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Travels Along the Edge: 40 Ultimate Adventures for the Modern Nomad--from Crossing the Sahara to Bicycling Through Vietnam
by David NolandA travel writer describes in detail forty of the world's most singular and offbeat travel adventures, from paddling by sea kayak around the fjords of Greenland to an elephant safari through Botswana, detailing tour outfitters, gear, health tips, and more.
Spain in Mind: An Anthology
by Alice Leccese PowersThis spellbinding literary travel guide gathers poetry, nonfiction, and fiction about Spain by forty English and American writers. Here are letters and memoirs from Lord Byron, Edith Wharton, and Henry James; a poem about Picasso by E. E. Cummings; and a comic tale by Anthony Trollope in which two Englishmen mistake a Spanish duke for a bullfighter. W. H. Auden, George Orwell, and Langston Hughes record their experiences in the Spanish Civil War, Ernest Hemingway takes on bullfighting, Richard Wright is beguiled by gypsy flamenco dancers, and Calvin Trillin pursues an obsession with Spanish peppers. From Chris Stewart's memoir of his rural retreat in Driving Over Lemons to Barbara Kingsolver's idyllic portrait of the Canary Islands in "Where the Map Stopped," the glimpses of another world in Spain in Mind will enchant you.
Slipping into Paradise: Why I Live in New Zealand
by Jeffrey Moussaieff MassonIn the tradition of Under the Tuscan Sun and A Year in Provence, here is Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson's ode to his personal paradise-his adopted home, New Zealand. After living in California, why did Masson settle- out of all the places on earth-in such a faraway land? It turns out that while visiting a beautiful sandy beach just fifteen minutes from bustling Auckland, Masson and his family were utterly seduced by the exotic locale. There was little deliberation. This place, surrounded by lush forest on a bay dotted with volcanic islands, would be their new home.Masson takes readers on a remarkable journey to another world, as he and his family "slip into" the paradise that is New Zealand. For anyone who has ever dreamed of finding utopia, Masson reveals a country where neighbors talk to one another and provide a sense of real community-rarely, outside of the big cities, locking their doors-and where politics are as mellow as the weather. New Zealand is also a land of spectacular scenery, made even more famous for being the shooting location for the Lord of the Rings films. The flora is plentiful. Mangroves, banana plants, papaya trees, and more than ten thousand species of ferns grow wild and freely. The fauna is benign. There are no snakes, tarantulas, or scorpions. Children can walk to school barefoot without a care- there is nothing to sting them, bite them, or give them a rash. In the blue waters near the lush coastline, dolphins and orcas abound. While describing his love affair with the country and his affinity for its citizens, Masson reflects on the meaning of home, the importance of acting on intuition, and what happens when we lose our connection to the place we live in. Responding to an impulse, Masson reveals, he realized a dream.Featuring a its glossary of phrases used by New Zealanders and important Maori words, as well as the author's recommended travel itinerary, Slipping into Paradise is ideal for anyone planning a visit to this exquisite land. Full of photographs, delightful anecdotes, and little-known facts (jogging, for example, was invented in New Zealand), Slipping into Paradise is also a book for those who fantasize about dramatically changing their lives-and who imagine something better for themselves. Jeffrey Masson's message: New Zealand awaits.From the Hardcover edition.
Schlepping Through the Alps: My Search for Austria's Jewish Past with Its Last Wandering Shepherd
by Sam AppleHans Breuer, Austria’s only wandering shepherd, is also a Yiddish folksinger. He walks the Alps, shepherd’s stick in hand, singing lullabies to his 625 sheep. Sometimes he even gives concerts in historically anti-Semitic towns, showing slides of the flock as he belts out Yiddish ditties. When New York-based writer Sam Apple hears about this one-of-a-kind eccentric, he flies overseas and signs on as a shepherd’s apprentice. For thoroughly urban, slightly neurotic Sam, stumbling along in borrowed boots and burdened with a lot more baggage than his backpack, the task is far from a walk in Central Park. Demonstrating no immediate natural talent for shepherding, he tries to earn the respect of Breuer’s sheep, while keeping a safe distance from the shepherd’s fierce herding dogs. As this strange and hilarious adventure unfolds,the unlikely duo of Sam and Hans meander through a paradise of woods and high meadows toward awkward encounters with Austrians of many stripes. Apple is determined to find out if there are really as many anti-Semites in Austria as he fears and to understand how Hans, who grew up fighting the lingering Nazism in Vienna, became a wandering shepherd. What Apple discovers turns out to be far more fascinating than he had imagined. With this odd and wonderful book, Sam Apple joins the august tradition of Tony Horwitz and Bill Bryson. Schlepping Through the Alpsis as funny as it is moving.
