| Armchair Travel August 2006 |
|
"Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe."
~ Anatole France, French author
|
| New and recently released! |
| Uncommon Carriers - by John McPhee |
| Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Pub Date: 05/16/2006 |
Check library catalog |
| ISBN: 0374280398 |
|
 |
 |
|
Ever thought about traveling by freight train or 18-wheeler? If you have, you'll want to read this selection of essays by John McPhee, who lives out the dreams of many a child--and adults too--as he attends tanker-captain school in France, visits the UPS sorting factory in Kentucky, and learns how tens of thousands of tons of vehicle and cargo is steered safely from port to port and station to station. But Uncommon Carriers is more than a story of big rigs--it's a study of people who take pride in their jobs, and how they bring the world's goods to our homes. | |
|
| Pedaling to Hawaii: A Human-Powered Odyssey - by Stevie Smith |
| Publisher: Countryman Press |
| Pub Date: 05/01/2006 |
Check library catalog |
| ISBN: 0881507091 |
|
| |
 |
|
In 1994, two young Englishmen started a trip around the world to be completed solely under their own power, which included a grueling, 111-day journey across the Atlantic by pedal boat. Underfunded and by turns bored, fatigued, and exhilarated, the two inexperienced travelers quickly learned a lot--including that being together for 111 days in a small boat is not a good way to strengthen a friendship. They crossed the U.S. separately and together reached Hawaii in 1998, where author Smith left the expedition to write this book. As of July 2006, Smith's traveling partner is crossing Thailand, still intent on finishing the trip. If you're interested, check out Expedition 360's website. | |
|
| The Places in Between - by Rory Stewart |
| Publisher: Harcourt |
| Pub Date: 05/08/2006 |
Check library catalog |
| ISBN: 0156031566 |
|
| |
 |
|
After walking across Iran, Pakistan, India, and Nepal, Rory Stewart decided to walk across Afghanistan as well, just after the fall of the Taliban. This journey ended up taking 20 months, and in The Places in Between he shares stories of the people he came across, the poverty, ignorance, and kindnesses he experienced, and the situations he encountered--whether being offered food and shelter by strangers, pushed around by young warriors, or followed by men who believed him to be a spy. This book has received high praise, and an account of Stewart's walk across Iraq is to be published in the U.S. in August (The Prince of the Marshes). | |
|
| Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu - by J. Maarten Troost |
| Publisher: Broadway Books |
| Pub Date: 06/13/2006 |
Check library catalog |
| ISBN: 0767921992 |
|
| |
 |
|
In this sequel to The Sex Lives of Cannibals, author J. Maarten Troost and his wife Beth, yearning for the blue seas of the South Pacific, head to the multi-island nation Vanuatu, where Troost goes exploring, gets drunk on kava (an intoxicant made from a local plant), dodges lava from a nearby volcano, and looks for cannibals. By book's end, the impending birth of their first child spurs them to move on to Fiji and its state-of-the-art medical facilities. Publishers Weekly calls this a "funny travelogue with a sentimental heart," and Kirkus Reviews refers to Troost as a writer who "delivers the gratifying, old-school goods." | |
|
| The Lost Men: The Harrowing Saga of Shackleton's Ross Sea Expedition - by Kelly Tyler-Lewis |
| Publisher: Viking |
| Pub Date: 04/20/2006 |
Check library catalog |
| ISBN: 0670034126 |
|
| |
 |
|
While many books have recounted the story of Ernest Shackleton's 1914 Antarctic expedition, the story of his supply team, the Ross Sea party, is not quite as well known. Sent to set up supplies for Shackleton, their ship was lost during a storm that stranded ten men on shore. Despite having lost most of their supplies, they decided to march 1,300 hundred miles to set up the depots for Shackleton's party. Based on the survivors' diaries and logs, this is a fascinating look at how men deal with and relate to each other during extraordinarily difficult circumstances in extremely inhospitable climes. | |
|
| Seasons on Harris: A Year in Scotland's Outer Hebrides - by David Yeadon |
| Publisher: HarperCollins |
| Pub Date: 07/01/2006 |
Check library catalog |
| ISBN: 0060741813 |
|
| |
 |
|
For one year, David Yeadon lived on far-flung Harris Island, participating in a lifestyle that can not be replicated anywhere else on earth. Speaking with weavers who produce Harris tweed, crofters, and other locals, he evokes ancient traditions whose futures are in doubt, and explores the geographic wonders to be found on the island. Drawn by remote locations, Yeadon has a distinct ability to capture what it is that makes Harris so unique, and is gifted with the ability to draw readers into a sense of what Kirkus Reviews calls "all the plights and possibilities of traditional life." | |
| |
|
