Rick Steves Snapshot Naples & the Amalfi Coast: Including Pompeii


Rick Steves - 2009
    In this compact guide, Rick Steves covers the essentials of Naples and the Amalfi Coast, including Pompeii, Vesuvius, Positano, and Amalfi Town. Visit Naples' Archaeological Museum, the Pompeii Forum, or the cathedrals and beaches of the Amalfi coast. You'll get Rick's firsthand advice on the best sights, eating, sleeping, and nightlife, and the maps and self-guided tours will ensure you make the most of your experience. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves Snapshot guide is a tour guide in your pocket.Rick Steves Snapshot guides consist of excerpted chapters from Rick Steves European country guidebooks. Snapshot guides are a great choice for travelers visiting a specific city or region, rather than multiple European destinations. These slim guides offer all of Rick's up-to-date advice on what sights are worth your time and money. They include good-value hotel and restaurant recommendations, with no introductory information (such as overall trip planning, when to go, and travel practicalities).

Center of Attention: A True Crime Memoir


Jami D. Brown Martin - 2020
    The photo looks completely out of place on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list where it’s been since December, 8, 2007. For eight of those years, Jason appeared directly beside Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden is long gone, but Jason is still wanted for armed robbery and murder.For years, his sister, Jami D. Brown Martin has watched the true crime programs and read the amateur investigative blogs devoted to Jason, his crime, and the efforts to apprehend him knowing the story wasn’t as simple, nor was it just Jason’s. To be the sister, brother, or relative of one of the world’s most wanted men is to live every day with the horrible truth and many consequences of his brutal act.CENTER OF ATTENTION is the story of a former Mormon missionary turned murderer. It is also a riveting look behind the facade of the genetically blessed, seemingly prominent and pious Brown family of Laguna Beach, California. It is a tale of the family patriarch, John Brown, who disappeared without a trace ten years before his son. More important, it is the gripping and ultimately hopeful story of the sister of one of the world’s most wanted fugitives and her journey to accept that despite being a product of the same crazy environment as her brother, her life and path are her own.

Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings from the Road


Willie Nelson - 2012
    Willie riffs on everything: music, wives, Texas, politics, horses, religion, marijuana, children, the environment, poker, hogs, Nashville, karma, and more. He shares the outlaw wisdom he has acquired over eight decades, along with favorite jokes and insights from friends and others close to him. Rare family pictures, beautiful artwork created by his son Micah Nelson, and lyrics to classic songs punctuate these charming and poignant memories. Willie Nelson has touched millions, and none more deeply than his family, friends, and bandmates, several of whom share, for the first time, intimate stories about the Red Headed Stranger.From teaching a granddaughter to play the guitar to touring with the Highwaymen, from picking cotton while growing up in Texas to being home with the tribe on Maui, Willie takes you on the tour bus and, through candid observations and vivid recollections, gives you a front-row seat to his remarkable world. But beware: "You know you shouldn't be reading this BS, it could ruin you for all time to come," he says. "You could end up a social outcast like me, an outlaw!"At once a road journal written in his inimitable, homespun voice and a fitting tribute to America's greatest traveling bard, Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die—introduced by Kinky Friedman, another favorite son of Texas—is a deeply personal look into the heart and soul of a unique man and one of the greatest artists of our time, a songwriter and performer whose legacy will endure for generations to come.

Dead Reckoning: Navigating a Life on the Last Frontier, Courting Tragedy on Its High Seas


Dave Atcheson - 2014
    It’s a story of a world peopled by those who often live on the frayed edges of society, who shun the world in which most people thrive. It’s a story in which college students and “fish hippies” work in canneries alongside survivalists, rednecks, religious freaks, and deckhands with damning secrets in dangerous waters, driven by the need to feed an insatiable appetite for adventure.This is the heart of the world Atcheson found himself in at the age of eighteen. Having never even seen the ocean, he took his first job on the Lancer with Darwin Wood, a man so confounding, so complex and so frightening, that it’s hard to believe Atcheson walked away from that job unscathed. Forced to buddy up with a murderer in order to cope, Atcheson began to question his deeply ingrained ideas of success and status. The resulting conflict would finally resolve itself fifteen years later, in the least likely of places: on the Bering Sea, aboard a boat in peril, during a night of terror that would reshape the lives of everyone involved.Reminiscent of The Perfect Storm and Into the Wild, Dead Reckoning is not only an intimate look at life at sea, but also an insider’s view into one of Alaska’s small communities, and the myriad of upstarts, dropouts, and rogues that color its landscape.

