- Table View
- List View
Amanda in Holland: Missing in Action (An Amanda Travels Adventure #7)
by Darlene Foster"Be prepared to learn a lot about the culture while you follow Amanda on her adventure.&”—Laura Best, author, Bitter, Sweet&“What a great way for a young person to learn about a culture and to be inspired to experience other countries themselves."—Irene Butler, author, Trekking the Globe with Mostly Gentle FootstepsAmanda is in Holland to see the tulips with her best friend, Leah. They travel the canals of Amsterdam, visit Anne Frank House, check out windmills, tour a wooden shoe factory, and take many pictures of the amazing flowers of Keukenhof Gardens. She is keen to find out what happened to her great uncle who never returned from WWII and was declared missing in action. What she doesn&’t expect to find and fall in love with is Joey, an abandoned puppy. While trying to find a home for him, she meets Jan, a Dutch boy who offers to help, a suspicious gardener, a strange woman on a bicycle, and an overprotective goose named Gerald.Follow Amanda around the charming country of Holland, filled with colourful tulips, windmills, and more bicycles than she could have imagined. Once again, intrepid traveller Amanda encounters danger and intrigue as she tries to solve more than one mystery in a foreign country.Be sure to read all the books in this exciting Amanda Travels series! 1. Amanda in Arabia: The Perfume Flask2. Amanda in Spain: The Girl in the Painting3. Amanda in England: The Missing Novel4. Amanda in Alberta: The Writing on the Stone5. Amanda on the Danube: The Sounds of Music6. Amanda in New Mexico: Ghosts in the Wind7. Amanda in Holland: Missing in Action8. Amanda in Malta: The Sleeping Lady
Amanda in Spain: The Girl in the Painting (An Amanda Travels Adventure #2)
by Darlene Foster"Be prepared to learn a lot about the culture while you follow Amanda on her adventure.&”—Laura Best, author, Bitter, Sweet&“What a great way for a young person to learn about a culture and to be inspired to experience other countries themselves."—Irene Butler, author, Trekking the Globe with Mostly Gentle FootstepsAmanda Jane Ross is certainly becoming a world traveller; she's now in sunny Spain on vacation with her friend Leah. While there, she encounters a mysterious young girl who looks eerily like the girl in a famous painting she saw in a Madrid museum. Even weirder, the girl keeps showing up wherever Amanda finds herself - Madrid, the remote mountains of rural Spain, the beaches on the Mediterranean Sea, a lively fiesta and the busy streets of Barcelona. Amanda wants to help this sweet, young girl and her beloved pony escape the clutches of a mean horse-dealer.Come with Amanda on her next adventure as she attempts to unravel the mystery behind the Girl in the Painting while she treks across Spain - always one step ahead of danger! Be sure to read all the books in this exciting Amanda Travels series! 1. Amanda in Arabia: The Perfume Flask2. Amanda in Spain: The Girl in the Painting3. Amanda in England: The Missing Novel4. Amanda in Alberta: The Writing on the Stone5. Amanda on the Danube: The Sounds of Music6. Amanda in New Mexico: Ghosts in the Wind7. Amanda in Holland: Missing in Action8. Amanda in Malta: The Sleeping Lady
A Detroit Anthology (Belt City Anthologies)
by Anna ClarkA unique perspective of the Motor City, this anthology combines stories told by both longtime residents and newcomers from activists to teachers to artists to students. While Detroit has always been rich in stories, too often those stories are told back to the city by outsiders looking in, believing they can explain Detroit back to itself. As editor, Anna Clark writes in the introduction, "These are the stories we tell each other over late nights at the pub and long afternoons on the porch. We share them in coffee shops, at church social hours, in living rooms, and while waiting for the bus. These are stories full of nodding asides and knowing laughs. These are stories addressed to the rhetorical "you"―with the ratcheted up language that comes with it―and these are stories that took real legwork to investigate . . . You will not find 'positive' stories about Detroit in this collection, or 'negative' ones. But you will find true stories." Featuring essays, photographs, art, and poetry by Grace Lee Boggs, John Carlisle, Desiree Cooper, Dream Hampton, Steve Hughes, Jamaal May, Tracie McMillan, Marsha Music, Shaka Senghor, Thomas J. Sugrue, and many others.
