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Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
By Rita Golden Gelman. 2001
"I move throughout the world without a plan, guided by instinct, connecting through trust, and constantly watching for serendipitous opportunities."…
--From the PrefaceTales of a Female Nomad is the story of Rita Golden Gelman, an ordinary woman who is living an extraordinary existence. At the age of forty-eight, on the verge of a divorce, Rita left an elegant life in L.A. to follow her dream of connecting with people in cultures all over the world. In 1986 she sold her possessions and became a nomad, living in a Zapotec village in Mexico, sleeping with sea lions on the Galapagos Islands, and residing everywhere from thatched huts to regal palaces. She has observed orangutans in the rain forest of Borneo, visited trance healers and dens of black magic, and cooked with women on fires all over the world. Rita's example encourages us all to dust off our dreams and rediscover the joy, the exuberance, and the hidden spirit that so many of us bury when we become adults.From the Trade Paperback edition.Great Cities Through Travelers' Eyes
By Peter Furtado. 1991
A wide-ranging anthology of travelers’ accounts in thirty-eight of the world’s most fascinating cities, from ancient times through the twentieth…
century. This entertaining new anthology includes travelers’ tales from thirty-eight cities spread over six continents, ranging from Beijing to Berlin, Cairo to Chicago, and Rio to Rome. The volume features commentators across the millennia, including the great travelers of ancient times, such as Greek geographer Strabo; those who undertook extensive journeys in the medieval world, not least Marco Polo; courageous women such as Isabella Bird and Freya Stark; and enterprising writers and journalists, including Mark Twain. We see the work of famous travelers, but also stories by ordinary people who found themselves involved in remarkable situations, like the medieval Chinese abbot who was shown around the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris by the king of France. Some of the writers seek to provide a straightforward, accurate description of all they have seen, while others concentrate on their subjective experiences of the city and encounters with the inhabitants. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling historian Peter Furtado, each account provides both a vivid portrait of a distant place and time and an insight into those who journeyed there. The result is a book that delves into the splendors and stories that exist beyond conventional guidebooks and websites.This is San Francisco: The Ups, Downs, Ins, and Outs of the City by the Bay
By Alexander Barrett. 2019
In the same vein as his other two evocative love letters to cities, This Is Portland and This Is Shanghai,…
Alexander Barrett again plays quirky tour guide in This is San Francisco. Distilling the charm of San Francisco into colorful, illustrated pages, he reveals the city's magic in this good-humored, earnest homage. This isn't a guide book that will tell you where to stay or what to eat; rather, it's an invitation from a friend to come along on a walk down one of San Francisco’s historic streets, up one of its urban staircases, or along its many shorelines. Through thoughtful and funny anecdotes, essays, and illustrations, Barrett takes you on a journey through one of America’s most famous cities and makes you wish you were right there with him.The Barefoot Bingo Caller: A Memoir
By Antanas Sileika. 2017
Witty, wide-ranging stories of one man’s adventures in the world: “Filled with pleasures . . . I enjoyed it immensely”…
(Meg Wolitzer, New York Times–bestselling author of The Interestings). In The Barefoot Bingo Caller, Antanas Sileika finds what’s funny and touching in the most unlikely places, from a bingo hall to the collapsing Soviet Union. He shares stories of his attempts to shake off his suburban, ethnic, folk-dancing childhood; his divided allegiance as a Lithuanian-Canadian father; and such memorable characters as aging beat poets, oblivious college students, and an obdurate porcupine. Passing through places as varied as a prime minister’s office and the streets of Paris, these wry and moving dispatches on work, family, art, and identity are masterpieces of comic memoir and social observation. “The memories have been vividly, deliberately shaped by a master storyteller over a lifetime of telling, to powerful and often hilarious effect.” —Quill & Quire (starred review) “Funny and wistful, always engaging and wholly original, The Barefoot Bingo Caller charts the geography of belonging from the suburbs of Weston to the streets of Vilnius, from iconic Parisian bookstores to secret fishing holes in the backwoods of Ontario.” —Will Ferguson, Giller Prize–winning authorThe End of the River: Dams, Drought and Déjà Vu on the Rio São Francisco
By Brian Harvey. 2008
“[Harvey] may have created a new literary genre: science travel writing . . . travelogue, autobiography, history, and even fantasy…
romp alongside the biology” (Quill & Quire). When biologist Brian Harvey saw a thousand fish blundering into a Brazilian dam, he asked the obvious: What’s going to happen to them? The End of the River is the story of his long search for an answer. Harvey takes readers from a fisheries patrol boat on the Fraser River to the great Tsukiji fish market in Japan, with stops in the Philippines, Thailand, and assorted South American countries. Finally, in the arid outback of northeast Brazil, against a backdrop of a multi-billion-dollar river project nobody seems to want, he finds a small-scale answer to his simple question. In recounting his journey, he populates his story with characters both real and imagined, human and otherwise—a six-foot endangered catfish; a Canadian professor with a weakness for Thai bar girls; a chain-smoking Brazilian with a passion for her river; a drug-addled stick-up artist. The End of the River is about fishermen, fish farmers, and fish cops; there are scientists and shysters as well as a few Colombian narcotráficos and some very drunk, very hairy Brazilian men in thongs. From the founder of the World Fisheries Trust, Harvey introduces a new kind of writing about the environment, as far off the beaten track as you can get in a Land Rover driven by a female Colombian biologist whose favorite expression is “No hay via!”—meaning, “no road!” “[A] freewheeling and vividly written essay on the mysteries and longings of what it is to be human in a world of cynicism and loss—and more significantly, what it is to be hopeful, to persevere, in the search for redemption and beauty . . . A brilliant and instructive book . . . recalls the travel writing of one of Harvey’s heroes, Sir Richard Burton.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Journeys (Modern Voices Ser.)
