Highly recommended." —Tim Cahill, author of Lost in My Own Backyard, Hold the Enlightenment and Jaguars Ripped My Flesh"After over a decade in the country, Hopkins knows and loves his subject dearly—that much is obvious—and his vivid portrait projects that love from every page." —Jann Wenner, editor and founder of Rolling Stone Magazine"A loving expose of everything that's wonderful about Thailand, and much that isn't. Should be required reading for all newcomers." —Joe Cummings, author of the Lonely Planet Thailand GuideWriter Jerry Hopkins came to Thailand for a visit in the 1980s, and ended up a permanent resident with a temporary visa—a big, white farang haunting the bars and back alleys of Bangkok. His essays explore the mystery and mayhem of "The Land of Smiles" to hilarious—and sometimes disturbing—effect. Travel with him to a place where whisky is rum, water buffaloes are gay, insects are dinner, dildos are lucky charms, and your wildest adolescent fantasies can come true (for a nominal fee).

    Stunning illustrations by Donna Gates King in beautiful color and black and white. Also colorful photographs at the end of the book. King remains one of the top mushers in the history of sled-dog sports. Since his first race in 1979, King and his well-trained teams of Alaskan huskies have racked up many thousands of training miles and trail hours. The result: win after win after win, crossing the finish line first in more than a dozen major races, including the two giants: the Iditarod and the Yukon Quest.

    Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and a singular lack of career direction, he became a valet parker for a large luxury hotel in New Orleans. Yet, rising fast through the ranks, he ended up working in “hospitality” for more than a decade, doing everything from supervising the housekeeping department to manning the front desk at an upscale Manhattan hotel. He’s checked you in, checked you out, separated your white panties from the white bed sheets, parked your car, tasted your room-service meals, cleaned your toilet, denied you a late checkout, given you a wake-up call, eaten M&M's out of your minibar, laughed at your jokes, and taken your money. In Heads in Beds he pulls back the curtain to expose the crazy and compelling reality of a multi-billion-dollar industry we think we know. Heads in Beds is a funny, authentic, and irreverent chronicle of the highs and lows of hotel life, told by a keenly observant insider who’s seen it all. Prepare to be amused, shocked, and amazed as he spills the unwritten code of the bellhops, the antics that go on in the valet parking garage, the housekeeping department’s dirty little secrets—not to mention the shameless activities of the guests, who are rarely on their best behavior. Prepare to be moved, too, by his candor about what it’s like to toil in a highly demanding service industry at the luxury level, where people expect to get what they pay for (and often a whole lot more). Employees are poorly paid and frequently abused by coworkers and guests alike, and maintaining a semblance of sanity is a daily challenge.Along his journey Tomsky also reveals the secrets of the industry, offering easy ways to get what you need from your hotel without any hassle. This book (and a timely proffered twenty-dollar bill) will help you score late checkouts and upgrades, get free stuff galore, and make that pay-per-view charge magically disappear. Thanks to him you’ll know how to get the very best service from any business that makes its money from putting heads in beds. Or, at the very least, you will keep the bellmen from taking your luggage into the camera-free back office and bashing it against the wall repeatedly.

    Part adventure, part parody, and part miraculous journey of self-discovery, it is the unforgettable account of Pete Jordan's transformation from itinerant seeker into "Dishwasher Pete"—unlikely folk hero, writer, publisher of his own cult zine, and the ultimate professional dish dog—and how he gave it all up for love.

    Outer Hebrides, 600 acres . . . Puffins and seals. Apply . . . ”.In this radiant and powerful book, Adam describes, and relives, his love affair with this enchantingly beautiful property, which he inherited when he was twenty-one. As the islands grew to become the most important thing in his life, they began to offer him more than escape, giving him “sea room”—a sailing term Nicolson uses to mean “the sense of enlargement that island life can give you.”The Shiants—the name means holy or enchanted islands—lie east of the Isle of Lewis in a treacherous sea once known as the “stream of blue men,” after the legendary water spirits who menaced sailors there. Crowned with five-hundred-foot cliffs of black basalt and surrounded by tidal rips, teeming in the summer with thousands of sea birds, they are wild, dangerous, and dramatic—with a long, haunting past. For millennia the Shiants were a haven for those seeking solitude—an eighth-century hermit, the twentieth-century novelist Compton Mackenzie—but their rich, sometimes violent history of human habitation includes much more. Since the Stone Age, families have dwelled on the islands and sailors have perished on their shores. The landscape is soaked in centuries-old tales of restless ghosts and ancient treasure, cradling the heritage of a once productive world of farmers and fishermen.In passionate, keenly precise prose, Nicolson evokes the paradoxes of island life: cut off from the mainland yet intricately bound to it, austere yet fertile, unforgiving yet bewitchingly beautiful.Sea Room does more than celebrate and praise this extraordinary place. It shares with us the greatest gift an island can bestow: a deep, revelatory engagement with the natural world.

    Using their entire savings as a down payment, the couple embark on an adventure that brings them in contact with the charming countryside of Provence, its querulous personalities, petty bureaucracies, and extraordinary wildlife. From the glamour of Cannes and the Isles of Lérins to the charm of her own small plot of land—which she transforms from overgrown weeds into a thriving farm—Drinkwater triumphantly relates how she realized her dream of a peaceful, meaningful life. "A fantasy come true, as it will be for many of the readers who yearn to experience the magic of southern France." (Austin Chronicle) "Good-humored and well written." (The Washington Post Book World) "Following [Drinkwater's] engaging story is like driving the hairpin turns that climb the hills above the French Riviera: the views are breathtaking, the blind curves frightening, and the safe arrival to the top a joyous relief." (Library Journal)

    The 145-day journey gave Angus, a trained scientist, a unique perspective on the ocean. The slow-moving boat became an ecosystem unto itself, attracting barnacles, dorado fish, trigger fish, turtles, sharks, whales, birds, and more, which she was able to observe and document. Angus also saw unmistakable signs of the ocean's devastation, with far more plastic bottles, wrappers, toys, and bags than sharks or other once-common sea life. Four cyclones, including two hurricanes, hammered the small boat so intensely that Angus and her companion weren't sure they would survive. Rowboat in a Hurricane records this amazing journey in meticulous, dramatic detail, in the process offering a personal record of an awe-inspiring ecosystem, its fascinating denizens, and the mounting threats to its existence.

