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Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool
Par Clara Parkes. 2019
The renowned knitter shares her year-long adventure through America’s colorful, fascinating—and slowly disappearing—wool industry.Join Clara Parkes as she ventures across…
the country to meet the shepherds, dyers, and countless workers without whom our knitting needles would be empty, our mills idle, and our feet woefully cold. Along the way, she encounters a flock of Saxon Merino sheep in upstate New York, tours a scouring plant in Texas, visits a steamy Maine dyehouse, helps sort freshly shorn wool on a working farm, and learns how wool fleece is measured, baled, shipped, and turned into skeins. In pursuit of the perfect yarn, Parkes describes a brush with the dangers of opening a bale (they can explode), and her adventures from Maine to Wisconsin (“the most knitterly state”) and back again. By the end of the book, you’ll be ready to set aside the backyard chickens and add a flock of sheep instead.Cockpit Confidential
Par Patrick Smith. 2013
"I wish I could fold Patrick Smith and put him in my suitcase."--Stephan Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics For millions of…
people, travel by air is a confounding, uncomfortable, and even fearful experience. Patrick Smith, airline pilot and author of the web's popular Ask the Pilot feature, separates the fact from fallacy and tells you everything you need to know... How planes fly, and a revealing look at the men and women who fly them Straight talk on turbulence, pilot training, and safety The real story on congestion, delays, and the dysfunction of the modern airport The myths and misconceptions of cabin air and cockpit automation Terrorism in perspective, and a provocative look at security Airfares, seating woes, and the pitfalls of airline customer service The colors and cultures of the airlines we love to hate Cockpit Confidential covers not only the nuts and bolts of flying, but also the grand theater of air travel, from airport architecture to inflight service to the excitement of travel abroad. It's a thoughtful, funny, at times deeply personal look into the strange and misunderstood world of commercial flying. Refreshing and vastly expanding from the original Ask the Pilot. "Patrick Smith is extraordinarily knowledgeable about modern aviation...the ideal seatmate, a companion, writer, and explorer."--Alex Beam, Boston Globe "Anyone remotely afraid of flying should read this book, as should anyone who appreciates good writing and great information."--New York Times, on Ask the PilotHot Pink: The Life and Fashions of Elsa Schiaparelli
Par Susan Goldman Rubin. 2015
Shocking pink—hot pink, as it is called today—was the signature color of Elsa Schiaparelli (1890–1973) and perhaps her greatest contribution…
to the fashion world. Schiaparelli was one of the most innovative designers in the early 20th century. Many design elements that are taken for granted today she created and brought to the forefront of fashion. She is credited with many firsts: trompe l’oeil sweaters with collars and bows knitted in; wedge heels; shoulder bags; and even the concept of a runway show for presenting collections. Hot Pink—printed with a fifth color, hot pink!—explores Schiaparelli’s childhood in Rome, her introduction to high fashion in Paris, and her swift rise to success collaborating with surrealist and cubist artists like Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau. The book includes an author’s note, a list of museums and websites where you can find Schiaparelli’s fashions, endnotes, a bibliography, and an index.Islands, the Universe, Home: Essays
Par Gretel Ehrlich. 1991
Ten essays on nature, ritual, and philosophy “that are so point-blank vital you nearly need to put the book down…
to settle yourself” (San Francisco Chronicle). Gretel Ehrlich’s world is one of solitude and wonder, pain and beauty, and these elements give life to her stunning prose. Ever since her acclaimed debut, The Solace of Open Spaces, she has illuminated the particular qualities of nature and the self with graceful precision. In Islands, the Universe, Home, Ehrlich expands her explorations, traveling to the remote reaches of the earth and deep into her soul. She tells of a voyage of discovery in northern Japan, where she finds her “bridge to heaven.” She captures a “light moving down a mountain slope.” She sees a ruined city in the face of a fire-scarred mountain. Above all, she recalls what a painter once told her about art when she was twelve years old, as she sat for her portrait: “You have to mix death into everything. Then you have to mix life into that.” In this unforgettable collection, Ehrlich mixes life and death, real and sacred, to offer a stunning vision of our world that is both achingly familiar and miraculously strange. According to National Book Award–winning author Andrea Barrett, these essays are “as spare and beautiful as the landscape from which they’ve grown. . . . Each one is a pilgrimage into the secrets of the heart.”The Icon Curtain: The Cold War's Quiet Border
Par Yuliya Komska. 2015
The Iron Curtain did not existOCoat least not as we usually imagine it. Rather than a stark, unbroken line dividing…