By Stefan Zweig. 2010
A collection of the great writer's observations, made during his travels across the Europe he loved so muchWhen I am…
on a journey, all ties suddenly fall away. I feel myself quite unburdened, disconnected, free - There is something in it marvellously uplifting and invigorating. Whole past epochs suddenly return: nothing is lost, everything still full of inception, enticement.For the insatiably curious and ardent Europhile Stefan Zweig, travel was both a necessary cultural education and a personal balm for the depression he experienced when rooted in one place for too long. He spent much of his life weaving between the countries of Europe, visiting authors and friends, exploring the continent in the heyday of international rail travel.Comprising a lifetime's observations on Zweig's travels in Europe, this collection can be dipped into or savoured at length, and paints a rich and sensitive picture of Europe before the Second World War.Ten Years a Nomad: A Traveler's Journey Home
By Matthew Kepnes. 2019
Part memoir and part philosophical look at why we travel, filled with stories of Matt Kepnes' adventures abroad, an exploration…
of wanderlust and what it truly means to be a nomad. "Matt is possibly the most well-traveled person I know...His knowledge and passion for understanding the world is unrivaled, and never fails to amaze me." —Mark Manson, New York Times bestselling author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ckTen Years a Nomad is New York Times bestselling author Matt Kepnes’ poignant exploration of wanderlust and what it truly means to be a nomad. Part travel memoir and part philosophical look at why we travel, it is filled with aspirational stories of Kepnes' many adventures. New York Times bestselling author of How to Travel the World on $50 a Day, Matthew Kepnes knows what it feels like to get the travel bug. After meeting some travelers on a trip to Thailand in 2005, he realized that living life meant more than simply meeting society's traditional milestones, such as buying a car, paying a mortgage, and moving up the career ladder. Inspired by them, he set off for a year-long trip around the world before he started his career. He finally came home after ten years. Over 500,000 miles, 1,000 hostels, and 90 different countries later, Matt has compiled his favorite stories, experiences, and insights into this travel manifesto. Filled with the color and perspective that only hindsight and self-reflection can offer, these stories get to the real questions at the heart of wanderlust. Travel questions that transcend the basic "how-to," and plumb the depths of what drives us to travel — and what extended travel around the world can teach us about life, ourselves, and our place in the world.Ten Years a Nomad is for travel junkies, the travel-curious, and anyone interested in what you can learn about the world when you don’t have a cable bill for a decade or spend a month not wearing shoes living on the beach in Thailand.Epic Continent: Adventures in the Great Stories of Europe
By Nicholas Jubber. 2019
'The prose is colourful and vigorous ... Jubber's journeying has indeed been epic, in scale and in ambition. In this…
thoughtful travelogue he has woven together colourful ancient and modern threads into a European tapestry that combines the sombre and the sparkling' Spectator'A genuine epic' WanderlustAward-winning travel writer Nicholas Jubber journeys across Europe exploring Europe's epic poems, from the Odyssey to Beowulf, the Song of Roland to theNibelungenlied, and their impact on European identity in these turbulent times.These are the stories that made Europe.Journeying from Turkey to Iceland, award-winning travel writer Nicholas Jubber takes us on a fascinating adventure through our continent's most enduring epic poems to learn how they were shaped by their times, and how they have since shaped us.The great European epics were all inspired by moments of seismic change: The Odyssey tells of the aftermath of the Trojan War, the primal conflict from which much of European civilisation was spawned. The Song of the Nibelungen tracks the collapse of a Germanic kingdom on the edge of the Roman Empire. Both the French Song of Roland and the Serbian Kosovo Cycleemerged from devastating conflicts between Christian and Muslim powers. Beowulf, the only surviving Old English epic, and the great Icelandic Saga of Burnt Njal, respond to times of great religious struggle - the shift from paganism to Christianity. These stories have stirred passions ever since they were composed, motivating armies and revolutionaries, and they continue to do so today.Reaching back into the ancient and medieval eras in which these defining works were produced, and investigating their continuing influence today, Epic Continent explores how matters of honour, fundamentalism, fate, nationhood, sex, class and politics have preoccupied the people of Europe across the millennia. In these tales soaked in blood and fire, Nicholas Jubber discovers how the world of gods and emperors, dragons and water-maidens, knights and princesses made our own: their deep impact on European identity, and their resonance in our turbulent times.A Writer's Paris: A Guided Journey for the Creative Soul
