestseller, When Elephants Weep, was the first book since Darwin’s time to explore emotions in the animal kingdom, particularly from animals in the wild. Now, he focuses exclusively on the contained world of the farm animal, revealing startling, irrefutable evidence that barnyard creatures have feelings too, even consciousness.Weaving history, literature, anecdotes, scientific studies, and Masson’s own vivid experiences observing pigs, cows, sheep, goats, and chickens over the course of five years, this important book at last gives voice, meaning, and dignity to these gentle beasts that are bred to be milked, shorn, butchered, and eaten. Can we ever know what makes an animal happy? Many animal behaviorists say no. But Jeffrey Masson has a different view: An animal is happy if it can live according to its own nature. Farm animals suffer greatly in this regard. Chickens, for instance, like to perch in trees at night, to avoid predators and to nestle with friends. The obvious conclusion: They cannot be happy when confined twenty to a cage. From field and barn, to pen and coop, Masson bears witness to the emotions and intelligence of these remarkable farm animals, each unique with distinct qualities. Curious, intelligent, self-reliant–many will find it hard to believe that these attributes describe a pig. In fact, there is much that humans share with pigs. They dream, know their names, and can see colors. Mother cows mourn the loss of their calves when their babies are taken away to slaughter. Given a choice between food that is nutritious or lacking in minerals, sheep will select the former, balancing their diet and correcting the deficiency. Goats display quite a sense of humor, dignity, and fearlessness (Indian goats have been known to kill leopards). Chickens are naturally sociable–they will gather around a human companion and stand there serenely preening themselves or sit quietly on the ground beside someone they trust.For far too long farm animals have been denigrated and treated merely as creatures of instinct rather than as sentient beings. Shattering the abhorrent myth of the “dumb animal without feelings,” Jeffrey Masson has written a revolutionary book that is sure to stir human emotions far and wide.

A young woman follows her fiancé to war-torn Congo to study extremely endangered bonobo apes-who teach her a new truth about love and belonging. In 2005, Vanessa Woods accepted a marriage proposal from a man she barely knew and agreed to join him on a research trip to the Democratic Republic...  more

A young woman follows her fiancé to war-torn Congo to study extremely endangered bonobo apes-who teach her a new truth about love and belonging. In 2005, Vanessa Woods accepted a marriage proposal from a man she barely knew and agreed to join him on a research trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country reeling from a brutal decade-long war that had claimed the lives of millions. Settling in at a bonobo sanctuary in Congo's capital, Vanessa and her fiancé entered the world of a rare ape with whom we share 98.7 percent of our DNA. She soon discovered that many of the inhabitants of the sanctuary-ape and human alike-are refugees from unspeakable violence, yet bonobos live in a peaceful society in which females are in charge, war is nonexistent, and sex is as common and friendly as a handshake. A fascinating memoir of hope and adventure, Bonobo Handshake traces Vanessa's self-discovery as she finds herself falling deeply in love with her husband, the apes, and her new surroundings while probing life's greatest question: What ultimately makes us human? Courageous and extraordinary, this true story of revelation and transformation in a fragile corner of Africa is about looking past the differences between animals and ourselves, and finding in them the same extraordinary courage and will to survive. For Vanessa, it is about finding her own path as a writer and scientist, falling in love, and finding a home.

It's 1932, and the Venus Island fetish, a ceremonial mask surrounded by thirty-two human skulls, now resides in a museum in Sydney. But young anthropologist Archie Meek, recently returned from an extended field trip to Venus Island, has noticed a strange discoloration of some of the skulls...  more

It's 1932, and the Venus Island fetish, a ceremonial mask surrounded by thirty-two human skulls, now resides in a museum in Sydney. But young anthropologist Archie Meek, recently returned from an extended field trip to Venus Island, has noticed a strange discoloration of some of the skulls of the fetish. Has someone been tampering with the primitive artifact? Is there a link between the mysterious disappearance of Cecil Polkinghorne, curator of archaeology, and the fetish? And how did Eric Sopwith, retired mollusks expert, die in the museum's storeroom?The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish is a delightfully risque caper, full of eccentric characters, intrigue and adventure.

Tim Flannery is one of the world?s most influential scientists, credited with discovering more species than Darwin. In Among the Islands Flannery recounts a series of expeditions he made at the dawn of his career to the strange tropical islands of the South Pacific, a great arc stretching nearly...  more

Tim Flannery is one of the world?s most influential scientists, credited with discovering more species than Darwin. In Among the Islands Flannery recounts a series of expeditions he made at the dawn of his career to the strange tropical islands of the South Pacific, a great arc stretching nearly 4,000 miles from the postcard perfection of Polynesia to some of the largest, highest, ancient, and most rugged islands on earth. Flannery was traveling in search of rare and undiscovered mammal species, but he found much more: wild, weird places where local taboos, foul weather, dense jungle, and sheer remoteness made for difficult and dramatic exploration. Among the Islands is full of fascinating creatures—monkey faced bats, giant rats, gazelle-faced black wallabies, and more—and the adventure of discovery. This is an idea read for anyone who has ever imagined voyaging to the ends of the earth to uncover and study the rare and the wonderful.