East and West in Cold War Europe, the Iron Curtain was instead made up of distinct landscapes, many in the grip of divergent historical and cultural forces for decades, if not centuries. This book traces a genealogy of one such landscapeOCothe woods between Czechoslovakia and West GermanyOCoto debunk our misconceptions about the iconic partition. Yuliya Komska transports readers to the western edge of the Bohemian Forest, one of EuropeOCOs oldest borderlands, where in the 1950s civilians set out to shape the so-called prayer wall. A chain of new and repurposed pilgrimage sites, lookout towers, and monuments, the prayer wall placed two long-standing German obsessions, forest and border, at the heart of the centuryOCOs most protracted conflict. Komska illustrates how civilians used the prayer wall to engage with and contribute to the new political and religious landscape. In the process, she relates West GermanyOCOs quiet sylvan periphery to the tragic pitch prevalent along the Iron CurtainOCOs better-known segments. Steeped in archival research and rooted in nuanced interpretations of wide-ranging cultural artifacts, from vandalized religious images and tourist snapshots to poems and travelogues, "The Icon Curtain" pushes disciplinary boundaries and opens new perspectives on the study of borders and the Cold War alike. "The Importance of Not Being Ernest: My Life with the Uninvited Hemingway
Par Mark Kurlansky. 2022
An Ernest Hemingway Biography Like No Other“...illuminates his life and works in ways not seen before.” —Sigrid Nunez, National Book…
Award winner and author of The Friend and What Are You Going Through#1 New Release in Historical Latin America BiographiesDiscover Hemingway’s biography through the eyes of a fellow author and journalist. New York Times bestselling author of Salt, Mark Kurlansky turns his historical eye to the life of Ernest Hemingway. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, The Importance of Not Being Ernest shows the huge shadow Hemingway casts. The perfect gift for writers. By a series of coincidences, Mark Kurlansky’s life has always been intertwined with Ernest Hemingway's legend, starting with being in Idaho the day of Hemingway’s death. The Importance of Not Being Ernest explores the intersections between Hemingway’s and Kurlansky’s lives, resulting in creative accounts of two inspiring writing careers. Travel the world with Mark Kurlansky and Ernest Hemingway in this personal memoir, where Kurlansky details his ten years in Paris and his time as a journalist in Spain —both cities important to Hemingway’s adventurous life and prolific writing. Paris, Basque Country, Havana and Idaho. Get to know the extraordinary people he met there —those who had also fallen under the Hemingway spell, including a Vietnam veteran suffering from the same syndrome the author did, two winners of the Key West Hemingway look-alike contest, and the man in Idaho who took Hemingway hunting and fishing.In this unique gift for writers, find:A memoir full of entertaining and illuminative storiesLittle-known historical facts about Hemingway’s lifeAnecdotes about those who suffer from what the Kurlansky calls “hemitis”Readers of Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley in Search of America, or The Boys will love The Importance of Not Being Ernest.Leading the Blind: A Century of Guide Book Travel
Par Alan Sillitoe. 1995
A journey into nineteenth-century travel guides to the UK, Europe, and Soviet Union as researched and written by one of…
England's most distinguished authors. In this quirky and illuminating social history, bestselling British author Alan Sillitoe culls fascinating details from Victorian-era guidebooks and travelogues in order to recount the pleasures, dangers, traps, and delights of travel in the century leading up to World War I. For instance, in Switzerland, an English officer once fell into a bears' den and was "torn in pieces." In Paris, the outdoor seating at cafés was in "unpleasant proximity to the gutters." In Germany and the Rhine, the denominations marked on coins did not necessarily indicate their value. And in Northern Italy, a traveler could look forward to a paradise of citron and myrtle, palms and cyclamen. For the armchair traveler journeying into a bygone era, Sillitoe begins with the essential practicalities relevant to any tourist: the price of passports and visas, how best to clear customs, and how many bags to pack. He includes timeless advice, such as: Board a boat on an empty stomach if you are prone to seasickness, and always break in your boots before embarking on a trip. Anachronistic recommendations abound as well: It is best to leave your servant at home, carry your milk with you when traveling to small Italian villages, and not pay children and "donkey women" for flowers. From convalescent hotels in the South of France to malaria-ridden marshes between Rome and Naples, and from the chaos of Sicily and southern Italy to the dazzling bullfights and rampant thieves of sunny Spain, Sillitoe guides readers through the minutiae of the Mediterranean with wit and historical insight. Then he takes an anecdote-filled road east into Greece, Egypt, the Holy Lands, Turkey, and Russia. Of course, the Grand Tour would not be complete without a thorough account of his home turf of England, with her idiosyncratic hamlets, smoke-filled skies, and working-class townsfolk in high-buckled shoes. At once a fascinating history of travel books from 1815 to 1914 and an entertaining ode to wanderlust, Leading the Blind brings to life the absurd and profound wonders of Victorian globetrotting. With simple but captivating prose, Sillitoe also shows how the way we view foreign lands can reveal a lot about what is happening at home.Along the Road: Notes and Essays of a Tourist (Paladin Bks.)
