Restless, unhappy in love, and intrigued by the Desert Fathers who forged Christian monasticism in the Egyptian desert, Will Atkins decided to travel in six of the world's driest, hottest places: the Empty Quarter of Oman, the Gobi Desert of North China, the Great Victoria Desert of Australia, the man-made desert of the Aral Sea in Kazkahstan, the Black Rock and Sonoran Deserts of the American Southwest, and the Sinai Desert of Egypt. Each of his travel narratives effortlessly weaves aspects of natural history, historical background, and present-day reportage into a compelling tapestry that reveals the human appeal of these often inhuman landscapes.

    The Hall of Uselessness forms the most complete collection yet of Leys’ fascinating essays, from Quixotism to China, from the sea to literature.Leys feuds with Christopher Hitchens, ponders the popularity of Victor Hugo and analyses the posthumous publication of Nabokov’s unfinished novel. He offers valuable insights into Mao’s Cultural Revolution and the Khmer Rouge, and discusses Orwell, Waugh and Confucius. He considers the intertwined nature of Chinese art, culture and history alongside the joys and difficulties of literary translation. The Hall of Uselessness is an illuminating compendium from a brilliant and highly acclaimed writer – a long-time resident of Australia who is truly a global citizen.

    Noting the similarity between prehistoric rock art and that created by some contemporary traditional societies, archaeologists Jean Clottes and David Lewis-Williams suggest that the ancient images were created by shamans, powerful individuals who were able to contact the spirit world through trance and ritual.

    How is it we look so condescendingly at people taking selfies in front of the Tower of Pisa? Is there really much to distinguish the package holiday from hipster city-breaks to Berlin or Brooklyn? Why do we engage our free time in an activity we profess to despise?The World in a Selfie dissects a global cultural phenomenon. For Marco D’Eramo, tourism is not just the most important industry of the century, generating huge waves of people and capital, calling forth a dedicated infrastructure, and upsetting and repurposing the architecture and topography of our cities. It also encapsulates the problem of modernity: the search for authenticity in a world of ersatz pleasures.D’Eramo retraces the grand tours of the first globetrotters—from Francis Bacon and Samuel Johnson to Arthur de Gobineau and Mark Twain—before assessing the cultural meaning of the beach holiday and the ‘UNESCO-cide’ of major heritage sites. The tourist selfie will never look the same again.

    . . a man who could never lover her, never let her go . . . .

    Yet it was also an age of constant, harrowing warfare. Armies, not philosophers, shaped the face of Europe as modern nation-states emerged from feudal society. In Furies, one of the leading scholars of Renaissance history captures the dark reality of the period in a gripping narrative mosaic. As Lauro Martines shows us, total war was no twentieth-century innovation. These conflicts spared no civilians in their path. A Renaissance army was a mobile city-indeed, a force of 20,000 or 40,000 men was larger than many cities of the day. And it was a monster, devouring food and supplies for miles around. It menaced towns and the countryside-and itself-with famine and disease, often more lethal than combat. Fighting itself was savage, its violence increased by the use of newly invented weapons, from muskets to mortars.For centuries, notes Martines, the history of this period has favored diplomacy, high politics, and military tactics. Furies puts us on the front lines of battle, and on the streets of cities under siege, to reveal what Europes wars meant to the men and women who endured them.

    He's sold his house to finance the trip, but if his hunches are right - trading Sudanese camels for Kenyan coffee, coffee for South African red wine and then off to China to buy porcelain with the proceeds - he'll return six months later with a lot of money, some new friends and a whole raft of brilliant tall tales.Conor believes that the principles of profit are universal wherever you go, whatever language you speak. Whether trading teak or bath taps, light bulbs or seafood he'll work out how to make money in every market he encounters along his route. He'll trade on his wits and instincts, going head to head with the best operators in the world's most hotly-contested markets. But will years of experience in corporate finance mean anything when haggling with Chinese officials to trade his boat-load of tobacco down the Mekong River?Part Undercover Economist, part Apprentice challenge, "The Adventure Capitalist" swaps worry about the global credit crunch for an exciting insight into the human story behind the money in our pockets: face-to-face trade between people from around the world.