Revered in Indian religion and culture, coveted for its ivory tusks, the majestic Asian elephant has captured the fascination of humans for more than four thousand years. In an effort to shed light on this regal animal and its unique relationship with humankind, author Stephen Alter traveled...  more

Revered in Indian religion and culture, coveted for its ivory tusks, the majestic Asian elephant has captured the fascination of humans for more than four thousand years. In an effort to shed light on this regal animal and its unique relationship with humankind, author Stephen Alter traveled around the world to explore its natural home and its place in history and myth. Alter's search takes him from the depths of wildlife preserves, to a tempting elephant auction, to a dazzling festival dedicated to Ganesha the elephant-headed god. Elephas maximus is as important to modern India as it was centuries ago. Yet conservationists are fighting to preserve its endangered habitat as settlements expand, and ivory poaching has threatened generations of elephants until tuskless males may be all that survive. Charting the elephant in history, art, religion, and folklore, Alter draws a vivid, gorgeously written portrait of its past and its troubled present while offering hope for its future.

No more than a few thousand tigers now survive in pockets of Asia, a continent they once roamed far and wide. The largest of them, the Siberian tiger, is today almost entirely confined to the little-populated Russian Far East. Nearly extirpated before World War 11, Panthera tigris altaica made a...  more

No more than a few thousand tigers now survive in pockets of Asia, a continent they once roamed far and wide. The largest of them, the Siberian tiger, is today almost entirely confined to the little-populated Russian Far East. Nearly extirpated before World War 11, Panthera tigris altaica made a comeback in subsequent decades. When poaching and habitat depredation following the implosion of the Soviet Union once again threatened extinction, a group of American wildlife biologists led by Maurice Hornocker joined with their Russian counterparts in founding the Siberian Tiger Project to study and protect this besieged race. Peter Matthiessen journeyed to the Russian Far Fast and other remaining tiger territory to witness for himself the species' present condition and to understand its possible fates. Bringing to his subject his deep knowledge and the instinct for the natural world that have made classics of his previous books, he allows us to participate in the battle for the future of one of the earth's most awesome creatures. Along the way, he tells the story of the species' origin and evolution, evoking as well its crucial, often totemic role in the cultures and mythologies of the peoples who came in contact with it. He has made of the tiger's dilemma not a manifesto but a drama - underscoredby Hornocker's stirring photographs - that conveys powerfully what a loss to our collective imagination the disappearance of these great cats would be.

Warblers, wolves, and whirligig beetles-the creatures of the canoe country come alive in Canoe Country Wildlife. In this read-aloud-treasure, "Sparky" Stensaas, naturalist and storyteller, intrigues readers with his tales of meeting the forest inhabitants-from tiny toads to majestic moose. Each...  more

Warblers, wolves, and whirligig beetles-the creatures of the canoe country come alive in Canoe Country Wildlife. In this read-aloud-treasure, "Sparky" Stensaas, naturalist and storyteller, intrigues readers with his tales of meeting the forest inhabitants-from tiny toads to majestic moose. Each page describes these creatures and their habits accurately so you'll know where and when to look for them. Detailed line drawings illustrate each animal clearly so you'll recognize what you're seeing. Written for the curious naturalist in each of us, Canoe Country Wildlife takes readers a giant step beyond field guides. It's good reading before, during, and after a trip through canoe country.

For the past 15 years, Strum, an anthropologist, has been observing olive baboons in Kenya. In this very personal and engaging account, she describes behaviors and relationships demonstrated by the "Pumphouse Gang," a troop of 60 of these intelligent and socially brilliant animals. She...  more

For the past 15 years, Strum, an anthropologist, has been observing olive baboons in Kenya. In this very personal and engaging account, she describes behaviors and relationships demonstrated by the "Pumphouse Gang," a troop of 60 of these intelligent and socially brilliant animals. She also recounts her courageous relocation of three baboon troops. Most significant, however, is Strum's observation that baboons are a peaceful group whose success depends upon nonaggressive social strategies. Her findings, which conflict with an established model of primate behavior, have already met with controversy. This remarkable book should generate further dialogue.