The Minotaur at Calle Lanza
by Zito MaduIn the fall of 2020, as the pandemic raged around the globe, Zito Madu traveled to Venice for a writing fellowship. There, he found a deserted, silent, but still beautiful city, “one of those extraordinarily strange places in the world.” As he details his walks through a haunted landscape, we learn about his family’s immigration from Nigeria to Detroit, his troubled relationship with his father, his meditations on race and otherness, the small joys of daily life and solitude, and his own rage and regret. With nods to Calvino and Borges, and reminiscent of Teju Cole, The Minotaur at Calle Lanza is an unforgettable travel memoir about the mysterious transformations that may lurk inside us all.
Hell's Highway: U.S. 101st Airborne & Guards Armoured Division (Battleground Market Garden)
by Tim SaundersThis WWII history and battleground guide offers a fascinating look at the vital and infamous stretch of road through the Netherlands. After the Allied victory at Normandy, Operation Market Garden was intended to cut a path to Germany through the Netherlands. Essential to the plan was a two-lane road that came to be known as Hell's Highway. This was the route that the British 3rd Guards Armored Division had to advance down rapidly to relieve the American Paratroopers of the 82d Airborne at Nijmegen and the British I st Airborne Division at Arnhem. Beginning with the famous capture of Joe&’s Bridge by the Irish Guards—an essential preliminary action before the start of Operation Market Garden—historian Tim Saunders guides visitors through the seizure of bridges, the liberation of small towns, and other actions undertaken by the famous Screaming Eagles. With vivid personal accounts throughout, this guide features practical visitor information about monuments and other important sites.
Enchanted Islands: A Mediterranean Odyssey – A Memoir of Travels through Love, Grief and Mythology
by Laura CoffeyEnchanted Islands tells the true story of Laura Coffey's epic journey around the mystical archipelagos of the Mediterranean. Blending memoir, travel and nature writing with tales from The Odyssey, and infused with sharply comic wit, this is a celebration of the redemptive powers of cold-water swimming and luminous star-lit skies.
Subpar Parks: America's Most Extraordinary National Parks and Their Least Impressed Visitors
by Amber Share**A New York Times Bestseller!** Based on the wildly popular Instagram account, Subpar Parks features both the greatest hits and brand-new content, all celebrating the incredible beauty and variety of America&’s national parks juxtaposed with the clueless and hilarious one-star reviews posted by visitors. Subpar Parks, both on the popular Instagram page and in this humorous, informative, and collectible book, combines two things that seem like they might not work together yet somehow harmonize perfectly: beautiful illustrations and informative, amusing text celebrating each national park paired with the one-star reviews disappointed tourists have left online. Millions of visitors each year enjoy Glacier National Park, but for one visitor, it was simply "Too cold for me!" Another saw the mind-boggling vistas of Bryce Canyon as "Too spiky!" Never mind the person who visited the thermal pools at Yellowstone National Park and left thinking, &“Save yourself some money, boil some water at home.&” Featuring more than 50 percent new material, the book will include more depth and insight into the most popular parks, such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Acadia National Parks; anecdotes and tips from rangers; and much more about author Amber Share's personal love and connection to the outdoors. Equal parts humor and love for the national parks and the great outdoors, it's the perfect gift for anyone who loves to spend time outside as well as have a good read (and laugh) once they come indoors.
Imperial Dreams: Tracking the Imperial Woodpecker Through the Wild Sierra Madre
by Tim GallagherA decade ago, Tim Gallagher was one of the rediscoverers of the legendary ivory-billed woodpecker, which most scientists believed had been extinct for more than half a century—now Gallagher once again hits the trail, journeying deep into Mexico&’s savagely beautiful Sierra Madre Occidental, home to rich wildlife, as well as to Mexican drug cartels, in a perilous quest to locate the most elusive bird in the world—the imperial woodpecker.The imperial woodpecker&’s trumpetlike calls and distinctive hammering on massive pines once echoed through the high forests. Two feet tall, with deep black plumage, a brilliant snow-white shield on its back, and a crimson crest, the imperial woodpecker had largely disappeared fifty years ago, though reports persist of the bird still flying through remote mountain stands. In an attempt to find and protect the imperial woodpecker in its last habitat, Gallagher is guided by a map of sightings of this natural treasure of the Sierra Madre, bestowed on him by a friend on his deathbed. Charged with continuing the quest of a line of distinguished naturalists, including the great Aldo Leopold, Gallagher treks through this mysterious, historically untamed and untamable territory. Here, where an ancient petroglyph of the imperial can still be found, Geronimo led Apaches in their last stand, William Randolph Hearst held a storied million-acre ranch, and Pancho Villa once roamed, today ruthless drug lords terrorize residents and steal and strip the land. Gallagher&’s passionate quest takes a harrowing turn as he encounters armed drug traffickers, burning houses, and fleeing villagers. His mission becomes a life-and-death drama that will keep armchair adventurers enthralled as he chases truth in the most dangerous of habitats.
