When the fifty-something friends from Lancashire decide to take some time out together, little do they know that they will end up traversing Spain from north to south in an old and somewhat unsightly mini-campervan. Garrulous Geoff, hefty Harry and the relatively rational Jeremy, unused to spending longer than an evening in each other’s company, are thrust together for a month of travel and cohabitation which the latter relates to us with candour, pulling no punches when it comes to describing their more embarrassing escapades.

    There was no specific destination in mind except to visit countries, not the airports and luxury hotels but the country itself, to experience local culture and ways of life. This entailed sleeping in tribesmen's huts and cheap hostels and using local transportation whenever possible: traversing jungle roads packed eighteen souls to a single Peugeot station wagon in Guinea-Bissau, boating the length of the Amazon snacking on roasted piranha, and hitchhiking across Iraq during the war. I've floated on dilapidated ferries across surging estuaries, ridden horseback or in military trucks across deserts and plains, followed the course of rivers, crossed wastelands, bused and trekked through deep jungle, traversed mountain ranges and lounged on the remotest beaches. I adopted local customs and ate local food: roasted goat's eye as the guest of honour at a Mongolian tribal feast, alligator nuggets, mystery kabobs, ‘bush meat' ubiquitous to certain regions of Africa ... but drew the line at wheelbarrows brimming over with smoked monkey corpses. A man's got to know his limitations." --Mike Spencer BownIn 1990, Calgary-raised Mike Spencer Bown packed a backpack and began a journey that would eventually take him through each of the world's 195 countries and span more than two decades. From relaxing on the white sand beaches of Bali to waiting out blizzards in Tibetan caves, Bown trekked from country to country, driven by a desire to see the world in the most authentic way possible, not to just collect stamps on his passport. Eventually, he began to earn international recognition for some of his more unconventional destinations--such as a memorable trip to war-torn Mogadishu.The World's Most Travelled Man is an eye-opening account of the universal human experience as seen from each corner of the changing world. Blending a romantic connection to nature through solitude and the social examination of culture, Bown fully immerses himself in each experience, however diverse, dangerous or dirty, veering way, way off the backpacker circuit to see the world through an unparalleled perspective. The World's Most Travelled Man is a journey of global proportions shared with the humility of a man who simply wants to satisfy his own curiosity and live life to the fullest.

    After more than a decade of planning, John Higham and his wife September bid their high-tech jobs and suburban lives good-bye, packed up their home and set out with two children, ages eight and eleven, to travel around the world. In the course of the next 52 weeks they crossed 24 time zones, visited 28 countries and experienced a lifetime of adventures. Making their way across the world, the Highams discovered more than just different foods and cultures; they also learned such diverse things as a Chilean mall isn’t the best place to get your ears pierced, and that elephants appreciate flowers just as much as the next person.  But most importantly, they learned about each other, and just how much a family can weather if they do it together. 360 Degrees Longitude employs Google’s wildly popular Google Earth as a compliment to the narrative. Using your computer you can spin the digital globe to join the adventure cycling through Europe, feeling the cold stare of a pride of lions in Africa, and breaking down in the Andes.  Packed with photos, video and text, the online Google Earth companion adds a dimension not possible with mere paper and ink.  Fly over the terrain of the Inca Trail or drill down to see the majesty of the Swiss Alps—without leaving the comfort of your chair.John Higham is an aerospace engineer with an expertise in satellites. He is also an avid traveler, frequently writing and lecturing on his own experience traversing the globe. The Highams live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit him online at www.360DegreesLongitude.com.The Voyages of Tim Vetter interviews 360 author John Higham about what it is like to travel with children, his bucket list and what he and his family have been up to since traveling around the world. Available at http://bit.ly/podcast360 or on search for "360 Degrees Longitude" on your favorite podcast store.

    This poetic autobiographical novel juxtaposes the undeveloped, unencumbered life of a small Caribbean island with the materialism and anxiety of the twentieth century.Written when Lamming was twenty-three and residing in England, In the Castle of My Skin poignantly chronicles the author's life from his ninth to his nineteenth year. Through the eyes of a young boy the experiences of colonial education, class tensions, and natural disaster are interpreted and reinterpreted, mediated through the presence of the old villagers and friends who leave for the mainland.One of the leading Black writers of the twentieth century, George Lamming is the author of numerous works exploring the colonial experience.

