Eloquent, astute, nimble with history and deftly amusing, Travels in a Thin Country established Sara Wheeler as one of the very best travel writers in the world.

    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.

    Customize your trip with simple planning tools • Top experiences & attractions • Practical advice for getting around • Easy-to-read color regional mapsExplore the Portland, Seattle, British Columbia and beyond • Discerning Fodor’s Choice picks for hotels, restaurants, sights, and more • “Word of Mouth” tips from fellow Fodor’s travelers • Illustrated features on whale-watching, wineries, and Pike's Market Place • Best open-air adventures, local breweries, and regional cuisineOpinions from destination experts • Fodor’s writers reveal their favorite local haunts • Revised annually to provide the latest information

    Commissioned to write a guidebook about France (despite not speaking any French) he sets off with visions of relaxing chateaux and refined dining. Ten thousand miles later his family's been attacked by a donkey, had a run-in with a death-cult and, after a near drowning and a calamitous wedding experience involving a British spy, his own marriage is in jeopardy. A combination of obsessions about mosquitoes, French gravel and vegetable theme parks mean it's a bumpy ride as Ben takes a stand against tyrannical French pool attendants, finds himself running with the bulls in Pamplona and almost starring in a snuff movie after a near fatal decision to climb into a millionaire's Chevrolet Blazer.Funny and poignant, Road to Rouen asks important questions about life, marriage and whether it's ever acceptable to tape baguette to your children's legs to smuggle lunch into Disneyland Paris.

    Why is it, for example, that some men believe, against all reason, that vandals stole their penises, even though they're in good physical shape? In The Geography of Madness, acclaimed magazine writer Frank Bures travels around the world to trace culture-bound syndromes to their sources—and in the process, tells a remarkable story about the strange things all of us believe.Book Club Discussion Questions: For the paperback edition, a list of book club discussion questions is also being issued. If you’d like to add the The Geography of Madness to your group’s reading list, here are several conversation starters:1) One main themes of The Geography of Madness is that stories (about the world, about our lives, about our bodies) are contagious. Can you think of a story, or an experience, that changed what you believed was possible?2) Do you believe the brain and the mind are the same thing? If not, what is the difference? 3) The stories in The Geography of Madness raise the question of free will: How much do you choose the life you live? How much do you learn (or catch) you life choices from those around you? 4) Have you ever found yourself immersed in a situation where you did not know the rules? What was that like?5) In The Geography of Madness, the author argues that our mindset and our expectations have biological consequences. Does that resemble your experience? If so, how?6) Try to imagine living in a world where it was possible to have your genitals stolen, either by magic or by ghosts. How would you protect yourself?7) In The Geography of Madness, the author argues that a strong sense of self—of your story— can help to activate your endogenous (internal) healing systems and vice versa. Do you remember a time when a stressful or difficult period seemed to be followed by a health problem or sickness? 8) In The Geography of Madness, did anyone’s genital actually disappear? If not, what happened? Does it matter?9) Is there a belief that everyone around you holds, but that you don’t share? How did you come to doubt this?10) The Handbook of Depression points to a genetic marker associated with greater vulnerability to depression. Yet this link only holds true in Western cultures. Why would that be?11) Have you ever had a health problem you were afraid to talk about, or that others didn’t believe in?12) In The Geography of Madness, the author argues that cultural syndromes are “real” syndromes, but that their causes might not lie where we think they do. Do you think they are “real” or “imaginary”? 13) Over the last few years, gluten intolerance has been rising. This rise occurs at a time of increasing anxiety about the relationship between food, health and identity. What’s changed: our bodies or our culture?14) After reading The Geography of Madness, how would you describe what culture is?15) How much does a your culture create you? How much do you create your culture?16) Have you ever had a cultural syndrome?

    Feroz Ahmad provides a full survey of Turkey's chequered history, from its beginnings as a disparate group of tribes to its status as the first secular republic in the Islamic world. In addition to providing a detailed account of the key cultural, economic and social events, this accessible text also examines the problems faced by modern Turkey, from the rise of Islamic militancy to current tension in Turkey's government.

    Petersburg has embodied power, heroism, and fortitude. It has encompassed all the things that the Russians are and that they hope to become. Opulence and artistic brilliance blended with images of suffering on a monumental scale make up the historic persona of the late W. Bruce Lincoln's lavish "biography" of this mysterious, complex city. Climate and comfort were not what Tsar Peter the Great had in mind when, in the spring of 1703, he decided to build a new capital in the muddy marshes of the Neva River delta. Located 500 miles below the Arctic Circle, this area, with its foul weather, bad water, and sodden soil, was so unattractive that only a handful of Finnish fisherman had ever settled there. Bathed in sunlight at midnight in the summer, it brooded in darkness at noon in the winter, and its canals froze solid at least five months out of every year. Yet to the Tsar, the place he named Sankt Pieter Burkh had the makings of a "paradise." His vision was soon borne out: though St. Petersburg was closer to London, Paris, and Vienna than to Russia's far-off eastern lands, it quickly became the political, cultural, and economic center of an empire that stretched across more than a dozen time zones and over three continents. In this book, revolutionaries and laborers brush shoulders with tsars, and builders, soldiers, and statesmen share pride of place with poets. For only the entire historical experience of this magnificent and mysterious city can reveal the wealth of human and natural forces that shaped the modern history of it and the nation it represents.