Tents and Tent Stability: A Month-Long Camping Adventure In Germany - In a Rather Dodgy Tent!


Chris Lown - 2012
    His mission: to explore Germany’s rustic countryside and historical towns, meet the local people, eat their cheese and drink their beer. Whether riding a draisine in the Uckermark National Park, witnessing the spectacle of rabbit showjumping in Jena or bathtub racing on the Edersee, Lown takes in the sights and dissects the culture as he zigzags his way around all sixteen of Germany’s states. But his tent doesn’t fare quite so well. After it survived an act of wanton vandalism, battled against inclement weather and was torn to shreds by a fox with a rapacious appetite and a penchant for Knackwurst, Lown is finally forced to concede that buying a cheap tent wasn’t the wisest of decisions.

Plunge – One Woman’s Pursuit of a Life Less Ordinary


Liesbet Collaert - 2020
    When she swaps life as she knows it for an uncertain future on a sailboat, she succumbs to seasickness and a growing desire to be alone.Guided by impulsiveness and the joys of an alternative lifestyle, she must navigate personal storms, trouble with US immigration, adverse weather conditions, and doubts about her newfound love.Does Liesbet find happiness? Will the dogs outlast the man? Or is this just another reality check on a dream to live at sea?

The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca


Tahir Shah - 2006
    By turns hilarious and harrowing, here is the story of his family’s move from the gray skies of London to the sun-drenched city of Casablanca, where Islamic tradition and African folklore converge–and nothing is as easy as it seems….Inspired by the Moroccan vacations of his childhood, Tahir Shah dreamed of making a home in that astonishing country. At age thirty-six he got his chance. Investing what money he and his wife, Rachana, had, Tahir packed up his growing family and bought Dar Khalifa, a crumbling ruin of a mansion by the sea in Casablanca that once belonged to the city’s caliph, or spiritual leader.With its lush grounds, cool, secluded courtyards, and relaxed pace, life at Dar Khalifa seems sure to fulfill Tahir’s fantasy–until he discovers that in many ways he is farther from home than he imagined. For in Morocco an empty house is thought to attract jinns, invisible spirits unique to the Islamic world. The ardent belief in their presence greatly hampers sleep and renovation plans, but that is just the beginning. From elaborate exorcism rituals involving sacrificial goats to dealing with gangster neighbors intent on stealing their property, the Shahs must cope with a new culture and all that comes with it. Endlessly enthralling, The Caliph’s House charts a year in the life of one family who takes a tremendous gamble. As we follow Tahir on his travels throughout the kingdom, from Tangier to Marrakech to the Sahara, we discover a world of fierce contrasts that any true adventurer would be thrilled to call home.From the Hardcover edition.See for an interview: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/vide...

Long Way Back


Charley Boorman - 2017
    His world crashed down after he smashed his right ankle and causing severe damage to his left fibia and tibia. It was unclear if he would ever walk properly again, let alone ride a motorbike. Charley recounts the ambulance ride, the numerous operations in a Portugese hospital, the medivac flight back to London, and his journey of recovery. As his inability to walk for several months provokes introspection, Boorman recounts his childhood, where his passion for motorbikes began, and the formative influences in his life—from his father, a famed director, to his longtime friend Ewan McGregor, and Sean Connery’s son Jason, who introduced him to bikes. These touchstones give him strength on the long way back to health.

Where's Me Plaid?: A Scottish Roots Odyssey


Scott Crawford - 2013
    Armed with a newfound swagger, the author transforms a much anticipated, romantic holiday with his wife into a decidedly unromantic, though highly romanticized roots tour with comic results. Crammed into their tiny rental car (a Fiat Crumb or some such model), the couple scour the countryside, from castles to trailer parks, looking for something more to commemorate Crawford history than a family crest refrigerator magnet - and ultimately discover something altogether richer: a thriving country with the most beautiful and haunting scenery imaginable, a romantic history full of blood, intrigue and heroism, and some of the friendliest and most fiercely loyal people in the world. Award-winning travel writer Scott Crawford resides in the British Virgin Islands. A professional educator, he has a keen interest in travel and history, which infuse his writings. Where's Me Plaid is his first book.

