White's stroll around Manhattan remains the quintessential love letter to the city, written by one of America's foremost literary figures. The New York Times has named Here is New York one of the ten best books ever written about the metropolis, and The New Yorker calls it "the wittiest essay, and one of the most perceptive, ever done on the city.

    The first nonfiction work by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era, Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem remains, decades after its first publication, the essential portrait of America—particularly California—in the sixties.It focuses on such subjects as John Wayne and Howard Hughes, growing up a girl in California, ruminating on the nature of good and evil in a Death Valley motel room, and, especially, the essence of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture.

    This collection captures the wackiest and most bizarre experiences of well-known writers whose travels have taken a detour. Stories include Nigel Barley escorting a monkey to the movies in Cameroon, Dave Barry vainly trying to learn more Japanese than how to order a beer, Alan Zweible high-tailing it to a nudist camp, Donna Marazzo bravely attempting to use a high-tech Italian toilet, and Richard Sterling feasting on deep-fried potato bugs in Burma. There are even practical tips here too; readers can surely learn from Mary Roach, who discovers that utilizing an Antarctic ice-sheet outhouse at the very moment a seal chooses to use its opening as a blowhole may not be the best way to start the day.

    Their essays often begin as love stories do, with the passion of something newly discovered: the crush of subway crowds, the streets filled with manic energy, and the sudden, unblinking certainty that this is the only place on Earth where one can become exactly who she is meant to be.They also share the grief that comes like a gut-punch, when the grand metropolis loses its magic and the pressures of New York's frenetic life wear thin for even the most dedicated dwellers. As friends move away, rents soar, and love—still—remains just out of reach, each writer's goodbye is singular and universal, just like New York itself.

    In these pages, you will find the most provocative, compelling, tragic, and triumphant moments in sports from 2007, captured by the knights of the keyboard who make sports come alive for us day after day, week after week, year after year. Here you’ll find Paul Solotaroff’s excellent and uncompromising take on the neglect that a growing number of crippled NFL players continually face from the NFL players’ union. Jeanne Marie Laskas’s “G-L-O-R-Y!” offers a rousing inside look at the pregame rituals of the Cincinnati Bengals cheerleaders. A riveting online diary by Wright Thompson reveals a bleak and merciless landscape in China, which that country’s government would rather not have the world see during preparations for the Olympics. Nack finds a place for the fascinating offbeat story as well as the sensational. Alongside Eli Saslow’s captivating article about an obscure seventeenth-century sport, similar to a giant rugby scrum, carried out in the streets of Kirkwall, Scotland, stands Franz Lidz’s “scoop of the year,” a controversial and rare look into the life of George Steinbrenner, baseball’s largest but recently most enigmatic figure. This year’s collection marks another wonderful addition to “one of the most consistently satisfying titles in the Best American series” (Booklist).Contributors include Scott Price, Rick Bragg, Gary Smith, J.R. Moehringer, and others.

    For this savvy, far-reaching diary, celebrated journalist and author Sarah Vowell turned hers on and listened—closely, critically, creatively—for an entire year.As a series of impressions and reflections regarding contemporary American culture, and as an extended meditation on both our media and our society, this keenly focused book is as insightful as it is refreshing.Throughout Radio On, "Vowell's touch is about as delicate as Teddy Kennedy's after a pitcher of martinis" (Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times).

    He’s lost:His home…His girlfriend of nine years…His love of travel…His hair, and much of his confidenceBut then, during an argument with his deeply irritating friend Nick, he checks his spam folder and finds a mysterious invitation to the trip of a lifetime. If he takes it, maybe he can turn everything around?Except Nick decides he’s coming too.What could go wrong?Well, just about everything when Adam: Fights a mandrill in South Africa armed with only a sock Tests black magic with a witch doctor’s love spell Develops an erotic attraction to a purple Cadillac in Havana Hikes into a volcano to meet people with perhaps the worst job in the world Visits a bizarre, bloody funeral hosted by the strangest tribe in Indonesia Learns why it’s a bad idea to become a gold digger in Papua New GuineaCan he change himself and his life? And if so, will the price be worth paying?Both about the people who go, and the places they visit, Don’t Come Back is a hilarious travelogue-meets-memoir full of weird characters, awkward situations, and delightfully British humour.It can be read on its own or as a follow-up to Don't Go There.Come on an unforgettable journey today!

