"An epic tour of one of the world's most forbidding and legendary regions".--San Francisco Chronicle. Illustrations.

    Col. Arthur J. L. Fremantle of the British Coldstream Guards toured the Confederacy. Mildly predisposed toward the Union side because of his dislike of slavery, he was soon awakened to the gallantry of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and his generals, ordinary Johnny Rebs, and the women left at home. From April to early July 1863—the critical period of campaigns at Vicksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg—Fremantle traveled from the Texas frontier to northern Virginia, recording in a diary his experience of the war. Three Months in the Southern States, published upon his return to England later in the year, has long been considered a classic of wartime writing, especially in its description of the Battle of Gettysburg. Filled with biographical vignettes of Lee, Davis, Stonewall Jackson, Sam Houston, and others, this book offers a kaleidoscopic view of the Confederacy at floodtide.

    So why is she going backpacking?    She doesn't know either...    Catherine isn't the backpacking type. Working for one of the world's biggest hotel chains, she and her employee discount have become accustomed to complimentary bath robes, 24-hour room service and Egyptian cotton sheets. As for holidays, Catherine likes places that encourage lying - lying on the beach, by the pool, in bed...  She's been on what feels like one long holiday in Florida when her fearless best friend, Sheelagh, announces plans to backpack across Central America. With Catherine's US visa about to expire, her having no desire to return home to Ireland just yet and her common sense, evidently, on a day off, she agrees to go along.  After all, how bad can this backpacking thing be?  Um... very bad, actually. Catherine soon finds herself showering with the threat of electrocution, living with mutant cockroaches, sleeping on wooden planks, suffering from all but one of the side-effects listed on her bottle of anti-malarial tablets (liver failure, in case you were wondering) and riding a horse up the side of a smoking, lava-filled volcano.  And that's just the first week.  Backpacked is the wry tale of what happened when one very reluctant backpacker hit the backpacker trail and discovered that beyond the mosquitoes, bad coffee and flea-infested hostels lie even bigger mosquitoes, even worse coffee and flea-infested hostels whose bathrooms have no doors...

    Wherever there was a story to be told--from her native India to Afghanistan and Sri Lanka--Pratap braved the odds to send in reports from the front, managing to track down elusive stories and make headlines. With determined diligence she exposed the terrors inside such frightening regimes as the Taliban, returning home each time with a renewed determination to appreciate and celebrate the ordinary.

    With plenty of alone-time to contemplate the world, the authors share their adventures, which are collectively humorous and exhilarating, suspenseful and defiant, tranquil and enchanting."

    Her two best friends joined her—one a grumpy, grieving introvert, the other a feisty dog—and together they sought out every national park, historic site, forest, and wilderness they could get to before their money ran out or their minds gave in.The journey began as a desperate escape from urban isolation, heartbreak, and despair, but became an adventure beyond imagining. Chronicling their colorful escapade, Almost Anywhere explores the courage, cowardice, and heroics that live in all of us, as well as the life of nature and the nature of life.This eloquent and accessible memoir is at once an immersion in the pain of losing someone particularly close and especially young and a healing journey of a broken life given over to the whimsy and humor of living on the road.Almost Anywhere will appeal to outdoor lovers, armchair travelers, and anyone struggling to find a way forward in life.Early Reviews:“Outstanding, wry, heart-wrenching and healing. Those words describe Almost Anywhere, which hits the bull’s-eye as a cross between Wild and Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. Krista’s unique voice will draw you in and take you on journey to the intersection of unfathomable grief and the healing power of wanderlust.” —Michelle Theall, author of Teaching the Cat to Sit "Brave, beautiful, and utterly captivating, Almost Anywhere breaks your heart and puts it back together again on a long and often arduous road trip across an America where the uncertain future is always just beyond the horizon and the immutable past rushes at you without remorse. Measuring the sharpness of loss against the hugeness of life, Krista Schlyer has found her way, page by page, to a rare state of grace. An amazing book." –William Souder, author of Under a Wild Sky, A Plague of Frogs and On a Farther Shore.

    But there is far more to the story, including the bizarre scheme that Booth first concocted to kidnap Lincoln and trade him for Confederate soldiers held in Northern prisons. Here is the full story of the plot, the bumbling plotters that Booth recruited, Lincoln's lingering death, the manhunt for the assassin, and the trial of the conspirators. It is essential knowledge of a tragedy that shaped America for a century to come.