Cancer has long been cured in mice but not in people. Why? Successful laboratory treatments and cures for one species don't necessarily result in cures for humans. But, because practice has become economically entrenched within medical industry, animal experimentation -against all medical...  more

Cancer has long been cured in mice but not in people. Why? Successful laboratory treatments and cures for one species don't necessarily result in cures for humans. But, because practice has become economically entrenched within medical industry, animal experimentation -against all medical evidence- continues. The human benefits of animal experimentation- a bedrock of the scientific age- is a myth perpetuated by an amorphous but insidious network of multibillion-dollar special interests: research facilities, drug companies, universities, scientisits, and even cage manufacturers.C.Ray Greek, MD, and veterniary dermatologist, Jean Swingle Gree, DMV, show how the public has been deliberately misled and blow the lid off the vested-interest groups whose hidden agendas put human health at risk.

"Kilimanjaro slowly takes shape as the night sounds die, its glaciated peak tinged pink in the early light. A solitary wildebeest stares motionless as if mesmerized by the towering mass; a small caravan of giraffe drifts across the plain in solitary file, necks undulating to the slow rhythm of...  more

"Kilimanjaro slowly takes shape as the night sounds die, its glaciated peak tinged pink in the early light. A solitary wildebeest stares motionless as if mesmerized by the towering mass; a small caravan of giraffe drifts across the plain in solitary file, necks undulating to the slow rhythm of their gangling stride. There is an inexplicable dÈjý vu about the African savannas, as if some subliminal memory is tweaked by the birthplace of our hominid lineage. -from In the Dust of Kilimanjaro.In the Dust of Kilimanjaro is the extraordinary story of one man's struggle to protect Kenya's wildlife. World-renowned conservationist David Western-who grew up in Africa and whose life is intertwined with the lives of its animals and indigenous peoples-presents a history of African wildlife conservation and an intimate glimpse into his life as a global spokesperson and one of Kenya's most prominent citizens.Beginning with his childhood adventures hunting in rural Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Western describes how and why the African continent came to hold such power over him. In lyrical prose, he recounts the years of solitary fieldwork in and around Amboseli National Park that led to his gradual awakening to what was happening to the animals and people there. His immersion in the culture and ecology of the region made him realize that without an integrated approach to conservation, one that involved people as well as animals, Kenya's most magnificent creatures would be lost forever.His accounts of his friendships with the Maasai add a personal dimension to the book that gives the reader new appreciation for the centuries-old links between Africa's wildlife and people. Continued coexistence rather than segregation, he argues, offers the best hope for the world's wildlife. Western describes how his unique understanding of the potentially devastating problems in the region helped him pioneer a new approach to global wildlife conservation that balances the needs of people and wildlife without excluding one or the other.More than an exceptional autobiography, In the Dust of Kilimanjaro is a riveting look at local and global efforts to preserve species and protect ecosystems. It is the definitive story of wildlife conservation in Africa with a strong and timely message about co-existence between humans and animals.

Chasing Coyotes recounts the stories of residents in many US cities who have encountered coyotes or suffered the consequences of coyote attacks on themselves or their loved ones. These accounts run the gamut from simple sightings near homes, at parks, and on city streets to coyote attacks on...  more

Chasing Coyotes recounts the stories of residents in many US cities who have encountered coyotes or suffered the consequences of coyote attacks on themselves or their loved ones. These accounts run the gamut from simple sightings near homes, at parks, and on city streets to coyote attacks on humans. In addition to background history on coyotes in urban areas and scientific data about coyote habituation and behavior, the author provides practical advice for those seeking to coyote-proof their homes and communities. Although no measures are foolproof, taking the practical steps outlined in Chasing Coyotes will lessen one s chances of a coyote encounter or attack.

It is a secret the Chinese government has been keeping for forty years. They have proven the existence of dragons—a landmark discovery no one could ever believe is real, and a scientific revelation that will amaze the world. Now the Chinese are ready to unveil their astonishing findings...  more

It is a secret the Chinese government has been keeping for forty years. They have proven the existence of dragons—a landmark discovery no one could ever believe is real, and a scientific revelation that will amaze the world. Now the Chinese are ready to unveil their astonishing findings within the greatest zoo ever constructed. A small group of VIPs and journalists has been brought to the zoo deep within China to see these fabulous creatures for the first time. Among them is Dr. Cassandra Jane “CJ” Cameron, a writer for National Geographic and an expert on reptiles. The visitors are assured by their Chinese hosts that they will be struck with wonder at these beasts, that the dragons are perfectly safe, and that nothing can go wrong. Of course it can’t…

This book does more than take you inside the cages, fences, and walls of a zoo. It takes you inside the human heart, and an elephant's, and a primate's. and on and on. It might break your own on the way through.I also learned that zoos, while an imperfect slavation, are often the only one. Tom...  more

This book does more than take you inside the cages, fences, and walls of a zoo. It takes you inside the human heart, and an elephant's, and a primate's. and on and on. It might break your own on the way through.I also learned that zoos, while an imperfect slavation, are often the only one. Tom French did in this book what he always does. He took real life and wrote it down for us, with eloquence, feeling, and aching detail.

