Digging for the Truth: One Man's Epic Adventure Exploring the World's Greatest Archaeological Mysteries


Josh Bernstein - 2006
    Here, he shares his personal stories, journals and insights, revealing the risks and dangers of what went on behind-the-scenes in shooting his show 'Digging For The Truth'.

The Palestine-Israeli Conflict: A Beginner's Guide


Dan Cohn-Sherbok - 2001
    The indigenous Arab population of Palestine has been systematically discriminated against since the Balfour Declaration in 1917, which created Israel for the Jews at the expense of a native population, which has been denied its own nationhood and become a dispossessed, marginalized people."THE ISRAELI PERSPECTIVE – RABBI PROFESSOR DAN COHN-SHERBOK "Over the centuries, the Jews have been exposed to hatred and violence in many of the countries where they have settled. What could be more justified than the creation of a homeland for the Jews in the land of their origins, Israel – a state where Jewish national identity can be recognized, and where the inhabitants can finally be safe from persecution?" With coverage of all the most recent events, this fully-updated edition of the essential bestselling guide to the Palestine-Israeli conflict explores the history, motivations and people behind a dispute that has been setting the Middle East ablaze for over sixty years.

The Monk of Mokha


Dave Eggers - 2018
    Mokhtar Alkhanshali is twenty-four and working as a doorman when he discovers the astonishing history of coffee and Yemen’s central place in it. He leaves San Francisco and travels deep into his ancestral homeland to tour terraced farms high in the country’s rugged mountains and meet beleagured but determined farmers. But when war engulfs the country and Saudi bombs rain down, Mokhtar has to find a way out of Yemen without sacrificing his dreams or abandoning his people.

Tahoe beneath the Surface: The Hidden Stories of America's Largest Mountain Lake


Scott Lankford - 2010
    It helped in the American conquest of California, the launch of the Republican Party, and the ignition of the western Indian wars. And along the way, Lake Tahoe even found the time to invent the ski industry, spark the sexual revolution, and win countless Academy Awards. Tahoe beneath the Surface brings this hidden history of America s largest mountain lake to life through the stories of its most celebrated residents and visitors over the last ten thousand years. It mixes local Washoe Indian legends with tales of murderous Mafia dons, and Rat Pack tunes with Steinbeck novels. It establishes Tahoe as one of America s literary hot spots by tracing the steps of more than a dozen authors including Bertrand Russell, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Michael Ondaatje. Tahoe beneath the Surface reveals how the lake transformed the lives of conservationists like John Muir, humorists like Mark Twain, and Hollywood icons like Frank Sinatra. It even touches upon some of the darker aspects of American history, including anti-Chinese racism and the Kennedy assassination. Despite the impact Lake Tahoe has had on America, environmental threats loom large, and Tahoe Blue a term that Lankford uses to encompass the whole range of life, beauty, and meaning the lake represents grows increasingly vulnerable. In Tahoe beneath the Surface, human history and natural history combine in a most engaging way, one that will both inform and inspire all who would keep Tahoe blue.

Shadow of the Silk Road


Colin Thubron - 2007
    Out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran and into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron covers some seven thousand miles in eight months. Making his way by local bus, truck, car, donkey cart and camel, he travels from the tomb of the Yellow Emperor, the mythic progenitor of the Chinese people, to the ancient port of Antioch—in perhaps the most difficult and ambitious journey he has undertaken in forty years of travel.The Silk Road is a huge network of arteries splitting and converging across the breadth of Asia. To travel it is to trace the passage not only of trade and armies but also of ideas, religions and inventions. But alongside this rich and astonishing past, Shadow of the Silk Road is also about Asia today: a continent of upheaval.One of the trademarks of Colin Thubron's travel writing is the beauty of his prose; another is his gift for talking to people and getting them to talk to him. Shadow of the Silk Road encounters Islamic countries in many forms. It is about changes in China, transformed since the Cultural Revolution. It is about false nationalisms and the world's discontented margins, where the true boundaries are not political borders but the frontiers of tribe, ethnicity, language and religion. It is a magnificent and important account of an ancient world in modern ferment.

