Pictures from the Water Trade: The Extraodinarily Evocative, at Times Erotic, Story of a Westerner's Discovery of Japan


John David Morley - 1985
    Now recognized as a classic work, this incisive portrait of Japanese society investigates a nation whose deeper proclivities remain veiled behind cliches cherished in the West.

Dancing With Cuba


Alma Guillermoprieto - 2004
    For six months, she worked in mirrorless studios (it was considered more revolutionary); her poorly trained but ardent students worked without them but dreamt of greatness. Yet in the midst of chronic shortages and revolutionary upheaval, Guillermoprieto found in Cuba a people whose sense of purpose touched her forever. In this electrifying memoir, Guillermoprieto–now an award-winning journalist and arguably one of our finest writers on Latin America– resurrects a time when dancers and revolutionaries seemed to occupy the same historical stage and even a floor exercise could be a profoundly political act. Exuberant and elegiac, tender and unsparing, Dancing with Cuba is a triumph of memory and feeling.

Lonely Planet Bali & Lombok


Lonely Planet - 2015
    Stand amongst the clouds on Gunung Rinjani, party all-night in Kuta, or experience the Gili Islands' phenomenal diving scene; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Bali & Lombok and begin your journey now! Inside Lonely Planet Bali & Lombok Travel Guide: Colour maps and images throughout Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - art, architecture, beaches, festivals, cuisine, water sports and outdoor adventures, history, dance, music, painting, environment, politics Over 50 maps Covers Kuta & Seminyak, Gili Islands, Lombok, North Bali, West Bali, Central Mountains, Ubud, East Bali, South Bali and more eBook Features: (Best viewed on tablet devices and smartphones) Downloadable PDF and offline maps prevent roaming and data charges Effortlessly navigate and jump between maps and reviews Add notes to personalise your guidebook experience Seamlessly flip between pages Bookmarks and speedy search capabilities get you to key pages in a flash Embedded links to recommendations' websites Zoom-in maps and images Inbuilt dictionary for quick referencing The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet Bali & Lombok, our most comprehensive guide to Bali & Lombok, is perfect for both exploring top sights and taking roads less travelled. Looking for more coverage? Check out Lonely Planet Indonesia guide for a comprehensive look at what the whole country has to offer. Looking for a guide focused only on Bali? Check out Lonely Planet Pocket Bali, a handy-sized guide focused on the can't-miss sights for a quick trip. Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet. About Lonely Planet: Since 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel media company with guidebooks to every destination, an award-winning website, mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travellers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves.

Riding with the Blue Moth


Bill Hancock - 2005
    Bicycling was simply the method by which he chose to distract himself from his grief. But for Hancock, the 2,747-mile journey from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast became more than just a distraction. It became a pilgrimage, even if Hancock didn't realize it upon dipping his rear tire in the Pacific Ocean near Huntington Beach, California in the wee hours of a July morning. On his two-wheel trip, Hancock battled searing heat and humidity, curious dogs, unforgiving motorists and the occasional speed bump--usually a dead armadillo. Hancock's thoughts returned to common themes: memories of his son Will, the prospect of life without Will for him and his wife, and the blue moth of grief and depression.

An Island to Oneself: The Story of Six Years on a Desert Island


Tom Neale - 1966
    For years while storekeeping in the South Pacific, he planned, read and talked until the great day when he was landed on his little kingdom, aware of (but undismayed by) the fact that he would have to struggle with the full strength of body and mind to survive. Neale's gripping account of his years spent alone on Suvarov is an unforgettable tale of peril, beauty, and solitude.

I Grew My Boobs in China


Savannah Grace - 2012
    The first installment, I Grew my Boobs in China, is the beginning of an intensely fascinating, sobering, and emotional memoir of Savannah’s introspective and innovative family adventure.In 2005, 14-year-old Savannah Grace’s world is shattered when her mother unexpectedly announces that she and her family (mother, 45; brother, 25; sister, 17) would soon embark on an incredible, open-ended journey. When everything from her pets to the house she lived in is either sold, given away or put in storage, this naïve teenage girl runs headlong into the reality and hardships of a life on the road.Built around a startling backdrop of over eighty countries (I Grew my Boobs in China relates the family’s adventures in China and Mongolia), this is a tale of feminine maturation – of Savannah’s metamorphosis from ingénue to woman-of-the-world. Nibbling roasted duck tongues in China and being stranded in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert are just two experiences that contribute to Savannah’s exploration of new cultures and to the process of adapting to the world around her.