    She knows all too well what it means to be an outcast in a country she calls home. Layla is also an outsider within her village and family. Whispers surround her growing up, ones that mask the secrets her family has kept for generations. Secrets continue to plague Layla's adolescence and young adult life after the move to America, as the monsters of her past threaten to break the relationships she most cherishes. Layla uncovers the unholiest of secrets on her path to redemption and discovers the truth of her family's history.

    Similarly, stories and storytelling can serve as an introduction to other places and foster a powerful emotional connection to nature. Campfire Stories brings together tales about our national parks; some are by well-known writers such as John Muir, Bill Bryson, and Terry Tempest Williams, while others are from pioneer diaries or have been passed down through generations of indigenous peoples.Co-editors Dave and Ilyssa Kyu spent five months traveling and researching the stories in the book. They gathered each of these stories from public libraries, historical societies, arts and cultural organizations, museums, research centers, and national park archives. They interviewed park rangers, historians, artists, curators, educators, and local residents, who all offered insights and guidance into the essence of each place, which was than used to select entertaining, diverse, and engaging writings that reflected each park and best told around a campfire. Campfire Stories focuses on these six iconic national parks:Acadia National ParkGreat Smoky Mountains National ParkRocky Mountain National ParkKYellowstone National ParkYosemite National ParkZion National ParkEach story includes an "About this Story" reflection, offering insight into how Dave and Ilyssa discovered the tale, why they selected it, and some background about its writer. Dave and Ilyssa also share their own thoughts on each of the parks they visited, as well as tips on how to be a compelling storyteller.

    I've cycled round the world twice now. I'm not young, I'm not sporty, I never train and I still can't tell a sprocket from a chainring or mend a puncture.'So speaks Anne Mustoe in the opening to this fascinating record of her second epic journey cycling around the globe from East to West.Using historical routes as her inspiration, Anne followed the ancient Roman roads to Lisbon, travelled across South America with the Conquistadors, pursued Captain Cook over the Pacific to Australia and Indonesia and followed the caravans along the fabled Silk Road from Xi'an to Rome.

    Feigning Insanity in Order to Reveal Asylum HorrorsAround the World in Seventy-Two Days

    . . My thoughts are filled with frozen rivers that may or may not hold my weight; empty, forgotten valleys haunted by emaciated ghosts; and packs of ravenous, merciless wolves."Having left his job as a high-school geography teacher, Rob Lilwall arrived in Siberia equipped only with a bike and a healthy dose of fear. Cycling Home from Siberia recounts his epic three-and-a-half-year, 30,000-mile journey back to England via the foreboding jungles of Papua New Guinea, an Australian cyclone, and Afghanistan's war-torn Hindu Kush. A gripping story of endurance and adventure, this is also a spiritual journey, providing poignant insight into life on the road in some of the world's toughest corners.

    John Bell Hood and his Army of Tennessee had dreams of capturing Nashville and marching on to the Ohio River, but a small Union force under Hood's old West Point roommate stood between him and the state capital. In a desperate attempt to smash John Schofield's line at Franklin, Hood threw most of his men against the Union works, centered on the house of a family named Carter, and lost 30 percent of his attacking force in one afternoon, crippling his army and setting it up for a knockout blow at Nashville two weeks later. With firsthand accounts, letters and diary entries from the Carter House Archives, local historian James R. Knight paints a vivid picture of this gruesome conflict.

    Dobie's book, originally published in 1941, tells their story. Gaunt, wiry, intractable, they were themselves pioneers in a hard, strange land. He writes of Texas cowboys, rustlers and catches the terrible excitement of the stampede, the poetry of lighting on a sea of seething horns. No historian or naturalist has ever so related an animal to the land, to men, and to history.

    For as long as people have traveled to distant lands, they have brought home objects to certify the journey. More than mere merchandise, these travel souvenirs take on a personal and cultural meaning that goes beyond the object itself. Drawing on several millennia of examples-from the relic-driven quests of early Christians, to the mass-produced tchotchkes that line the shelves of a Disney gift shop-travel writer Rolf Potts delves into a complicated history that explores issues of authenticity, cultural obligation, market forces, human suffering, and self-presentation. Souvenirs are shown for what they really are: not just objects, but personalized forms of folk storytelling that enable people to make sense of the world and their place in it.'Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Souvenir features illustrations by Cedar Van Tassel