By Eric Maisel. 2019
Enrich your life and write with more intensity than ever on a spirit-renewing adventure in the City of Light. Experience…
Paris not as a tourist but as a creator, where you dedicate yourself to the bohemian life in picturesque parks, cafés, and bookstores. In this guided tour of a beloved destination that has sparked the imagination of countless writers and artists, leading creativity coach Eric Maisel offers insights on how to use the city to spur commitment to your craft. Beyond the metaphor of Paris as a place of creativity, Maisel provides practical tools for you to use upon committing to this journey: tips for writing at the Place des Vosges while soaking in the surrounding architecture and vibrant energy; advice on the best time to visit the Musée d'Orsay for maximum inspiration; and ideas for engaging all the senses during strolls through churches and subways of this dazzling location. In brief essays that are whimsically illustrated, Maisel helps you put your dreams into action, encouraging you to move beyond the idea of living and writing in Paris to the reality of doing it, for three weeks or three years or anytime in between.All the Wrong Moves: A Memoir About Chess, Love, and Ruining Everything
By Sasha Chapin. 2019
An enthralling journey into the world of chess--a story of heartbreak, obsession, failure, and the hunger for greatness.Sasha Chapin is…
a victim of chess. Like countless amateurs before him--Albert Einstein, Humphrey Bogart, and Marcel Duchamp among them--the game has consumed his life and his mind. First captivated by it as a member of his high school chess club, he found his passion rekindled during an accidental encounter with chess hustlers on the streets of Kathmandu. In its aftermath, he forgot to care about anything else. Like a spurned lover, he tried to move on, but he found the game more seductive the more he resisted it.And so, he reasons, if he can't defeat his addiction, he will try instead to master the game.All the Wrong Moves traces Chapin's rollicking two-year journey around the globe in search of glory. He travels to tournaments in Bangkok and Hyderabad. He seeks out a mentor in St. Louis, a grandmaster whose personality is half rabbi and half monk, and who offers cryptic wisdom and caustic insults ("you're the best player in your chair.") His story builds toward the Los Angeles Open, where Chapin is clearly outmatched and yet determined not to lose.Stylish, inventive, and laugh-out-loud funny, All the Wrong Moves is more than a work of history or autobiography. It is a chronicle of the highs and lows of obsession, of love pursued to its limits, and of a life driven by lust, terror, and the elusive possibility of victory.Growing old outrageously: a memoir of travel, food and friendship
By Hilary Linstead. 2012
Two old school friends reconnect unexpectedly after thirty-five years and discover that they both love travelling - and the more…
exotic and far-flung the location, the better! Not having a clue whether they will get along, the eccentric pair embark on a trial journey to Morocco. That tentative beginning has turned into a series of wonderfully unusual holidays, and Hil and Liz have been circumnavigating the globe ever since. Among many other destinations, they have taken in Marrakech, Fez and the Atlas Mountains; Patagonia and the Galapagos Islands; Istanbul and Cappadocia. They've been on safari in Namibia, Botswana and the Serengeti, attended music festivals in Naples and Prague and made a pilgrimage to the western isles of Mull and Iona. Along the way they have encouraged, enraged and entertained each other, while living through countless adventures.Far journeys
By Robert A Monroe. 2001
The sequel to Monroe's Journey Out Of The Body is an amazing parapsychological odyssey that reflects a decade of research…
into the psychic realm beyond the known dimensions of physical reality.The obsessive traveller: or, why I don't steal towels from great hotels any more
By David Dale. 1991
This is a collection of traveller's tales told with the author's unique curiosity, humour and insight. It covers why men…
read maps and women ask the way, how to stop a taxi driver from talking to you, how to souvenir from great hotels and much more.Tren fantasma a la Estrella de Oriente
By Paul Theroux. 2008
«Theroux es el canon por el que todo escritor de viajes debe juzgarse.»Observer Hace treinta años, Paul Theroux partió de…