Advances in Tourism, Technology and Systems: Selected Papers from ICOTTS 2023, Volume 1 (Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies #383)
by António Abreu João Vidal Carvalho Pedro Liberato Hazael Cerón MonroyThis book features a collection of high-quality research papers presented at the International Conference on Tourism, Technology and Systems (ICOTTS 2023), held at Anáhuac University, Bacalar, Mexico, from 2 to 4 November 2023. The book is divided into two volumes, and it covers the areas of technology in tourism and the tourist experience, generations and technology in tourism, digital marketing applied to tourism and travel, mobile technologies applied to sustainable tourism, information technologies in tourism, digital transformation of tourism business, e-tourism and tourism 2.0, big data and management for travel and tourism, geotagging and tourist mobility, smart destinations, robotics in tourism, and information systems and technologies.
Adult on Board: Travel Games for Grown-Ups
by Jeffrey J. Wuorio Judy WuorioFifty challenging games you can play while traveling, whether by car, train, bus, or plane--no equipment necessary! When staring at the back bumper of the car in front of you ceases to be amusing, you need Adult on Board: Travel Games for Grown-Ups, a fabulous collection of entertaining diversions that will beat the monotony of long trips. Included are games that expose the deepest secrets of your traveling companions, singing and rhyming games, memory games, guessing games, license-plate and travel-sign games, and games for wordplay wizards. Now getting there is all the fun.
The Bells of Old Tokyo: Meditations on Time and a City
by Anna ShermanAn elegant and absorbing tour of Tokyo and its residentsFrom 1632 until 1854, Japan’s rulers restricted contact with foreign countries, a near isolation that fostered a remarkable and unique culture that endures to this day. In hypnotic prose and sensual detail, Anna Sherman describes searching for the great bells by which the inhabitants of Edo, later called Tokyo, kept the hours in the shoguns’ city.An exploration of Tokyo becomes a meditation not just on time, but on history, memory, and impermanence. Through Sherman’s journeys around the city and her friendship with the owner of a small, exquisite cafe, who elevates the making and drinking of coffee to an art-form, The Bells of Old Tokyo follows haunting voices through the labyrinth that is the Japanese capital: an old woman remembers escaping from the American firebombs of World War II. A scientist builds the most accurate clock in the world, a clock that will not lose a second in five billion years. The head of the Tokugawa shogunal house reflects on the destruction of his grandfathers’ city: “A lost thing is lost. To chase it leads to darkness.”The Bells of Old Tokyo marks the arrival of a dazzling new writer who presents an absorbing and alluring meditation on life in the guise of a tour through a city and its people.
Around the World in 50 Years: My Adventure to Every Country on Earth
by Albert PodellThis is the inspiring story of an ordinary guy who achieved two great goals that others had told him were impossible. First, he set a record for the longest automobile journey ever made around the world, during the course of which he blasted his way out of minefields, survived a breakdown atop the Peak of Death, came within seconds of being lynched in Pakistan, and lost three of the five men who started with him, two to disease, one to the Vietcong.After that-although it took him forty-seven more years-Albert Podell set another record by going to every country on Earth. He achieved this by surviving riots, revolutions, civil wars, trigger-happy child soldiers, voodoo priests, robbers, pickpockets, corrupt cops, and Cape buffalo. He went around, under, or through every kind of earthquake, cyclone, tsunami, volcanic eruption, snowstorm, and sandstorm that nature threw at him. He ate everything from old camel meat and rats to dung beetles and the brain of a live monkey. And he overcame attacks by crocodiles, hippos, anacondas, giant leeches, flying crabs-and several beautiful girlfriends who insisted that he stop this nonsense and marry them.Albert Podell's Around the World in 50 Years is a remarkable and meaningful tale of quiet courage, dogged persistence, undying determination, and an uncanny ability to extricate himself from one perilous situation after another-and return with some of the most memorable, frightening, and hilarious adventure stories you have ever read.