| Road trip! |
| Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip - by Dayton Duncan |
| Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf |
| Pub Date: 07/01/2003 |
Check library catalog |
| ISBN: 037541536X |
|
| |
 |
|
This book--and its companion PBS film by Ken Burns--depicts the first coast-to-coast road trip across the U.S., undertaken on a bet in 1903 by Horatio Jackson. Trips like these are commonplace these days, but when Jackson and his mechanic friend Sewell Crocker made this one, most of the roads were unpaved, there were few if any roadmaps or streetlights, and the car lacked gears, a roof, and a windshield. Many of the people they came across (at speeds never exceeding 30 mph) had never seen a car. Not only that, but there were challengers to their title on their heels. Publishers Weekly calls this account "engrossing." | |
|
| Breaking the Limit: One Woman's Motorcycle Journey through North America - by Karen Larsen |
| Publisher: Hyperion |
| Pub Date: 07/01/2004 |
Check library catalog |
| ISBN: 0786868708 |
|
| |
 |
|
At 31, Karen Larsen had some time between finishing graduate school and starting a new job--wanting to see more of North America, she decided to hop onto her motorcycle and ride. Ride it she certainly did, for 15,000 miles from New Jersey west to the Pacific, north up through British Columbia and Alaska and back again to New Jersey. Along the way she considers the travel experience, meets her biological family, and gets a sense of the road in the way that only a person on a bike can. For another perspective on motorcycle travel, try actor Ewan McGregor's account of passing through Asia in Long Way Round. | |
|
| Storyville, USA - by Dale Peterson |
| Publisher: University of Georgia Press |
| Pub Date: 09/01/1999 |
Check library catalog |
| ISBN: 0820321516 |
|
| |
 |
|
A road trip in search of meaning is a well-known hook--but how about a road trip in search of the meaning behind place names? From Start, LA to Roads End, AL (with a stop for Hot Coffee, MS), Dale Peterson and his two children undertake a 20,000-mile tour in what Library Journal calls a "witty, totally charming" account of small-town America. With a driving style that involves more meandering than planning, the three head for interesting-sounding places, and then search for the stories that can surely be found there. | |
|
| Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Investor's Road Trip - by Jim Rogers |
| Publisher: Random House |
| Pub Date: 05/01/2003 |
Check library catalog |
| ISBN: 0375509127 |
|
| |
 |
|
For three years, Jim Rogers and his fiancée traveled through 116 countries by convertible; a former offshore hedge fund manager, Rogers has more to offer than just a collection of witty stories. Rather, he provides insight into the global economy and details the economic status of each country he visits. Considering each country as an opportunity for investment as well as for adventure, this book is suited to armchair travelers as well as those interested in the global economy. If you're intrigued by the combination, he also has traveled the world by motorcycle, joining travelogue and business advice in Investment Biker. | |
|
| In Search of King Solomon's Mines - by Tahir Shah |
| Publisher: Arcade Publishing |
| Pub Date: 06/01/2003 |
Check library catalog |
| ISBN: 1559706414 |
|
| |
 |
|
After having bought, as a souvenir, a map supposedly showing the route to the hidden treasures of King Solomon, Tahir Shah decided to go to Ethiopia to try and find said mines. A hired taxi driver becomes guide, translator, and companion as the search for King Solomon's long-lost loot takes them to legal and illegal gold mines throughout rural Ethiopia. They sleep in brothels, join camel caravans, and meet extraordinary people--of whom the Hyena-man, who feeds hyenas so that they won't carry off village children, is just one example. If you're interested in African culture, biblical history, or just a great read, you won't want to miss the story that Library Journal calls "suspenseful, hilarious, and rollicking." | |
|
| Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town - by Paul Theroux |
| Publisher: Houghton Mifflin |
| Pub Date: 05/01/2003 |
Check library catalog |
| ISBN: 0618134247 |
|
| |
 |
|
Acclaimed novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux returns to Africa after an absence of 30 years to find the optimism of the '60s replaced by corruption and poverty, and the natural beauty replaced by desert and urban sprawl. Although he finds more than just misery, even the entertaining encounters with natives, tourists, aid workers, and missionaries serve to highlight the problems rampant in Africa today. But as he hitches rides from Cairo to Cape Town, he sees the beauty and the possibility that still remain; as Kirkus Reviews reports, Dark Star Safari is "engagingly written, sharply observed." | |
| |
|
| Still looking for the right book? Contact your librarian. |
|
|
|
|