He returned with stories of exotic people, tremendous riches, and the most powerful ruler in the world – Kublai Khan. The explorer told of inventions ranging from gunpowder to paper money. The intellectual ferment and cultural diversity he described helped move Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance. In his lifetime, people scoffed at his stories. But as this book explains, he changed the world.

    Throughout, Olson makes a compelling case for preserving the wilderness. He puts forth his own life as an example of how nature can have a spiritual effect on the human soul, and proposes diligence on behalf of those who fight to conserve our forests, wetlands, and dunes.

    gorgeous glitter with a high price tag. On a winter’s day it is beautiful, but on a spring day after bud burst it spells devastation. For Sean and Caro Feely, a couple whose love affair with wine and France has taken them through financial and physical struggle to create their organic vineyard, it could spell the end. Until they receive an unexpected call that could save their skins… This book is about life, love and taking risks, while transforming a piece of land into a flourishing vineyard and making a new life in France.

    The idea that their country is the best. But this never stuck with Dave Hill, even though he was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. His grandfather, you see, was from Canada (Clinton, Ontario, to be exact). And every Sunday at dinner he'd remind Dave and anyone else within earshot that it was in fact Canada, this magical and mysterious land just across the mighty Lake Erie, that was the best.It was an idea that took hold. While his peers kept busy with football, basketball and baseball, hockey became the only sport for Dave. Whenever bacon was served at home, he'd be sure to mention his preference for the Canadian variety. Likewise, if a song by Triumph came on the radio, he'd be the first to ask for it to be cranked up as loud as it would go. And he was more vocal about the vast merits of the Canadian healthcare system than any nine-year-old you'd ever want to meet. (That last part is a lie, but hopefully it makes the point that he was so into Canada that it was actually kind of weird.)In later years he even visited Canada a couple of times. But now, inspired by a publisher's payment of several hundred dollars (Canadian) in cash, he has travelled all over the country, reconnecting with his heritage in such places as Montreal, Moose Jaw, Regina, Winnipeg, Merrickville and of course Clinton, Ontario, meeting a range of Canadians, touching things he probably shouldn't and having adventures too numerous and rich in detail to be done justice in this blurb.The result, he promises, is the greatest Canada-based literary thrill ride of your lifetime.

    How else can a person stay fascinated throughout a career with just one drink? Compare us to food writers: Over their lives, they'll encounter thousands of ingredients and ways of combining and cooking them. Wine, by contrast, is just fermented grapes. But it engages our primary senses-smell, taste, feel-in a way that is both hedonistic and cerebral. ""That's why I've spent the past several years traipsing around the world, visiting wineries, tasting their offerings, and searching for the world's best cheap wines. The narrative is as familiar as Arthur's quest for the grail and as naive as Dr. Seuss's plaintive search for the affirmative in" Are You My Mother?With her signature conversational style, Natalie MacLean takes you on a whirlwind journey through the world of wine, searching for great taste at a low cost. By turns confessional-with guilty admissions from a penny-pincher who loves simple pleasures-and spirited, "Unquenchable" is informed by MacLean's decade-long career as an award-winning wine writer.In this engaging and enlightening book, MacLean recounts her adventures with the most passionate personalities in some of the most gorgeous, off-beat places in the world-from the crazed vintner who explains his philosophy while speeding down the Autobahn to the Sicilian winemakers you don't want to disappoint with your tasting notes. Yet there's plenty to take away from her inspired recommendations for food pairing to lists of favorite value wines and vintners, plus plenty of pointers that will enhance your own drinking pleasure.

    What is it like? It is the best gift you can ever imagine, like rain falling on a dry place.This memoir is a great reunion journey, from Paris, to California, to Denmark! A coming together of a mother and son, the only two people who can answer all the questions the other one has.

