The Okavango Delta, Botswana: a lush wetland in the middle of the Kalahari desert. Aged 19, Peter Allison thought he would visit for a short holiday before going home to get a 'proper job'. But Peter fell in love with southern Africa and its wildlife and before long had risen to become a top safari guide. In Don't Run, Whatever You Do, you'll hear outrageous-but-true tales from the most exciting safaris. You'll find out when an elephant is really going to charge, what different monkey calls mean and what do in a face off with lions. Sometimes the tourists are even wilder than the animals, from the half-naked missing member of the British royal family to the Japanese amateur photographer who ignores all the rules to get the perfect shot. Don't Run, Whatever You Do is a glimpse of what the life of an expert safari guide is really like.

What was Takako Konishi really doing in North Dakota, and why did she end up dead? Did she get lost and freeze to death, as the police concluded, while searching for the fictional treasure buried in a snowbank at the end of the Coen Brothers' film Fargo? Or was it something else that brought her there: unrequited love, ritual suicide, a meteor shower, a far-flung search for purpose? The seed of an obsession took root in struggling film student Jana Larson when she chanced upon a news bulletin about the case. Over the years and across continents, the material Jana gathered in her search for the real Takako outgrew multiple attempts at screenplays and became this remarkable, genre-bending essay that leans into the space between fact and fiction, life and death, author and subject, reality and delusion.

'A propulsive, soulful story of mourning and gratitude - and an intimate portrait of one woman's sojourn in the wilderness between life and death.' TARA WESTOVER, author of Educated __________ We all face moments that bring us to our knees: heartbreak, trauma, illness. When things don't go to plan this is the book to reach for - an inspirational memoir about what we can learn about life from a brush with death. At just twenty-two, on the cusp of adult life, Suleika Jaouad was diagnosed with leukemia and given a 35 per cent chance of survival. For the next five years, her world comprised four white walls, a hospital bed, fluorescent lights, tubes and wires. She became patient 5624. At twenty-seven, and celebrating her first year of remission, Suleika realized that, having survived, she now had no idea how to live. And so she set out to meet some of the many strangers who had written to her about their experiences of life, death, healing and recovery in response to her Emmy-Award winning New York Times column, 'Life Interrupted'. Between Two Kingdoms is the result. Drawing on Suleika's TED Talk, now with 4 million views, it illuminates universal questions about how we live, mourn, heal and grow up, and what it means to begin again. __________ Praise for Between Two Kingdoms: 'A work of breathtaking creativity and heart-stopping humanity.' ELIZABETH GILBERT, author of Eat Pray Love 'A beautiful, elegant and heart-breaking book that provides a glimpse into the kingdom of illness.' SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies 'No more doomscrolling. Read this book instead... Full of wisdom and resilience.' ADAM GRANT, author of Originals 'A deeply touching account of learning to live in the now, because nothing else is promised. I loved it.' KATHRYN MANNIX, author of With the End in Mind

Welcome to New Auburn, Wisconsin, where the local vigilante is a farmer's wife armed with a pistol and a Bible, the most senior member of the volunteer fire department is a cross-eyed butcher with one kidney and two ex-wives (both of whom work at the only gas station in town), and the back roads are haunted by the ghosts of children and farmers. Against a backdrop of fires and tangled wrecks, bar fights and smelt feeds, "Population: 485" is a comic and sometimes heartbreaking true tale leavened with quieter meditations on an overlooked America.

