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Armchair Travel Spring 2024 |
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Otter country : an unexpected adventure in the natural world
by Miriam Darlington
"Mysterious, graceful, and ever-clever, otters have captivated our imaginations despite the fact that few people have encountered one in the wild. In Otter Country, celebrated nature writer Miriam Darlington captures the fascination she's had for these playful animals since childhood and chronicles her immersive journey into their watery world. Over the course of a single year, Darlington takes readers on a winding expedition in pursuit of these elusive creatures-from her home in Devon, England, through the wilds of Scotland, Wales, the Lake District, and the countryside of Cornwall. As she's drawn deeper into wilder habitats, trekking through changing landscapes, seasons, and weather, Darlington meets biologists, conservationists, fishing and hunting enthusiasts, and poets-enriching her understanding, admiration, and awe of the wild otter. With each encounter, she reveals the scientific, environmental, and cultural importance of this creature and the places it calls home. Full of wonder, hope, and an abiding love for the natural world, Otter Country: An Unexpected Adventure in the Natural World is a beautiful and captivating work of nature writing, pursuing one of nature's most endearing and endlessly fascinating creatures"
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Never leave the dogs behind : a memoir
by Brianna Madia
After the fallout of a painful, public divorce, the New York Times best-selling author, in her pared-down trailer with only her four precious dogs as company, reckons with her decision to be alone in the desert as she grapples with anger, despair and freedom that comes from being on her own.
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River Without a Cause : An Expedition Through the Past, Present and Future of Theodore Roosevelt's River of Doubt
by Sam Moses
Sam Moses took part in the adventure of a lifetime when he, along with seventeen men and two women, embarked on the Rio Roosevelt Expedition. They would follow the former president's wake down five-hundred miles of extreme whitewater into the dark heart of the Amazon. The party was guided by two chiefs from the Cinta Larga tribe—the same tribe that stalked Roosevelt’s expedition in 1914—who, between rapids, tell the story of the tribe’s own Trail of Tears. After the wildest whitewater is past, Moses travels with the chiefs to their village to witness the massive illegal mahogany logging from their forest, the Roosevelt Indigenous Territory.
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A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages : The World Through Medieval Eyes
by Anthony Bale
From the bustling bazaars of Tabriz, to the mysterious island of Caldihe, where sheep were said to grow on trees, Anthony Bale brings history alive in A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages, inviting the reader to travel across a medieval world punctuated with miraculous wonders and long-lost landmarks. Journeying alongside scholars, spies and saints, from western Europe to the Far East, the Antipodes, and the ends of the world, this is no ordinary travel guide, containing everything from profane pilgrim badges, Venetian laxatives and flying coffins to encounters with bandits and trysts with princesses.
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Off the Tracks : A Meditation on Train Journeys in a Time of No Travel
by Pamela Mulloy
In this pensive outing, Mulloy reflects on the history and merits of train travel. Writing of artists and wanderlust, Mulloy notes that train journeys allowed Austrian writer Stephan Zweig the space “to write, to think, to break free from the ties and habits of his life” and discover the world “that lives within.” Mulloy herself experiences a paradoxical “stillness” when traveling by train that allows “creative thought to flourish.” Though Mulloy’s wistful prose occasionally slips into sentimentality (she repeatedly muses on how a writer’s real journey is internal and ongoing), recollections of her own train trips are often poignant and vivid, as in a discussion of a yearly trek she takes with her daughter that “allow me to see her out of her element.”
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The believer : a year in the fly-fishing life
by David Coggins
"In David Coggins's previous book, The Optimist, he tackles the techniques of fly fishing and meditates on its virtues, recounting his triumphs and frustrations. Now, in The Believer, he deftly mixes travel, local cultures, further fishing challenges (some knee-buckling in their disappointment), and details his own experience as life and love crowd his time to fish. Self-consciously--and self-deprecatingly--Coggins embarks on seven far-flung fishing voyages, away from screens and social media, not answering his phone, reveling in humanity's undying yearning for a quest, for the rituals and rites of passage that mark transition. For David, these journeys not only showcase his skill as an angler--including to Norway, Scotland, Spain, Cuba, and Argentina, as well as road trips to Wyoming, Tennessee, and the Catskills-they also signal the end of his fly-fishing youth. But that doesn't mean that David will sell all his rods and hang up his hat; rather, that his relationship with his fly-fishing obsession willevolve. And he's okay with that--mostly, especially if he can catch an elusive salmon or a ferociously strong tarpon or the mysterious and almost invisible bonefish. The Believer is a humble, humorous call for the journey that is part of the destination,where the search for greater self-awareness leads to patience, observation, and endurance. And, since this is fly fishing, after all--there's always the possibility of abject failure and leaping, glorious reward. Wry, entertaining, thoughtful, and relatable, The Believer will hook both anglers and non-anglers alike"
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Iredell County Public Library
201 N. Tradd Street, Statesville, North Carolina 28677
704-878-3090www.iredell.lib.nc.us |
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