Ecstatic Trails: The 52 Best Day Hikes and Nature Walks In and Around Los Angeles
by Rob CampbellLos Angeles is a hiker's perfect playground: from enchanted canyons to bountiful beaches, the range of terrain provides an almost endless variety of trails, vistas, and even weather conditions. Organized by level of difficulty, beginning with the most forgiving trails and building up to the toughest, Ecstatic Trails emphasizes the experience of the hike, guiding you to romantic hikes, trails that are right for children, thrill hikes, day trips you can build around a picnic, or intense paths perfect for solitary exploration.Everything a novice hiker or experienced trailblazer needs is here, including:--detailed maps--driving directions--restrictions, including whether dogs are permitted--the amount of time each hike is likely to take--featured elements and trail descriptionsFrom wildflower walks to dramatic waterfall treks, from sunset outings to trails that provide cool breezes in the midst of summer, Ecstatic Trails is packed with a year's worth of happy hiking.
Silences So Deep: Music, Solitude, Alaska
by John Luther Adams"[An] illuminating memoir." —Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York TimesThe story of a composer's life in the Alaskan wilderness and a meditation on making art in a landscape acutely threatened by climate changeIn the summer of 1975, the composer John Luther Adams, then a twenty-two-year-old graduate of CalArts, boarded a flight to Alaska. So began a journey into the mountains, forests, and tundra of the far north—and across distinctive mental and aural terrain—that would last for the next forty years. Silences So Deep is Adams’s account of these formative decades—and of what it’s like to live alone in the frozen woods, composing music by day and spending one’s evenings with a raucous crew of poets, philosophers, and fishermen. From adolescent loves—Edgard Varèse and Frank Zappa—to mature preoccupations with the natural world that inform such works as The Wind in High Places, Adams details the influences that have allowed him to emerge as one of the most celebrated and recognizable composers of our time. Silences So Deep is also a memoir of solitude enriched by friendships with the likes of the conductor Gordon Wright and the poet John Haines, both of whom had a singular impact on Adams’s life. Whether describing the travails of environmental activism in the midst of an oil boom or midwinter conversations in a communal sauna, Adams writes with a voice both playful and meditative, one that evokes the particular beauty of the Alaskan landscape and the people who call it home.Ultimately, this book is also the story of Adams’s difficult decision to leave a rapidly warming Alaska and to strike out for new topographies and sources of inspiration. In its attentiveness to the challenges of life in the wilderness, to the demands of making art in an age of climate crisis, and to the pleasures of intellectual fellowship, Silences So Deep is a singularly rich account of a creative life.
Apple's America: The Discriminating Traveler's Guide to 40 Great Cities in the United States and Canada
by R. W. Apple Jr.Unpretentious, sophisticated, and always appetizing advice from a celebrated authorityFor more than thirty years, R. W. Apple Jr. roamed the United States as an eyewitness to history. Here, in Apple's America, his robust enthusiasm for the food and culture of New England, the South and West, the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and his native Middle West carried him to forty great cities, where he proves to be our ideal guide--amused and amusing, knowledgeable, indefatigable, and endlessly curious.From Boston to Honolulu, from Montreal to Las Vegas, Cincinnati to Seattle, Johnny Apple explores the landmarks, architecture, business, culture, and, of course, the food and beverages of his favorite urban communities. Capturing the tone and style of American city life to perfection, he shows us the hidden treasures, the best buildings, the famous landmarks, the historical aura, and the present-day realities that make each city so memorable. And in each he recommends several places to stay, numerous places to eat, and sites or activities you shouldn't miss. No traveler in the United States will want to do without his recommendations.
