An eloquent portrayal of a disappearing way of life of the Long Island fishermen whose voices--humorous, bitter and bewildered--are as clear as the threatened beauty of their once quiet shore.

    Outer Hebrides, 600 acres . . . Puffins and seals. Apply . . . ”.In this radiant and powerful book, Adam describes, and relives, his love affair with this enchantingly beautiful property, which he inherited when he was twenty-one. As the islands grew to become the most important thing in his life, they began to offer him more than escape, giving him “sea room”—a sailing term Nicolson uses to mean “the sense of enlargement that island life can give you.”The Shiants—the name means holy or enchanted islands—lie east of the Isle of Lewis in a treacherous sea once known as the “stream of blue men,” after the legendary water spirits who menaced sailors there. Crowned with five-hundred-foot cliffs of black basalt and surrounded by tidal rips, teeming in the summer with thousands of sea birds, they are wild, dangerous, and dramatic—with a long, haunting past. For millennia the Shiants were a haven for those seeking solitude—an eighth-century hermit, the twentieth-century novelist Compton Mackenzie—but their rich, sometimes violent history of human habitation includes much more. Since the Stone Age, families have dwelled on the islands and sailors have perished on their shores. The landscape is soaked in centuries-old tales of restless ghosts and ancient treasure, cradling the heritage of a once productive world of farmers and fishermen.In passionate, keenly precise prose, Nicolson evokes the paradoxes of island life: cut off from the mainland yet intricately bound to it, austere yet fertile, unforgiving yet bewitchingly beautiful.Sea Room does more than celebrate and praise this extraordinary place. It shares with us the greatest gift an island can bestow: a deep, revelatory engagement with the natural world.

    We were life-going-to-seeders.' Living in a sunny barsati in south Delhi, Saurav Jha and Devapriya Roy are your average DINK couple, about to acquire a few EMIs and come of age in the modern consumerist world. Only, they don't. They junk the swivel chairs, gain a couple of backpacks and set out on a transformational journey across India. On a very, very tight budget: five hundred rupees a day for bed and board. And the Heat and Dust project begins.Joining the ranks of firang gap-year kids and Israelis fresh out of compulsory army service, they travel across a land in which five thousand years of Indian history seem to jostle side by side. It is, by turns, holy and hectic, thuggish and comic, amoral and endearing. In buses that hurtle through the darkness of the night and the heat of the day, across thousands of miles, in ever new places, the richness of this crowded palette spills over into their lives. From rooms by the hour to strange dinner invitations, from spectacular forts to raging tantrums, this is a youthful account of wanderlust and whimsy, of eccentric choices that unfold into the journey of a lifetime ... and a supreme test of marriage.

    Written by former Natural History columnist Douglas Preston, who worked at the American Museum of Natural History for seven years, this is a celebration of the best-known and best-loved museum in the United States.

    Much of the trail is on the rocky ridgeline overlooking Lake Superior with sweeping vistas of Lake Superior and inland forests, cascading waterfalls and remote lakes. Mile-by-mile descriptions lead the casual hiker or ardent backpacker through forests of birch, maple, spruce, pine and fir—a region thriving with spectacular wildflowers and diverse wildlife. Whether you have two hours or two weeks, an afternoon or a weekend, this guide will enhance your hiking experience. Provided is detailed information on trailhead parking, 90+ backcountry campsites located every five to ten miles that require no fees, permits, or reservations, and a mile-by-mile description of the trail as you hike along. The Superior Hiking Trail goes to numerous scenic spots including Ely's Peak, Hawk Ridge, Bean and Bear Lakes, Mount Trudee, Baptism High Falls, Egge Lake, Sonju Lake, Manitou River, Caribou Falls, Cross River, Carlton Peak, Britton Peak, Oberg Mountain, Cascade River, and Pincushion Mountain. The trail travels through eight Minnesota state parks: Jay Cooke, Gooseberry Falls, Split Rock Lighthouse, Tettegouche, Crosby-Manitou, Temperance River, Cascade River, and Judge Magney. Complete trail maps are included in each section. In addition, it includes a "how-to" chapter on backpacking the trail and a chart with services in the towns close to the trail. It also includes informational chapters on wildflowers, birds, geology, and area history. The trail starts south of Duluth, MN in Jay Cooke State Park, travels through Duluth for 43 miles, and then heads northeast along the North Shore for 255 miles to Canada. Backpacking opportunities with backcountry campsites start at the northern boundary of Duluth. The Guide is written so each section of 5-12 miles can be hiked separately, a longer segment can be hiked, or the entire trail can be thru-hiked.

    Over the years, however, she found herself becoming integrated into a way of life that, had she stayed in England, she would hardly have believed existed. Grounded in the rhythms of the land and the seasons, daily life in Patricia's south-western corner of France is dictated by a series of rituals and celebrations that we have long lost in our supermarket age.La Belle Saison is Patricia's eulogy to this way of life: a testament to the timelessness of the beautiful French countryside, the bounty of the land, and the generous-hearted French neighbours who showed Patricia that a simple life has many rewards. In France, every season is 'la belle saison', offering up its gifts to those willing to appreciate and look after the land.