Professor Augusto Gansser, who died in 2012 aged 101, was a Swiss geologist, researcher and adventurer whose explorations led to new insights about the origins of the great mountain ranges. Early on in his life this modest man began to document his work and life in words, sketches and photographs. His first diary dates back to 1929, the beginning of his career as a geologist. 80 years later, the stock of his diaries and field notebooks is impressive. They tell of the adventurous trip to Eastern Greenland in 1934 when his team of geologists got stranded on the pack-ice for several weeks. They speak of demanding excursions in the Himalayas - barely investigated in the mid-thirties; of his artistry at disguise when he entered Tibet, at the time still closed to foreigners, disguised as a monk to bring back valuable rock samples from the Kailas, the holiest mountain on planet earth. They speak of excursions to Columbia and Trinidad, and the discovery of giant oil deposits as geologist-in-chief under the Shah of Persia. They tell of the friendship with the Bhutanese King's family and their support in allowing him to be the first to map their country. And this book speaks of all these adventures. There is an immense wealth of photos, sketches and field reports in this lavish book. Ursula Markus accompanied her father Augusto Gansser on many trips. As editor she researched the immense image material for the book, and with the well-known journalist Ursula Eichenberger the eventful life of Gansser is described.

'A treasure-trove of inspiration . . . [Beyond the Footpath] shows us how to make the most of the calm beauty of the natural world that surrounds us, as well as offering practical guidance on where to find - and how to travel to - those special places' Raynor Winn, bestselling author of The Salt Path 'Inspirational yet practical. With mindful exercises and tracks to take. Discover the benefits of being a modern pilgrim' Country Living 'A brilliant solution to restoring balance and rediscovering meaning' The Simple Things AN INSPIRING GUIDE TO WALKING MINDFULLY TO PLACES OF MEANING A pilgrimage - long, short, secular or religious - gives you the opportunity to step out of your day-to-day routine and follow a path that promises meaning, a little magic and the space to breathe. Beyond the Footpath will take you on a journey to places of spiritual or personal significance - and show you how to travel in a way that enhances your connection to the world and to yourself. Whether you choose a long-distance trail, an ascent of an awe-inspiring mountain, a walk in an ancient forest, a journey to a temple, stone circle or sacred garden, or simply a lunchtime stroll to somewhere special, Beyond the Footpath has suggestions and tips to inspire you to open the door and walk into a world of wonder.

A poetic meditation on life and death, by one of the most renowned and respected film-makers and intellectuals of our time. In November 1974, when Werner Herzog was told that his mentor Lotte Eisner, the film-maker and critic, was dying in Paris, he set off to walk there from Munich, 'in full faith, believing that she would stay alive if I came on foot'. Along the way he recorded what he saw, how he felt, and what he experienced, from the physical discomfort of the journey to moments of rapture. It is a remarkable narrative - part pilgrimage, part meditation, and a confrontation between a great German Romantic imagination and the contemporary world. This edition of the book is being published for the first time as a classic piece of proto-psychogeography, to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the legendary director's walk.

This exploration of German identity unfurls as the author journeys through the former German Reich, through the eighteen territories memorialised in the Hall of Liberation. His travels cover present-day Germany and Austria and those regions of Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania and Russia which were once German or which remain German-speaking. Geoghegan witnesses a parade of "Schutzen" in Bolzano, an Easter Monday demonstration in Frankfurt and the Festival of the Five-Petalled Rose in Cesky Krumlov. He visits monasteries, fantasy castles, Jewish ghettoes and the remains of the Iron Curtain. He is stopped by "unofficial collaborators" in a wood near Weimar, gets hopelessly lost in Swinoujscie and spends a dismal New Year's Eve in Rudesheim. There are flashbacks to an exchange visit to Dusseldorf as a schoolboy, love affairs and broken engagements, arrests at borders and a search for his Stasi file. Underpinning the contemporary travelogue are cultural-historical observations on the theme of German national identity. The author encounters the patriotic monuments of nineteenth-century Germany and the ruins and surviving fabric of the Third Reich, Fascist Italy and the Communist bloc. He visits the model villages, seaside resorts, occult sites and concentration camps of National Socialism, and engages with cultural figures whose works reflect differing approaches to the idea of Germanness: the paintings of Lucas Cranach and Anselm Kiefer; the music of Richard Wagner and Anton Bruckner; the sculptures of Arno Breker and the architecture of Wilhelm Kreis; and the writings of Eduard Moerike, Bertolt Brecht and Gunter Grass.