On Tuesdays I'm a Buddhist: Expeditions in an in-between world where therapy ends and stories begin


Michael Harding - 2017
    All of a sudden, he found himself falling back into the old religious devotions of an earlier time. The meaning he had found through years of engagement with therapy began to dissolve. Here, in On Tuesdays I'm a Buddhist, Harding examines the search for meaning in life which keeps him fastened to the idea of god. After many therapy sessions focused on an effort to uncover personal truth, and long solitary months on the road with a one man show, Harding is finally led to an artists' retreat in the shadow of Skellig Michael.Mixing stories from the road with dispatches from his Irish Times columns, On Tuesdays I'm a Buddhist is a spell-binding and powerful book about the human condition, the narratives we weave around the self, and the ultimate bliss of living in the present moment. 'What happens between one story and the next? That's the really interesting part. That's the space where we find bliss; where we float sometimes, suspended, and only for a brief moment. Perhaps only for a few scarce moments in an entire life.'

Two Under the Indian Sun


Jon Godden - 1966
    They had spent a year in London being "brought up" by austere aunts, but now the zeppelins were expected, and so they were summoned back to their home in East Bengal. Jon was only seven and a half and Rumer six."Two Under the Indian Sun", a unique collaboration, is a remembrance of the five years that followed, in the village of Narayangunj--where their father worked as a steamship agent--on a bustling river that feeds the great Brahmaputra. It is an evocation of a few years that will always be timeless for these two, and it is as true an account as memory can accomplish. India, for them, was sun-baked dust between their toes, colored robes in the market place, the chanting of coolies, the deep hoot of steamers on the river, and the smells of thorn trees, mustard, and coconut oil: smells redolent of the sun.India was also people, people of every kind, each different from the other and bringing a trail of other differences, of place, custom, religion, even of skin. It was not an ordinary life for young girls, and later they agreed that it might have been better had they been raised in the simplicity of their Quaker forbears. "Better," Jon was to say, "but not nearly as interesting."Above all, those five years were "a time when everything was clear: each thing was itself: joy was joy, hope was hope, fear and sorrow were fear and sorrow." Jon and Rumer have written of that time with a single voice, perhaps because during those years the two sisters grew so close that "between them was a passing of thought, of feeling, of knowing without any need for words."[From the front inside jacket.]

Going Back to Bisbee


Richard Shelton - 1992
    Richard Shelton first came to southeastern Arizona in the 1950s as a soldier stationed at Fort Huachuca. He soon fell in love with the region and upon his discharge found a job as a schoolteacher in nearby Bisbee. Now a university professor and respected poet living in Tucson, still in love with the Southwestern deserts, Shelton sets off for Bisbee on a not-uncommon day trip. Along the way, he reflects on the history of the area, on the beauty of the landscape, and on his own life. Couched within the narrative of his journey are passages revealing Shelton's deep familiarity with the region's natural and human history. Whether conveying the mystique of tarantulas or describing the mountain-studded topography, he brings a poet's eye to this seemingly desolate country. His observations on human habitation touch on Tombstone, "the town too tough to die," on ghost towns that perhaps weren't as tough, and on Bisbee itself, a once prosperous mining town now an outpost for the arts and a destination for tourists. What he finds there is both a broad view of his past and a glimpse of that city's possible future.Going Back to Bisbee explores a part of America with which many readers may not be familiar. A rich store of information embedded in splendid prose, it shows that there are more than miles on the road to Bisbee.