Turn Right at the Fountain: Fifty-Three Walking Tours Through Europe's Most Enchanting Cities
by George W. Oakes Alexandra ChapmanOriginally published in 1961 and written by George W. Oakes, chief travel writer for the New York Times, this beloved walking guide has sold more than 100,000 copies in several editions. Now completely revised and updated by Alexandra Chapman, this latest edition features intimate walks through twenty-one of Europe's most celebrated cities, including an all-new chapter on Budapest, the Paris of the Danube. With this book as a guide, stroll through the winding cobblestone streets of Florence, gaze at the breath-takingly beautiful lawns of Cambridge, and explore the dark mysteries of Prague's architectural gems.Each walk is comfortably planned to take no more than a leisurely morning or afternoon, highlighting the not-to-be-missed museums, churches, and monuments as well as less conspicuous but equally charming sites. These tours offer explicit directions keyed to thirty-two easy-to-follow maps, concise descriptions of sights along the routes, and brief historical notes about buildings and other places of interest. From Amsterdam to Segovia, these expertly designed walking tours unveil the immense cultural treasures that these magical cities hold-treasures best enjoyed on foot.
Mother Tongue: An American Life in Italy
by Wallis Wilde-MenozziA probing and poetic examination of language, food, faith, and family attachment in Italian life through the eyes of an American who moved to Parma with her husband and family. In the 1980s, the American writer Wallis Wilde-Menozzi moved permanently with her Italian husband and her daughter to Parma, a sophisticated city in northern Italy, where he became a professor of biology. Her search for rootedness in the city that was to be her home introduced her to complexities in her identity as she migrated into another language and looked for links beyond the joys of Verdi, Correggio, and Parmesan cheese, which visitors have rightly extolled for centuries. The local resistance to change perceived as individualistic led Wilde-Menozzi to explore the pull and challenge of difference and discover the backbone she needed for artistic freedom. In Mother Tongue, Wilde-Menozzi offers stories of far-sighted lives, remarkable Parma men and remarkable women, including the Renaissance abbess Giovanna Piacenza, the fighting Donella Rossi Sanvitale, and her own indefatigable mother-in-law. Framed with a new introduction by the author, and a new foreword by Patricia Hampl, this classic on diversity and tolerance, family, faith, and food in Italy and the United States is at once timeless and timely, a “large, beautiful window into the intelligent, literate, reflective life of Italy” (Shirley Hazzard).
The Reporter's Kitchen: Essays
by Jane KramerJane Kramer started cooking when she started writing. Her first dish, a tinned-tuna curry, was assembled on a tiny stove in her graduate student apartment while she pondered her first writing assignment. From there, whether her travels took her to a tent settlement in the Sahara for an afternoon interview with an old Berber woman toiling over goat stew, or to the great London restaurateur and author Yotam Ottolenghi's Notting Hill apartment, where they assembled a buttered phylo-and-cheese tower called a mutabbaq, Jane always returned from the field with a new recipe, and usually, a friend. For the first time, Jane's beloved food pieces from The New Yorker, where she has been a staff writer since 1964, are arranged in one place--a collection of definitive chef profiles, personal essays, and gastronomic history that is at once deeply personal and humane. The Reporter's Kitchen follows Jane everywhere, and throughout her career--from her summer writing retreat in Umbria, where Jane and her anthropologist husband host memorable expat Thanksgivings--in July--to the Nordic coast, where Jane and acclaimed Danish chef Rene Redzepi, of Noma, forage for edible sea-grass. The Reporter’s Kitchen is an important record of culture distilled through food around the world. It's welcoming and inevitably surprising.
Yukon Alone: The World's Toughest Adventure Race
by John BalzarIn the tradition of Into the Wild, John Balzar's Yukon Alone is a story of daring and determination in one of nature's harshest, loneliest, and most beautiful places.The Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race is among the most challenging and dangerous of all the organized sporting events in the world. Every February, a handful of hardy souls sps over two weeks racing sleds pulled by fourteen dogs over 1,023 miles of frozen rivers, icy mountain passes, and spruce forests as big as entire states. It's not unusual for the temperature to drop to 40-below or for the night to be seventeen hours long.Why would anyone want to run this race? To find out, John Balzar moved to Alaska months before The Quest began and he spent time in the homes of many of the mushers. Balzar then spent many days and nights on the trail, and the result is a book that not only treats us to a vivid day-by-day account of the grueling race itself but also offers an insightful look at the men and women who have moved to this rugged and beautiful place, often leaving behind comfortable houses and jobs in the lower forty-eight states for the sense of exhilaration they find in their new lives. Readers will also be fascinated by Balzar's account of what goes into the training and care of the majestic dogs who pull the sleds and whose courage, strength, and devotion make them the true heroes of this story. For anyone captivated by the wild north country, this riveting tale of courage and adventure will inspire and entertain.