Since leaving home for Europe alone at age seventeen, Karen Gershowitz has traveled to more than ninety countries. In pursuit of her passion for travel, she lost and gained friends and lovers and made a radical career change. She learned courage and risk taking and succeeded at things she didn't think she could do: She climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. She visited remote areas of Indonesia on her own and became a translator, though only fluent in English. She conquered her fear of falling while on an elephant trek in Thailand. And she made friends across the globe, including a Japanese family who taught her to make sushi and a West Berliner who gave her an insider's look at the city shortly after the wall came down. An example that will inspire armchair travelers to become explorers and embolden everyone to be more courageous, Travel Mania is a vivid story of how one woman found her strength, power, and passion. Travel is Karen's addiction-and she doesn't want treatment.

The Villa Ariadne is a meditation on the island of Crete, centred on the house built by Sir Arthur Evans, the famous archaeologist of Knossos. Dilys Powell captures the spirit of a place she loved dearly and a group of people she knew well, from local Cretans to the archaeologists Evans and Pendlebury, and the German General Kreipe who was famously kidnapped on the island by Paddy Leigh-Fermor in one of the most audacious actions of World War II. Weaving the myths of the island with its archaeology, ancient history and modern tales, she gives us a loving portrait of this classical land.

Will Randall travels with a purpose, as well as an outrageous sense of fortune. In INDIAN SUMMER he found himself, by chance, having the extraordinary experience of helping slum schoolchildren put on a play to help save their school. In Botswana he was taken up by a headmaster to teach a class of six year olds at The River of Life school. They are football crazy and one of Will's jobs is to take them to play neighbouring (sometimes as much as 100 miles away) schools. Camping en-route or staying in farms and rural villages, often travelling by foot or dug-out punts, thousands of antelope, elephant, buffalo and zebra follow their progress. The sound of lions, leopards and hyenas become the soundtrack of their dreams. Against all the odds they find themselves preparing for the Grand Final of the season - the titanic clash with arch rivals, Victoria Falls Primary school. Both an endearing personal story and a travel book about a little-known but highly successful country, BOTSWANA TIME will win new fans for both Will Randall and the extraordinary country of Botswana.

All the best armchair travellers are sceptics. Those of the fourteenth century were no exception: for them, there were lies, damned lies, and Ibn Battutah's India. Born in 1304, Ibn Battutah left his native Tangier as a young scholar of law; over the course of the thirty years that followed he visited most of the known world between Morocco and China. Here Tim Mackintosh-Smith retraces one leg of the Moroccan's journey -- the dizzy ladders and terrifying snakes of his Indian career as a judge and a hermit, courtier and prisoner, ambassador and castaway. From the plains of Hindustan to the plateaux of the Deccan and the lost ports of Malabar, the author reveals an India far off the beaten path of Taj and Raj. Ibn Battutah left India on a snake, stripped to his underpants by pirates; but he took away a treasure of tales as rich as any in the history of travel. Back home they said the treasure was a fake. Mackintosh-Smith proves the sceptics wrong. India is a jewel in the turban of the Prince of Travellers. Here it is, glittering, grotesque but genuine, a fitting ornament for his 700th birthday.

NOW A MAJOR NEW TV SERIES: CAROL DRINKWATER'S SECRET PROVENCE The third in the bestselling story which began with THE OLIVE FARM - from the author of THE FORGOTTEN SUMMER 'Captures perfectly the dreamy atmosphere of the South of France and its people' WOMAN AND HOME 'Vibrant, intoxicating and heart-warming' SUNDAY EXPRESS 'The stars shimmer like spilled handfuls of glitter. The day is beginning to rise with a faint mist. As I turn my head, ghostly halos, auras of light, appear and disappear ... The silence is truly awesome. Not a bird, not a whisper of wind, not a breath of life. Only the two of us, a most implausible pair, standing shoulder to shoulder gazing upon an awakening heaven' Returning to their home after an extended absence Carol and her husband Michel are looking forward to summer together on the farm. A shocking blow leaves Carol alone and the future is uncertain. Feeling isolated and with no olives to harvest, Carol ventures beyond the farm to explore other aspects of Provencal life - from hunting to bee-keeping, the ancient language to the ever-present demands of family and friends. And ultimately, Provence's generous diversity - and Carol's own persistence in sharing it with those she loves - paves a path to joy.

