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"On an autumn morning in 1849, Henry David Thoreau stepped out his front door to walk the beaches of Cape Cod. Over a century and a half later, Ben Shattuck does the same. With little more than a loaf of bread, brick of cheese, and a notebook, Shattuck sets out to retrace Thoreau's path through the Cape's outer beaches, from the elbow to Provincetown's fingertip. This is the first of six journeys taken by Shattuck, each one inspired by a walk once...
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Steinbeck hits the highways with his French poodle, Charley. In a custom-built camper he named Rosinante after Don Quixote's steed, the two traveled the country--10,000 miles and 34 states. Their varied experiences comprise several slices of small-town back-roads Americana. Steinbeck laments the rise of plastic-covered everything, the vacuousness of "sad souls" he encounters, and the homogenization of local and regional culture. But bright spots...
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The classic chronicle of a “terribly misguided and terribly funny” (The Washington Post) hike of the Appalachian Trail, from the author of A Short History of Nearly Everything and The Body
“The best way of escaping into nature.”—The New York Times
Back in America after...
“The best way of escaping into nature.”—The New York Times
Back in America after...
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Terra Incognita is a meditation on the landscape, myths and history of one of the remotest parts of the globe, as well as an encounter with the people who inhabit this region - living in close confinement despite the surrounding acres of white space - and the mechanics of day-to-day life in extraordinary conditions. Through Sara Wheeler, the Antarctic is revealed, in all its seductive mystery.
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Levison Wood's journey was 4,250 miles long, and he walked every step of the way, camping in the wild, foraging for food, and fending for himself against multiple dangers. He passed through rainforest, savannah, swamp, desert, and lush delta oases and crossed seven very different countries. No one had ever made this journey on foot. In this detailed, thoughtful, inspiring and dramatic book is recounted Levison Wood's walk the length of the Nile, during...
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From the renowned Beat writer, Kerouac's colorful and meandering search
for his family history, now reissued following his centenary celebrationSatori in Paris is the semi-autobiographical tale of Jack Kerouac's trip to France in search of his heritage. Beginning in Paris and moving west to Brittany, Kerouac traces the paths of his ancestors and explores his own understanding of the Buddhism that came to define his beliefs. From his familiar milieu...
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First published more than thirty years ago, Paul Theroux's strange, unique, and hugely entertaining railway odyssey has become a modern classic of travel literature. Here Theroux recounts his early adventures on an unusual grand continental tour. Asia's fabled trains - the Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Frontier Mail, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Mandalay Express, the Trans-Siberian Express - are the stars of a journey that takes...
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First published in 1915, "Travels in Alaska" is a collection of essays and recollections by John Muir of his time spent in Alaska. Muir is often referred to as the "Father of the National Parks" and "John of the Mountains" and is most famous for his tireless work to preserve, study, and appreciate the natural world. Muir devoted many years of his life to the protection of the forests and mountains of the Western United States and advocated for making...
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In the nineteenth century there flourished a peculiar breed of Englishmen-often the second sons of the aristocracy, or ambitious men from a lower class-who as soldiers, consuls and tea planters, were largely responsible for making England a great colonial power. Save for the fact that he is a staunch anticolonialist, Paul Bowles resembles these men in many respects. Like them, he appears to be happiest away from civilization as we know it; like them,...
14) American notes
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"In American Notes", the Anglo-Indian Rudyard Kipling visits the USA, and the travel-diary that came out of it offers an interesting view of the America of the 1880's.
Kipling affects a wide-eyed innocence and expresses astonishment at features of American life that differ from his own, not least the freedom (and attraction) of American women. However, he scorns the political machines that make a mockery of American democracy, and whilst exhibiting...
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Like many others, around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned 30, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. Although she had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want, including a husband, a home, and a successful career as a magazine writer, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. The celebrated author of The Last American creates an irrestible, candid, and eloquent account of her yearlong worldwide pursuit...
16) Here is New York
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Perceptive, funny, and nostalgic, E. B. White's stroll around Manhattan remains the quintessential love letter to the city, written by one of America's foremost literary figures. The New York Times named Here Is New York one of the ten best books ever written about the metropolis, and the New Yorker called it "the wittiest essay, and one of the most perceptive, ever done on the city."Included with this essay are two short poems by E. B. White: "Commuter"...
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A journalist meets fascinating characters while seeking out a fugitive gangster in the Chinese underworld.
The notorious gangster Lai Changxing started out as an illiterate farmer, but in the tumult of China's burgeoning economy, he seized the opportunity to remake himself as a bandit king. A newly minted billionaire of outsized personality and even greater appetites, he was a living legend who eventually ran afoul of authorities. The journalist...
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Arising out of Naipaul's lifelong obsession and passion for a country that is at once his and totally alien, India: A Million Mutinies Now relates the stories of many of the people he met traveling there more than fifty years ago. He explores how they have been steered by the innumerable frictions present in Indian society - the contradictions and compromises of religious faith, the whim and chaos of random political forces. This book represents Naipaul's...
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In 1844, Charles Dickens embarked on a year-long visit to Italy, where he turned his perceptive views of the human condition toward a thoughtful appraisal of the country's soul and character. Combining travelogue with social commentary, he formed a kaleidoscopic portrait of nineteenth-century Italian life as seen by an outsider. Rather than serving as a guidebook, his "pictures" from Italy entertain rather than instruct. Dickens' eye for detail and...




