It was the lifestyle change that many dream of and most are too sensible to attempt.Wife, mother and now reluctant alpaca owner, Fiona jumped in at the deep end. Gradually Tasmania got under her skin as she learned to stack wood, round up the kids with a retired lady sheepdog, and stand on a scorpion without getting stung.This charming tale captures the tussles and euphoria of living on the land in a place of untrammelled beauty, raising your family where you want to and seeing your husband in a whole new light. Not just a memoir but an everywoman’s story, and a paean to a new, slower age

    First published in 1912, The Sea and the Jungle remains one of the most popular accounts of a traveler's experience in Amazonia. As Peter Matthiessen observed fifty years later, " The Sea and the Jungle is one of the few level-headed works in the literature of this region. . . . accurate and difficult to improve upon."

    Heading towards a half-remembered cave on the Pacific coast where her younger, more adventurous self once stayed, she recalls adventures in Sumatra, the Yukon and many places in between—and wonders what compels her to keep moving through life while everyone else has found a place to belong.

    Peter Westwick and Peter Neushul weren't surprised by the popularity of the class (UC Santa Barbara is a surfing school, after all, and together they have more than a century of experience in the water), but they were surprised that their non-surfing students outnumbered the surfers. There is something about surfing that people yearn to understand--and this is the book that examines the enduring worldwide appeal of the sport both in myth and reality.     Drawing on the authors' expertise as, respectively, a cold war historian and a historian of environmental history, The Surfing Professors Explain the World brings alive the colorful history of surfing by drawing readers into the ideas that have fueled the sport's expansion: colonialism, the military-industrial complex, globalization, capitalism, and race and gender roles. In a highly readable and provocative narrative history of the sport's signal moments--from the spread of surfing to the US, to the development of surf culture, to the introduction of women into the sport--Neushul and Westwick draw an indelible portrait of surfing and surfers as actors on the global stage.

    Johnny Wray's gripping and often hilarious account of his adventures around the South Pacific has inspired readers and changed lives since its first publication 75 years ago. Fired from his day job during the Great Depression, Johnny begged, borrowed and stole the materials to build his famous yacht Ngataki. With some mates for company and a sextant to steer by, he set sail for the palm-fringed atolls and islands of his dreams - to discover they really did exist. But South Sea Vagabonds is much more than just a ripping yarn; it is a heartfelt hymn to the possibility of living a free life and truly being the master of one's own destiny.

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

    This is an adventure story about a voyage from one life chapter to another that involves a too-big sailboat, a narrow and unknown sea, and an appetite to witness a mythical blonde bear that inhabits a remote rainforest.Kim Brown Seely and her husband had been damn good parents for more than 20 years. That was coming to an end as their youngest son was about to move across the country. The economy was in freefall and their jobs stagnant, so they impulsively decided to buy a big broken sailboat, learn how to sail it, and head up through the Salish Sea and the Inside Passage to an expanse of untamed wilderness in search of the elusive blonde Kermode bear that only lives in a secluded Northwest forest. Theirs was a voyage of discovery into who they were as individuals and as a couple at an axial moment in their lives. Wise and lyrical, this heartfelt memoir unfolds amid the stunningly wild archipelago on the far edge of the continent.

    That will teach you to keep your mouth shut' - Ernest Hemingway Over a boozy Sunday lunch, flatmates James Adair and Ben Stenning made a promise to row across the ocean. At first they considered the Pacific, then the Atlantic, but once James Cracknell and Ben Fogle completed the high-profile Atlantic Rowing Race, their thoughts turned to the Indian Ocean, longer and tougher than the Atlantic and having seen fewer people row across its waters than have walked on the Moon. After years of planning and fund raising, they were ready to launch in Spring 2011. Neither James nor Ben had any rowing or sailing experience. To add to this, James had contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome at the age of 14, which had locked his body into total paralysis for three months (while his mind had remained completely active) and which had left him with paralysed feet. This was a challenge that neither man should have ever considered.