    One midsummer week over sixty years later, Olivia Laing walked Woolf's river from source to sea. The result is a passionate investigation into how history resides in a landscape - and how ghosts never quite leave the places they love. Along the way, Laing explores the roles rivers play in human lives, tracing their intricate flow through literature and mythology alike. To the River excavates all sorts of stories from the Ouse's marshy banks, from the brutal Barons' War of the thirteenth century to the 'Dinosaur Hunters', the nineteenth-century amateur naturalists who first cracked the fossil code. Central among these ghosts is, of course, Virginia Woolf herself: her life, her writing and her watery death. Woolf is the most constant companion on Laing's journey, and To the River can be read in part as a biography of this extraordinary English writer, refracted back through the river she loved. But other writers float through these pages too - among them Iris Murdoch, Shakespeare, Homer and Kenneth Grahame, author of the riverside classic The Wind in the Willows. The result is a wonderfully discursive read - which interweaves biography, history, nature writing and memoir, driven by Laing's deep understanding of science and cultural history. It's a beautiful, lyrical work that marks the arrival of a major new writer.

    We visit the Foire aux Escargots. We attend a truly French marathon, where the beverage of choice is Ch�teau Lafite-Rothschild rather than Gatorade. We search out the most pungent cheese in France, and eavesdrop on a heated debate on the perfect way to prepare an omelet. We even attend a Catholic mass in the village of Richerenches, a sacred event at which thanks are given for the aromatic, mysterious, and breathtakingly expensive black truffle. With Mayle as our charming guide, we come away satisfied (if a little hungry), and with a sudden desire to book a flight to France at once.

    So they quit their jobs, rented out their house, moved onto a 42-foot sailboat called Receta (“recipe,” in Spanish), and set sail for the Caribbean on a two-year voyage of culinary and cultural discovery.In lavish detail that will have you packing your swimsuit and dashing for the airport, Vanderhoof describes the sun-drenched landscapes, enchanting characters and mouthwatering tastes that season their new lifestyle. Come along for the ride and be seduced by Caribbean rhythms as she and Steve sip rum with their island neighbors, hike lush rain forests, pull their supper out of the sea, and adapt to life on “island time.”Exchanging business clothes for bare feet, they drop anchor in 16 countries -- 47 individual islands -- where they explore secluded beaches and shop lively local markets. Along the way, Ann records the delectable dishes they encounter -- from cracked conch in the Bahamas to curried lobster in Grenada, from Dominican papaya salsa to classic West Indian rum punch -- and incorporates these enticing recipes into the text so that readers can participate in the adventure.Almost as good as making the journey itself, An Embarrassment of Mangoes is an intimate account that conjures all the irresistible beauty and bounty from the Bahamas to Trinidad -- and just may compel you to make a rash decision that will land you in paradise.Source is Amazon

    This is a communal effort by the Pushcart Press staff, contributing editors, and hundreds of small presses. For this edition distinguished poets Julie Sheehan and Tom Sleigh served as poetry editors. The result is an introduction to a literary world that few readers have access to, where much of today's important new writing is published, far from the commercial influence of the conglomerates. In reviewing last year's edition, Donna Seaman of Booklist commented: "A brimming, vibrant anthology-the perfect introduction to new writers and adventurous new work by established writers . . . extraordinary in its range of voices and subjects. Here is literature to have and to hold." The Pushcart Prize has been chosen for the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement recognition by the National Book Critics Circle and the Writers for Writers award from Poets Writers / Barnes Noble.

