Paul Theroux celebrates fifty years of wandering the globe bycollecting the best writing on travel from the books that shapedhim, as a reader and a traveler. Part philosophical guide, partmiscellany, part reminiscence, The Tao of Travel enumerates “TheContents of Some Travelers’ Bags” and exposes “Writers Who Wroteabout Places They Never Visited”; tracks extreme journeys in“Travel as an Ordeal” and highlights some of “Travelers’ FavoritePlaces.” Excerpts from the best of Theroux’s own work areinterspersed with selections from travelers both familiar andunexpected: Vladimir Nabokov J.R.R. Tolkien Samuel Johnson Eudora Welty Evelyn Waugh Isak Dinesen Charles Dickens James Baldwin Henry David Thoreau Pico Iyer Mark Twain Anton Chekhov Bruce Chatwin John McPhee Freya Stark Peter Matthiessen Graham Greene Ernest Hemingway The Tao of Travel is a unique tribute to the pleasures and painsof travel in its golden age.

Discover Amsterdam Delve into the life of a great artist at the Van GoghMuseum Find the perfect brown café, secret hang-outs of Dutch drinkersfor centuries Find out how to skip the queues at the city's topattractions Spice up your visit at one of Amsterdam's Indonesianrestaurants In This Guide: Three authors, over 700 recommendations, five neighborhoodswalks, three bike tours Color Architecture chapter on the city's buildings, old andnew Comprehensive Day Trips chapter includes Leiden, Utrecht andHaarlem

Moon Spotlight Wisconsin’s Door County is a 95-pagecompact guide covering Sturgeon Bay, Lakeside, Bayside, WashingtonIsland and Rock Island. Author Thomas Huhti offers seasoned adviceon must-see attractions, and he includes maps with sightseeinghighlights so you can make the most of your time.. This lightweightguide is packed with recommendations on sights, entertainment,shopping, recreation, accommodations, food, and transportation.Helpful maps make navigating this popular vacation getawayuncomplicated and enjoyable.

The relationship between Oxford and the universtiy,or'town and gorn'as they are known colloquially,has been one of reciprocal development,and often of tension,since the beginnings of university in the early Middle Ages.The town's origins derive from Saxon times,when is was a walled enclosure with a grid layout,probably planned.The approxi-mately square shape of that enclosure,centred on Carfax,is still discern-ible in the present-day street plan.Oxford's importance was as a settlement on a north-south trade route,protected to the south,east and west by marshes and rivers-it is named after a ford through one of the rivers.After the unification of England,when Oxford ceased to be a part of the defensive system against the Danes,it became England's third largest town,London and Winchester.

…immersing yourself in the sumptuous excesses of thebaroque Schloss Sch?nbrunn. …devoting an entire afternoon to coff ee and Sachertorte ina Viennese coff eehouse. …feeling the sway of the blue Danube as you cruisedownriver. …hearing the Vienna Boys’ Choir hit the high notes in theRoyal Chapel. …sampling the latest wines from the owner’s vineyard at arustic Heuriger. …falling under the spell of Klimt’s paintings andHundertwasser’s magical architecture.

illinois,that long slice of the heartland stretching fro lake michigan fto kentucky,may be the most american place of all.its great patriot,abraham lincoln,and its great athlete,michael jordan,stand for what s best about our country. the prairie state has some of the midwest s richest farmlnd,and,by geographic luck,illinors also has the vital metropolis of chicago.the windy city took in the continent s resources and shipped them far and wide ,becoming the nation s railroad hub and later its crossroade of the air.after the dev-astating 1871fire,visionary planners and architects like daniel burnham and louis sullivan designed boulevards,gracious parks,and beaux arts buildings thet make this one of the most livable of cities. both chicago and downstate illinois have grow them,like john dere s plow; the prairie style homes of frank lloyd wright;mail-order merchandising from sears and wards;an ener-getic,all-american literture from carl sandburg,nelson algren,gwendolyn brooks,and saul bellow;and the soulf

