Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is recognised as a giant of world literature; an exceptionally prolific and versatile writer. As a student, he composed pastoral plays in the style of the waning Rococo. With Gotz von Berlichingen, a drama conceived in the spirit of Shakespeare, he joined the avant-garde Sturm und Drang authors. His epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther elicited fervent responses among those who rejected the traditions of the Enlightenment, and in his tragedy Faust, which evolved over a 60-year period, he created a prototype of the Romantic hero. Furthermore, based on his studies in literary theory, he developed a concept of 'world literature' that he hoped would foster communication among writers of different nations.

The German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is often seen as the quintessential eighteenth-century tourist, though with the exception of a trip to Italy he hardly left his homeland. Compared to several of his peripatetic contemporaries, he took few actual journeys, and the list of European cities in which he never set foot is quite long. He never saw Vienna, Paris, or London, for example, and he only once visited Berlin. During the last thirty years of his life he was essentially a homebound writer, but his intensive mental journeys countered this sedentary lifestyle, and the misconception of Goethe as a traveler springs from the uniquely international influence of his writing. While Goethe's Italian Journey is a classic piece of travel writing, it was the product of his only extended physical journey. The majority, rather, were of the mind, taken amid the pages of books by others. In his reading, Goethe was the prototypical eighteenth-century armchair traveler, developing knowledge of places both near and far through the words and eyewitness accounts of others. In Goethe: Journeys of the Mind, Nancy Boerner and Gabrielle Bersier explore what it was that made the great writer distinct from his peers and offer insight into the ways that Goethe was able to explore the cultures and environments of places he never saw with his own eyes.

Tucked inside venerable museums, perched on rooftops, concealed behind sleek midtown facades, and waiting beyond unassuming gates you may have passed a hundred times, if you know where to look, remarkable gardens welcome visitors in almost every corner of New York City. From the windy bluffs of The Heather Garden in Fort Tryon Park to the bold, contemporary Gantry Plaza State Park in Hunters Point, Queens, to the innovative, recently-opened High Line, this pocket-sized guide tells the stories of more than 100 gardens in New York City's boroughs. In addition to presenting the flora and fauna of New York's urban fabric, it also chronicles the history, events, and personalities behind the green spaces visited by generations of New Yorkers. More than 50 color photos showcase the gardens, with each garden entry offering complete visitor information, clearly-labeled maps of each borough or region, and lively anecdotes sprinkled throughout. Praise for the First Edition: "[A] beautiful and instructive guide to 100 gardens (the number du jour) in the five boroughs, as delightful as it is petite." -Verlyn Klinkenborg "Find a green oasis near you in the new Garden Guide: New York City . . . The beautifully photographed, pocket-sized book covers more than 100 public gardens . . . these horticultural escapes . . . will make you breathe a little easier." -Time Out New York "[This] guide can be used to find a refuge from the concrete . . . [and] help New Yorkers find the riches that are theirs in this great city." -Urban Outdoors

Seasoned garden writers Susan Lowry and Nancy Berner, along with leading landscape photographer Marion Brenner, tour more than thirty-five private gardens in the San Francisco Bay Area, illuminating the unrivalled beauty of Northern California - the breadth of the sky, the quality of the light, the sparkle of the Bay, the shapes of the hills - that has beckoned landscape designers and gardeners for generations. Organized geographically - starting with the San Francisco Peninsula, moving north into San Francisco itself, crossing the Bay into Berkeley and Oakland, and finishing in Napa, Sonoma, and Marin - Private Gardens of the Bay Area encompasses an extraordinary range of micro-climates that foster the cultivation of an equally extraordinary range of plants. The kaleidoscope of vigorous plants from five continents bursting out of an Oakland front yard is one kind of garden, the clean-lined contemporary composition of drought-tolerant natives and gravel is another, and the garden tucked into the mountain landscape of oaks, manzanitas, and ceanothus is yet another. This fascinating tour includes gardens such as Green Gables, where the 1911 terraced design by Greene & Greene is meticulously preserved; Big Swing, with a world-renowned collection of salvias; a vertical garden on a vertiginous site in San Francisco by Surfacedesign; and a romantic landscape of lawns, perennial beds, and stately oaks owned by noted collectors and gallerists Gretchen and John Berggruen. Lowry and Berner describe the goals of each garden owner and the principles behind the designs.