    It provoked a vast number of imitations and remained steadily in print through the eighteenth century (with sporadic reprints after that). It still possesses an enormous vigor and vitality.The book owes its long life to an imagination, wit, and humor rich with insights into human nature, yet neither bitter nor namby pamby. Its commentary on the boasting, pedantry, false learning, gambling, gluttony, medical folly, adultery, greed, envy, hatred, pride and other failings that mark humanity are sharp and telling, and, sadly, as relevant today as they were 450 years ago.This translation by Professor Edwin H. Zeydel is the only accurate English translation ever published. (Barclay's version is really a pastiche written in imitation of Brant.) The form Professor Zeydel uses is verse, like the original, and he even retains the original rhyme scheme and meter. The achievement is remarkable, for it captures all the charm and movement of the original German while sacrificing nothing to readability and fluidity.Published now with the 114 original Renaissance woodcuts and with Professor Zeydel's annotations, a biography of Brant, a publishing history, and a survey of the work's influence, this will unquestionably remain the definitive edition of The Ship of Fools in English. The illustrations are part of Dover's Pictorial Archive Series and may be used by commercial artists free of charge.

    With beautiful photographs from her travels in France, Amsterdam, Belgium, Italy and Sydney, My Heart Wanders is a reflective, inspirational, tender memoir that speaks to “the wandering heart” in all of us.

    With Milan Kundera, he analyzes the mix of politics and sexuality that made him the most subversive writer in communist Czechoslovakia. With Edna O’Brien, he explores the circumstances that have forced generations of Irish writers into exile. Elsewhere Roth offers appreciative portraits of two friends—the writer Bernard Malamud and the painter Philip Guston—at the end of their careers, and gives us a masterful assessment of the work of Saul Bellow. Intimate, charming, and crackling with ideas about the interplay between imagination and the writer’s historical situation, Shop Talk is a literary symposium of the highest level, presided over by America’s foremost novelist.

    While he wasn't keen on spending excessive time with his mom, he dreamed of becoming a chef. Ultimately, it was an opportunity he couldn't pass up.On their journey, Jan and Sam live and cook with locals, seeing first-hand how globalization is changing food, families, and cultures. In southeast France, they move in with a family sheltering undocumented migrants. From Bernadette, the housekeeper, they learn classic French family fare such as blanquette de veau. In a hamlet in the heart of Italy's Slow Food country, the villagers teach them without fuss or fanfare how to make authentic spaghetti alle vongole and a proper risotto with leeks. In Shanghai, they home-cook firecracker chicken and scallion pancakes with the nouveaux riches and their migrant maids, who comprise one of the biggest demographic shift in world history. Along the way, mother and son explore their sometimes-fraught relationship, uniting -- and occasionally clashing -- over their mutual love of cooking.A memoir about family, an exploration of the globalization of food cultures, and a meditation on the complicated relationships between mothers and sons, Apron Strings is complex, unpredictable, and unexpectedly hilarious.

    The first people in history to enjoy safe and easy travel, Romans embarked on the original Grand Tour, journeying from the lost city of Troy to the Acropolis, from the Colossus at Rhodes to Egypt, for the obligatory Nile cruise to the very edge of the empire. And, as Tony Perrottet discovers, the popularity of this route has only increased with time.Intrigued by the possibility of re-creating the tour, Perrottet, accompanied by his pregnant girlfriend, sets off to discover life as an ancient Roman. The result is this lively blend of fascinating historical anecdotes and hilarious personal encounters, interspersed with irreverent and often eerily prescient quotes from the ancients—a vivid portrait of the Roman Empire in all its complexity and wonder.

    The destination: Jerusalem, city of gold. For more than eight years, Severin followed the historic trail, riding through northern Europe's green countryside and into the heat of the Near East. In the process, he covered more than 2,500 miles by horse, past ruined Crusader settlements and ancient battlefields, over arduous mountain passes, and across Anatolian steppes. A dazzling synthesis of adventure, practical history, and exploration, told by one of our finest and most respected travel writers--illustrated with his own photographs.

    From the warriors who nearly defeated Julius Caesar to druids who, contrary to popular opinion, definitely did not worship at Stonehenge, get to know the real Celts.In The Celtic World, discover the incredible story of the Celtic-speaking peoples, whose art, language, and culture once spread from Ireland to Austria. This series of 24 enlightening lectures explains the traditional historical view of who the Celts were, then contrasts it with brand-new evidence from DNA analysis and archeology that totally changes our perspective on where the Celts came from. European history and culture have been profoundly affected by the Celts, from the myth of King Arthur to the very map of the United Kingdom, where the English confronted the peoples of the "Celtic Fringe."Listening Length: 12 hours and 52 minutes

    So, too, did General Charles de Gaulle, the self- appointed representative of free France. As the only European democracy still holding out against Hitler, Britain became known to occupied countries as ‘Last Hope Island’. In this epic, character-driven narrative, acclaimed historian and New York Times–bestselling author Lynne Olson takes us back to those perilous days when the British and their European guests joined forces to combat the mightiest military force in history and restore order to a broken continent.