    

    The Fayu tribe is best known for being a Stone Age community untouched by modern times-they live an existence characterized by fear, violence, and atavistic ritual (including cannibalism in some regions)-but Sabine's family saw another side to them as well. Once the Kueglers were accepted by a clan chief, they found themselves becoming a part of a tightly knit and fiercely loyal community, and living the primal existence of the Fayu-one marked by the natural cycles of day and night, malaria and other diseases, and daily encounters with wildlife, from swims with crocodiles to dinners of worms. As the Kueglers changed, so did the Fayu people, learning from Sabine's family that there was a way out of their cycle of violence and that forgiveness can be sweeter than revenge. At the age of 17, Sabine found her life turned upside down when she left for Switzerland to attend boarding school and entered traditional society head-on. CHILD OF THE JUNGLE is the story of a life lived among the Fayu and the author's attempt to reconcile her feelings about "civilization" with those about a life she knew and loved.

    Ten and a half months later Suhaili, paintwork peeling and rust streaked, her once white sails weathered and brown, her self-steering gone, her tiller arm jury rigged to the rudder head, came romping joyously back to Falmouth to a fantastic reception for Robin, who had become the first man to sail round the world non-stop single-handed.By every standard it was an incredible adventure, perhaps the last great uncomputerised journey left to man. Every hazard, every temptation to abandon the astounding voyage came Robin's way, from polluted water tanks, smashed cabin top and collapsed boom to lost self-steering gear and sheered off tiller, and all before the tiny ketch had fought her way to Cape Horn, the point of no return, the fearsome test of any seaman's nerve and determination.A World of My Own is Robin's gripping, uninhibited, moving account of one of the greatest sea adventures of our time. An instant bestseller, it is now reissued for a new generation of readers to be enthralled and inspired.

    It helps us fit more comfortably and compatibly into a shrinking world. And it inspires creative new solutions to persistent problems facing our nation. We can’t understand our world without experiencing it. Traveling as a Political Act helps us take that first step. There’s more to travel than good-value hotels, great art, and tasty cuisine. Americans who “travel as a political act” can have the time of their lives and come home smarter?with a better understanding of the interconnectedness of today’s world and just how our nation fits in. In his new book, acclaimed travel writer Rick Steves explains how to travel more thoughtfully?to any destination. He shares a series of field reports from Europe, Central America, Asia, and the Middle East to show how his travels have shaped his politics and broadened his perspective. www.ricksteves.com

    An underground bestseller in its original self-published edition, Marlo Morgan's powerful tale of challenge and endurance has a message for us all.Summoned by a remote tribe of nomadic Aborigines to accompany them on walkabout, the woman makes a four-month-long journey and learns how they thrive in natural harmony with the plants and animals that exist in the rugged lands of Australia's bush. From the first day of her adventure, Morgan is challenged by the physical requirements of the journey—she faces daily tests of her endurance, challenges that ultimately contribute to her personal transformation.By traveling with this extraordinary community, Morgan becomes a witness to their essential way of being in a world based on the ancient wisdom and philosophy of a culture that is more than 50,000 years old.

    He has won more world championships than any other competitor, and he continues to change peoples’ minds about what can and can’t be done on a surfboard. His wild ride has included fame, fortune, a stint on Baywatch, and a high-profile relationship with Pamela Anderson. Not bad for a skinny kid from a broken home in Cocoa Beach, Florida.In Pipe Dreams, Kelly takes the reader into oceans around the world to take on thunderous walls of water and shares the outrageous stories, solemn moments, and undeniable spirit that have made him a superstar.

    First published in 1870, Leonowens' memoir is the true story of a proper English governess who is hired by the King of Siam to tutor his many children. A delightful portrait of an unlikely friendship between two headstrong personalities, it is also a revealing peak at two very different cultures.

    For twenty years he had wanted to do something to raise money for charity. The one minute was when as their teacher he was put on the spot by his pupils and declared that the means was by bike, and he was going to India. What he had signed up for was slogging along roads with trucks bearing down on him, unable to see and choking in the smog; shooting down treacherous descents with 100 foot drops, shaking with cold and too numb to brake; muscle burn and saddle sores; delirium and food poisoning; thirst and malnutrition; foul and insanitary conditions; life-threatening crises; obstructive border guards, crazed dogs and inquisitive passers-by. 'You've Gone Too Far This Time, Sir ' is a real and compelling blow-by-blow account of Danny's trip across Europe, the former Soviet Republics, Russia, China, Pakistan and India. And what people he met They are the true delight of this book, mostly charming, sometimes reckless, occasionally threatening, always unpredictable, and forever inviting Danny to be up for the challenge of entertaining them, in one instance by dancing in front of a packed stadium, in another by eating sheep's brains in a local night market. Danny turns the wheels, you turn the pages. The pace is relentless. The story is both heart-stopping and heart-warming. The arrival is breakdown-and-cry emotional. And there's loads of fun and wonderment along the way too. What a book What a ride Live your dream. Go for it, Danny.