In the entire universe, there seems to be one constant that most everyone shares: the notion of beauty. This fact is not scientific, it is not logical, and the value of this knowledge is hard to assess. But the certainty is absolute as every one of us looks into a meadow of waving flowers, gazes at the surf and the sea, or looks deep into the night sky at the stars and beyond. God's Art explores the grace, the texture and the colors of this beautiful universe, and asks a lot of questions along the way: Why isn't the universe gray instead of such a rich incredible range of colors; Why is there so much variety in all things from snowflakes to galaxies; Why are we blessed with an appreciation for all this wonder if it does not contribute to our survival? Questions are more fun than answers, and a well-phrased quandary will keep us occupied longer than a stark fact. This is a beautifully illustrated book of questions.

standing work almost from the moment of publication.Beginningwith a groundbreaking interpretation of the ori-gin and nature ofthe city Lewis Mumford follows the city's developmentfrom Egypt andMesopotamia through Greece Rome and the MiddleAges to the modernworld. Instead of accepting the destiny of the city asthetendencies to metropolitan congestion suburban sprawl andsocialdisintegration, Mumford outlines an order integratingtechnical facilitieswith biological needs and social norms. Ascompelling as it is compre-hensive Mumfords award-winning work "isfar more than the study ofurban culture through the ages. It is arevitalization of civilizations( Kirkus Reviews).

One steamy morning in the summer of i95o, Mary and Frank Littell set off for the south of France with their two young sons. After chasing their children around an ancient ocean liner, learning some harsh lessons in napkin etiquette,and suffering the revenge of a surly waiter, they arrived--finally--in the working-class town of Montpellier, where they spent one hilarious, unforgettable year. While struggling to master the French language and cuisine,Mary discovered that a child's birthday party could spell disaster in and language-and that something as seemingly simple as a mayonnaise recipe could stir up a small-scale civel war.In between bouts of la grippe,the littells tasted the pleasures of Paris make a desperate journey to Marrseilles,and took a side trip toa quaint country farmhouse-alway,in the end returning to the unique little city that both confounded and delighted them…

In 1977, Laura Bell, at loose ends after graduating fromcollege, leaves her family home in Kentucky for a wild andunexpected adventure: herding sheep in Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin.Inexorably drawn to this life of solitude and physical toil, ayoung woman in a man’s world, she is perhaps the strangest memberof this beguiling community of drunks and eccentrics. So begins herunabating search for a place to belong and for the raw materialswith which to create a home and family of her own. Yet only throughtime and distance does she acquire the wisdom that allows her tosee the love she lived through and sometimes left behind. By turns cattle rancher, forest ranger, outfitter, masseuse, wifeand mother, Bell vividly recounts her struggle to find solid earthin which to put down roots. Brimming with careful insight andwritten in a spare, radiant prose, her story is a heart-wrenchingode to the rough, enormous beauty of the Western landscape and thepeculiar sweetness of hard labor, to finding oneself even i

Inspired by an actual letter in the John F. Kennedy Librarywritten by Jackie and revealing her job offer from the newly formedCIA Young Jacqueline Bouvier's first CIA assignment was supposed tobe simple: Meet with a high-ranking Russian while he's in Paris andhelp him defect. But when the Comrade ends up dead, and Jackie-inher black satin peep-toe stiletto heels-barely escapes his killer,it's time to get some assistance. Enter Jacques Rivage, a Frenchphotographer and freelance CIA agent who seems too brash andcarefree to grapple with spies, though he's all too able to makeJackie's heart skip a beat. Together the two infiltrate 1951 high society in the City ofLights, rubbing shoulders with the likes of the Duchess of Windsor,Audrey Hepburn, and Evelyn Waugh. Jackie, no longer a pampereddebutante, draws on her quick intelligence, equestrian skills, andeven her Chanel No. 5 atomizer as a weapon to stay alive in theshadowy world of international intrigue-and to keep her date with acertain up-an