Just as species of plants and animals are expiring at an alarming rate, so are the traditional ingredients and techniques of classic cooking and eating. Nowhere is this trend more evident than in France, where the heart of the world's most revered and complex national cuisine is in danger of disappearing, as old ways of agriculture, butchering, and cooking are withering - leaving us with only a small fraction of the astonishing delights and surprises French cuisine has to offer. In this charming culinary travel memoir, the bestselling author of "The Most Beautiful Walk in the World" goes on the hunt for the most delicious and bizarre endangered foods of France, including: Ortolans - Tiny birds, drowned in armagnac, sauteed in butter and eaten whole, bones and all, ideally with a large napkin draped over your head to conserve the aroma; Bouillabaisse - Seafood stew that only tastes right if you eat it by the Mediterranean. The secret is an ugly fish called the rascasse that lurks around wrecks; 100 Year-Old Cognac - The old stuff never gets to the shops, but Baxter's wife is friendly with one of the big distillers, so readers get a taste tour of what only millionaires can afford to drink; Confiture Vieux Garcon - Literally, Old Boy's Preserves. Soft fruit in season is placed in a crock, covered in brandy and left to marinate for a year. Traditionally served on ice cream, but a few spoonsful in the morning really set you up. Ox. The book culminates in Baxter's participation in a traditional ox roast, in which an enormous whole ox is cooked on a spit over coals. The recipe begins on a practical note: First, catch your ox...

"A fine piece of work and a great delight."--John McPhee

Christine Jerome decides to repeat the 266-mile Adirondack canoe journey of George Washington Sears (pen name "Nessmuk"), a famous adventure and nature writer for the popular magazine "Forest and Stream" in the late nineteenth century. Part of what made his 1883 journey remarkable was the length of his canoe--a mere nine feet. The "Sairy Gamp" was the lightest of cockleshells, but could navigate rough lakes and stony rapids. Sears could heave it over his head and portage it between lakes for miles. So Jerome has a similar canoe built for herself, and sets off to see what has changed and what has remained on the water trail through the mountains.

The result is a classic of canoe literature: a beautiful paean to journeying silently in light craft. Her nature writing and knowledge of local history lends a depth and substance to every mile. She conjures up Teddy Roosevelt, the Whitneys and Vanderbilts, as well as old hermits and eccentrics. She tells of legendary crimes committed along the lakeshores, while keeping her expert ear tuned for birdsong in the trees.

An unforgettable account of traveling by canoe, and traveling back in time.

A charming and beautifully written account of the pleasures of slow travel - for readers of Patrick Leigh Fermor, Colin Thubron and Eric Newby. 'Lawrence Sterne once suggested that we travel for one of just three reasons: imbecility of mind, infirmity of body or inevitable necessity. One might add to Sterne's little list: envy, curiosity - or just too much bloody rain at home. Escape, in other words.' Campaigner, publisher and wanderer Alastair Sawday has spent his life travelling. En route he has unearthed a multitude of stories - stories of people ploughing their own furrows, of travellers' tales, stories from the 'front line' of his publishing , ruminations and reflections about places, people and ideas. In this deeply charming, erudite and spirited book, he shares his experiences and explores the value of travel. 'The richer our imaginations, the richer our travel experience. We British do things one way and the Spaniards another; there are unlimited ways of doing everything. Kindness is found in unexpected places, as is eccentricity. Eccentrics are an endangered species and need as much protection as does the house sparrow.' Travelling Light is a gradual awakening to the fragility of everything we love through contemplative, consciously slow journeying. Every visit uncovers difference - from France profonde to the darker side of Sicily, and to the woodland, flora, fauna, views and silence of rural Britain. Alastair Sawday gives voice to those of us who have climbed no mountains, discovered no rivers, created no great institutions, powered no legislation, changed very little - but who yearn to understand the world and make sense of its infinite variety.