    Slavery was ingrained in Arab culture, considered indispensable to their societies and condoned by religious texts. The hub of this industry was the island of Zanzibar, part of Oman's empire, and the British consul there faced a hard task. John Kirk was a Scottish doctor who wound up as Zanzibar's acting consul at a time when British political pressures were mounting to end the Arab slave trade - although the East India Company found it advantagious to ignore it.John Kirk was the only companion of David Livingstone to emerge untainted from the disastrous, often fatal expedition up the Zambezi River between 1859 and 1863. Three years later, Kirk returned to Africa, to the notorious island of Zanzibar, ancient source of slave trafficking from Africa to the Middle East. Half a century after the abolition of slave trading had been passed into British law, this commerce continued to exist on Africa's east coast, tolerated and even connived at by Britain's empire on the Indian Ocean. But Kirk, appointed as medical officer to the British Consulate in Zanzibar, could do nothing.This extraordinary - and controversial - book brings Kirk's years in Zanzibar to life. The horrors of the overland passage from the interior, and the Zanzibar slave market itself are vividly described. The final bitter conflict with Livingstone, who blamed Kirk for his own disasters, is retold. But it was Kirk's own success in closing down the slave trade on the island which made him internationally famous. Using private diaries and papers, a long forgotten Victorian hero and an extraordinary chapter in British history are revived in detail.

    Magnificently written, the book evokes an appreciation and sympathy for a region as harsh as it is beautiful."Luminous and haunting . . . the contemporary Thoreau."--The Wall Street Journal"[Matthiessen] doesn't waste words, and in End of the Earth: Voyages to Antarctica, his homage to the austere splendor of that frozen continent, he hasn't deployed a single one whose choice I would care to take issue with. . . . Matthiessen writes crusty, chiseled sentences that demand to be read slowly--the perfect prose equivalent of the landscapes he's describing."--The New York Times Book Review "Matthiessen and polar landscapes seem perfectly suited. . . . I found myself constantly re-reading sentences or paragraphs to savour all of their rich resonances. . . . Few if any authors on the region have so successfully compressed . . . Antarctic life . . . and I suspect it will become standard reading."--The Guardian

    It's not just a story about travel, but also about the human condition, about growth and fulfillment.

    As a result of this, Salman Rashid’s family fled Jalandhar for Pakistan, the newly created country across the border.They were among the nearly two million people uprooted from their homes in the greatest transmigration in history. Besides those who fled, other members of the family became part of a grimmer statistic: they featured among the more than one million unfortunate souls who paid with their lives for the division of India and creation of Pakistan.After living in the shadow of his family’s tragedy for decades, in 2008, Rashid made the journey back to his ancestral village to uncover the truth. A Time of Madness tells the story of what he discovered with great poignancy and grace. It is a tale of unspeakable brutality but it is also a testament to the uniquely human traits of forgiveness, redemption and the resilience of the human spirit.

    In order to penetrate Tibet and reach Lhasa, she used her fluency of Tibetan dialects and culture, disguised herself as a beggar with yak hair extensions and inked skin and tackled some of the roughest terrain and climate in the World. With the help of her young companion, Yongden, she willingly suffered the primitive travel conditions, frequent outbreaks of disease, the ever–present danger of border control and the military to reach her goal.The determination and sheer physical fortitude it took for this woman, delicately reared in Paris and Brussels, is inspiration for men and women alike.David–Neel is famous for being the first Western woman to have been received by any Dalai Lama and as a passionate scholar and explorer of Asia, hers is one of the most remarkable of all travellers tales.

    But in a moment of vulnerability he makes a mistake: volunteering his unhinged Arabic-speaking cousin Boris to report on the Iraq War. Boris begins filing Gonzo missives from the conflict zone and Toni decides it is better to secretly rewrite his cousin’s increasingly incoherent ramblings than face up to the truth. But when Boris goes missing, Toni’s own sense of reality—and reliability—begins to unravel.Our Man In Iraq, the first of Robert Perisic’s novels to be translated into English, serves as an unforgettable introduction to a vibrant voice from Croatia. With his characteristic humor and insight, Perisic gets to the heart of life made and remade by war."Robert Perisic depicts, with acerbic wit, a class of urban elites who are trying to reconcile their nineties rebellion with the reality of present-day Croatia. . . . The characters' snide remarks could easily sound cynical but the novel has a levity informed by the sense of social fluidity that comes with democracy." —The New Yorker"Robert Perisic is a light bright with intelligence and twinkling with irony, flashing us the news that postwar Croatia not only endures but matters."—Jonathan Franzen" . . . terrifically witty and original. . . in addition to being a delightfully acerbic primer on a literarily underrepresented part of Europe, Our Man in Iraq may well prove to be one of those rare cases where something is actually gained in translation."— The Toronto Star