Literary Wonderlands: A Journey Through the Greatest Fictional Worlds Ever Created


Laura MillerAbigail Nussbaum - 2016
    From Spenser's The Fairie Queene to Wells's The Time Machine to Murakami's 1Q84 it explores the timeless and captivating features of fiction's imagined worlds including the relevance of the writer's own life to the creation of the story, influential contemporary events and philosophies, and the meaning that can be extracted from the details of the work. With hundreds of pieces of original artwork, illustration and cartography, as well as a detailed overview of the plot and a "Dramatis Personae" for each work, Literary Wonderlands is a fascinating read for lovers of literature, fantasy, and science fiction.

Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment


Richard Bernstein - 2001
    Pilgrimage complete, Hsuan Tsang wrote an account of his trek that is still considered one of the classics of Chinese literature.In 1998, Richard Bernstein, venerated journalist and Time magazine’s first Beijing bureau chief, retraced the steps of Hsuan Tsang’s long and sinuous route, comparing present and past. Aided by modern technology but hampered by language barriers, harried border crossings, hostile Islamic regimes, and the accidental U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Bernstein follows the monk’s path not only in physical but in contemplative ways. Juxtaposing his own experiences with those of Hsuan Tsang, Bernstein has crafted a vivid account of two stirring adventures in pursuit of illumination. Inspiring and profoundly felt, Ultimate Journey is a marvelous amalgamation of travelogue and history, cultural critique and spiritual meditation.

The Sun & The Moon & The Rolling Stones


Rich Cohen - 2016
    Rich Cohen enters the Stones epic as a young journalist on the road with the band and quickly falls under their sway—privy to the jokes, the camaraderie, the bitchiness, the hard living. Inspired by a lifelong appreciation of the music that borders on obsession, Cohen’s chronicle of the band is informed by the rigorous views of a kid who grew up on the music and for whom the Stones will always be the greatest rock ’n’ roll band of all time.The story begins at the beginning: the fateful meeting of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on a train platform in 1961—and goes on to span decades, with a focus on the golden run—from the albums Beggars Banquet (1968) to Exile on Main Street (1972)—when the Stones were prolific and innovative and at the height of their powers. Cohen is equally as good on the low points as the highs, and he puts his finger on the moments that not only defined the Stones as gifted musicians schooled in the blues and arguably the most innovative songwriters of their generation, but as the avatars of so much in our modern culture.   In the end, though, after the drugs and the girlfriends and the rows, there is the music. The Sun & The Moon & The Rolling Stones makes you want to listen to every song in your library anew and search out the obscure gems that you’ve yet to hear. The music, together with Cohen’s fresh and galvanizing consideration of the band, will define, once and forever, why the Stones will always matter.Praise for The Sun & The Moon & The Rolling Stones“Cohen has arrived as one of the greatest social and cultural historians of postwar twentieth-century America. By gracefully blending fastidious reporting, lucid commentary, and an unabashed love for his subjects, Cohen has managed to write about gods and elevate them into human beings.”—Richard Price “This is a completely fascinating book. Rich Cohen locks into everything that’s crazy and passionate about the Rolling Stones while never losing his clear-sighted presence of mind. Funny, soulful, impeccably reported, and beautifully written, this will be the book about the Stones that will last.”—Ian Frazier “Cohen writes like Mick Jagger sings: He’s full of energy, swagger, and creativity. In one sense, this book is easy to categorize: File under ‘books that are awesome and delightful to read.’ But it’s also hard to categorize. It’s part memoir, part cultural history, part biography, part manifesto, part behind-the-scenes look at the joyful debauchery of one of the world’s greatest bands. However you label it, you’ll have a blast reading it.”—A. J. Jacobs “Cohen is one of the select few to be invited behind the curtain of the Rolling Stones’ real-life rock ’n’ roll circus, but he never loses the perspective of having once been a kid staring in awe at his brother’s poster of the band.”—Alan Light“I have no interest in the lives of rock stars. I could not put down The Sun & The Moon & The Rolling Stones. Rich Cohen was born to write this book, and he waited just long enough to do it. Reporting the hell out of a lifelong obsession, he gives us the Rolling Stones in so many dimensions they stalk off the page. The fanboy becomes a man, with judgments seasoned, supple, razor-sharp, slyly funny, and still besotted. A great story, masterfully told.”—William Finnegan