    This artificial division of the earth became a feature of the subsequent trading of territories between rival kingdoms. By 1884, as a result of the British Empire's commercial pre-eminence, the globe's prime meridian was definitively drawn through Greenwich. By 1938 the line two degrees west was chosen as England's prime meridian running as it did through most of the country, from Berwick-Upon-Tweed on the Northumbrian coast to the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset.Guided by his Ordnance Survey map, Nicholas Crane's book Two Degrees West walks the longitudinal tightrope of this most manmade of geographical lines, stretching nearly 600 kilometres from north to south, never deviating more than a few metres either side of the meridian. The result is a diverse cross-section of England in the late 1990s, from the bleak agrarian world of Northumbria and the Pennines to the racial and urban hybridity of the Black Country. Two Degrees West is an idiosyncratic, offbeat travel book, offering a unique view on the state of the nation at the end of the 1990s. --Jerry Brotton, author of Trading Territories: Mapping the Early Modern World

    Granted unprecedented access to the team's top management and financial data, Pluto delivers an up-close account of how decisions were made to radically reshape the franchise. Indians fans grew accustomed to winning in the mid-1990s. They had an owner with deep pockets, a brand-new ballpark, and a team of high-priced all stars who delivered a division championship nearly every year. But that glorious ride ended with a jolt of reality after savvy owner Richard Jacobs sold the franchise at the top of the market in 2000. New owners Larry and Paul Dolan and new general manager Mark Shapiro faced a challenge: an aging team, a mounting payroll, and a shrinking budget. First they made mistakes. Then they made bold changes. Stars such as Manny Ramirez, Roberto Alomar, and Jim Thome were gone, replaced with roster of unproven youngsters and veteran rehab projects. Fans were alarmed and dismayed. Then, in 2002, Shapiro boldly predicted that the Indians would return to contend for the playoffs after just three years of rebuilding. Critics scoffed. Yet at the end of the 2005 season, the Indians were indeed back in contention, one tantalizing game away from a return to the playoffs. The core of an exciting young team was beginning to take shape, and Shapiro was voted American League Executive of the Year as his team won an impressive 93 games despite a payroll ranked in baseball's bottom five. How was it done? In his familiar clear writing style, Pluto carefully explains the manyrisky moves made by management and tells which ones have paid off, which ones haven?t, and why. This rare behind-the-scenes look at a modern front office will intrigue fantasy leaguers and fans fascinated by baseball dealmaking. It will be an eye-opener for Indians fans who may still be wondering, What happened to my team?

    He brings this vibrant city's long and noble history alive through the ever-shifting fortunes, fates, and intrigues of half-a-dozen families, from the age of Julius Caesar to the 20th century. Generation after generation, these families embody the passion, struggle, wealth, and verve of the greatest city in the world.

    Then there is the Cornwall she discovers when, feeling increasingly dislocated in London, she moves to Newlyn, a fishing town near Land's End. This Cornwall is messier and harder; it doesn't seem like a place that would welcome strangers.Before long, however, Lamorna finds herself on a week-long trawler trip with a crew of local fishermen, afforded a rare glimpse into their world, their warmth and their humour. Out on the water, miles from the coast, she learns how fishing requires you to confront who you are and what it is that tethers you to the land. But she also realises that this proud and compassionate community, sustained and defined by the sea for centuries, is under threat, living in the lengthening shadow cast by globalisation. An evocative journey of personal discovery replete with the poetry and deep history of our fishing communities, Dark, Salt, Clear confirms Lamorna Ash as a strikingly original new voice.

    Vikram Sampath, in this remarkable book, brings forth little known details of this fascinating woman who was known for her melodious voice, her multi-lingual skills, poetic sensibility, irresistible personality and her extravagant lifestyle. From her early days in Azamgarh and Banaras to the glory years in Calcutta when Gauhar ruled the world of Indian music, to her sad fall from grace and end in Mysore, the book takes the reader through the roller-coaster ride of this feisty musician. In the process, the author presents a view of the socio-historical context of Indian music and theatre during that period.

    They encapsulate a romantic vision of solitary homes amongst the waves, but their original purpose was much more noble, conceived as navigational gifts for the safety of all. Still today, we depend upon their guiding lights for the safe passage of ships. Nowhere is this truer than in the rock lighthouses of Great Britain and Ireland: twenty towers built between 1811 and 1904, so-called because they were constructed on desolate, slippery rock formations in the middle of the sea, rising, mirage-like, straight out of the waves, with lights shining at the their summits.Seashaken Houses is a lyrical exploration of these magnificent, isolated sentinels, the ingenuity of those who conceived them, the people who risked their lives building and rebuilding them, those that inhabited their circular rooms, and the ways in which we value emblems of our history in a changing world.

    How the vision met reality – and how the two came to shape each other – places Voyage of the Cormorant in the great American tradition of tales of life at sea, and what it has to teach us.