    During the course of their wanderings they are frequently mistaken for husband and wife, forcing Dervla to bare her chest to prove her femininity; they continually get lost, are obliged to eat repulsive local delicacies; are arrested, fall ill, are baked by the sun and soaked by tropical storms and, disastrously, lose Egbert. The two women's charm, wit and sense of adventure shine through all these setbacks, which would have daunted lesser travellers. They eventually leave this laid-back, peaceful country with great reluctance, having been 'enspelled' by its beauty and the friendliness of the Cameroonians. 'Anyone who has read a book by this author will want to read another. She brings to Cameroon all the sympathy, wit and perception that we have come to expect from her.' Sunday Telegraph This is vintage Murphy' Irish Independent 'This is the very stuff of travel' Irish Times

    The demand for vintage trailers-the smaller the better-has risen dramatically in recent years, with the most in-demand trailers being "teardrops," first manufactured in the 1930s and containing just indoor sleeping space and an outdoor exterior kitchen. Also profiled in the book are "canned ham" trailers, whose shape resembles the profile of a can of ham; small-size examples of America's most beloved vintage trailer, the Airstream; miniscule gypsy caravans in Europe; and fiberglass trailers made in Canada. Two hundred color photographs showcase these trailers' sleek exteriors, retro-styled interiors, and, in many cases, the restored classic cars that tow them. Teardrops and Tiny Trailers includes a resource section chock-full of places to locate vintage trailers, clubs to join, and rallies to attend.

    His quest for hot stories takes him from the tribal wilds of Yemen to the shell-pocked shores of Lebanon; from the malarial sands of the Sudan to the eerie souks of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, a land so secretive that even street maps and weather reports are banned.As an oasis in the Empty Quarter, a veiled woman offers tea and a mysterious declaration of love. In Cairo, "politeness police" patrol seedy nightclubs to ensure that belly dancers don't show any belly. And at the Ayatollah's funeral in Tehran a mourner chants, "Death to America," then confesses to the author his secret dream--to visit Disneyland.Careening through thirteen Muslim countries and Israel, Horwitz travels light, packing a keen eye, a wicked sense of humor, and chutzpah in almost suicidal measure. This wild and comic tale of Middle East misadventure reveals a fascinating world in which the ancient and the modern collide.

    Then it was Italian food. After that it was books and discovering that even Mark Twain had fallen for Italy. E.M. Forster was smitten too: Love and understand the Italians, for the people are more marvelous than the land. What is it about Italy and Italians? Italian movies immortalize the mystique. Fellini called it La Dolce Vita. Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso took James Shaw back to the sweet memories of his childhood and the Italian family who operated the hometown theater. And just like in the movie, young James had an Alfredo who, by example, taught him about serving people. James learned that Italians don't feel they're special. Luigi Barzini, author of The Italians, repeatedly asked, Why are we the way we are? and found no conclusive answer. But James was convinced there was a reason why the Renaissance was born in Tuscany and Italy has given the world Saint Francis, Michelangelo, da Vinci, Galileo and now Benigni, whose film Life Is Beautiful showed the world that the Italian zest for living can even make a heaven of a hell. And so, after a lifetime of thinking about Italy James became convinced that the way to find out why Italians are the way they are, would be to eat with them at their kitchen tables. Day after day he picked their olives and the Italians began treating him like family. And James began seeing their unique human quality that attracts people to Italy and keeps pulling them back again and again. But the story doesn't end in the olive groves of Tuscany. To discover the heart of Italian life, James had to travel back to World War II Italy. An Italian Journey will inspire you to follow your passions, your enthusiasms, to your own Beautiful Discoveries. Bella Scoperta!

    These new poems mine the rich strain of inscrutability in ordinary life, until it is hard to know what is innocent and what ominous. There is something about his work that continues to be crystal clear and yet deeply weighted with violence and mystery. Reading it is like going undercover. The face of a girl carrying a white dress from the cleaners with her eyes half-closed. The Adam & Evie Tanning Salon at night. A sparrow on crutches. A rubber duck in a shooting gallery on a Sunday morning. And someone in a tree swing, too old to be swinging and to be wearing no clothes at all, blowing a toy trumpet at the sky.