On a winter morning in 1761 six men leave Copenhagen by sea--a botanist, a philologist, an astronomer, a doctor, an artist, and their manservant--an ill-assorted band of men who dislike and distrust one another from the start. These are the members of the first Danish expedition to Arabia Felix, as Yemen was then known, the first organized foray into a corner of the world unknown to Europeans, an enterprise that had the support of the Danish Crown and was keenly followed throughout Europe. The expedition made its way to Turkey and Egypt, by which time its members were already actively seeking to undercut and even kill one another, before disappearing into the harsh desert that was their destination. Nearly seven years later a single survivor returned to Denmark to find himself a forgotten man and all the specimens that had been sent back ruined by neglect. Based on diaries, notebooks, and sketches that lay unread in Danish archives until the twentieth century, Arabia Felix is both a comedy of intellectual rivalry and very bad manners and an utterly absorbing tale of high adventure."

    Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.

    Illustrator Miroslav Sasek captures both the breathtaking landscape and the cosmopolitan flavor of the City by the Bay in This is San Francisco. First published in 1962, Sasek's jaunty, colorful illustrations will still dazzle kids and adults alike.

    In The Blue Nile, Alan Moorehead continues the classic, thrilling narration of adventure he began in The White Nile, depicting this exotic place through the lives of four explorers so daring they can be considered among the world's original adventurers -- each acting and reacting in separate expeditions against a bewildering background of slavery and massacre, political upheaval and all-out war.

    It is the name once given to northern Greece—stretching from the Bosporus to the Adriatic and from Macedonia to the Gulf of Corinth, a name that evokes a world where the present is inseparably bound up with the past.Roumeli describes Patrick Leigh Fermor’s wanderings in and around this mysterious and yet very real region. He takes us with him among Sarakatsan shepherds, to the monasteries of Meteora and the villages of Krakora, and on a mission to track down a pair of Byron’s slippers at Missolonghi. As he does, he brings to light the inherent conflicts of the Greek inheritance—the tenuous links to the classical and Byzantine heritage, the legacy of Ottoman domination—along with an underlying, even older world, traces of which Leigh Fermor finds in the hills and mountains and along stretches of barely explored coast.Roumeli is a companion volume to Patrick Leigh Fermor’s famous Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese.

    This seething jungle was the site of one of the highest civilizations ever achieved by humanity. The Mayan Indians have ruled the jungle there for 3700 years. Those Mayas still living in the jungle today preserve the physical type but have almost no memory of their vanished splendor. With colossal innocence & no food or gun (he even loses his shoes & knife), he staggers down 250 miles of Mosquito Coast discovering town after lost town which archaeologists had missed from their planes & boats. The largest town he investigates turns out to be an enormous architectural complex almost a mile square, which he describes at thrilling length. He relates his nearly constant fright with much wit & irony. Highly recommended.--Kirkus (edited)

    The vibrant illustrations have been preserved, remaining true to his vision, and where applicable facts have been updated, appearing on a "This is...Today" page at the back of each book. The charming illustrations, coupled with Sasek’s witty, playful narrative, make for perfect souvenirs that will delight both children and their parents, many of whom will remember them from their own childhood. This is Britain, first published in 1974, encompasses the nation’s many facets, from the mystery of Stonehenge to the monuments of the British Isles. Among his stops are the White Cliffs of Dover; Brighton’s Prince Regent’s Royal Pavilion; the castles and Tintern Abbey in Wales; and Scotland’s four Royal Palaces and long lochs. This is Israel, first published in 1962, visits the Promised Land, a sun-drenched panorama of many hues and many traditions. From the Sea of Galilee to the Red Sea (it’s really blue); from modern Tel Aviv to Jerusalem new and old; from Mt. Zion to King Solomon’s mines; Sasek presents the biblical glory of its past and the golden hope of its future.

    Describes the mansion's history, its architectural significance, and its contents.

    Past and Present combine to offer a unique and evocative vision.

    The story of the Himalayan Scientific and Mountaineering Expedition 1960-61.Desmond Doig, the Expeditions's press correspondent and expert linguist, tells of the search for the elusive Yeti - the Abominable Snowman of Sherpa legend - and of all that was learned if the lives, customs, and mythology of the Sherpa people.Sir Edmund Hillary, the Expedition Leader, relates how they built a prefabricated laboratory, the Silver Hut, at 19,000 feet, where nine doctors, physiologists and climbers spent the winter under the leadership of Dr Griffith Pugh; how group of climbers from the wintering party, led by Dr Michael Ward, reached the summit of the 'unclimbable' Amadablam; how the Expedition, joined by a party of fresh climbers, moved over three 20,000 foot passes to Mt Makalu for the attempt of the summit.

    They were doing all right at it, too, until she came along. She was a famous news photographer, and when she'd written asking to cover their latest safari she'd signed herself A.M. D'Allesandro. Naturally they'd assumed she was a man. So when she turned up looking like she was off for a fashionable Roman cocktail party, it looked like trouble. It was, too, but not the kind that any of them had anticipated.

    

    Chance provides a solution in the shape of a Spanish friend who tells him of a river in Venezuela, called by the Indian Liparu, where diamonds are to be found.The story of the resulting trek through the jungle, his growing friendship with the completely uncivilised Indians, and his search for and discovery of rich deposits of diamonds has the eternal fascination of all such adventures in search of fortune. But there is much more to it than that. There is the idyllic love affair with Lolomai, a beautiful Indian girl, who becomes the author's "child-bride" and who dies tragically. And offsetting the pathos of this disaster are many pages of high comedy. There is, for instance, the description of the astonishing effect of a potent aphrodisiac, locally brewed to a recipe which the author thoughtfully provides, on even the most decrepit and ancient Indians, as well as on the author himself.