South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the 'Fram', 1910-12


Roald Amundsen - 1912
    The weather for the past few days had not been altogether reliable; now windy, now calm - now snowing, now clear: regular spring weather, in other words... With this matter of fact sentence begins one of the most famous journeys in all exploration - Amundsen's conquest of the South Pole. The details of the tragic race with Scott are well known, but often forgotten is the sheer professionalism and courage which drove the Norwegian expedition on. Unlike the driven and tortured egos which bedeviled the British expeditions, the Norwegians worked purposefully as a team using the latest technology, and Amundsen acknowledges this openly when the Pole was finally achieved. I had determined that the act of planting it [the flag] - the historic event - should be equally divided among us all. It was not for one man to do this; it was for all who had staked their lives in the struggle, and held together through thick and thin. This was the only way in which I could show my gratitude to my comrades in this desolate spot... Five weather-beaten, frostbitten fists they were that grasped the pole, raised the waving flag in the air, and planted it as the first at

The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way


Bill Bryson - 1990
    From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.

Artists, Writers, Thinkers, Dreamers: Portraits of Fifty Famous Folks All Their Weird Stuff


James Gulliver Hancock - 2014
    Artist James Gulliver Hancock depicts historical icons in quirky annotated portraits surrounded by their associated possessions, baggage, and foibles. Hemingway's hobbies, Amelia Earhart's preferred dessert, Martin Luther King Jr.'s favorite TV show—each portrait reveals the ordinary quirks of these extraordinary people and captures their personalities in the process. An exquisitely illustrated almanac and cultural literacy cheat sheet, this fun and informative collection offers both history buffs and art lovers a treasure trove of interesting facts about beloved artists, writers, thinkers, and dreamers.

Moments: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photographs: A Visual Chronicle of Our Time


Hal Buell - 1999
    More than 235 prize-winning photographs offer a year-by-year, dramatically visual chronicle of our times. Each beautifully reproduced image is accompanied by key information on how the shot was taken and the stunning story behind it, as told to author Hal Buell by the photographers. An accompanying timeline, placing each photo in its historical context, features yet another 265 photographs.This unique and moving volume is completely up to date, including the 2000-2001 winners. Recent photos include images of students fleeing Columbine High School and the striking shot of federal agents taking Elian Gonzales from the arms of his relatives at gunpoint.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families


Philip Gourevitch - 1998
    Over the next three months, 800,000 Tutsis were murdered in the most unambiguous case of genocide since Hitler's war against the Jews. Philip Gourevitch's haunting work is an anatomy of the killings in Rwanda, a vivid history of the genocide's background, and an unforgettable account of what it means to survive in its aftermath.

Two-Dimensional Man


Paul Sahre - 2017
    Sahre explores his mostly vain attempts to escape his "suburban Addams Family" upbringing and the death of his elephant-trainer brother. He also wrestles with the cosmic implications involved in operating a scanner, explains the disappearance of ice machines, analyzes a disastrous meeting with Steely Dan, and laments the typos, sunsets, and poor color choices that have shaped his work and point of view. Two-Dimensional Man portrays the designer's life as one of constant questioning, inventing, failing, dreaming, and ultimately making.

Van Halen: A Visual History, 1978-1984


Neil Zlozower - 2007
    Nobody rockedor partiedharder. Photographer Neil Zlozower first met the band in 1978, worked with them again on Van Halen II, and soon became their friend, hanging out in L.A. and hitting the road on tour with them. Van Halen collects more than 250 backstage, candid, and full rock-out photos of the all-powerful, spandexed, high-kicking, guitar blazing, stadium-shaking, original Van Halen lineup. Accompanying Zlozower's amazing photos are an introduction about his wild ride with VH, a foreword by David Lee Roth, and testimony from the rock pantheon paying homage to the band, including members of Led Zeppelin, Guns N' Roses, Def Leppard, Judas Priest, KISS, Motley Cre, and more. Turn it up!