Stumbling through Italy: Tales of Tuscany, Sicily, Sardinia, Apulia, Calabria and places in-between


Niall Allsop - 2010
    when, finally reconciled to the inevitable, they returned to Italy one last time.Which, as they say, is another story.Also includes chapters on the idiosyncrasies of the Italian language and the Italian driving experience.

I'm (No Longer) a Mormon: A Confessional


Regina Samuelson - 2012
    This is not as easy as one would imagine: She was born in the church, educated at BYU, married in the temple, and is raising more Mormons. She faced a serious conundrum: keep quiet (and avoid losing everything dear to her), or tell the world what being raised LDS does to a person's psyche, especially when they realize that everything they were taught and everything they hoped to believe is a lie. To expose the difficulty faced by Mormons who leave the Church and to seek support for their plight, Regina offers a first-person confessional memoir recounting her many atrocious experiences, managing to weave in enough humor to keep you turning pages, and enough brutal honesty to bring you to an understanding of what it is to be a Mormon, and to try to leave it behind...

The Other Side of the Ice: One Family's Treacherous Journey Negotiating the Northwest Passage


Sprague Theobald - 2012
    Since Roald Amundsen completed the first successful crossing of the fabled Northwest Passage in 1906, only twenty-four pleasure craft have followed in his wake. Many more people have gone into space than have traversed the Passage, and a staggering number have died trying. From his home port of Newport, Rhode Island, through the Passage and around Alaska to Seattle, it would be an 8,500-mile trek filled with constant danger from ice, polar bears, and severe weather. What Theobald couldn't have known was just how life-changing his journey through the Passage would be. Reuniting his children and stepchildren after a bad divorce more than fifteen years earlier, the family embarks with unanswered questions, untold hurts, and unspoken mistrusts hanging over their heads. Unrelenting cold, hungry polar bears, and a haunting landscape littered with sobering artifacts from the tragic Franklin Expedition of 1845, as well as personality clashes that threaten to tear the crew apart, make The Other Side of the Ice a harrowing story of survival, adventure, and, ultimately, redemption.TO WATCH THE OFFICIAL HD TEASER FOR "The Other Side of The Ice" (book and documentary) PLEASE GO TO SPRAGUETHEOBALD.COM50 color illustrations

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story


Chuck Klosterman - 2005
    He drove a rental car from New York to Rhode Island to Georgia to Mississippi to Iowa to Minneapolis to Fargo to Seattle, and he chased death and rock ‘n’ roll all the way. Within the span of twenty-one days, Chuck had three relationships end—one by choice, one by chance, and one by exhaustion. He snorted cocaine in a graveyard. He walked a half-mile through a bean field. A man in Dickinson, North Dakota, explained to him why we have fewer windmills than we used to. He listened to the KISS solo albums and the Rod Stewart box set. At one point, poisonous snakes became involved. The road is hard. From the Chelsea Hotel to the swampland where Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane went down to the site where Kurt Cobain blew his head off, Chuck explored every brand of rock star demise. He wanted to know why the greatest career move any musician can make is to stop breathing...and what this means for the rest of us.

The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir


Josh Kilmer-Purcell - 2010
    Another riotous, moving, and entirely unique story of his attempt to tackle the next phase of life with his partner… on a goat farm in upstate New York.

Kissing Kilimanjaro: Leaving It All on Top of Africa


Daniel Dorr - 2010
    And every year, more than 30,000 adventure tourists try. But for each person who goes to the mountain, there are thousands more who chat about it at cocktail parties, making plans to go...someday. That's how Daniel Dorr got started: flirting with a beautiful brunette over hot cocoa and spouting impressive plans. Six months later, he was lying on the cold gravel trail at 18,000 feet, panting and hacking in the darkness.Dorr is a typical marketing exec by day but, amped up by his re-acquaintance with a romantic interest, he gained the determination to pursue one of his lifelong dreams -- summiting Kilimanjaro. When Dorr left behind the familiarity of his weekend-warrior lifestyle in Southern California to reach the top of the 19,340-foot peak, he didn't realize he would cross a threshold to a new way of life. As he fondles expensive hi-tech gear, gets vaccinated for the jungle, travels local-style across East Africa, and vomits on top of the African continent, readers share in the rewards, both large and small, of reaching for personal fulfillment through adventure travel.