Written for Americans, but equally amusing to anyone visiting the shores of the Great Southern Land, this book examines the relationship between Australia and the U.S., including how Australians view their American cousins. The author has plenty of experience of working and dealing with Americans. He is married to an American nurse and has lived his life within the massive cultural influence that America has shared with Australia since the Second World War. The author’s stories are brimming with empathy and jokes for his American audience. The book is written from the opinion of an Aussie Bloke and the easy-to-digest chapters are just long enough to leave the reader smiling and well informed.Topics include Blokes and Sheilas, Bloody Foster’s, Dangerous Creatures, Talking to Dogs, The GAFA, Speaking Strail-yun and Working for the Queen. Confused? You won’t be after reading this book!

    When Sara was only five years old, her violent father began to sexually abuse her. She suffered in silence for many years, as her father took advantage of her innocence and her mother turned a blind eye to the horrors that were taking place in her own home. It was only when Sara found the courage to tell her mother what had happened that the truth about the trauma and abuse she had suffered came out. In an attempt to rebuild her life, as a teenager, Sara became a model but even this choice was to lead to more misery when she discovered that the agency had been drugging and abusing her. Despite the horrors that Sara has endured, she has survived and, partly by telling her story, has overcome the past to re-build her life.

    At first unable to run 400 metres without stopping, Laura has now completed five marathons, the most recent in under four hours. Along the way, Laura learns countless lessons about running, most of them the hard way. But most importantly this self-confessed couch potato learns to love running. As well as offering inspiration and motivation to get out there and run, her book offers tips on how to make running easier and more enjoyable. Offering practical information on buying the right kit, choosing the best race and what to do on race day, it also tackles the important running questions you might be embarrassed to ask – like when will it get easier? And what happens if I need the toilet?

    Paris, My Sweet is a personal and moveable feast that’s a treasure map for anyone who loves fresh cupcakes and fine chocolate, New York and Paris, and life in general. It’s about how the search for happiness can be as fleeting as a sliver of cheesecake and about how the life you’re meant to live doesn’t always taste like the one you envisioned. Organized into a baker’s dozen of delicacies (and the adventures they inspired) that will tempt readers’ appetites, Paris, My Sweet is something to savor.

    Both tremendous soups, and magnificent meat and fish dishes, and airy pastries, and sweet desserts - everything you won't list it. Ne you want to spend a great lot of time and at the same time always to please the relatives with a tasty and nourishing lunch? Then these recipes - the fact that it is necessary for you. Extremely tasty dishes which will bring you and guests incomparable culinary pleasure.

    The unmarried, and childless Briggs is the object of mirth and pity of the Sinhalese,she journeys around the Teardrop Island, inadvisably for her, but entertainingly for us on public transport. With the civil war recently ended and the effects of the devastating tsunami as ever present context Briggs entertains and educates. Her hapless inability to select decent guides or drivers results in her taking us vicariously to places we would never reach otherwise.Not to be read if your offspring are contemplating a gap year in Ceylon.

    Revolinski relates in candid style his encounters in a foreign culture, all told with an open mind and a sense of humor. An enjoyable read for anyone who has spent time in Turkey or who plans to do so.

    The joys and travails of building a home in Baja California.

    It was walking that first caused rifts between us in my sulky teenage years, and walking that brought us back together later on; and this ‘ghost’ of Dad has been walking at my elbow since his death, as I have ruminated on his great love of walking, his prodigious need to do it – and how and why I walk myself.”The January Man is set over one calendar year as, month by month, region by region, Christopher Somerville walks the routes that remind him of his father. As he travels the country – from the River Severn to the Lake District, the Norfolk Coast to the Isle of Foula off the west coast of Shetland – he describes the history, wildlife, landscapes and people he passes, down back lanes and old paths, in rain and fair-weather.This exquisitely written account of the British countryside both inspires us to don our boots and explore the 140,000 miles of footpaths across the British Isles, but also illustrates how, on long-distance walks, we can come to an understanding of ourselves and our fellow walkers. Over the hills and along they by-ways, Christopher Somerville finally finds the man behind his father’s modest, buttoned-up, wartime facade.

