If I were a betting man I’d have reckoned on the most dangerous thing in this state being sheer boredom. The scenery hadn’t changed for weeks and I was slowly dissolving into stimulation-deprived madness. My current predicament, then – attempting to escape through cornfields from a gun-toting alcohol-soaked rancher – was not something I expected. Just months after graduating from university, Leon received disastrous news: he had been offered a job. Terrified at the prospect of a life spent behind a desk, without challenge or adventure, he took off to cross America on an overloaded bicycle packed with everything but common sense. Over five months and 6,000 miles, Leon cycled from New York to Seattle and then on to the Mexican border, facing tornados, swollen river crossings and one hungry black bear along the way. But he also met kind strangers who offered their food, wisdom, hospitality and even the occasional local history lesson, and learned what happens when you take a chance and follow the scent of adventure.

    

    Since the early 1980s, David Byrne has been riding a bike as his principal means of transportation in New York City. Two decades ago, he discovered folding bikes and started taking them on tour. Byrne's choice was made out of convenience rather than political motivation, but the more cities he saw from his bicycle, the more he became hooked on this mode of transport and the sense of liberation it provided. Convinced that urban biking opens one's eyes to the inner workings and rhythms of a city's geography and population, Byrne began keeping a journal of his observations and insights. An account of what he sees and whom he meets as he pedals through metropoles from Berlin to Buenos Aires, Istanbul to San Francisco, Manila to New York, Bicycle Diaries also records Byrne's thoughts on world music, urban planning, fashion, architecture, cultural dislocation, and much more, all conveyed with a highly personal mixture of humor, curiosity, and humility. Part travelogue, part journal, part photo album, Bicycle Diaries is an eye-opening celebration of seeing the world from the seat of a bike.

    So they quit their jobs, sold their house and car, and flew off to Turkey with two bags each, a laptop computer and a camera. If you've ever dreamed of ditching the rat race and taking a year off, you’ll find inspiration in this charming and humorous series of essays and emails. A delightful memoir of a memorable year.

    Millions of fans have enjoyed Bremer’s observations, insight, and magical storytelling on television broadcasts. Now, in this striking memoir, the Minnesota native and lifelong Twins fan takes fans behind the mic, into the clubhouse, and beyond as only he can. Told through 108 unique anecdotes–one for each stitch in a baseball–Bremer weaves the tale of a lifetime, from childhood memories of the ballfield in remote Dumont, Minnesota, to his early radio days as the “Duke in the Dark,” to champagne soaked clubhouses in 1987 and 1991, and his encounters with Twins legends ranging from Calvin Griffith and Harmon Killebrew, to Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek, to Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Game Used gives fans a rare seat alongside Bremer and his broadcast partners, including Killebrew, Bert Blyleven, Jack Morris, Jim Kaat, Tom Kelly, and other Twins legends.

    3 bus on journeys around his home town, Plymouth, in Devon. While his devoted owner Sue Finden had wondered where her elusive pet was disappearing to each day, Casper was brightening the lives of countless commuters. Bus drivers, too, were getting well-acquainted with Casper, and notices went up in their depot alerting staff that a very special passenger might board their vehicle. In fact, he became a mascot for the bus company, and pictures of him and Susan adorned No. 3 buses. When Casper was sadly killed by a car in early 2010 messages of sympathy flooded in from places as far a field as Australia and Argentina. It quickly became clear that Casper and his remarkable story had touched the lives of many people around the world. Movingly told by the owner who loved him dearly, Casper the Commuting Cat is the touching story of a very special black-and-white cat who rode the bus and stole our hearts.

    . . . It should be difficult to get lost forever": These were the haunting last words legendary adventurer Roman Dial received from his son, before the 27-year old disappeared into the jungles of Costa Rica. This is Dial’s intensely gripping and deeply moving account of his two-year quest to unravel the mystery of his son’s fate.In the predawn hours of July 10, 2014, twenty-seven-year-old Cody Roman Dial, the son of preeminent Alaskan scientist and National Geographic Explorer Roman Dial, walked alone into Corcovado National Park, an untracked rainforest along Costa Rica’s remote Pacific Coast that shelters miners, poachers, and drug smugglers. He carried a light backpack and machete. Before he left, he emailed his father: "I am not sure how long it will take me, but I’m planning on doing 4 days in the jungle and a day to walk out. I’ll be bounded by a trail to the west and the coast everywhere else, so it should be difficult to get lost forever."They were the last words Dial received from his son.The Adventurer’s Son recreates the author’s two-year quest to learn the truth about his child’s disappearance. Immediately after Cody Roman’s planned departure date passed without a word from him, Dial set off for Costa Rica. As he trekked through the dense jungle, interviewing locals and searching for clues—the authorities suspected murder—the desperate father was forced to confront the deepest questions about his own life. Roman had raised his son to be fearless, to seek out adventure amid earth’s wildest places. Was he ultimately responsible for his son’s fate?A harrowing story of drama, adventure, and a father’s love for his son, set in the most beautiful and dangerous reaches of the planet, The Adventurer’s Son is a mystery, the memoir of a father and his son, and an unforgettable story of love and profound loss.The Adventurer’s Son includes 25 color photographs.