Londres en un viaje de ida y vuelta por Asia en tren. Aquel relato -El gran bazar del ferrocarril- se convirtió en punto de referencia y su nombre en el más célebre de entre los autores de libros de viaje de su generación. Theroux vuelve ahora sobre sus pasos, a través del oeste de Europa, la India y Asia, para desvelar la ola de cambios que ha barrido los continentes. Un largo viaje que nos transporta del laberinto de Estambul a las ruinas de Merv o al superpoblado Delhi, de los ashrams de Bangalore a las barridas marginales de Singapur, de los templos de Angkor a la renacida Saigón, de la Ciudad Prohibida de Hue al Barrio Viejo de Hanói, de un inmenso sex shop en Tokio a un balneario en Wakkanai, del parque de los Ciervos en Nara al gulag de Perm... Reseña:«Un libro maravilloso insuflado de la agudeza de la madurez, que consigue aquello que un libro de viajes no puede obviar: logra que el lector desee ponerse en camino.»BooklistParis to the Moon: A Family In France (A vintage Original Ser.)
By Adam Gopnik. 2000
Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafés, breathtaking façades around every corner--in short, an exquisite romanticism…
that has captured the American imagination for as long as there have been Americans. In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York City for the urbane glamour of the City of Light. Gopnik is a longtime New Yorker writer, and the magazine has sent its writers to Paris for decades--but his was above all a personal pilgrimage to the place that had for so long been the undisputed capital of everything cultural and beautiful. It was also the opportunity to raise a child who would know what it was to romp in the Luxembourg Gardens, to enjoy a croque monsieur in a Left Bank café--a child (and perhaps a father, too) who would have a grasp of that Parisian sense of style we Americans find so elusive. So, in the grand tradition of the American abroad, Gopnik walked the paths of the Tuileries, enjoyed philosophical discussions at his local bistro, wrote as violet twilight fell on the arrondissements. Of course, as readers of Gopnik's beloved and award-winning "Paris Journals" in The New Yorker know, there was also the matter of raising a child and carrying on with day-to-day, not-so-fabled life. Evenings with French intellectuals preceded middle-of-the-night baby feedings; afternoons were filled with trips to the Musée d'Orsay and pinball games; weekday leftovers were eaten while three-star chefs debated a "culinary crisis."As Gopnik describes in this funny and tender book, the dual processes of navigating a foreign city and becoming a parent are not completely dissimilar journeys--both hold new routines, new languages, a new set of rules by which everyday life is lived. With singular wit and insight, Gopnik weaves the magical with the mundane in a wholly delightful, often hilarious look at what it was to be an American family man in Paris at the end of the twentieth century. "We went to Paris for a sentimental reeducation-I did anyway-even though the sentiments we were instructed in were not the ones we were expecting to learn, which I believe is why they call it an education."Mr. Ding's chicken feet: on a slow boat from Shanghai to Texas
By Gillian Kendall. 2006
Gillian Kendall's adventure begins with a flier and a help-wanted ad: "English as a Second Language (ESL) Teacher Needed." Intrigued,…
she answers the ad and soon finds herself accompanying a cruise from Shanghai to Galveston, Texas, teaching ESL en route to Chinese seamen, ship's officers, and mechanical engineers. And that's just the beginning! English lessons, of course, are only part of the story. She is the only female aboard, surrounded by Chinese men. The cosmopolitan graduate student suddenly has to adjust to an alien world, thick with cigarette smoke, unusual sea creatures, and male sexuality. Kendall invites readers to travel with her across cultural divides as deep and mysterious as the Pacific while she explores her own culture, orientation, and heart.Rediscovering Travel: A Guide For The Globally Curious
By Seth Kugel. 2018
An indispensable companion for rookie and veteran travelers alike that promises to revolutionize both how and why we vacation. By…
captivating millions during his six-year, fifty-country tenure as the New York Times’s “Frugal Traveler,” Seth Kugel has become one of our most internationally beloved travel writers. While his famously unassuming journeys around the globe have forged a signature philosophy of whimsy and practicality, they have also revealed the seemingly infinite booby traps of on-the-grid tourism. In a book with widespread cultural reverberations, Kugel takes the modern travel industry to task, determined to reignite humanity’s age-old sense of adventure that has virtually been vanquished by the spontaneity-obliterating likes of Google Maps, TripAdvisor, and Starwood points. Woven throughout with vivid tales of his perfectly imperfect adventures, Rediscovering Travel explains—often hilariously—how to make the most of new digital technologies without being shackled to them. For the tight-belted tourist and the first-class flyer, the eager student and the comfort-seeking retiree, Kugel shows how we too can rediscover the joy of discovery.Returning North with the Spring
By John R Harris. 2016