Par Aldous Huxley. 1925
Witty and &“enchanting&” reflections on the experience of travel, with a focus on art, music, and literature, by the author…
of Brave New World (The Spectator). One of the most renowned and prolific writers of the twentieth century, Aldous Huxley produced not only dystopian fiction like Brave New World and philosophical memoirs like The Doors of Perception, but also insightful travel writing. Here, he discusses his visits to Italy, France, and other European destinations; reflects on cultural landmarks; and ruminates on the benefits and challenges of travel itself, offering a fascinating glimpse into the Europe of a century ago—and the mind of a remarkable author. &“As opposed to those who believe that the best picture is the most famous or expensive one, or the one that wins a prize, Huxley speaks for those prepared to spend contemplative time with works of art.&” —The Sydney Morning HeraldToward Antarctica: An Exploration
Par Elizabeth Bradfield. 2019
“The most original piece of travel writing about the Antarctic region I have read in years . . . Bradfield is a literary…
tour guide in the best sense.” —Elizabeth Leane, author of Antarctica in Fiction: Imaginative Narratives of the Far SouthA poet and a naturalist, Elizabeth Bradfield documents and examines her work as a guide on ships in Antarctica through poetry, prose, and photographs, offering an incisive insider’s vision that challenges traditional tropes of The Last Continent.Inspired by haibun, a stylistic form of Japanese poetry invented by seventeenth-century poet Matsuo Basho to chronicle his journeys in remote Japan, Bradfield uses photographs, compressed prose, and short poems to examine our relationship to remoteness, discovery, expertise, awe, labor, temporary societies, “pure” landscapes, and tourism’s service economy. Antarctica was the focus of Bradfield’s Approaching Ice, written before she had set foot on the continent; now Toward Antarctica furthers her investigation with boots on the ground. A complicated love letter, Toward Antarctica offers a unique view of one of the world’s most iconic wild places.Like having a poet’s behind-the-scenes tour of a natural history museum . . . the exquisite landscape and wildlife come into vivid view; so does the gutsy work and responsibility of being a naturalist guide.” —Alison Hawthorne Deming, author of Zoologies: On Animals and the Human SpiritMy Venice: And Other Essays
Par Donna Leon. 2013
“Donna Leon has won a huge number of passionate fans and a tremendous amount of critical acclaim for her international…
bestselling mystery series featuring Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti. These accolades have built up not just for her intricate plots and gripping narratives, but for her insight into the culture, politics, family-life, and history of Venice, one of the world’s most-treasured cities, and Leon’s home for over thirty years. Readers love how Leon opens the doors to a private Venice, beyond the reach of the millions of international tourists who delight in the city's canals, food, and art every year. “My Venice and Other Essays” will be a treat for Leon's many fans, as well as for lovers of Italy and La Serenissima. For many years, Leon, who is a perennial #1 bestseller in Germany, has written essays for European publications. Collected here are the best of these: over fifty funny, charming, passionate, and insightful essays that range from battles over garbage in the canals to the troubles with rehabbing Venetian real estate. She shares episodes from her life in Venice, explores her love of opera, and recounts tales from in and around her country house in the mountains. With pointed observations and humor, she also explores her family history and former life in New Jersey, and the idea of the Italian man.Live Fast, Die Young: Misadventures in Rock And Roll America
Par Chris Price, Joe Harland. 2010
Disappointed to learn that Hotel California isn’t actually in the phone book, radio producers Chris and Joe resolve to seek…
out the true spirit of rock and roll America. Roof down and stereo up, they drive coast to coast on a mission to ‘live the music’. It’s a tale of friendship tested to the limit, great melodies, and noble myths.Returning Light: Thirty Years on the Island of Skellig Michael
Par Robert L. Harris. 2022
The Acclaimed International Bestseller "Reading Returning Light is a spiritual experience." —Irish ExaminerBy the lighthouse keeper on the remote, otherworldly Irish island of…