Russian Journal
by Andrea Lee“A subtly crafted reflection of both the bleak and golden shadings of Russian life . . . Its tones belong more to the realm of poetry than journalism. ”–The New York Times Book Review At age twenty-five, Andrea Lee joined her husband, a Harvard doctoral candidate in Russian history, for his eight months’ study at Moscow State University and an additional two months in Leningrad. Published to enormous critical acclaim in 1981,Russian Journalis the award-winning author’s penetrating, vivid account of her everyday life as an expatriate in Soviet culture, chronicling her fascinating exchanges with journalists, diplomats, and her Soviet contemporaries. The winner of the Jean Stein Award from the National Academy of Arts and Letters–and the book that launched Lee’s career as a writer–Russian Journal is a beautiful and clear-eyed travel-writing classic. “[Lee] takes us wherever she is, conveying a feeling of place and atmosphere that is the mark of real talent. ” –The Washington Post Book World “A book of very great charm . . . [Lee] records what she saw and heard with unassuming delicacy and exactness. ” –Newsweek From the Trade Paperback edition.
Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet
by Ruth ReichlA glorious, edible tour of Paris through six decades of writing fromGourmetmagazine, edited and introduced by Ruth Reichl For sixty years the best food writers have been sending dispatches from Paris toGourmet. Collected here for the first time, their essays create a unique and timeless portrait of the world capital of love and food. When the book begins, just after the war, we are in a hungry city whose chefs struggle to find the eggs and cream they need to re-create the cuisine from before the German occupation. We watch as Paris comes alive again with zinc-topped tables crowded with people drinking café au lait and reveling in crisp baguettes, and the triumphant rebirth of three-star cuisine. In time, nouvelle cuisine is born and sweeps through a newly chic and modern city. It is all here: the old-time bourgeois dinners, the tastemakers of the fashion world, the hero-chefs, and, of course, Paris in all its snobbery and refinement, its inimitable pursuit of the art of fine living. Beautifully written, these dispatches from the past are intimate and immediate, allowing us to watch the month-by-month changes in the world’s most wonderful city. Remembrance of Things Parisis a book for anyone who wants to return to a Paris where a buttery madeleine is waiting around every corner. Contributors include Louis Diat, Naomi Barry, Joseph Wechsberg, Judith and Evan Jones, Don Dresden, Lillian Langseth-Christensen, Diane Johnson, Michael Lewis, and Jonathan Gold.
Provence A-Z: A Francophile's Essential Handbook (Vintage Departures Ser.)
by Peter MayleThe author of several books set in Provence, including the now-classic travel tome "A Year in Provence" and a more recent novel, "A Good Year," Mayle has once again trapped the sunshine, the wind, and the very lavender-laden air of the southeastern French countryside.
Palladian Days Finding a New Life in a Venetian Country House
by Sally Gable Carl I. Gable“Palladian Daysis nothing short of wonderful–part adventure, mystery, history, diary, and even cookbook. The Gables’ lively account captures the excitement of their acquisition and restoration of one of the greatest houses in Italy. Beguiled by Palladio and the town of Piombino Dese, they trace the history of the Villa Cornaro and their absorption of Italian life. Bravo!” –Susan R. Stein, Gilder Curator and Vice President of Museum Programs, Monticello In 1552, in the countryside outside Venice, the great Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio built Villa Cornaro. In 1989, Sally and Carl Gable became its bemused new owners. Called byTown & Countryone of the ten most influential buildings in the world, the villa is the centerpiece of the Gables’ enchanting journey into the life of a place that transformed their own. From the villa’s history and its architectural pleasures, to the lives of its former inhabitants, to the charms of the little town that surrounds it, this loving account brings generosity, humor, and a sense of discovery to the story of small-town Italy and its larger national history.
