Finding herself miserable for the first time in a career into which many would have long ago thrown the towel, she found herself asking (during a farewell party for the Papal Nuncio): was it worth it?As this stream of it-really-happened-to-me stories shows, it most certainly was - if only for our vicarious bewilderment at how exactly you throw a buffet dinner during a public mourning period in Syria, remain viable as a fashion journalist when taste-wise you are three seasons out of it and geographically a world away, make people believe that there are actually terrible things going on in paradise, be a good mother AND save some of the finest architecture in Damascus and Brussels from demolition - seemingly all simultaneously.

    Setting off alone from Boston aboard the thirty-six-foot wooden sloop Spray in April 1895, Captain Slocum went on to join the ranks of the world’s great circumnavigators – Magellan, Drake, and Cook. But by circling the globe without crew or consorts, Slocum would outdo them all: his three-year solo voyage of more than 46,000 miles remains unmatched in maritime history for its courage, skill, and determination.Sailing Alone around the World recounts Slocum’s wonderful adventures: hair-raising encounters with pirates off Gibraltar and savage Indians in Tierra del Fuego; raging tempests and treacherous coral reefs; flying fish for breakfast in the Pacific; and a hilarious visit with fellow explorer Henry Stanley in South Africa. A century later, Slocum’s incomparable book endures as one of the greatest narratives of adventure ever written.

    When Michael Crichton -- a Harvard-trained physician, bestselling novelist, and successful movie director -- began to feel isolated in his own life, he decided to widen his horizons. He tracked wild animals in the jungles of Rwanda. He climbed Kilimanjaro and Mayan pyramids. He trekked across a landslide in Pakistan. He swam amid sharks in Tahiti. Fueled by a powerful curiosity and the need to see, feel, and hear firsthand and close-up, Michael Crichton has experienced adventures as compelling as those he created in his books and films. These adventures -- both physical and spiritual -- are recorded here in Travels, Crichton's most astonishing and personal work.

    The Japan she describes is not the sentimental world of Madame Butterfly but a vibrant land of real people with a complex culture and hardscrabble lives.

    The Jim Corbett Omnibus includes three enduring tales of Corbett's encounters with man-eaters.Man-eaters of Kumaon contains fascinating stories of tracking and shooting of man-eaters in the Indian Himalayas during the early years of the last century. The stories in The Temple Tiger display Corbett's acute awareness of sights, sounds, and life in the Indian forests, as well as his love for the human beings living in the hunting terrain. Finally, perhaps the most exciting of all of Corbett's jungle tales, The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag is a gripping narrative of a notorious leopard which spread terror in the hills of the colonial United Provinces.Dramatic yet reflective, Corbett's writings are coloured by his deep concern and sympathy for the natural world as well as the local people and their traditions and customs. This vividly illustrated collection will appeal equally to Corbett lovers and to those concerned with the environment and wildlife.Table Of ContentsMan-eaters of KumaonAuthor's NoteThe Champawat Man-eatersRobinThe Chowgarh TigersThe Bachelor of PowalgarhThe Mohan Man-eaterThe Fish of My DreamThe Kanda Man-eaterThe Pipal Pani TigerThe Thak Man-eaterJust TigersThe Temple Tiger and More Man-eaters of KumaonThe Temple TigerThe Muktesar Man-eaterThe Panar Man-eaterThe Chuka Man-eaterThe Talla Des Man-eaterEpilogueThe Man-eating Leopard of RudraprayagThe Pilgrim RoadThe Man-eaterTerrorArrivalInvestigationThe First KillLocating the LeopardThe Second KillPreparationsMagicA Near EscapeThe Gin-trapThe Hunters HuntedRetreatFishing InterludeDeath of a GoatCyanide PoisoningTouch and GoA Lesson in CautionA Wild Boar HuntVigil on a Pine-treeMy Night of TerrorLeopard Fights LeopardA Shot in the DarkEpilogue

    Drawing on memories of his childhood in theAlps, Cognetti explored the roots of life in the mountains, truly getting to know the communities and the nature that forged this resilient, almost mythical region. Accompanying him was Remigio, a childhood friend who had never left the mountains of Italy, and Nicola, a painter he had recently met. Joined by a stalwart team of local sherpas, the trio started out in the remote Dolpo region of Nepal. From there, a journey of self-discovery shaped by illness, human connection, and empathy was born.Without Ever Reaching the Summit features line illustrations drawn by the author.