Here is the intriguing story of one woman's mid-life flight from her stultified, middle-class, psychologically crippling, and unfulfilled existence into a world of high adventure, danger, hardship, and endurance, which ultimately leads her to autonomy and recognition. In her new book, A Woman's Odyssey Into Africa, Hanny Lightfoot-Klein chronicles three year-long solo backpacking treks through remote areas of sub-Saharan Africa. In the process, she discovers the mainsprings of strength within herself as she follows her own drummer, finding the courage to face the darkest and most secret convolutions of her own mind. She weaves the story of her journey through the men, women, and children she meets, and the dangers and adventures she faces as a lone woman traveler--part and parcel of the path she has chosen to take.She infuses readers at any stage of life, especially women, with the courage to do what their individual drummer dictates, as she did, to find fulfillment in life. Lightfoot-Klein assures readers in her book: "Even a life of quiet desperation is not beyond redemption. Change starts with a reassessment of the distortions in self image one has been programmed to accept. It starts with an inner rebellion, a realization that something has been amiss and a desire to set it right, if only to leave a better heritage for one's children. And then, most important of all, it begins with a single, wild, breathless moment, where one picks up an unaccustomed load and steps off into the unknown . . ." Her message is truly for everyone.

'The London Scene' is a collection of essays written by one of London's most acclaimed writers. Virginia Woolf was born and lived much of her life in the city, using it as the backdrop for many of her works.

At the age of twenty-two, William Dalrymple left his college in Cambridge to travel to the ruins of Kublai Khan’s stately pleasure dome in Xanadu. This is an account of a quest which took him and his companions across the width of Asia, along dusty, forgotten roads, through villages and cities full of unexpected hospitality and wildly improbable escapades, to Coleridge’s Xanadu itself.
At once funny and knowledgeable, In Xanadu is in the finest tradition of British travel writing. Told with an exhilarating blend of eloquence, wit, poetry and delight, it is already established as a classic of its kind.

When Philip Marsden moved to a remote, creekside farmhouse in Cornwall, the intensity of his response took him aback. It led him to wonder why we react so strongly to certain places and set him off on a journey on foot westwards to Land's End through one of the most myth-rich regions of Europe. From the Neolithic ritual landscape of Bodmin Moor to the Arthurian traditions at Tintagel, from the mysterious china-clay region to the granite tors and tombs of the far south-west, Marsden assembles a chronology of Britain's attitude to place. In archives, he uncovers the life and work of other enthusiasts before him - medieval chroniclers and Tudor topographers, eighteenth-century antiquarians, post-industrial poets and abstract painters. Drawing also on his travels from further afield, Marsden reveals that the shape of the land lies not just at the heart of our own history but of man's perennial struggle to belong on this earth.

"Whenever I was asked: 'Why did you go to Santiago?', I had a hard time answering. How could I explain to those who had not done it that the way has the effect - if not the virtue - to make you forget all reasons that led you to become involved in it in the first place." Each year, tens of thousands of backpackers (Christian pilgrims and many others) set out from either their front doorstep or from popular starting points across Europe, to Santiago de Compostela. Most travel by foot, others ride a bicycle, and a few of them travel as did some of their medieval counterparts, on horseback or with a donkey. In addition to those who undertake a religious pilgrimage, the majority are hikers who walk the way for non-religious reasons: travel, sport, or simply the challenge of spending weeks walking in a foreign land. Also, many consider the experience as a spiritual adventure, with a view to removing themselves from the bustle of modern life. Jean-Christophe Rufin followed this "Northern Way" to Santiago de Compostela by foot, on over eight hundred kilometers. Much less crowded than the usual pilgrimage route, this one runs along the Basque and Cantabrian coasts in Spain and through the wild mountains of Asturias and Galicia. Translated from the French by Malcolm Imrie and Martina Dervis