In 1912, six months after Robert Falcon Scott and four of hismen came to grief in Antarctica, a thirty-two-year-old Russiannavigator named Valerian Albanov embarked on an expedition thatwould prove even more disastrous. In search of new Arctic huntinggrounds, Albanov's ship, the Saint Anna, was frozen fast in thepack ice of the treacherous Kara Sea-a misfortune grievouslycompounded by an incompetent commander, the absence of crucialnautical charts, insufficient fuel, and inadequate provisions thatleft the crew weak and debilitated by scurvy. For nearly a year and a half, the twenty-five men and onewoman aboard the Saint Anna endured terrible hardships and dangeras the icebound ship drifted helplessly north. Convinced that theSaint Anna would never free herself from the ice, Albanov andthirteen crewmen left the ship in January 1914, hauling makeshiftsledges and kayaks behind them across the frozen sea, hoping toreach the distant coast of Franz Josef Land. With only a shockinglyinaccurate map to g

Marco Polo thought Sri Lanka was the finest island of its size in all the world - and we agree. Explore the majestic ancient cities of . Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Sigiriya. Stretch out on secluded palm-fringed beaches. Follow the glowing strings of lights on the pilgrim trail up Adam's Peak. Ride through hillside tea plantations in a rattling train. This guide gives you the inside information on Sri Lanka's richest experiences. GET THE LOWDOWN - our dedicated Snapshot, Culture and History chapters are your ticket to understanding local life . GO ON SAFARI - get up close to Sri Lanka's birds, elephants and leopards: our detailed national parks information shows you how DON'T JUST LIE THERE - we tempt you off the beach with Sri Lanka's best diving, hiking and surfing . KNOW YOUR KITUL FROM YOUR KIRI BATH - our Food & Drink chapter will help you gobble your way through the island's celebrated cuisine . FIND YOUR WAY - easy-to-read maps show you where to go .

Best-selling Tolkien expert Brian Sibley (The Lord of theRings: The Making of the Movie Trilogy and The Lord of the RingsOfficial Movie Guide) presents a slipcased collection of fourfull-color, large-format maps of Tolkien's imaginary realmillustrated by John Howe, a conceptual designer for the blockbusterfilms directed by Peter Jackson. The set includes a hardcover bookdescribing in detail the importance and evolution of geographywithin Tolkien's epic fiction and four color maps presented withminimal folds, including two (Beleriand and Numenor) never beforepublished in this country.

“oklahoma,where the wind comes sweepin down the plain!”who doesn t know the stirring lyrics to the most famous of all state songs?rodgers &hammerstein s musical captures the rambunctious frontier spirit of this state-an even more captivating place in reality. in oklahoma,the american west and the american dream come together-sometimes in one person,like will rogers,the part-cheokeejournalist and vaudevillian who became the nation s best-loved humorist.woody guthrie,our lureate of folk song,also springs from oklahoma soil,as do journalist bill moyers and apache sculptor allan houser,whose work graces the white house lawn.oklahoma helped to create the cowboy icon:on the legendary chisholm trail,in touring wild west shows ,and in the movies ,with actors roy rogers and gene auty.amerca s oil boom began her,and “black gold”built the art deco skylines of tulsa and okla-homa city.hardy survivors of the dust bowl era,oklahomans planned and built the “mother road,”route 66,and afine collection of museu

Twelve-year-old Julie has grown up hearing about the dangerous world of fairy tales, “The Wild,” from which her mother, Rapunzel, escaped. Now The Wild wants its characters back. Julie comes home from school to find her mother gone and a deep, dark forest swallowing her hometown. Julie must fight wicked witches, avoid glass slippers and fairy godmothers, fly griffins, and outwit ogres in order to rescue her mom and save her Massachusetts town from becoming a fairy-tale kingdom. Sarah Beth Durst weaves a postmodern fairy tale that’s fresh, funny, and sweetly poignant.