At winter's end in 1947, driven by the devastating loss of a son killed in World War II, naturalist Edwin…
Way Teale followed the dawning spring season northward in an amazing 17,000-mile odyssey from the Everglades to Maine. He wrote about the adventure in North with the Spring. Its sequel Wandering Through Winter won the Pulitzer Prize.Retracing Teale's route, writer John Harris reveals a vastly changed natural world. In Returning North with the Spring, he stops at the very places where Teale once stood, trekking through the Okefenokee wetland, the Great Smoky Mountains, the Great Dismal Swamp, the New Jersey Pine Barrens, and Cape Cod. He is stunned to see how climate change, invasive species, and other factors have affected the landscapes and wildlife. Yet he also discovers that many of the sites Teale described have been newly "rewilded" or permanently protected by the government.Homage to the past, report on the present, glimpse into the future--this book honors what has been lost in the years since Teale's famous journey and finds hope in the small tenacities of nature.Travels on the St. Johns River
By William Bartram, John Bartram. 2016
“The editors skillfully interpret the geography and natural history, and provide an extensive list of the plants and animals the…
Bartrams encountered. This work will appeal to naturalists and those interested in early American studies in natural history.”—Choice "Bringing together descriptions and illustrations of the St. Johns River and its characteristic flora and fauna from the golden age of natural history exploration, this book will be useful to both Bartram scholars and amateur naturalists."--Timothy Sweet, author of American Georgics: Economy and Environment in American Literature, 1580-1864 "Illustrates the unique sense of place of Florida and, in particular, the St. Johns River. Guides the reader along a transcendent spiritual journey that ends on the shores of ecology."--R. Bruce Stephenson, author of John Nolen, Landscape Architect and City Planner In 1765 father and son naturalists John and William Bartram explored the St. Johns River Valley in Florida, a newly designated British territory and subtropical wonderland. They collected specimens and recorded extensive observations of the plants, animals, geography, ecology, and native cultures of an essentially uncharted region. The chronicle of their adventures provided the world with an intimate look at La Florida. Travels on the St. Johns River includes writings from the Bartrams' journey in a flat-bottomed boat from St. Augustine to the river's swampy headwaters near Lake Loughman, just west of today’s Cape Canaveral. Vivid entries from John's Diary detail which tribes lived where and what vegetation overtook the river's slow current. He describes the crisp, cold spring waters tasting like a gun barrel. Excerpts from William's narrative, written a decade later when he tried to make a home in East Florida, contemplate the environment and the river that would come to be regarded as the liquid heart of his celebrated Travels. A selection of personal letters reveal John's misgivings about his son's decision to become a planter in an inhospitable pine barren with little more than a hovel as shelter, but they also speak to William's belated sense of accomplishment for traveling past his father's footsteps. Editors Thomas Hallock and Richard Franz provide valuable commentary and a modern record of the flora and fauna the Bartrams encountered. Taken together, the firsthand accounts and editorial notes help us see the land through the explorers' eyes and witness the many environmental changes the centuries have wrought.A Country Between: Making a Home Where Both Sides of Jerusalem Collide
By Stephanie Saldaña. 2017
"Behind every dark moment, there is another hidden world. The trick is to hold out long enough to make it…
there."When American writer Stephanie Saldaña finds herself in an empty house at the beginning of Nablus Road, the dividing line between East and West Jerusalem, she is a new wife trying to navigate a fragile terrain, both within her marriage and throughout the country in which she has chosen to live.Pregnant with her first child, Stephanie struggles to protect her family, their faith, and herself from the cracks of Middle Eastern conflict that threaten to shatter the world around her. But as her due date approaches, she must reconcile herself with her choice to bring a child into a dangerous world. Determined to piece together life from the brokenness, she sets out to uncover small instances of beauty to balance the delicate coexistence between love, motherhood, and a country so often at war.In an urban valley in Jerusalem, A Country Between captures the fragile ecosystem of the Middle East and the difficult first years of motherhood in the midst of a conflict-torn city. What unfolds is a celebration of faith, language, family, and love that fills the space between what was shattered, leaving us whole once more.