    It re-creates the legary big-game safaris led by Selous and Bell and the daring ventures of early hunters into unexplored territories, and brings to life such romantic figures as Cape-to-Cairo Grogan, who walked 4,000 miles for the love of a woman, and Dinesen's dashing lover, Denys Finch. Witnesses to the richest wildlife spectacle on the earth, these hunters were the first conservationists. Hard-drinking, infatuated with risk, and careless in love, they inspired Hemingway's stories and movies with Clark Gable and Gregory Peck.

    Engaging, thoughtful and candid' Telegraph Waterlog celebrates the magic of water and the beauty and eccentricity of Britain.In 1996 Roger Deakin, the late, great nature writer, set out to swim through the British Isles. From the sea, from rock pools, from rivers and streams, tarns, lakes, lochs, ponds, lidos, swimming pools and spas, from fens, dykes, moats, aqueducts, waterfalls, flooded quarries, even canals, Deakin gains a fascinating perspective on modern Britain.Detained by water bailiffs in Winchester, intercepted in the Fowey estuary by coastguards, mistaken for a suicide on Camber sands, confronting the Corryvreckan whirlpool in the Hebrides, he discovers just how much of an outsider the native swimmer is to his landlocked, fully-dressed fellow citizens.This is a personal journey, a bold assertion of the native swimmer's right to roam, and an unforgettable celebration of the magic of water.

    And so it is, a pointless argument with a friend concludes in a bet - that Tony can't beat all eleven members of the Moldovan soccer team at tennis. And with the loser of the bet agreeing to strip naked on Balham High Road and sing the Moldovan national anthem, this one was just too good to resist.The ensuing unpredictable and often hilarious adventure sees him being taken in by Moldovan gypsies and narrowly avoid kidnap in Transnistria. It sees him smuggle his way on to the Moldovan National Team coach in Coleraine and witness (almost) divine intervention in the Holy Land.In this inspiring and exceptionally funny book, Tony Hawks has done it again, proving against all odds that there is no reason in the world why you can't do something a bit stupid and prove all of your doubters wrong. Or at least that was the idea....

    But the author takes on more than she bargained for when she buys a dream cottage near Budleigh Salterton on East Devon's Jurassic Coast. The problems begin before she has even moved in. Wheeler is left reeling when Plum Tree Cottage reveals a very unwelcome surprise. She then receives the shocking news that her mother – from whom she has been estranged for most of her life – has been sectioned. Against her will she returns to her hometown in ‘The North’ and is drawn back into a malfunctioning mother-daughter relationship. Living the dream by the seaside rapidly descends into a living hell as each day brings a new onslaught of domestic and mother-related disasters, in this powerful, tragicomic tale of relocation – and a maternal relationship – gone wrong.

    Febles has written a gripping tale that presents the tragic impact that the Castro Regime had on all aspects of life, for so many families – both then and now. Highly recommended!" The Columbia Review.

    The amusingly told story of how and why a British couple escaped from noise, traffic and junk mail and built their home and their dream on water. An embarrassingly mouthy parrot, a cat that wants to walk on water and an antique toilet that swallows buttocks are just a few of the ingredients in what becomes a far from normal life.

    Heading to Australia after selling everything that he owns, apart from the contents of his rucksack, the story follows Paul Elliott’s four month journey around the continent.It chronicles his adventures and the myriad of people that he encounters in a humourous and entertaining way. Not only does he begin to find a direction for his life, he also begins to find his true self in an ultimately uplifting adventure.

    Having spontaneously sold their house along with everything they owned they embarked on the road trip of a lifetime around Western Europe. Living in a camper van on a shoestring budget and accompanied by their two dogs, we follow them on the first leg of their epic journey through the beautiful French countryside on a simple quest for some warm Mediterranean sunshine. This is a light hearted and easy to read account of their often hilarious adventures.

    He studies antiterrorist driving techniques, dives for golf balls in a pond at a country club, hunts his fellow man with a paint gun, ice fishes for walleye with X-ray-stunned nightcrawlers, and poaches Panamanian crocodiles -- or goes pig shooting in the Australian outback. With self-effacing optimism, White captures the joys and fears of wandering the earth's surface with an eclectic cast of weirdo fellow travelers -- a frog that won't jump, a group of expatriate Brits who've developed an interesting cure for "road jaundice, " and even a mad Australian scientist.Though he rarely finds what he's looking for -- such as the legendary landlocked bull sharks of Nicaragua, or the secret to successful winter fishing on a Minnesota lake -- he develops a Zenlike "passion for the means" and a rare ability to revel in the rib-aching humor of each exotic trip.In the end, White leaves the reader mesmerized by the potential of undiscovered places and the promise of endless adventure in unfamiliar territory, from Florida to Bangkok to Borneo, and everywhere in between. An icon to the new breed of thick-skinned, high-endurance adventure travelers of the 1990s, Randy White uniquely extols the pleasures of being "alone and on the move."