Skellig Michael, a "profound memoir about the importance of place and what it really means to belong" (Belfast Telegraph)“On Skellig Michael, thousands of birds appear and disappear, erecting towers, coming together in wings of movement which build and unravel over the empty sea. Often, no one else is there to stand beside me on the island. The mind wanders; links with the past are easily made; ancient ways of viewing things come alive.”In 1987, Robert Harris happened upon an unusual job posting in the local paper—a new warden service was being set up on the island of Skellig Michael, and the deadline was imminent. Just weeks later he was on his way to set up camp in one of Ireland’s most remote locations, unaware that he would be making that same journey every May for the next 30 years.Here he transports us to the otherworldly island, a place that is teeming with natural life, including curious puffins that like to visit his hut. From the precipice he has observed a coastline that is relatively unchanged for the last thousand years—a beacon of equilibrium in an ever-changing world.But the island can be fierce too. It’s inhabitable for only five months of the year, and solitude can quickly become isolation as bad weather rolls in to create a veil between Skellig Michael and the rest of the world, when the dizzying terrain can become a very real threat to life.A beautiful and evocative work of nature writing, Returning Light is an extraordinary memoir about the profound effect a place can have on us, and how a remote location can bring with it a great sense of belonging.Tuning the Rig: A Journey to the Arctic
Par Harvey Oxenhorn. 1990
Long out of print, this book is a masterpiece of nautical adventure and natural history. The author had taught Conrad…
and Melville, but never set foot on a tall ship until he boarded the Regina Maris. H is evocation of masts and spars, canvas and rigging, and of the living presence of the Regina Maris on the open ocean is some of the finest writing about life aboard a ship this side of Patrick O'Brian. This is a beautiful, passionate examination of a man's coming to terms with himself, with his fellows, and with the diverse wonders of a fascinating arctic ecosystem.Folk Masters: A Portrait of America
Par Barry Bergey, Text by Barry Bergey. Photographs by Tom Pich. 2017
Discover one hundred of the greatest folk artists practicing in the United States in Folk Masters: A Portrait of America.…
Over the past 25 years, photographer Tom Pich has traveled the country to the homes and studios of recipients of the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowship, the highest honor given to folk and traditional artists in the US. His portraits give us a glimpse into their art, their process, and their culture. While each image tells a story on its own, Barry Bergey, former Director of Folk and Traditional Arts at the National Endowment for the Arts, provides further insight into the lives of each featured artist as well as the remarkable stories behind each photograph. Folk Masters honors again the extraordinary women and men who simultaneously take the traditional arts to new heights while ensuring their continuation from generation to generation.Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America
Par Charles Bowden. 2018
The renowned author explores the violent and corrupt history of America in “a haunted, often brilliant journey into the heart…
of our darkness” (Frederick Turner).Blood Orchid is the first volume in Charles Bowden’s Unnatural History of America sextet. It is a deeply personal and bracingly sharp chronicle of his quest to unearth our ugly truths. Through stark observations and visceral experiences, Bowden presents a dizzying excavation of the systemic violence and corruption at the roots of American society. Bowden visits dying friends in skid row apartments in Los Angeles, traverses San Francisco byways lined with clubs and joints, and roams through village bars and streets in the Sierra Madre mountains. In these wanderings resides a yearning for the understanding of past and present sins, the human penchant for warfare, abuse, and oppression, and the true war between humanity, the industrialized world, and the immense tolls of our shared land.A Combat Artist in World War II
Par Edward Reep. 1987
Many artists have fought in wars, and renowned painters have recorded heroic scenes of great battles, but those works were…
usually done long after the battles were waged. Artists have also been commissioned to visit, briefly, war-torn areas and make notesNever in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places
Par Naomi Shihab Nye. 1996
From the acclaimed poet and National Book Award finalist, “a sparkling book of travel and childhood: born on the bridge…