    Crump being Crump he immediately set out to remedy the matter, and the result was "Bastards I Have Met", an ABC of Bastardry which when published in 1971 took the country by storm. Now due to popular demand Crump's original twenty-six prize bastards are presented for public enjoyment once again, together with another eight unlikely bastards he met while working down on the Coast a few years back. A whole new generation will enjoy this fresh collection of Crump tales, which are as hilarious as they are perceptive of the many quirks and oddities in the Kiwi character.

    Pedalling along curvaceous country lanes or freewheeling through valleys and vineyards – earning your supper in this sleepy corner of France is nothing short of a privilege.Tony and Ludmilla have landed a job with a specialist cycling and walking holiday company in the South of France … but that’s not something we can hold against them for too long!They head off to the mediaeval marvel of Cordes-sur-Ciel in the Tarn – a region so achingly beautiful and laden with history and mystery they have to pinch themselves to be sure such a place really does exist.When their cyclists turn up for a week’s pedal-powered adventure they will need a reliable back-up service when they puncture a tyre or come face to jowl with a ‘devil dog’ intent on devouring their panniers. And when their walkers take the wrong trail and find themselves humming Bonnie Tyler’s ’70s hit ‘Lost in France’, they too will need a timely rescue. Well, that’s the theory …

    Apart from Richards, 'all of us were eighteen years old, though Botham seemed to have lived a bit longer - or at least more vigorously - than the rest.'In this irresistible memoir of a life lived in cricket, Vic Marks returns to the heady days when Richards and Botham were young men yet to unleash their talents on the world stage while he and Roebuck looked on in awe. After the high-octane dramas of Somerset, playing for England was almost an anti-climax for Marks, who became an unlikely all-rounder in the mercurial side of the 1980s. Moving from the dressing room to the press box, with trenchant observations about the modern game along the way, Original Spin is a charmingly wry, shrewdly observed account of a golden age in cricket.

    Paddle to the Arctic is Don's diary of his journey from Churchill, Manitoba, north and then west all the way to Tuktoyaktuk, close to Alaska. The voyage took him three Arctic summers. Each attempt almost cost him his life. The first year, aged fifty-seven and "very scared," Don paddled north through the thawing ice-fields. How he survived a spill in frigid waters miles from shore before fighting his way home is in itself an incredible story. On his return to Churchill he was greeted by a local with the words "I was hoping you wouldn't make it back." Why? "If guys like you are successful, it will encourage others to try, and the whole west shore of Hudson Bay will be piled deep with bodies." Undeterred, Don tried again the next year with two companions. Fred soon gave up, but Victoria gamely survived their jousts with polar bears, walrus, and other hazards all the way to Repulse Bay. (For most readers, one of the book's pleasures is learning the geography of the North as Don visits each community in turn.). The third year was the big test. Dragging their sleds across the peninsulas proved to be too tough, and snowmobiles had to be used to get to Spence Bay. Then it was straight across the frozen sea, hauling their kayaks on sleds. Although Victoria had to give up ("My God, he'll kill us both," she told a Winnipeg paper), Don kept on, not seeing another human being for weeks, and risking his life as he waded across the thawing ice ("Fell through the ice up to my neck at least ten times yesterday ..."). At Cambridge Bay he abandoned the sled and threaded his way through the breaking ice by kayak, out into open water. There he confronted storms, giant Arctic seas, and ("August 19 - snow!") the growing threat of freeze-up. The variety of Don's adventures will astonish every reader. "So far on my voyage," he writes, "I have seen polar bear, grizzly, caribou, reindeer, mu

    He invited his friends over to tag all the possessions in his apartment, and he systematically put them up for sale on eBay. An unopened box of taco shells, half a bottle of mouthwash, almost all of his clothes, his favorite records, his sideburns (in a plastic bag), his family's Christmas presents (not yet given), furniture: John didn't let sentiment or utility stand in his way. Soon his belongings were sold all over the world, with a bag of Porky's BBQ Pork Skins making its way to Japan, and a chair ending up in the Museum of Modern Art. With almost all the objects in his life now gone, he started the second phase of his journey: to go visit his one-time possessions in their new surroundings.All My Life for Sale is an extraordinary book that functions as an autobiography, a travel narrative, and a meditation on what the objects we surround ourselves with actually mean to us and what happens when we set them free. Designed by the author himself, it is visually striking, surprisingly moving, and will change the way you look at the things that surround you.