INTRODUCED BY ADAM WEYMOUTH, award-winning author of The Kings of Yukon 'A wonderful book -- and a highly original contribution to the literature of travel' PAUL THEROUX 'The Mississippi. Mighty, muddy, dangerous, rebellious and yet a strong, fathering kind of river. The river captured my imagination when I was young and has never let go.' Mississippi Solo tells the story of one man's voyage by canoe down the Mississippi River from its source in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico - a longtime dream, and a journey of over 2,000 miles through the heart of America. Paddling into the Southern states - going from 'where there ain't no black folks to where they still don't like us much' - Eddy is confronted by the legacy of slavery and modern racism, including an incident with a pair of shotgun-toting bigots. There are also the dangers of passing barges, wild dogs roaming the wooded shore, and navigating a waterway that grows vaster, and more hazardous, every day. But Eddy also encounters immense human kindness, friendship and hospitality, as well as coming to know the majestic power - and the awesome dangers - of the river itself. Mississippi Solo is an unforgettable American adventure.

INTRODUCED BY PAUL KINGSNORTH, Booker-shortlisted author of The Wake 'I thought that there were two rules in life - never count the cost, and never do anything unless you can do it wholeheartedly. Now is the time to live.' Artist and wanderer Everett Ruess left home at the age of sixteen to immerse himself in the harsh desert landscapes of the American Southwest. With only his donkeys for company, driven by an insatiable longing for beauty and experience, he ventured ever further from civilisation and into the wilderness of Navajo country. In 1934, at the age of twenty, he vanished without trace in Utah, a disappearance that remains unsolved to this day. Through letters, diary excerpts and poems - charting not only his rugged adventures and his exquisite nature writing but his progression as a writer, and into adulthood - and with commentary by W. L. Rusho, A Vagabond for Beauty tells his remarkable story.

This timeless classic is an exciting true story of survival against all odds. 'There was a sudden sickening sense of disaster. I felt a great lurch and heel, and a thunder of sound filled my ears. I was conscious, in a terrified moment, of being driven into the front and side of my bunk with tremendous force. At the same time there was a tearing cracking sound, as if Tzu Hang was being ripped apart, and water burst solidly, raging into the cabin. There was darkness, black boards, and I fought wildly to get out, thinking Tzu Hang had already gone. Then suddenly I was standing again, waist deep in water, and floorboards and cushions, mattresses and books were sloshing in wild confusion round me.' Miles Smeeton and his wife Beryl sailed their 46-ft Bermuda ketch, Tzu Hang, in the wild seas of Cape Horn, following the tracks of the old sailing clippers through the world's most notorious waters. This is an exciting true story of survival against all odds, but it is also a thoughtful book which provides hard-learned lessons for other intrepid sailors. As Nevil Shute writes in his foreword: 'It has been left to Miles Smeeton to tell us in clear and simple language just where the limits of safety lie.'

Critical works such as Srinivas Aravamudan's Tropicopolitans (1999) and Edward Said's Orientalism (1979) study the influence of Europe upon the colonized and also how the colonized resist its over-generalizing and oppressive drive; but, these and other works have failed to examine the impact of the "foreign" on the European consciousness. The Cosmopolitan Evolution argues that reciprocity exists between the cultures and that this relationship has not yet been sufficiently explored. Working from the concept of cosmopolitanism and incorporating textual evidence from philosophy, drama of the English Renaissance, seventeenth-century travel narratives, and eighteenth-century literature, this book explores the interactions between the European consciousness and the foreign. Binney also chronicles the development of cosmopolitanism from a form of representative universalism, which seeks to enfold all humans under one ideal, towards complex universalism, which seeks to account for alternate and particular views.