    An hilarious account of a couple of wannabe mountain bikers as they race from Canada to Mexico.

    Men wanted to be him. And one hot summer he roamed the Italian seaside breaking hearts throughout Sardinia, Sicily and along the Amalfi coast. Racy, loud and an incorrigible show-off, he was the epitome of Italian machismo. He showed Peter, his less flamboyant companion, another side of Italy tourists rarely see. His name was Marcello and like Sophia from Vroom with a View he was a Vespa, one the same shade of orange as Donatella Versace. Two years after riding from Milan to Rome in search of la dolce vita, Peter Moore's life has changed dramatically. He has married Sally and she is pregnant with their first child. With fatherhood only five months away Peter reacted the way some men facing nappies and travel systems do, he panicked. But man, Peter sure found an understanding wife. Sally gave him the opportunity to go off, just once more, to be irresponsible. For Peter this was a wild, final, two-stroke powered fling - with permission - through some of the most beautiful coastal scenery in the world on a Vespa with white go-fast stripes that brought a smile to peoples' faces everywhere it went. From the wild, untouched corners of Sardinia and Sicily to the faded fifties glamour of the Amalfi coast, it is a journey that reveals Italy's obsession with the sea - and getting a great tan. Like Vroom with a View this is another laugh-out-loud whilst grinding your teeth with jealousy travel memoir and they can sell its go-fast stripes off.

    Annie Hawes and her sister, on the spot by chance, have no plans whatsoever to move to the Italian Riviera but find naturally that it's an offer they can't refuse. The laugh is on the Foreign Females who discover that here amongst the hardcore olive farming folk their incompetence is positively alarming. Not to worry: the thrifty villagers of Diano San Pietro are on the case, and soon plying the Pallid Sisters with advice, ridicule, tall tales and copious hillside refreshments ...

    In each town he raises the ghosts that inhabit the houses and monuments: Kafka and Freud; Wittgenstein and Marcus Aurelius; Lukcs, Heidegger, and Cline; Canetti and Ovid. He also encounters a host of more obscure but no less intriguing personalities--philosophers, novelists, diplomats, and patriots--on an odyssey that brings middle-European culture to life in its most picturesque and evocative forms.Danube is among the first of a new list of nonfiction paperbacks published as Harvill Press Editions.

    All the traditional lore of ancient India used to be kept inscribed on chemically processed palm leaves, handled with piety and devoid of impurities. Thus Olaichuvadi began to represent the lore of ancient India passed over from generation to generation, which included codes of ethics, instructions on the observances and practices and the tradition at large, to be followed.The title used for the book here, is quite relevant, for, it is nothing but an exploration on the worth and value of India's customs, practices and belief systems, which are seasoned by a highly ethical and philosophical approach.Every entry in this book is in its essence, the legacy of Indian cult presented in subtle, vet simple tongue. Dr. Venganoor Balakrishnan's Olaichuvadi that originally appeared in Malayalam soared high in its massive appeal in a short time. Its translations into other Indian languages also turned out to be best-sellers in no time. Hence we bring out the English version for the benefit of the whole world for the ardent readers as well as the seekers of India's soul in her rich and varied heritage, in the sagacious rishi-dominant past, and highly scientific, yet saintly-looking tradition.

    Here are countries where the national anthem is the sound of a rock being dropped into water, where the currency is pegged to the value of Pillsbury's cookie dough; where the citizens vote in a poodle as president and where if you're lucky, the king will put on a pot of tea when you stop by. Full colour photographs Maps, flags and stamps Facts and Figures Cultural Information Things to see and do Getting there and away

    Tensions sometimes flared, but tolerance largely prevailed until the twentieth century when the Greek army marched in, Muslims were forced out, and the Nazis deported and killed the Jews. As the acclaimed historian Mark Mazower follows the city’s inhabitants through plague, invasion, famine, and the disastrous twentieth century, he resurrects a fascinating and vanished world.

    F. K. Fisher and Peter Mayle, this enchantingly warm and witty memoir follows American-born Katherine Wilson on her adventures abroad, where a three-month rite of passage in Naples turns into a permanent embrace of this boisterous city on the Mediterranean. It is all thanks to a surprising romance, a new passion for food, and a spirited woman who will become her mother-in-law—and teach her to laugh, to seize joy, and to love.