    But Stackhouse, thumb out and knapsack in hand, chooses Saint John, New Brunswick, as a launching point, where his ancestors arrived in the late 18th century as refugees of the Loyalist rebellion. From there he heads east to Newfoundland, north into Labrador and straight west to Vancouver Island, curious to discover how Canada has changed in his lifetime -- since the advent of the superhighway, a global culture and continental economy have taken hold. Is Canada capable of remaining a distinct nation?Following the route of the explorers, Stackhouse endures rain, bugs and gale-force winds, but also meets some incredible personalities, each with their own fascinating anecdotes and often surprising social and political commentary as well. Once and for all they dispel the myth that Canadians are a bland and complacent lot. Contemplating a Timbit in a Tim Hortons on the highway -- a truly Canadian experience -- leads Stackhouse to reflect on our remaining distinctions from our neighbour to the south. Americans may have perfected the doughnut as a fast-food staple, but it took Canadians to figure out how to truly exploit the hole.A wry and perceptive look at our country in the present, Timbit Nation has all the prerequisites of good travel literature: a cast of colourful characters, funny, informative writing, and a landscape of tremendous beauty.

    This beautifully produced catalogue, designed by the renowned Danish graphic designer Michael Jensen, features deluxe tritone printing and varnish on premium paper. It includes 125 reproductions of Avedon's greatest work from the entire range of his oeuvre--including fashion photographs, reportage and portraits--and spans from his early Italian subjects of the 1940s to his 2004 portrait of the Icelandic pop star Bjork. It also features a small number of color images, including what must be one of the most famous photographic portraits of the twentieth century, -Nastassja Kinski and the Serpent- (1981). Texts by Jeffrey Fraenkel, Judith Thurman, Geoff Dyer, Christoph Ribbat, Rune Gade and curator Helle Crenzien offer a sophisticated and thorough composite view of Avedon's career.

    Blanchard’s 2011 five-hundred mile pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago—hiking from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France over the Pyrenees to Roncesvalles in Spain, and then westward across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostella.For over a millennium, Christians have made this pilgrimage to the cathedral in Santiago, where the remains of St. James the apostle are entombed. Today, this journey is known as a European Cultural Itinerary, attracting people from around the world. In 2011, more than 183,000 people completed the pilgrimage; 44% of these pilgrims were women.Though Women of the Way is about Jane’s journey on the Camino de Santiago (also known as “The Way”) and discussions with women she met on the pilgrimage, this is not a “chic” book. It is about embracing the Camino, the personal changes, and the beauty and appeal of the most popular of all the pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela, the Camino Frances. — Discover why people from around the world walk the Camino. — Learn how to prepare for the Camino, about the daily rituals in long-distance walking, and the camaraderie shared among these modern-day pilgrims. — Visualize the beauty of northern Spain through Jane’s vivid descriptions. — Understand why so many people embrace the Camino.“An articulate, well-observed and thoughtful look at walking the Camino.” ~ Adam Nathan“I felt as though I, too, was a pilgrim as I saw the beautiful landscapes Jane described, felt the tiredness she experienced, enjoyed the food along with her, laughed and cried with her.” ~ Elizabeth Chandler“My husband, John (62), and I are reading your book while we prepare to walk the Camino in May of 2013. We are loving it! I like your honesty and factual approach. Your descriptions have caused us to laugh and almost cry at times. Thank you! We are reading a little each day and John reminds me to bring the book in the car or to bed. The spirit of the Camino is already appearing in our relationship as we prepare. I can see a change and it is wonderful!” ~ Kim Todaro