In 2008 an extraordinary two-minute film clip appeared on YouTube and immediately became an international phenomenon. It captures the moving reunion of two young men and their pet lion Christian, after they had left him in Africa with Born Free?s George Adamson to introduce him into his rightful...  more

In 2008 an extraordinary two-minute film clip appeared on YouTube and immediately became an international phenomenon. It captures the moving reunion of two young men and their pet lion Christian, after they had left him in Africa with Born Free?s George Adamson to introduce him into his rightful home in the wild.A Lion Called Christian tells the remarkable story of how Anthony ?Ace? Bourke and John Rendall, visitors to London from Australia in 1969, bought the boisterous lion cub in the pet department of Harrods. For several months, the three of them shared a flat above a furniture shop on London?s King?s Road, where the charismatic and intelligent Christian quickly became a local celebrity, cruising the streets in the back of a Bentley, popping in for lunch at a local restaurant, even posing for a fashion advertisement. But the lion cub was growing up?fast?and soon even the walled church garden where he went for exercise wasn?t large enough for him. How could Ace and John avoid having to send Christian to a zoo for the rest of his life? A coincidental meeting with English actors Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, stars of the hit film Born Free, led to Christian being flown to Kenya and placed under the expert care of ?the father of lions? George Adamson. Incredibly, when Ace and John returned to Kenya to see Christian a year later, they received a loving welcome from their lion, who was by then fully integrated into Africa and a life with other lions. Originally published in 1971, and now fully revised and updated with more than 50 photographs of Christian from cuddly cub in London to magnificent lion in Africa, A Lion Called Christian is a touching and uplifting true story of an indelible human-animal bond. It is is destined to become one of the great classics of animal literature.

When Ralph Helfer, now one of Hollywood's top animal behaviorists, first began working, he was shocked by the cruelty that was accepted practice in the field. He firmly believed in "affection training" -- that love, not fear, should be the basis of any animal's development,...  more

When Ralph Helfer, now one of Hollywood's top animal behaviorists, first began working, he was shocked by the cruelty that was accepted practice in the field. He firmly believed in "affection training" -- that love, not fear, should be the basis of any animal's development, even when dealing with the most dangerous of creatures. Then Zamba came into his life -- an adorable four-month-old lion cub that went on to prove Helfer's theories resoundingly correct. Over the next eighteen years, Zamba would thrive and grow, and go on to star in numerous motion pictures and television shows -- all the while developing a deep and powerful bond of love and affection with the man who raised him. By turns astonishing, hilarious, and poignant, Zamba is not only the unforgettable story of the relationship that Helfer would come to consider one of the most important in his life but also that of the amazing career and adventures of the greatest lion in the world.

A veteran birder and gifted nature writer is our guide in this charming, surprising, informative, and unexpectedly exciting foray into the wild kingdom that flourishes quietly just beyond our backyards. Logged within a few miles of his suburban Connecticut home, Robert Winkler's local life list...  more

A veteran birder and gifted nature writer is our guide in this charming, surprising, informative, and unexpectedly exciting foray into the wild kingdom that flourishes quietly just beyond our backyards. Logged within a few miles of his suburban Connecticut home, Robert Winkler's local life list runs to hundreds of birds, from familiars like American Robins and Blue Jays to such rarities as American White Pelicans and Sandhill Cranes. He's been attacked by a Northern Goshawk, watched a pair of Bald Eagles perform a mid-flight mating dance, stumbled over a wriggling den of copperheads, and spotted such shy and elusive creatures as red foxes, coyotes, and flying squirrels. These vivid anecdotes and many more are woven into a fascinating tapestry of bird lore and birding wisdom, embroidered with an abiding, observant love of all animal life. A book that will delight birders everywhere and fascinate nature lovers of all stripes, Going Wild celebrates the often-overlooked yet amazingly rich world that starts so close to home.

In 1826, a twelve-foot giraffe, that had been captured in the Sudan, shipped down the Nile, and carried across the Mediterranean in a ship's hold, was walking across France. A gift from Mohammed Ali, the most powerful man in Africa, this "beautiful stranger" would become an object...  more

In 1826, a twelve-foot giraffe, that had been captured in the Sudan, shipped down the Nile, and carried across the Mediterranean in a ship's hold, was walking across France. A gift from Mohammed Ali, the most powerful man in Africa, this "beautiful stranger" would become an object of adoration in France. But in this compelling, beautifully rendered book, Michael Allin looks beyond the fairy tale to reveal the complex web of politics, culture, religion and greed that fueled the phenomenon of the giraffe called "Zarafa." 