Experience the best of Hungary with Lonely Planet's 6thedition. Discover the quiet beauty and fascinating culture of thischarming country - relax in Art Nouveau splendour at a thermalbath, treat your palate to the excellent local wines or watchhistory unfold as you drift down the Danube. Lonely Planet guides are written by experts who get to theheart of every destination they visit. This fully updated editionis packed with accurate, practical and honest advice, designed togive you the information you need to make the most of yourtrip. In This Guide: Essential color section illustrating Hungary'shighlights Unique interviews with a potter, Klezmer band and a cyclingspecialist Activities chapter includes horse riding, hiking, caving andmore

From the author of A Venetian Affair and Lucia comes acharming odyssey in the path of the mysterious Zen brothers, whoexplored parts of the New World a century before Columbus, andbecame both a source of scandal and a cause célèbre amonggeographers in the following centuries. This delightful journey begins with Andrea di Robilant’sserendipitous discovery of a travel narrative published in Venicein 1558 by the Renaissance statesman Nicolò Zen: the text and itsfascinating nautical map re-created the travels of two of theauthor’s ancestors, brothers who explored the North Atlantic in the1380s and 1390s. Di Robilant set out to discover why later, in thenineteenth century, the Zens’ account came under attack as one ofthe greatest frauds in geographical history. Was their map—and eventheir journey—partially or perhaps entirely faked? In Irresistible North the author follows the Zens’ route from theFaeroes to Shetland to Iceland and Greenland, greeted by characterswho help unravel t

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, thecharity dedicated to eradicating poverty. Kenya is a land ofcontrasts, with famous game reserves and a vibrant culture. It alsoprovides plenty to worry a traveller like Bill Bryson, fixated ashe 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 inlength, contains the trademark Bryson stamp of wry observation andcurious insight.

Roads to Santiago is an evocative travelogue through thesights, sounds, and smells of a little known Spain-itsarchitecture, art, history, landscapes, villages, and people. Andas much as it is the story of his travels, it is an elegant anddetailed chronicle of Cees Nooteboom's thirty-five-year love affairwith his adopted second country. He presents a world not visible tothe casual tourist, by invoking the great spirits of Spain'spast-El Cid, Cervantes, Alfonso the Chaste and Alfonso the Wise,the ill-fated Hapsburgs, and Velzquez. Be it a discussion of histrip to the magnificent Prado Museum or his visit to the shrine ofthe Black Madonna of Guadalupe, Nooteboom writes with the depth andintelligence of an historian, the bravado of an adventurer, and thepassion of a poet. Reminiscent of Robert Hughes's Barcelona, Roadsto Santiago is the consummate portrait of Spain for allreaders.

The Appalachian Trail trail stretches from Georgia to Maine andcovers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America–majesticmountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you’re going to takea hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surelythe most entertaing guide you’ll find. He introduces us to thehistory and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (orjust foolhardy) folks he meets along the way–and a couple of bears.Already a classic, A Walk in the Woods will make you longfor the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit andread in).

From Fouad Ajami, an acclaimed author and chronicler of Arabpolitics, comes a compelling account of how a generation of Arabintellectuals tried to introduce cultural renewals in theirhomelands through the forces of modernity and secularism.Ultimately, they came to face disappointment, exile, and, onoccasion, death. Brilliantly weaving together the strands of atumultuous century in Arab political thought, history, and poetry,Ajami takes us from the ruins of Beirut's once glitteringmetropolis to the land of Egypt, where struggle rages between amodernist impulse and an Islamist insurgency, from Nasser'span-Arab nationalist ambitions to the emergence of an uneasy PaxAmericana in Arab lands, from the triumphalism of the Gulf War tothe continuing anguished debate over the Israeli-Palestinian peaceaccords. For anyone who seeks to understand the Middle East, here isan insider's unflinching analysis of the collision betweenintellectual life and political realities in the Arab worldtoday.