    Cut off from the rest of the country by the towering range of the Taygetus and hemmed in by the Aegean and Ionian seas, it is a land where the past is still very much a part of its people's daily lives.Patrick Leigh Fermor, who has been described as "a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Graham Greene," bridges the genres of adventure story, travel writing, and memoir to reveal an ancient world living alongside the twentieth century. Here, in the book that confirmed his reputation as one of the English language's finest writers of prose, Patrick Leigh Fermor carries the reader with him on his journeys among the Greeks of the mountains, exploring their history and time-honored lore.Mani is a companion volume to Patrick Leigh Fermor's celebrated Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece.

    For centuries, Antarctica has captured the imagination of our greatest scientists and explorers, lingering in the spirit long after their return. Shackleton called it "the last great journey"; for Apsley Cherry-Garrard it was the worst journey in the world. This is a book about the call of the wild and the response of the spirit to a country that exists perhaps most vividly in the mind. Sara Wheeler spent seven months in Antarctica, living with its scientists and dreamers. No book is more true to the spirit of that continent--beguiling, enchanted and vast beyond the furthest reaches of our imagination. Chosen by Beryl Bainbridge and John Major as one of the best books of the year, recommended by the editors of Entertainment Weekly and the Chicago Tribune, one of the Seattle Times's top ten travel books of the year, Terra Incognita is a classic of polar literature.

    Blandings Builds His Dream House" in this lively and entertaining account of a couple's year building their dream house in Mexico.In 2004, Barry Golson wrote an award-winning article for "AARP" magazine about Mexican hot spots for retirees longing for a lifestyle they couldn't afford in the United States. A year later, he and his wife Thia were taking part in the growing trend of retiring abroad. They sold their Manhattan apartment, packed up their SUV, and moved to one of those idyllic hot spots, the surfing and fishing village of Sayulita on Mexico's Pacific coast.With humor and charm, Golson details the year he and his wife spent settling into their new life and planning and building their dream home. Sayulita -- population 1,500, not including stray dogs or pelicans -- is a never-dull mixture of traditional Mexican customs and new, gringo-influenced change. Before long, the Golsons had been absorbed into the rhythms and routines of village life: they adopted a pair of iguanas named Iggy Pop and Iggy Mom, got sick and got cured by a doctor who charged them sixteen dollars a visit, made lasting friends with Mexicans and fellow expatriates, and discovered the skill and artistry of local craftsmen.But their daily lives were mostly dedicated to the difficult yet satisfying process of building their house. It took them almost six months to begin building -- nothing is simple (or speedy) in Mexico -- and incredibly, they completed construction in another six. They engaged a Mexican architect, builder, and landscape designer who not only built their home but also changed their lives; encountered uproariously odd bureaucracy; and ultimately experienced a lifetime's worth of education about the challenges and advantages of living in Mexico.The Golsons lived (and are still living) the dream of many -- not only of going off to a tropical paradise but also of building something beautiful, becoming a part of a new world, making lasting friends, and transforming their lives. As much about family and friendship as about house-building, "Gringos in Paradise" is an immensely readable and illuminating book about finding a personal paradise and making it a home.

    Chronicling his stint on the barricades in Moscow in 1991, when he joined artists in resisting the coup whose failure ended the Soviet Union, his 2002 account of the rebirth of culture in Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban, his insightful appraisal of a Myanmar seeped in contradictions as it slowly, fitfully pushes toward freedom, and many other stories of profound upheaval, this book provides a unique window onto the very idea of social change. With his signature brilliance and compassion, Solomon demonstrates both how history is altered by individuals, and how personal identities are altered when governments alter.A journalist and essayist of remarkable perception and prescience, Solomon captures the essence of these cultures. Ranging across seven continents and twenty-five years, Far and Away takes a magnificent journey into the heart of extraordinarily diverse experiences, yet Solomon finds a common humanity wherever he travels. Illuminating the development of his own genius, his stories are always intimate and often both funny and deeply moving.