The true tale of an edenic Rocky Mountain town and what transpired when a predatory species returned to its ancestral home. When, in the late 1980s, residents of Boulder, Colorado, suddenly began to see mountain lions in their yards, it became clear that the cats had repopulated the land after...  more

The true tale of an edenic Rocky Mountain town and what transpired when a predatory species returned to its ancestral home. When, in the late 1980s, residents of Boulder, Colorado, suddenly began to see mountain lions in their yards, it became clear that the cats had repopulated the land after decades of persecution. Here, in a riveting environmental fable that recalls Peter Benchley's thriller Jaws, journalist David Baron traces the history of the mountain lion and chronicles Boulder's effort to coexist with its new neighbors. A parable for our times, The Beast in the Garden is a scientific detective story and a real-life drama, a tragic tale of the struggle between two highly evolved predators: man and beast. 3 illustrations, 2 maps.

THE ANIMAL DIALOGUES tells of Craig Childs' own chilling experiences among the grizzlies of the Arctic, sharks off the coast of British Columbia and in the turquoise waters of Central America, jaguars in the bush of northern Mexico, mountain lions, elk, Bighorn Sheep, and others. More than...  more

THE ANIMAL DIALOGUES tells of Craig Childs' own chilling experiences among the grizzlies of the Arctic, sharks off the coast of British Columbia and in the turquoise waters of Central America, jaguars in the bush of northern Mexico, mountain lions, elk, Bighorn Sheep, and others. More than chilling, however, these stories are lyrical, enchanting, and reach beyond what one commonly assumes an "animal story" is or should be. THE ANIMAL DIALOGUES is a book about another world that exists alongside our own, an entire realm of languages and interactions that humans rarely get the chance to witness.

In this landmark work on the Anasazi tribes of the Southwest, naturalist Craig Childs dives head on into the mysteries of this vanished people.The various tribes that made up the Anasazi people converged on Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) during the 11th century to create a civilization hailed as "the...  more

In this landmark work on the Anasazi tribes of the Southwest, naturalist Craig Childs dives head on into the mysteries of this vanished people.The various tribes that made up the Anasazi people converged on Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) during the 11th century to create a civilization hailed as "the Las Vegas of its day," a flourishing cultural center that attracted pilgrims from far and wide, and a vital crossroads of the prehistoric world. By the 13th century, however, Chaco's vibrant community had disappeared without a trace.Was it drought? Pestilence? War? Forced migration, mass murder or suicide? Conflicting theories have abounded for years, capturing the North American imagination for eons.Join Craig Childs as he draws on the latest scholarly research, as well as a lifetime of exploration in the forbidden landscapes of the American Southwest, to shed new light on this compelling mystery. He takes us from Chaco Canyon to the highlands of Mesa Verde, to the Mongollon Rim; to a contemporary Zuni community where tribal elders maintain silence about the fate of their Lost Others; and to the largely unexplored foothills of the Sierra Madre in Mexico, where abundant remnants of Anasazi culture lie yet to be uncovered.

Peter Capstick has been hailed as the adventure-writing successor to Hemingway and Ruark. Only Capstick "can write action as cleanly and suspensefully as the best of his predecessors" (Sports Illustrated). This long-awaited sequel to Death in the Silent Places (1981) brings to life four...  more

Peter Capstick has been hailed as the adventure-writing successor to Hemingway and Ruark. Only Capstick "can write action as cleanly and suspensefully as the best of his predecessors" (Sports Illustrated). This long-awaited sequel to Death in the Silent Places (1981) brings to life four turn-of-the-century adventurers and the savage frontiers they braved.* Frederick Selous, a British hunter, naturalist, and soldier, rewrote the history books with his fearless treks deep into the Dark Continent.* English game ranger Constantine "Iodine" Ionides saved Tanganyikan villages from man-eating lions and leopards. He also gained lasting fame for his uncanny ability to capture black mambas, cobras, Gaboon vipers, and other deadly snakes.* The dashing Brit Johnny Boyes who gained the chieftainship of the Kikuyu tribe with sheer bravado and survived the ferocious battles and ambushes of intertribal warfare.* And Scottish ex-boxer, Jim Sutherland, one of the best ivory hunters who ever lived. His tracking skills and stamina afoot became the stuff of African hunting legend.If you are a Capstick fan, you'll relish The African Adventurers, his eleventh book. Once again he delivers "the kind of chilling stories that Hemingway only heard second-hand...with a flair and style that Papa himself would admire" (Guns and Ammo). The author's pungent wit and his authenticity gained from years in the bush make this quartet of vintage heroics an unforgettable return to the silent places.