     He would go on to travel to some of the most unexplored regions, meeting men and women who had never seen westerners before. Along the journey the crew meet Patagonians, Fijians, Tahitians, Aborigines, and many other peoples. Although the Wilkes expedition was largely scientific mission, the ships were not always peaceful, indeed there were a number of armed conflicts with Pacific Islanders as the United States began to assert its authority across the globe. The ships and their crews had to withstand some of the most appalling conditions as they continued their expedition, from the heat-driven mirages of the South Atlantic to the brutal cold of the Antarctic seas. What makes Erskine’s narrative so remarkable is that he is not writing from the perspective of an admiral or a scientific explorer, but instead from the viewpoint of a common sailor. Interspersed throughout the narrative are short ditties and sailor’s songs that provide a vivid picture of the mentality of nineteenth century seamen. After the Wilkes expedition landed back in the United States Erskine spent only brief moments on dry land as he frequently registered under new ships and continued his journeys. Erskine’s book is a fascinating first-hand account of exploration and maritime life aboard a tall ship. Twenty Years Before the Mast was published in 1896 towards the end of Erskine’s life.

    The book that earned Mark Twain his first recognition as a serious writer... Discover the magic of life on the Mississippi. At once a romantic history of a mighty river, an autobiographical account of Mark Twain's early steamboat days, and a storehouse of humorous anecdotes and sketches, Life on the Mississippi is the raw material from which Twain wrote his finest novel: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . "The Lincoln of our literature." (William Dean Howells)

    The only proviso is that each new destination must be to a different country. From Here to Anywhere takes him on a madcap adventure through 16 European nations in just sixteen days. Along the way, he visits a place called Moss in Norway and sees the 'most depressing street in Europe' in Belgium. He wanders through a Syrian refugee camp in Belgrade, crosses a UN-protected border in Cyprus, smashes a bottle of beer in a Hungarian church and drinks some Guinness in Dublin, all the while battling airport queues, cheap coffee and his fellow passengers. Jason Smart is the published author of nine other travel books: The Red Quest Flashpacking through Africa The Balkan Odyssey Temples, Tuk-tuks and Fried Fish Lips Panama City to Rio de Janeiro Bite Size Travel in North America Crowds, Chaos, ColourRapid Fire Europe Meeting the Middle East

    This autobiographical history of Scientology is told by one of L. Ron Hubbard’s staunchest defenders.

    A box set consisting of three Bill Bryson books, 'Notes from a Small Island', 'Notes from a Big Country' and 'A Walk in the Woods'.

    This was Ireland of the 1970s and 80s before the arrival of the short-lived economic riches of the Celtic Tiger.Dwyer's vivid and colorful prose describes his hard but happy life as part of a isolated but close-knit community:Early school days spent in a building with no running water or electricityAn encounter with a violent sheep that literally turned his world upside downThe days spent cutting the turf and saving the hay by handAn Irish Christmas where nearly everything on the table was sourced from the farmHis exciting family history that brought his relations to the Klondike Gold Rush in CanadaComplemented by a collection of evocative photographs, each story tells of a way of life that has now largely disappeared.Sprinkled with a selection of fitting works by some of Ireland's best-known poets such as Seamus Heaney and Patrick Kavanagh, this gem of a book is a chronicle of the simple but happy life of an Irish farmer boy.

    Fate landed her at a wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the Amazon jungle where she was assigned to a beautiful and complex puma named Wayra. Wide-eyed, inexperienced, and comically terrified, Laura made the scrappy, make-do camp her home. And in Wayra, she made a friend for life.They weren’t alone, not with over a hundred quirky animals to care for, each lost and hurt in its own way: a pair of suicidal, bra-stealing monkeys, a frustrated parrot desperate to fly, and a pig with a wicked sense of humor. The humans, too, were cause for laughter and tears. There were animal whisperers, committed staff, wildly devoted volunteers, handsome heartbreakers, and a machete-wielding prom queen who carried Laura through. Most of all, there were the jungle—lyrical and alive—and Wayra, who would ultimately teach Laura so much about love, healing, and the person she was capable of becoming.Set against a turbulent and poignant backdrop of deforestation, the illegal pet trade, and forest fires, The Puma Years explores what happens when two desperate creatures in need of rescue find one another.