Conquering the Impossible: My 12,000-Mile Journey Around the Arctic Circle
by Mike HornIn August 2002, Mike Horn set out on a mission that bordered on the impossible: to travel 12,000 miles around the globe at the Arctic Circle - alone, against all prevailing winds and currents, and without motorized transportation.Conquering the Impossible is the gripping account of Horn's grueling 27-month expedition by sail and by foot through extreme Arctic conditions that nearly cost him his life on numerous occasions. Enduring temperatures that ranged to as low as -95 degrees Fahrenheit, Horn battled hazards including shifting and unstable ice that gave way and plunged him into frigid waters, encounters with polar bears so close that he felt their breath on his face, severe frostbite in his fingers, and a fire that destroyed all of his equipment and nearly burned him alive.Complementing the sheer adrenaline of Horn's narrative are the isolated but touching human encounters the adventurer has with the hardy individuals who inhabit one of the remotest corners of the earth. From an Inuit who teaches him how to build an igloo to an elderly Russian left behind when the Soviets evacuated his remote Arctic town, Horn finds camaraderie, kindness, and assistance to help him survive the most unforgiving conditions.This awe-inspiring account is a page-turner and an Arctic survival tale in one. Most of all, it's a testament to one man's unrelenting desire to push the boundaries of human endurance.
Caucasus: Mountain Men and Holy Wars
by Nicholas GriffinWhen the Russians bombed the capital of Muslim Chechnya in 2000, a city with almost a half million people was left with barely a single building intact. Rarely since Dresden and Stalingrad has the world witnessed such destruction.The Caucasus is a jagged land. With Turkey to the west, Iran to the south, and Russia to the north, the Caucasus is trapped between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. If it didn't already possess the highest mountain range in Europe, the political pressure exerted from all sides would have forced the land to crack and rise. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Peter the Great, Hitler, and Stalin all claimed to have conquered the region, leaving it a rich, but bloody history. A borderland between Christian and Muslim worlds, the Caucasus is the front line of a fascinating and formidable clash of cultures: Russia versus the predominantly Muslim mountains. Award-winning writer Nicholas Griffin travels to the mountains of the Caucasus to find the root of today's conflict. Mapping the rise of Islam through myth, history, and politics, this travelogue centers on the story of Imam Shamil, the greatest Muslim warrior of the nineteenth century, who led a forty-year campaign against the invading Russians. Griffin follows Imam's legacy into the war-torn present and finds his namesake, the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, continuing his struggle. Enthralling and fiercely beautiful, Caucasus lifts the lid on a little known but crucially important area of world. With approximately 100 billion barrels of crude oil in the Caspian Sea combined with an Islamic religious interest, it is an unfortunate guarantee that the tragedies that have haunted these jagged mountains in the past will show no sign of abating in the near future.
Berlin Now: The City After the Wall
by Peter SchneiderA smartly guided romp, entertaining and enlightening, through Europe's most charismatic and enigmatic cityIt isn't Europe's most beautiful city, or its oldest. Its architecture is not more impressive than that of Rome or Paris; its museums do not hold more treasures than those in Barcelona or London. And yet, when citizens of "New York, Tel Aviv, or Rome ask me where I'm from and I mention the name Berlin," writes Peter Schneider, "their eyes instantly light up."Berlin Now is a longtime Berliner's bright, bold, and digressive exploration of the heterogeneous allure of this vibrant city. Delving beneath the obvious answers—Berlin's club scene, bolstered by the lack of a mandatory closing time; the artistic communities that thrive due to the relatively low (for now) cost of living—Schneider takes us on an insider's tour of Germany's rapidly metamorphosing metropolis, where high-class soirees are held at construction sites and enterprising individuals often accomplish more without public funding—assembling a makeshift club on the banks of the Spree River—than Berlin's officials do. Schneider's perceptive, witty investigations on everything from the insidious legacy of suspicion instilled by the East German secret police to the clashing attitudes toward work, food, and love held by former East and West Berliners have been sharply translated by Sophie Schlondorff. The result is a book so lively that readers will want to jump on a plane—just as soon as they've finished their adventures on the page.