East Africa affects our imagination like few other places: The sight of a charging rhino goes directly to the heart; the limitless landscape of bony highlands, desert, and mountain is, as Isak Dinesen wrote, of "unequalled nobility." White Hunters is the story of seventy years of African...  more

East Africa affects our imagination like few other places: The sight of a charging rhino goes directly to the heart; the limitless landscape of bony highlands, desert, and mountain is, as Isak Dinesen wrote, of "unequalled nobility." White Hunters is the story of seventy years of African adventure, danger, and romance. It re-creates the legary big-game safaris led by Selous and Bell and the daring ventures of early hunters into unexplored territories, and brings to life such romantic figures as Cape-to-Cairo Grogan, who walked 4,000 miles for the love of a woman, and Dinesen's dashing lover, Denys Finch. Witnesses to the richest wildlife spectacle on the earth, these hunters were the first conservationists. Hard-drinking, infatuated with risk, and careless in love, they inspired Hemingway's stories and movies with Clark Gable and Gregory Peck.

The remarkable story of how one of the most biologically diverse habitats in the world was destroyed, restored, and continues to evolve?with stunning, full-color photographs by two of the world?s best wildlife photographers. In 1976, Gorongosa National Park was the premier park in Mozambique,...  more

The remarkable story of how one of the most biologically diverse habitats in the world was destroyed, restored, and continues to evolve?with stunning, full-color photographs by two of the world?s best wildlife photographers. In 1976, Gorongosa National Park was the premier park in Mozambique, boasting one of the densest wildlife populations in all of Africa. Across 1,500 square miles of lush green floodplains, thick palm forests, swampy lakes, and vast plains roamed creatures great and small, from herds of wildebeest and elephant to countless bird species and insects yet to be classified. Then came the civil war of 1978?1992, when much of the ecosystem was destroyed, reducing some large animal populations by 90 percent or more. Due to a remarkable conservation effort sponsored by an American entrepreneur, the park was restored in the 1990s and is now evolving back to its former state. This is the story of that incredible transformation and why such biological diversity is so important. In A Window on Eternity, world-renowned biologist and two-time Pulitzer Prize?winner Edward O. Wilson shows why biodiversity is vital to the future of the Earth, including our human population. It is in places like Gorongosa in Africa, explains Wilson, that our own species evolved. Wilson takes readers to the forested groves of the park?s watershed on sacred Mount Gorongosa, then far away to deep gorges along the edge of the Rift Valley, places previously unexplored by biologists, with the aim of discovering new species and assessing their ancient origins. He treats readers to a war between termites and raider ants, describes ?conversations? with elephant herds, and explains the importance of a one-day ?bioblitz.? Praised as ?one of the finest scientists writing today? (Los Angeles Times), Wilson uses the story of Gorongosa to show the significance of biodiversity to humankind.

How one man's consuming passion for dogs saved a legendary breed from extinction and led him to a difficult, more soulful way of life in the wilds of Japan's remote snow country.

On the eve of her 60th birthday, Nan Watkins decided to embark on the around-the-globe trip she had always dreamed of--a trip she would take alone. Having endured both the death of her twenty-two-year-old son and the dissolution of a thirty-year marriage, the author resolved to follow a solo...  more

On the eve of her 60th birthday, Nan Watkins decided to embark on the around-the-globe trip she had always dreamed of--a trip she would take alone. Having endured both the death of her twenty-two-year-old son and the dissolution of a thirty-year marriage, the author resolved to follow a solo path east across Europe and Asia to renew connections with old friends and explore foreign lands and cultures. As her adventure-filled weeks and months unfolded, what began as a trip of discovery transformed itself into a powerful journey of the spirit. With elegant style and thoughtful insight, Watkins considers the issues particular to a woman living and traveling alone and examines the complexities of global development and the changing role of women in non-Western cultures. This rich and beautifully rendered chronicle, which takes the author from the lonesome, rugged coast of Ireland to the bustling streets of Kathmandu to the majestic Rajasthan desert of western India, is a spirited testament to a woman's determination to overcome loss with joy and passion.

An intrepid journalist joins the planet?s largest group of nomads on an annual migration that, like them, has endured for centuries.   Anna Badkhen has forged a career chronicling life in extremis around the world, from war-torn Afghanistan to the border regions of the American Southwest. In...  more

