Too much stress and not enough time with her family left her feeling that her priorities were all wrong. So she and her husband quit their jobs, pulled their six-year-old daughter out of school, and moved into an old camper van.They planned to take a year off to drive south in search of a simpler life. What followed were three and a half years of heart-warming personal encounters, breath-taking wilderness campsites, and occasionally terrifying situations…...In Mexico, an angry mob surrounded them on a remote road and threatened them with rocks, but just a few hours later, a local family welcomed them into their home, sharing everything they had....While barreling down the highway in Colombia, their van’s battery exploded, filling their home-on-wheels with noxious fumes. Then the engine died entirely while parked in no-man’s-land between Ecuador and Peru, leaving them stranded for a month in a tiny border town. ...They learned first-hand about South American politics when they got caught among thousands of Venezuelan refugees trying to cross the Colombian border, and again when a revolution erupted around them in Bolivia and trapped them in the capital city among protests and road blocks....And they got caught in one of the world's strictest COVID quarantines in Argentina, living for over a year in a small mountain town there.Join them on these and other adventures in this feel-good read about a family trying to find their place in the world.

    Ranulph followed his father's path into the Royal Scots Greys. After that came the SAS, from which he was dismissed for blowing up an American film set at the idyllic Cotswold village of Castle Combs, then two vicious years as a volunteer fighting communist insurgents in Oman. Then began the series of expeditions for which Fiennes is best known and which caused The Guinness Book of Records to hail him in 1984 as 'the world's greatest living explorer.' Up the White Nile in a hovercraft, parachuting onto Europe's highest glacier, forcing his way up 4,000 miles of terrifying rivers in northern Canada and Alaska, overland to the North Pole and to the ends of the earth, across the world's axis-the Transglobe Expedition-which took ten years from conception to completion. He writes here too about his attempt to reach the North Pole without dogs or motorised equipment, beating the world record by 300 miles, his determination to find the lost city of Urbar in the Arabian desert and, finally, his extraordinary journey across the Antarctic Continent via the South Pole. Living Dangerously is a remarkable testament from a remarkable man.

    From the award-winning author of The Shell Collector and About Grace comes an evocative memoir of the timeless beauty of Rome and the day-to-day wonderment of living, writing, and raising twin boys in a foreign city.

    "We'll rely on the kindness of strangers." And that's what they did. Mooching their way down the river and staying with strangers every night, Morine and Peard got an inside look at such issues as the demise of farming, the loss of manufacturing, gay rights, and Wal-Mart versus Main Street, and they were able to delve deep into the lives of complete strangers. But Morine soon realized the one life he never dug into was Peard's. After spending a month with him in a canoe, he had no idea that his friend's innermost thoughts had taken a fateful course. Written in the tradition of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, this book will be treasured by conservationists, canoeists, and old friends still seeking a thrill. Everyone else will be delightfully entertained.

    I've never worried about life's big questions. People at my age sit about pondering "why are we here?" The only time I ever asked myself that is when Suzanne booked us a surprise holiday to Lanzarote.'Karl Pilkington is forty years old. He's not married, he doesn't have kids, and he's got a job where he's known as an 'idiot'. It's time for him to take stock and face up to life's big question - what does it all mean?Karl is no stranger to travel, and now he's off on a series of adventures around the globe to find out how other cultures approach life's big issues. Travelling from far-flung tribes to high-tech cities, Karl experiences everything from a drive-thru wedding in Las Vegas to a vocational theme park in Japan, he meets a group of people in Mexico who find happiness through pain, undergoes a plastic surgery procedure in LA, and even encounters a woman in Bali who lets him help deliver her baby. Have his experiences changed him? Find out in this hilarious new book where Karl shares his stories (and opinions) in his inimitable style. Karl Pilkington is back on the road, and this time he's on a journey of self-discovery...

    "A stunning memoir from the astronaut who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Station – a candid account of his remarkable voyage, the journeys that preceded it, and his colorful formative years." Inside book cover comments.

    And the trouble with being Tony, is that most of them got one.Just how do you 'look after' something that's trying it's damnedest to kill you and eat you?And how do you find love when you a) don't speak the language, and b) are constantly covered in excrement and entrails?If only he'd had some relevant experience. Other than owning a pet rabbit when he was nine. And if only he'd bought some travel insurance...That Bear Ate My Pants is the hilarious tale of one man's quest to better himself. Whether losing a machete fight with a tree, picking dead tarantulas out of a tank of live ones or sewing the head back on to a partially decapitated crocodile, Tony's misadventures are ridiculous, unbelievable and always entertaining.Long before Sky One got involved, there were already plenty of Idiots Abroad. This is the story of one of them...

    ‘Sully’ Sullenberger—the pilot who miraculously landed a crippled US Airways Flight 1549 in New York’s Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 passengers and crew.On January 15, 2009, the world witnessed a remarkable emergency landing when Captain "Sully" Sullenberger skillfully glided US Airways Flight 1549 onto the Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 passengers and crew. His cool actions not only averted tragedy but made him a hero and an inspiration worldwide. His story is now a major motion picture from director / producer Clint Eastwood and stars Tom Hanks, Laura Linney and Aaron Eckhart.Sully's story is one of dedication, hope, and preparedness, revealing the important lessons he learned through his life, in his military service, and in his work as an airline pilot. It reminds us all that, even in these days of conflict, tragedy and uncertainty, there are values still worth fighting for—that life's challenges can be met if we're ready for them.