My Life as an Indian: The Story of a Red Woman and a White Man in the Lodges of the Blackfeet (1907)


James Willard Schultz - 1905
    Includes detailed accounts of religious ceremonies and customs, child-rearing, food preparation, tanning buffalo hides, war parties, raids, and much else. Of great interest to ethnologists and students of Native American history. First published in 1907, My Life as an Indian is the memoir of J. W. Schultz’s life as a young white man among the Piegan Blackfeet in the Montana Territory. Out of curiosity and in search of adventure, Schultz went west and became a trapper and trader. He was inspired by the journals of Lewis and Clark and George Catlin’s Oregon Trail, but found a wholly different source of inspiration when he met the Blackfeet and quickly settled into their lifestyle, even taking a Blackfoot woman for his wife and riding along with the men on buffalo hunts and wars with neighboring tribes.ContentsI Fort Benton II The Ruse Of A Savage Lover III The Tragedy Of The Marias IV A War Trip For Horses V Days With The Game VI The Story Of The Crow Woman VII A White Buffalo VIII A Winter On The Marias IX I Have A Lodge Of My Own X The Killing Of A Bear XI The Kutenai's Story XII The Great Race XIII The Snake Woman XIV The Snake Woman's Quest XV I Return To My People XVI The Story Of Rising Wolf XVII A Friendly Visit From The Crows XVIII A Raid By The Crows XIX Nat-ah-ki's Wedding XX THE Attack On The Hunters XXI Never-laughs Goes East . XXII The War Trip Of Queer Person XXIII The Piegans Move In XXIV A Wolverine's Medicine XXV Little Deer's End XXVI The Ways Of The Northland XXVII The Story Of Ancient SleeperXXVIII Diana's Marriage XXIX A Game Of Fate XXX Trade, Hunt And War Party XXXI Nat-ah'-ki's Ride XXXII Curbing The WanderersXXXIII Crees And Red Rivers XXXIV The Last Of The Buffalo XXXV The " Winter Of Death " XXXVI The " Black Robe's Help" XXXVII Later Years This book published in 1907 has been reformatted for the Kindle and may contain an occasional defect from the original publication or from the reformatting.

Voyage of the Liberdade


Joshua Slocum - 1994
    A 19th-century maritime classic brimming with courage, ingenuity, and daring.

To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan


Nicholas Schmidle - 2009
    With the intimacy and good humor available only to the most fearless and open-eyed reporters, Schmidle narrates what was arguably the most turbulent period of Pakistan’s recent history, a time when President Pervez Musharraf lost his power and the Taliban found theirs, and when Americans began to realize that Pakistan’s fate is inextricably linked with our own.In February 2006 Schmidle had traveled to Pakistan hoping to learn about the place dubbed “the most dangerous country in the world.” It was while there that he befriended a radical cleric (who became an enemy of the state and was killed), came to crave the smell of tear gas (because it assured him that he was sufficiently close to the action), and in the end, was deported by the Pakistani authorities, managed to get back into the country, and was chased out a second time.

On the Water: Discovering America in a Row Boat


Nathaniel Stone - 2002
    The hull glides in silence and with such perfect balance as to report no motion. I sit up for another stroke, now looking down as the blades ignite swirling pairs of white constellations of phosphorescent plankton. Two opposing heavens. ‘Remember this,’ I think to myself.”Few people have ever considered the eastern United States to be an island, but when Nat Stone began tracing waterways in his new atlas at the age of ten he discovered that if one had a boat it was possible to use a combination of waterways to travel up the Hudson River, west across the barge canals and the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, and back up the eastern seaboard. Years later, still fascinated by the idea of the island, Stone read a biography of Howard Blackburn, a nineteenth-century Gloucester fisherman who had attempted to sail the same route a century before. Stone decided he would row rather than sail, and in April 1999 he launched a scull beneath the Brooklyn Bridge to see how far he could get. After ten months and some six thousand miles he arrived back at the Brooklyn Bridge, and continued rowing on to Eastport, Maine. Retracing Stone’s extraordinary voyage, On the Water is a marvelous portrait of the vibrant cultures inhabiting American shores and the magic of a traveler’s chance encounters. From Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where a rower at the local boathouse bequeaths him a pair of fabled oars, to Vanceburg, Kentucky, where he spends a day fishing with Ed Taylor -- a man whose efficient simplicity recalls The Old Man and the Sea -- Stone makes his way, stroke by stroke, chatting with tugboat operators and sleeping in his boat under the stars. He listens to the live strains of Dwight Yoakum on the banks of the Ohio while the world’s largest Superman statue guards the nearby town square, and winds his way through the Louisiana bayous, where he befriends Scoober, an old man who reminds him that the happiest people are those who’ve “got nothin’.” He briefly adopts a rowing companion -- a kitten -- along the west coast of Florida, and finds himself stuck in the tidal mudflats of Georgia. Along the way, he flavors his narrative with local history and lore and records the evolution of what started out as an adventure but became a lifestyle. An extraordinary literary debut in the lyrical, timeless style of William Least Heat-Moon and Henry David Thoreau, On the Water is a mariner’s tribute to childhood dreams, solitary journeys, and the transformative powers of America’s rivers, lakes, and coastlines.From the Hardcover edition.