    That was until her sister hired an au pair from a rural part of the island who said it was the most beautiful place on earth. On a visit, Anna impulsively decided to buy a ruined farmhouse. Despite her fear of flying, she kept a foot in both camps and commuted to Central London to manage her PR company. But she found herself drawn away from the bustle, stress, and the superficial media world towards the tranquil life. She soon realized that her new existence was more enriching and fulfilling. She was learning to live life for its moments rather than race through it in the fast lane. A Lizard in My Luggage explores Mallorca's fiestas and traditions, as well as the ups and downs of living in a rural retreat. It is about learning to appreciate the simple things and take risks in pursuit of real happiness. Most importantly, it shows that life can be lived between two places.

    In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State — and she would do it alone.Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

    Maarten Troost has charmed legions of readers with his laugh-out-loud tales of wandering the remote islands of the South Pacific. When the travel bug hit again, he decided to go big-time, taking on the world’s most populous and intriguing nation. In Lost on Planet China, Troost escorts readers on a rollicking journey through the new beating heart of the modern world, from the megalopolises of Beijing and Shanghai to the Gobi Desert and the hinterlands of Tibet. Lost on Planet China finds Troost dodging deadly drivers in Shanghai; eating Yak in Tibet; deciphering restaurant menus (offering local favorites such as Cattle Penis with Garlic); visiting with Chairman Mao (still dead, very orange); and hiking (with 80,000 other people) up Tai Shan, China’s most revered mountain. But in addition to his trademark gonzo adventures, the book also delivers a telling look at a vast and complex country on the brink of transformation that will soon shape the way we all work, live, and think. As Troost shows, while we may be familiar with Yao Ming or dim sum or the cheap, plastic products that line the shelves of every store, the real China remains a world—indeed, a planet--unto itself. Maarten Troost brings China to life as you’ve never seen it before, and his insightful, rip-roaringly funny narrative proves that once again he is one of the most entertaining and insightful armchair travel companions around.

    Refusing to cave in to society's rules, Eleanor's exuberant style, wavering voice and lack of Hollywood beauty are fodder for the media.First Lady for thirteen years, Eleanor redefines and exploits this role to a position ofpower. Using her influence she champions for Jews, African Americans and women. Living through two world wars Eleanor witnesses thousands of graves, broken bodies and grieving families. After visiting troops in the Pacific she says:"If we don't make this a more decent world to live in I don't see how we can look these boys in the eyes."She defies a post-war return to status quo and establishes the Universal Declarationof Human Rights within the U.N. She earns her way to being named "First Lady of the World." The audacity of this woman to live out her own destiny challenges us to do the same. After all, it's not about Eleanor. Her story is history.  It's about us.

    Armed only with a twelfth-century handbook to the route and expert advice on donkey management from Robert Louis Stevenson, Moore and his four-legged companion travel the ancient five-hundred-mile route from St. Jean Pied-de-Port, on the French side of the Pyrenees, to the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela which houses the remains of Spain's patron saint, St. James.Over sun-scorched highways, precipitous bridges, dirt paths shaded by leafy trees, and vineyards occasionally lashed by downpours, Moore and Shinto pass through some of northern Spain's oldest towns and cities in colorful company. Clearly more interested in Shinto than in Moore, their fellow walkers are an assortment of devout Christian pilgrims, New Age--spirituality seekers aspiring to be the next Shirley Maclaine, Baby Boomers contemplating middle age, and John Q Public just out for a cheap, boozy sun-drenched outdoor holiday.As Moore pushes, pulls, wheedles, cajoles, and threatens Shinto across Spain, the duo overnights in the bedrooms, dormitories, and---for Shinto---grassy fields of northern Spain. Shinto, a donkey with a finely honed talent for relieving himself at the most inopportune moments, has better luck in the search for his next meal than Moore does in finding his inner pilgrim. Undaunted, however, Man and Beast finally arrive at the cathedral and a successful end to their journey. For readers who delighted in his earlier books, Travels With my Donkey is the next hilarious chapter in the travels of Tim Moore, a book that keeps the bones of St. James rattling to this day.

    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.