An intrepid journalist joins the planet?s largest group of nomads on an annual migration that, like them, has endured for centuries.   Anna Badkhen has forged a career chronicling life in extremis around the world, from war-torn Afghanistan to the border regions of the American Southwest. In Walking with Abel, she embeds herself with a family of Fulani cowboys?nomadic herders in Mali?s Sahel grasslands?as they embark on their annual migration across the savanna. It?s a cycle that connects the Fulani to their past even as their present is increasingly under threat?from Islamic militants, climate change, and the ever-encroaching urbanization that lures away their young. The Fulani, though, are no strangers to uncertainty?brilliantly resourceful and resilient, they?ve contended with famines, droughts, and wars for centuries.   Dubbed ?Anna Ba? by the nomads, who embrace her as one of theirs, Badkhen narrates the Fulani?s journeys and her own with compassion and keen observation, transporting us from the Neolithic Sahara crisscrossed by rivers and abundant with wildlife to obelisk forests where the Fulani?s Stone Age ancestors painted tributes to cattle. As they cross the Sahel, the savanna belt that stretches from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, they accompany themselves with Fulani music they download to their cell phones and tales of herders and hustlers, griots and holy men, infused with the myths the Fulani tell themselves to ground their past, make sense of their identity, and safeguard their?our?future.

In the heart of the Congo is rumored to live a dinosaur called Mokele-Mbembe, or the god-beast. A handful of scientific expeditions have searched for it over the years with little success, but Nugent relied less on science than a desire to document the obscure. He made his way by dugout canoe...  more

In the heart of the Congo is rumored to live a dinosaur called Mokele-Mbembe, or the god-beast. A handful of scientific expeditions have searched for it over the years with little success, but Nugent relied less on science than a desire to document the obscure. He made his way by dugout canoe and foot to Lake Tele, reputed home of the brontosaurus-like creature. It?s an environment little changed since the age of dinosaurs and he spent weeks paddling and trekking the area. He finally spotted a periscope-shaped object moving through the water. But when he tried to get closer, his guides threatened to shoot him, explaining that the ?the god can approach man, but man never approaches the god.? Nugent?s photographs have been reprinted hundreds of times by those who believe in the god-beast. Drums Along the Congo merited inclusion on ?Best 50 Books of the Year? list compiled by every major US newspaper.

Fifty-two years after the pink-headed duck was last seen in the wild, Rory Nugent set off for India in search of this rarest of Birds. Most scientists consider the duck extinct, but Nugent imaged that the bird was merely hiding. And he setoff to explore the least populated areas of NE India. "A...  more

Fifty-two years after the pink-headed duck was last seen in the wild, Rory Nugent set off for India in search of this rarest of Birds. Most scientists consider the duck extinct, but Nugent imaged that the bird was merely hiding. And he setoff to explore the least populated areas of NE India. "A magic Carpet Ride"...San Diego Union "A home run for Nugent"...Boston Globe "Top notch"...The AtlanticFifty-two years after the pink-headed duck was last seen in the wild, Rory Nugent set off for India in search of this rarest of birds. Most scientists consider the duck extinct, but Nugent imagined that the bird was merely hiding. And he set off to explore the least populated areas of NE India. "A magic Carpet Ride" -San Diego Union "A home run for Nugent" -Boston Globe "Top notch" -The Atlantic

Playing with a lion?s testicles: an African saying that means to take foolhardy chances.Melissa Haynes throws caution to the wind when she volunteers at a Big Five Game Preserve in Africa. The external struggles of dealing with a handsome and grouchy ranger, a fearless lioness, a hormonal...  more

Playing with a lion?s testicles: an African saying that means to take foolhardy chances.Melissa Haynes throws caution to the wind when she volunteers at a Big Five Game Preserve in Africa. The external struggles of dealing with a handsome and grouchy ranger, a fearless lioness, a hormonal rhinoceros rejected by his mate, a sneaky crocodile, a hartebeest couple devoted to each other, and Harrison, the falling-apart truck that always manages to save them from danger, force Melissa to face her internal struggles of the grief and guilt of her mother?s death.Melissa?s plan was to save the animals, but they end up saving her.

It started as a daydream. Poring over a map of the world at home one quiet Saturday afternoon, Ewan McGregor -- acclaimed actor and self-confessed bike nut -- noticed that it was possible to ride all the way round the world, with just one short hop across the Bering Strait from Russia to Alaska....  more

It started as a daydream. Poring over a map of the world at home one quiet Saturday afternoon, Ewan McGregor -- acclaimed actor and self-confessed bike nut -- noticed that it was possible to ride all the way round the world, with just one short hop across the Bering Strait from Russia to Alaska. It was a revelation he couldn't get out of his head. So he picked up the phone and called his fellow actor-slash-biker friend Charley Boorman and told him it was time to hit the road....Long Way RoundBeginning in London, Ewan and Charley chased their shadows through Europe, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia; across the Pacific to Alaska; then down through Canada all the way to New York. Long Way Round is the result of their four-month, 20,000-mile joyride. Featuring original diary entries, travel maps, mileage charts, and dozens of photographs, this is a freewheeling, fully charged, and uproariously entertaining book about two world-famous individuals who chose the road not taken...and made the journey worthwhile.