An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church's Strangest Relic in Italy's Oddest Town


David Farley - 2009
    In December 1983, a priest in the Italian hill town of Calcata shared shocking news with his congregation: The pride of their town, the foreskin of Jesus, had been stolen. Some postulated that it had been stolen by Satanists. Some said the priest himself was to blame. Some even pointed their fingers at the Vatican. In 2006, travel writer David Farley moved to Calcata, determined to find the missing foreskin, or at least find out the truth behind its disappearance. Farley recounts how the relic passed from Charlemagne to the papacy to a marauding sixteenth-century German solider before finally ending up in Calcata, where miracles occurred that made the sleepy town a major pilgrimage destination. Over the centuries, as Catholic theology evolved, the relic came to be viewed as something of an embarrassment, culminating in a 1900 Church decree that allowed the parish to display it only on New Year’s Day. An Irreverent Curiosity interweaves this history with the curious landscape of Calcata, a beautiful and untouched medieval village set atop four-hundred-fifty-foot cliffs, which now, due to the inscrutable machinations of Italian bureaucracy, is a veritable counterculture coven. Blending history, travel, and perhaps the oddest story in Christian lore, An Irreverent Curiosity is a weird and wonderful tale of conspiracy and misadventure.Winner of the 2010 Lowell Thomas Tavel Journalism Award for best book. Listed: "One of the Best Travel Books of 2009"--The Los Angeles Times--WorldHum.com"One of the Best Books of the Decade"--The Dubuque Telegraph Herald"[Farley's] ribald detective story ... is like a cross between 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'Life of Brian' ... [a] charming yarn."--The New York Times"Told with gusto, good humor, and a healthy respect for eccentricity, Farley's quixotic account is an eloquent testament to the power of travel--and travail--to entertain and illuminate."--National Geographic Traveler "Genre bending at its best." --Kirkus Reviews (Starred review)

The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest


Mark Synnott - 2021
    a riveting adventure."--OutsideShivering, exhausted, gasping for oxygen, beyond doubt . . . A hundred-year mystery lured veteran climber Mark Synnott into an unlikely expedition up Mount Everest during the spring 2019 season that came to be known as "the Year Everest Broke." What he found was a gripping human story of impassioned characters from around the globe and a mountain that will consume your soul--and your life--if you let it.The mystery? On June 8, 1924, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine set out to stand on the roof of the world, where no one had stood before. They were last seen eight hundred feet shy of Everest's summit still "going strong" for the top. Could they have succeeded decades before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay? Irvine is believed to have carried a Kodak camera with him to record their attempt, but it, along with his body, had never been found. Did the frozen film in that camera have a photograph of Mallory and Irvine on the summit before they disappeared into the clouds, never to be seen again? Kodak says the film might still be viable. . . .Mark Synnott made his own ascent up the infamous North Face along with his friend Renan Ozturk, a filmmaker using drones higher than any had previously flown. Readers witness first-hand how Synnott's quest led him from oxygen-deprivation training to archives and museums in England, to Kathmandu, the Tibetan high plateau, and up the North Face into a massive storm. The infamous traffic jams of climbers at the very summit immediately resulted in tragic deaths. Sherpas revolted. Chinese officials turned on Synnott's team. An Indian woman miraculously crawled her way to frostbitten survival. Synnott himself went off the safety rope--one slip and no one would have been able to save him--committed to solving the mystery.Eleven climbers died on Everest that season, all of them mesmerized by an irresistible magic. The Third Pole is a rapidly accelerating ride to the limitless joy and horror of human obsession.