    A journey of the mind - as well as out at sea, amid the basking sharks, seals, fulmars and waves the size of wardrobes. And while storms rage, Jasper seeks refuge in bars, playing guitar and talking, as only the Irish can, with everyone along the way. All of which makes for a unique inside view of the new and old Ireland, from a man never quite sure if he'll come through the next day in one piece.

    Outsourced to India. At Home with Herself?A charming yet honest memoir of one Upper West side housewife who finds herself saying good-bye to Starbucks and all her notions of "home" when she and her husband are outsourced to Hyderabad. Jenny Feldon imagined life in India as a glitzy yoga whirlwind. Instead she found buffalo-related traffic jams. Jenny struggled to fight the depression, bitterness, and anger as her sense of self and her marriage began to unravel. And it was all India's fault--wasn't it? Equally frustrating, revealing, and amusing, this is the true story of an accidental housewife trapped in the third world.

    With no sponsorship, meager funds, and with luggage on his back, he spent four years traversing 20 countries on foot. Photos, maps, index.

    Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

    'You're always leaning out of the windows and taking photographs when I tell you not to.'In an age of plastic knives on planes, Tony Wheeler can make the extraordinary claim of having visited all the rogue countries currently on newsreaders' lips. Bad Lands is a witty first-hand account of his travels through places often perceived as having some of the most repressive and dangerous regimes in the world: Afghanistan, Albania, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Saudi Arabia. Taking into account each country's attitude to human rights, terrorism and foreign policy, he asks 'what makes a country truly evil?' and 'how bad is really bad?' - all the while engaging with a colourful cast of locals and hapless tour guides, ruminating on history and debunking popular myths.Written by the founder of Lonely Planet, this fascinating account of life in these closed-off countries will appeal to anyone with an interest in the state of the world today.

    He writes of bureaucrats, students and Cultural Revolution survivors, stripping none of their complexity and humanity. He's gentle with their idiocies, saving his sharpest barbs for himself (it's his pants that split from zipper to waist whilst demonstrating martial arts in Canton). Though dribs of history and drabs of classical lore seep through, this is mostly a personal tale, noted by the Los Angeles Times for "the charmingly unpretentious manner in which it penetrates a China inaccessible to other foreigners."

    Smile, chuckle, and laugh out loud to the candid and comical accounts of these memorable trips.Brigid Kelso gets bitten and beaten by a healer possessed by a goddess in Kathmandu in "Llamo Dolkar""Fifteen Minutes Can Last Forever" when JoAnn Hornak is being chased by a herd of fifty African elephantsEllen Degeneres’s fear of flying comes out in ripe language shocking the nun in the next seat in "The Plane Truth""Herbal Girl" Deborah Bear tests the strength of ginger when sea sickness overcomes her on a not-so-idyllic voyageSandra Tsing Loh vacations in "Tahiti!" where she finds the freedom to be fat"A Prude in Patpong," Jennifer Leo discovers the outrageous world of Bangkok’s sex showsCooking up a "Rainbow Special" in Guatemala, Cara Tabachnick inadvertantly poisons her new friends with explosive and hilarious results

    He is searching for primeval beauty and a respite from the corruption, violence, and self-destructive urges that typify modern Russian culture, but instead he finds the roots of that culture—in Cossack villages unchanged for centuries, in Soviet outposts full of listless drunks, in stark ruins of the gulag, and in grand forests hundreds of miles from the nearest hamlet.That’s how far Tayler is from help when he realizes that his guide, Vadim, a burly Soviet army veteran embittered by his experiences in Afghanistan, detests all humanity, including Tayler. Yet he needs Vadim’s superb skills if he is to survive a voyage that quickly turns hellish. They must navigate roiling whitewater in howling storms, but they eschew life jackets because, as Vadim explains, the frigid water would kill them before they could swim to shore. Though Tayler has trekked by camel through the Sahara and canoed down the Congo during the revolt against Mobutu, he has never felt so threatened as he does now.

    She introduces us to a wild assortment of characters: lovelorn Tongan transvestites, charismatic Tanzanian rap stars, precocious Cambodian street kids, out-of-work Dutch prostitutes. In the artful interplay of these eight lively, thoughtful stories, she reveals how all of these diverse lives--as well as our own--are being inextricably altered by the ever-shrinking world that we share. Because, she writes, "To forget the humanity in others is to risk forgetting one's own."