You Good Thing


Dara Wier - 2013
    . . Assigned toAdventure said the motto on our buttons. The last thing we knewBefore we left with our satchels concerned how love withdrawsMoving backward taking with it everything, our names, this way.Dara Wier directs the MFA program at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This is her ninth book, and first new collection of poetry since 2006.

Poets in a Landscape


Gilbert Highet - 1957
    Poets in a Landscape is his delightful exploration of Latin literature and the Italian landscape. As Highet writes in his introduction, “I have endeavored to recall some of the greatest Roman poets by describing the places were they lived, recreating their characters and evoking the essence of their work.” The poets are Catullus, Vergil, Propertius, Horace, Tibullus, Ovid, and Juvenal. Highet brings them life, setting them in their historical context and locating them in the physical world, while also offering crisp modern translations of the poets’ finest work. The result is an entirely sui generis amalgam of travel writing, biography, criticism, and pure poetry—altogether an unexcelled introduction to the world of the classics.

From Snow to Ash: Solitude, soul-searching and survival on Australia's toughest hiking trail


Anthony Sharwood - 2020
    

Kieslowski on Kieslowski


Krzysztof Kieślowski - 1993
    Kieslowski was notoriously reticent, and even dismissive of his work and talent, but these frank and detailed discussions show a passion for film-making and a career which was often threatened by political and economic change within Poland. In the book he talks at length about his life: his childhood, disrupted by Hitler and Stalin; his four attempts to get into film school; and what Poland and its future meant to him at the time of writing, before his death in 1996.

How It All Began: The Personal Account of a West German Urban Guerrilla


Michael "Bommi" Baumann - 1975
    He renounced violence when he left the June 2nd Movement in 1972.Security police seized the original German edition, Wie Alles Anfing, when it appeared in 1975. The resulting trial and publicity raised an international outcry and the book ended up being republished in German and translated into six languages.In an age when public protests—against corporate greed, against free trade agreements, and for social justice—are becoming more frequent and more violent, How It All Began provides a fascinating glimpse into the thinking behind urban struggle, and the consequences of action.As Baumann himself said, "Violence is a perfectly adequate means, I never had any hangups about it."The first English version of How It All Began was published by Arsenal in 1977 and updated in 1981. Long out of print, it has been re-issued, making it available to readers once again.Bommi Baumann was a leading member of the June 2nd Movement, one of the most active urban guerrilla groups in West Berlin. From a low-income, unstable family background, Baumann left the movement and the urban guerrilla struggle in 1972 and went underground to write this book. He was arrested in London in 1981 and there has been no word from him since.

Bon Courage: Rediscovering the Art of Living (In the Heart of France)


Ken McAdams - 2010
    When they fall in love with the village of La Montagne Noire, they find themselves buying a fixer-upper and starting all over again-but this time, in French McAdams recounts their mishaps and misadventures with humor, capturing the essence of French village life, the awkwardness of being foreigners in a close-knit town, the couple's hilarious linguistic pratfalls, and how the mammoth undertaking that threatens to tear their new marriage apart ultimately brings them closer together and helps them find a place in the community they have grown to love.

Pasha: The Autobiography of TV's Hottest Dance Star


Pasha Kovalev - 2013
    to LondonOCothe professional dancer's extraordinaryajourney to the glitzy world of ballroomWith his slick moves, calm demeanor, and brooding good looks, Pasha Kovalev has becomeaa senation as a popular dancer. His talent and determination have taken him around the world, but as he shares here, it was the stark, grey landscape of his Siberian hometown, still reeling from the Communist regime, which provided the unlikely inspiration for his early love of ballroom dancing. With a strongadesire to succeed, he moved to theaU.S. in 2001awith his professional dance partner Anya Garnis and settled in Fort Lee, New Jersey.aHe auditioned for seasonathree of "So You Think You Can Dance "in 2007, amoved to L.A. in 2008, aand heahas since participated in all following seasons as either a choreographer or an All Star. Froma2009-2011ahe joined the cast of Jason Gilkison's production "Burn the Floor," one of the leading ballroom based shows in the world, during its stint on Broadway. In September 2011, Pasha joined the BBC's "Strictly Come Dancing" as the new professional dancer of the ninth season, abeing partnered in the 10th season with Girls Aloud star Kimberley Walsh. He speaks candidly in this heartwarming autobiography, on topics from romance to body image to the illness that nearly killed him. Most of all, he gives readers a glimpse behind the scenes of the flashy world of ballroom, and what really goes on beneath the veneer of sparkles and glamour."

God and Mr. Gomez


Jack Clifford Smith - 1974
    The joys and travails of building a home in Baja California.

The Arcades Project


Walter Benjamin - 1982
    In the bustling, cluttered arcades, street and interior merge and historical time is broken up into kaleidoscopic distractions and displays of ephemera. Here, at a distance from what is normally meant by "progress," Benjamin finds the lost time(s) embedded in the spaces of things.

Travels With Tinkerbelle - 6000 Miles Around France In A Mechanical Wreck


Susie Kelly - 2006
    Like many simple plans it went wrong before it started and they ended up with two dogs and a campervan named Tinkerbelle. On the second day of their journey Tinkerbelle begins to self-destruct, helped by the new dog who does his best to eat her from the inside out. This is their story, as they travel from sandy beaches to snow-topped mountains exploring the diverse cultures, cuisines and countryside making up the country called France. Their journey takes them to places out of the ordinary, meeting interesting characters and witnessing ancient traditions. While the dogs rejoice in the freedom they find running on the beaches, Susie and Terry spend a lot of time holding their breath, wondering whether Tinkerbelle will manage to negotiate impossible mountain routes and get them home before she completely disintegrates. Travels with Tinkerbelle is a revision of "A Perfect Circle," previously published by Transworld Publishers. Enhanced features of this edition include chapter by chapter map links of the journey.

Walks in Hemingway's Paris: A Guide to Paris for the Literary Traveler


Noël Riley Fitch - 1989
    Covering all the area of Paris that Hemingway and his fellow expatriates once roamed from Left Bank to Right, Noel Riley Fitch provides an intimate visit to major Parisian landmarks as well as to out-of-the-way cafes, hotels and residences immortalized by "Papa" and his friends.

A Mad Dash (Introspective Exhortations and Geographical Considerations 2008)


Henry Rollins - 2009
    

The Longest Walk: An Odyssey of the Human Spirit


George Meegan - 1988
    Photographs.

Blue Trout and Black Truffles: The Peregrinations of an Epicure


Joseph Wechsberg - 1953
    It is a vicarious experience to read about the culinary wonders of the notable establishments of another era that have become the last epicurean haven in this materialistic, mechanized world of fastfood chains and frozenfood dinners. Mr. Wechsberg reaches back to the twilight days of the Habsburg monarchy, when those splendid monuments to the haute cuisine in central Europe, Meissl and Schadn of Vienna and Gundel's of Budapest, were in their prime.

In Memory of Memory


Maria Stepanova - 2017
    Carefully reassembled with calm, steady hands, these shards tell the story of an ordinary family that somehow managed to survive the myriad persecutions and repressions of the last century. The family’s pursuit of a quiet, civilized, ordinary life—during such atrocious times—is itself a strange odyssey.In dialogue with thinkers like Roland Barthes, W. G. Sebald, Susan Sontag, and Osip Mandelstam, In Memory of Memory is imbued with rare intellectual curiosity and a wonderfully soft-spoken, poetic voice. Dipping into various genres—essay, fiction, memoir, travelogue, and history—Stepanova assembles a vast panorama of ideas and personalities and offers a bold exploration of cultural and personal memory.