Books, Biographies & Memoirs, Travel Shopping
Books, Biographies & Memoirs, Travel
Marlena De Blasi
A Thousand Days in Venice (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
by Ballantine Books (Paperback) (Release Date: 2003-06-03)
He saw her across the Piazza San Marco and fell in love from afar. When he sees her again in a Venice café a year later, he knows it is fate. He knows little English; and she, a divorced American chef, speaks only food-based Italian. Marlena thinks she is incapable of intimacy, that her heart has lost its capacity for romantic love. But within months of their first meeting, she has packed up her house in St. Louis to marry Fernando—“the stranger,” as she calls him—and live in that achingly lovely city in which they met.Vibrant but vaguely baffled by this bold move, Marlena is overwhelmed by the sheer foreignness of her new home, its rituals and customs. But there are delicious moments when Venice opens up its arms to Marlena. She cooks an American feast of Mississippi caviar, cornbread, and fried onions for the locals . . . and takes the tango she learned in the Poughkeepsie middle school gym to a candlelit trattoría near the Rialto Bridge. All the while, she and ...
Rita Golden Gelman
Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
by Three Rivers Press (Paperback) (Release Date: 2002-05-28)
Robert Kull
Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes: A Year Alone in the Patagonia Wilderness
by New World Library (Hardcover)
Years after losing his lower right leg in a motorcycle crash, Robert Kull traveled to a remote island in Patagonia’s coastal wilderness with supplies to live alone for a year. He sought to explore the effects of deep solitude on the body and mind and to find the spiritual answers he’d been seeking all his life. With only a cat and his thoughts as companions, he wrestled with inner storms while the forces of nature raged around him. The physical challenges were immense, but the struggles of mind and spirit pushed him even further.Solitude is the diary of Kull’s tumultuous year as well as a meditation on the tensions between nature and technology, isolation and society. With humor and brutal honesty, Kull explores the pain and longing we typically avoid in our busy lives as well as the peace and wonder that arise once we strip away our distractions.Kull went into solitude seeking the Answer, but came back empty-handed. Wilderness, he found, is a place to clearly see the ...
Nando Parrado, Vince Rause
Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home
by Crown (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2006-05-09)
In the first hours there was nothing, no fear or sadness, just a black and perfect silence.Nando Parrado was unconscious for three days before he woke to discover that the plane carrying his rugby team, as well as their family members and supporters, to an exhibition game in Chile had crashed somewhere deep in the Andes. He soon learned that many were dead or dying—among them his own mother and sister. Those who remained were stranded on a lifeless glacier at nearly 12,000 feet above sea level, with no supplies and no means of summoning help. They struggled to endure freezing temperatures, deadly avalanches, and then the devastating news that the search for them had been called off. As time passed and Nando’s thoughts turned increasingly to his father, who he knew must be consumed with grief, Nando resolved that he must get home or die trying. He would challenge the Andes, even though he was certain the effort would kill him, telling himself that even if he failed he would ...
Donald Miller
Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road
by Thomas Nelson (Paperback)
Fueled by the belief that something better exists than the mundane life they've been living, free spirits Don and Paul set off on an adventure-filled road trip in search of deeper meaning, beauty, and an explanation for life. Many young men dream of such a trip, but few are brave enough to actually attempt it. Fewer still have the writing skills of Donald Miller, who records the trip with wide-eyed honesty in achingly beautiful prose. In this completely revised edition, he discusses everything from the nature of friendship, the reason for pain, and the origins of beauty. As they travel from Texas to Oregon in Paul's cantankerous Volkswagen van, the two friends encounter a variety of fascinating people, witness the fullness of nature's splendor, and learn unexpected lessons about themselves, each other, and even God. "A record of a classic road trip. Miller's tale is full of serendipitous adventures and thoughtful Christian reflection . . . offering the sort of deep-thought ...
Marco Polo
The Travels of Marco Polo
by W. W. Norton & Company (Paperback)
Chosen as one of the ten best adventure books of all time by National Geographic Adventure, The Travels of Marco Polo remains a wondrous and exciting story. Chronicling the thirteenth-century world from his birthplace, Venice, to the far reaches of Asia, Marco Polo tells of the peoples he meets as he travels by foot, horse, and boat through places like Persia, the land of the Tartars, Tibet, and, most important, China. There he stays at the court of Kublai Khan, venturing to both the capital of Beijing and Shangtu, made immortal in Coleridge's poem "Xanadu." We become travelers along with Polo, visiting cultures he only heard about in tales that seemed more like legends than reality. He records small details of domestic life, as well as commenting on how medicine is practiced and how marriages are arranged. He finds that the Chinese actually do use paper currency instead of the gold and silver currency of the West. He is amazed by a black stone that burns for hours to ...
Peter Jenkins
Walk Across America
by Econo-Clad Books (Library Binding)
Twenty-five years ago, a disillusioned young man set out on a walk across America. This is the book he wrote about that journey -- a classic account of the reawakening of his faith in himself and his country."I started out searching for myself and my country," Peter Jenkins writes, "and found both." In this timeless classic, Jenkins describes how disillusionment with society in the 1970s drove him out onto the road on a walk across America. His experiences remain as sharp and telling today as they were twenty-five years ago -- from the timeless secrets of life, learned from a mountain-dwelling hermit, to the stir he caused by staying with a black family in North Carolina, to his hours of intense labor in Southern mills. Many, many miles later, he learned lessons about his country and himself that resonate to this day -- and will inspire a new generation to get out, hit the road and explore.
Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson's African Diary
by Broadway (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2002-12-03)
Bill Bryson travels to Kenya in support of CARE International. All royalties and profits go to CARE International.Bryson visits Kenya at the invitation of CARE International, the charity dedicated to eradicating poverty. Kenya is a land of contrasts, with famous game reserves and a vibrant culture. It also provides plenty to worry a traveller like Bill Bryson, fixated as he is on the dangers posed by snakes, insects and large predators. It is also a country with many serious problems: refugees, AIDS, drought, and grinding poverty. The resultant diary, though short in length, contains the trademark Bryson stamp of wry observation and curious insight.
Joseph Persico
My American Journey
by Random House Audio (CD) (Release Date: 2006-09-19)
Barry Golson
Gringos in Paradise: An American Couple Builds Their Retirement Dream House in a Seaside Village in Mexico
by Scribner (Paperback)
A Year in Provence meets Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House in this lively and entertaining account of a couple's year building their dream house in Mexico.In 2004, Barry Golson wrote an award-winning article for AARP magazine about Mexican hot spots for retirees longing for a lifestyle they couldn't afford in the United States. A year later, he and his wife Thia were taking part in the growing trend of retiring abroad. They sold their Manhattan apartment, packed up their SUV, and moved to one of those idyllic hot spots, the surfing and fishing village of Sayulita on Mexico's Pacific coast. With humor and charm, Golson details the year he and his wife spent settling into their new life and planning and building their dream home. Sayulita -- population 1,500, not including stray dogs or pelicans -- is a never-dull mixture of traditional Mexican customs and new, gringo-influenced change. Before long, the Golsons had been absorbed into the rhythms and routines of village life: ...