     In her late twenties, M.E. Evans hops on a plane to Italy on a mission to change her life and that’s exactly what happens. Unfortunately, personal growth isn’t always easy. In Naked, bestselling author, M.E. Evans tackles the dysfunctional family narrative and travel memoir in a way that is refreshingly honest, painfully vulnerable, and wildly entertaining. If you’ve ever set foot in a foreign country or picked up a travel memoir you probably think you already know what Naked is about: a dreamy personal account of the life-altering beauty that is Italy. And sure, that’s in there, nestled somewhere between the profound grief, bruised ego, debilitating anxiety, chronic depression, vagina paintings, a boyfriend with billowing chest hair and a mother-in-law who forcibly irons your underwear. Evans’ dream of a magical life abroad is marred by forbidden love, the death of her younger brother, and a batshit crazy family, yet she skillfully merges tragedy and humor for a wild emotional journey exploring what it means to be human–flaws and all. Evans’ wit, compassion, and vulnerability make reading this book a rarely authentic and relatable experience. You’ll cry, you’ll cackle, and you’ll want Evans to be your best friend.

    Joined by his trusty traveling companion-cum-domestic appliance, he made his way from Dublin to Donegal, from Sligo through Mayo, Galway, Clare, Kerry, Cork, Wexford, Wicklow--and back again to Dublin. In their month of madness, Tony and his fridge met a real prince, a bogus king, and the fridge got christened. They surfed together, entered a bachelor festival, and one of them had sex without the other knowing. And unexpectedly, the fridge itself became a momentary focus for the people of Ireland.An international bestseller, Round Ireland with a Fridge is a classic travel adventure in the tradition of Bill Bryson with a dash of Dave Barry.

    She wore saris and ate delicately from plates of curry at family events; elsewhere she wore a lip ring, designer shades, and a cowboy hat and ordered bloody steaks. She wrote volumes of poetry, made amateur films, singlehandedly ran a chapter of Food Not Bombs, and ended up as a fierce advertising agency executive. She often slept less than five hours per week and would, at the slightest excuse, drive from L.A. to New York in a cool 50 hours. In some moments of danger, she split the lips of menacing strangers. And she gave herself over to the casual knives and fists of others for nothing more than another bag of heroin that she had plenty of money for anyway. Clearly Now, the Rain traces the decade-long relationship of Eli Hastings and his friend Serala: from ill-advised quests for narcotics in Mexican border towns through summer road trips, from southern California to Tennessee and on to New York City and Seattle, from 1996 to the very last days of 2004, when Serala’s journey concluded tragically at age 27.

    Their intention is to make a living, but first they must negotiate their way through the Spanish property market, local characters, rogue builders and the worst weather Andalucía has seen for 100 years.Alan and Lorna experience the joy, but also the heartbreak of alpaca breeding, picking up an assortment of stray animals on the way.

    

    Driving the car is Michael Paterniti, a young journalist from Maine. Sitting next to him is an eighty-four-year-old pathologist named Thomas Harvey who performed the autopsy on Einstein in 1955--and simply removed the brain and took it home. And kept it for over forty years.On a cold February day, the two men and the brain leave New Jersey and light out on I-70 for sunny California, where Einstein's perplexed granddaughter, Evelyn, awaits. And riding along as the imaginary fourth passenger is Einstein himself, an id-driven genius, the original galactic slacker with his head in the stars.Part travelogue, part memoir, part history, part biography, and part meditation, Driving Mr. Albert is one of the most unique road trips in modern literature. With the brain as both cargo and talisman, Paterniti perceives every motel, truck-stop diner, and roadside attraction as a weigh station for the American dream in the wake of the scientist's mind-blowing legacy. Finally, inspired by the man who gave a skeptical world a glimpse of its cosmic origins, this extraordinary writer weaves his own unified field theory of time, love, and the power to believe, once again, in eternity.

    A New York Times Notable Book of 2011. One of NPR's Best Books of 2011. One of Janet Maslin's Ten Picks for 2011. When the writer Donovan Hohn heard of the mysterious loss of thousands of bath toys at sea, he figured he would interview a few oceanographers, talk to a few beachcombers, and read up on Arctic science and geography. But questions can be like ocean currents: wade in too far, and they carry you away. Hohn's accidental odyssey pulls him into the secretive world of shipping conglomerates, the daring work of Arctic researchers, the lunatic risks of maverick sailors, and the shadowy world of Chinese toy factories. Moby-Duck is a journey into the heart of the sea and an adventure through science, myth, the global economy, and some of the worst weather imaginable. With each new discovery, Hohn learns of another loose thread, and with each successive chase, he comes closer to understanding where his castaway quarry comes from and where it goes. In the grand tradition of Tony Horwitz and David Quammen, Moby-Duck is a compulsively readable narrative of whimsy and curiosity.