Telling Our Way to the Sea: A Voyage of Discovery in the Sea of Cortez
by Aaron HirshA luminous and revelatory journey into the science of life and the depths of the human experienceBy turns epic and intimate, Telling Our Way to the Sea is both a staggering revelation of unraveling ecosystems and a profound meditation on our changing relationships with nature—and with one another.When the biologists Aaron Hirsh and Veronica Volny, along with their friend Graham Burnett, a historian of science, lead twelve college students to a remote fishing village on the Sea of Cortez, they come upon a bay of dazzling beauty and richness. But as the group pursues various threads of investigation—ecological and evolutionary studies of the sea, the desert, and their various species of animals and plants; the stories of local villagers; the journals of conquistadors and explorers—they recognize that the bay, spectacular and pristine though it seems, is but a ghost of what it once was. Life in the Sea of Cortez, they realize, has been reshaped by complex human ideas and decisions—the laws and economics of fishing, property, and water; the dreams of developers and the fantasies of tourists seeking the wild; even efforts to retrieve species from the brink of extinction—all of which have caused dramatic upheavals in the ecosystem. It is a painful realization, but the students discover a way forward. After weathering a hurricane and encountering a rare whale in its wake, they come to see that the bay's best chance of recovery may in fact reside in our own human stories, which can weave a compelling memory of the place. Glimpsing the intricate and ever-shifting web of human connections with the Sea of Cortez, the students comprehend anew their own place in the natural world—suspended between past and future, teetering between abundance and loss. The redemption in their difficult realization is that as they find their places in a profoundly altered environment, they also recognize their roles in the path ahead, and ultimately come to see one another, and themselves, in a new light.In Telling Our Way to the Sea, Hirsh's voice resounds with compassionate humanity, capturing the complex beauty of both the marine world he explores and the people he explores it with. Vibrantly alive with sensitivity and nuance, Telling Our Way to the Sea transcends its genre to become literature.
The Language of the Land: Living Among the Hadzabe in Africa
by James StephensonA rare adventure with the last Stone Age hunting and gathering tribe in Africa.In 1997 James Stephenson arranged to have almost a full year free, a year he wanted to spend among the Hadzabe in Tanzania. He had visited these people several times previously and with every trip his fascination with them deepened, for the Hadzabe are the last hunters and gatherers still living a traditional life in East Africa.At the age of 27, Stephenson intended to spend the year living among the Hadzabe, and, more importantly, living their life, hunting what they hunted, eating what they ate, participating in their dances and ceremonies, consulting with their medicine men and learning their myths and dreams.Armed only with his camera, his art supplies and the open-hearted courage of youth, he set out to visit with a people who have changed little since the Stone Age. He wanted to glimpse the world as they perceived it and learn the wisdom they had wrestled from the land. The Language of the Land, the account of his adventure and what he learned, is travel writing at its best.
How to Climb Mt. Blanc in a Skirt: A Handbook for the Lady Adventurer
by Mick Conefrey• Which explorer found the lost site of Jesus' first miracle?• Who was first to the top of the highest mountain in Peru?• Who was the first Westerner to visit the Ottoman harem in Constantinople?• Who held the world record as the only person to fly from Britain to Australia for 44 years? You'll find the answers to these questions and more in Mick Conefrey's charming new book (a hint: none of them had beards). In 1870, New York mountaineer Meta Brevoort climbed Mt. Blanc in a hoop skirt. Pausing at the summit only long enough to drink a glass of champagne and dance the quadrille with her alpine guides, she marched back down the mountain and into history as one of the first female mountain explorers. Here, Mick Conefrey weaves together tips, how-tos, anecdotes, and eccentric lists to tell the amazing stories of history's great female explorers—women who were just as fascinating and inspiring as all the Shackletons, Mallorys, and Livingstones. Most were brave, some were reckless, and all were fascinating. From Fanny Bullock Workman, who was photographed on top of a mountain pass in the Karakoram, holding up a banner calling for "Votes for Women" to Mary Hall, the Victorian world traveler, whose motto was, "take every precaution and abandon all fear," How to Climb Mt. Blanc in a Skirt is uproariously funny and occasionally downright strange.