between two cultures” (Paulette Jiles, New York Times–bestselling author).In Never in a Hurry the poet Naomi Shihab Nye resist the American inclination to “leave toward places when we barely had time enough to get there.” Instead she travels the world at an observant pace, talking to strangers and introducing readers to an endearing assemblage of eccentric neighbors, Filipina faith healers, dry-cleaning proprietors, and other quirky characters.A Palestinian-American who lives in a Mexican-American neighborhood, Nye speaks for the mix of people and places that can be called the “American Experience.” From St. Louis, the symbolic “Gateway to the West,” she embarks on a westward migration to examine America, past and present, and to glimpse into the lives of its latest outsiders—illegal immigrants from Mexico and troubled inner-city children.In other essays Nye ventures beyond North America’s bounds, telling of a year in her childhood spent in Palestine and of an adulthood filled with cross-cultural quests. Whether recounting the purchase of a car on the island of Oahu or a camel-back ride through India’s Thar Desert, Nye writes in wry, refreshing tones about themes that transcend borders and about the journey that remains the greatest of all—the journey from outside to in as the world enters each one of us, as we learn to see.“The generous gift of a writer at the top of her form, a book jammed with vivid sights and pungent tastes and wonderful stories.” —Marion Winik, author of Above Us Only SkyUnder Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain
Par Charlotte Higgins. 2014
Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, the captivating and haunting exploration of the remnants of an empire What does Roman…
Britain mean to us now? How were its physical remains rediscovered and made sense of? How has it been reimagined, in story and song and verse? Sometimes on foot, sometimes in a magnificent, if not entirely reliable, VW camper van, Charlotte Higgins sets out to explore the ancient monuments of Roman Britain. She explores the land that was once Rome’s northernmost territory and how it has changed since the years after the empire fell. Under Another Sky invites us to see the British landscape, and British history, in an entirely fresh way: as indelibly marked by how the Romans first imagined and wrote, these strange and exotic islands, perched on the edge of the known world, into existence.A Philosophy of Walking
Par Clifford Harper, Frederic Gros, John Howe. 2009
"It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth." --Nietzsche In A Philosophy of Walking, a bestseller in…
France, leading thinker Frédéric Gros charts the many different ways we get from A to B - the pilgrimage, the promenade, the protest march, the nature ramble - and reveals what they say about us. Gros draws attention to other thinkers who also saw walking as something central to their practice. On his travels he ponders Thoreau's eager seclusion in Walden Woods; the reason Rimbaud walked in a fury, while Nerval rambled to cure his melancholy. He shows us how Rousseau walked in order to think, while Nietzsche wandered the mountainside to write. In contrast, Kant marched through his hometown every day, exactly at the same hour, to escape the compulsion of thought. Brilliant and erudite, A Philosophy of Walking is an entertaining and insightful manifesto for putting one foot in front of the other.From the Hardcover edition.Ay, Cuba!: A Socio-Erotic Journey
Par Andrei Codrescu. 1999
A rare and intimate glimpse at life in Cuba at the end of the twentieth century For NPR commentator Andrei…
Codrescu, reporting from Cuba on the eve of Pope John Paul II's 1998 visit was an opportunity to understand the realities of life in a country that has long been the subject of stereotypes and misconceptions. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba was the last place to witness a "laboratory of pre-post-communism," as it toed the line between its socialist past and its uncertain future. On the streets of Havana and the beaches of Santiago de Cuba, Codrescu met people from all walks of life--from prostitutes and fortunetellers to bureaucrats and writers--eager to share their stories. Uncensored and compassionate, his interviews reveal a world where destruction and beauty, poverty and pride exist side by side. Traveling with photographer David Graham, whose powerful images illustrate the energy pulsing through everyday life in Cuba, Codrescu captures the humanity of a nation that is lost when it's reduced to a political symbol. With the United States resuming relations with Cuba for the first time in decades, Ay,Cuba! is more relevant now than ever before.