A thrilling, touching, and densely instructive book, Shooting the Boh is also a frank self-portrait of a woman facing her most corrosive fears--and triumphing over them--with fortitude and unflagging wit. "A captivating and truly offbeat rite of passage."--Eric Hansen.

In her twenties, journalist Sarah Macdonald backpacked around India and came away with a lasting impression of heat, pollution and poverty. So when an airport beggar read her palm and told her she would return to India—and for love—she screamed, “Never!” and gave the...  more

In her twenties, journalist Sarah Macdonald backpacked around India and came away with a lasting impression of heat, pollution and poverty. So when an airport beggar read her palm and told her she would return to India—and for love—she screamed, “Never!” and gave the country, and him, the finger.But eleven years later, the prophecy comes true. When the love of Sarah’s life is posted to India, she quits her dream job to move to the most polluted city on earth, New Delhi. For Sarah this seems like the ultimate sacrifice for love, and it almost kills her, literally. Just settled, she falls dangerously ill with double pneumonia, an experience that compels her to face some serious questions about her own fragile mortality and inner spiritual void. “I must find peace in the only place possible in India,” she concludes. “Within.” Thus begins her journey of discovery through India in search of the meaning of life and death. Holy Cow is Macdonald’s often hilarious chronicle of her adventures in a land of chaos and contradiction, of encounters with Hinduism, Islam and Jainism, Sufis, Sikhs, Parsis and Christians and a kaleidoscope of yogis, swamis and Bollywood stars. From spiritual retreats and crumbling nirvanas to war zones and New Delhi nightclubs, it is a journey that only a woman on a mission to save her soul, her love life—and her sanity—can survive.

In 1815, twelve American sailors washed up on the shore of North Africa. Captured and sold into slavery, they were then dragged along on an insane journey through the bone-dry heart of the Sahara--a region no Westerners had ever explored. Rain was expected once every six years and it was so hot...  more

In 1815, twelve American sailors washed up on the shore of North Africa. Captured and sold into slavery, they were then dragged along on an insane journey through the bone-dry heart of the Sahara--a region no Westerners had ever explored. Rain was expected once every six years and it was so hot that cadavers naturally mummified. Along the way the Americans would encounter everything that could possibly test them: barbarism, murder, starvation, death, dehydration, and hostile tribes that roamed the desert on armies of camels. SKELETONS ON THE ZAHARA will remind readers of the bestseller In the Heart of the Sea, but in settings more exotic and with hardships even more difficult to survive. From the cold waters of the Atlantic to the searing Saharan sands, from the heart of the desert to the heart of man, SKELETONS ON THE ZAHARA is a spectacular odyssey through the extremes. This is quite simply the most exciting adventure story to be published in years.

In the heart of China's Sichuan province, tucked away amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this vast and ever-evolving country, Fuling is shifting gears and heading down a new path, one of change and vitality,...  more

In the heart of China's Sichuan province, tucked away amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this vast and ever-evolving country, Fuling is shifting gears and heading down a new path, one of change and vitality, tension and reform, disruption and growth.Its position at the crossroads came into sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the ways of Fuling -- and about the complex process of understanding that takes place when one is immersed in a radically different society. Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that, much like China itself, is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.

A journalist's obsession brings her to a remote island off the California coast, home to the world's most mysterious and fearsome predators-and the strange band of surfer-scientists who follow themSusan Casey was in her living room when she first saw the great white sharks of the Farallon...  more

A journalist's obsession brings her to a remote island off the California coast, home to the world's most mysterious and fearsome predators-and the strange band of surfer-scientists who follow themSusan Casey was in her living room when she first saw the great white sharks of the Farallon Islands, their dark fins swirling around a small motorboat in a documentary. These sharks were the alphas among alphas, some longer than twenty feet, and there were too many to count; even more incredible, this congregation was taking place just twenty-seven miles off the coast of San Francisco. In a matter of months, Casey was being hoisted out of the early-winter swells on a crane, up a cliff face to the barren surface of Southeast Farallon Island-dubbed by sailors in the 1850s the "devil's teeth." There she joined Scot Anderson and Peter Pyle, the two biologists who bunk down during shark season each fall in the island's one habitable building, a haunted, 135-year-old house spackled with lichen and gull guano. Two days later, she got her first glimpse of the famous, terrifying jaws up close and she was instantly hooked; her fascination soon yielded to obsession-and an invitation to return for a full season. But as Casey readied herself for the eight-week stint, she had no way of preparing for what she would find among the dangerous, forgotten islands that have banished every campaign for civilization in the past two hundred years. The Devil's Teeth is a vivid dispatch from an otherworldly outpost, a story of crossing the boundary between society and an untamed place where humans are neither wanted nor needed.

A father and son relate their experiences of exploring the Galâapagos Islands.