A New World Order: Essays (Vintage International)
by Caryl PhillipsA NEW WORLD ORDER ranges widely across, the Atlantic World that Caryl Phillips has charted in his award winning novels and non-fiction during the course of the past twenty years. He begins this collection by establishing his belief that there is a 'new world order' of cultural plurality, one which is being promoted by the increasingly central role of the migrant and the refugee in the modern world. He goes on to reflect on the work of such seminal figures as Derek Walcott, V S Naipaul, J M Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer, Steven Spielberg, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Marvin Gaye. Phillips writes ahout the moment when St Kitts, the small island of his birth, became independent and talks about the role and responsibility of being a writer born into a postcolonial world who lives on both sides of the Atlantic. He then turns the spotlight on Britain speculating about his parents' migration in the late fifties, the continued legacy of racism, his own helpless loyalty to Leeds United, and his anxieties at feeling as though he both of, and not of, Britain.
Mexican Days: Journeys into the Heart of Mexico
by Tony CohanTony Cohan's On Mexican Time, his chronicle of discovering a new life in the small Mexican mountain town of San Miguel de Allende, has beguiled readers and become a travel classic. Now, in Mexican Days, point of arrival becomes point of departure as--faced with the invasion of the town by tourists and an entire Hollywood movie crew, a magazine editor's irresistible invitation, and his own incurable wanderlust--Cohan undertakes a richer, wider exploration of the country he has settled in. Told with the intimate, sensuous insight and broad sweep that captivated readers of On Mexican Time,Mexican Days is set against a changing world as Cohan encounters surprise and adventure in a Mexico both old and new: among the misty mountains and coastal Caribbean towns of Veracruz; the ruins and resorts of Yucatán; the stirring indigenous world of Chiapas; the markets and galleries of Oaxaca; the teeming labyrinth of Mexico City; the remote Sierra Gorda mountains; the haunted city of Guanajuato; and the evocative Mayan ruins of Palenque. Along the way he encounters expatriates and artists, shady operatives and surrealists, and figures from his past. More than an immensely pleasurable and entertaining travel narrative by one of the most vivid, compelling travel voices to emerge in recent years,Mexican Daysis both a celebration of the joys and revelations to be found in this inexhaustibly interesting country and a searching investigation of the Mexican landscape and the grip it is coming to have in the North American imagination.
The Magic of Provence
by Yvone LenardLenard recounts daily adventures with neighbors and local royalty, tells of the adventures of others who have been drawn to the region (including Vincent van Gogh and Brigitte Bardot), and offers recipes for food and drinks along with hints for entertaining. The author was formerly head of the foreign language department at California State University at Dominguex Hills. The book is not indexed. Annotation c. Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
Little Money Street: In Search of Gypsies and Their Music in the South of France
by Fernanda EberstadtIn 1998, Fernanda Eberstadt, her husband, and their two small children moved from New York to an area outside Perpignan, France -- a city with one of the largest Gypsy populations in Western Europe. Here she found a jealously guarded culture, a society made, in part, of lawlessness and defiance of non-Gypsy norms; and she met MoÏse Espinas, the lead singer of the Gypsy band, Tekameli. As her relationship with the Espinas family developed over the years, progressing from mutual bafflement to a deep-rooted friendship, Eberstadt found herself a part of the captivating Gypsy life-a life rich with tradition and culture, but slowly being consumed by the modern world.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Life Stories
by Dorothy GallagherHere are two acclaimed memoirs in one remarkable volume. In an extraordinarily compelling voice, Dorothy Gallagher tells stories taking us from her parents' beginnings in the Ukraine to her own childhood in 1940s New York, through the many adventures of her extended family and into her own adult life. Her themes are universal: the fragility of friendship, the power of love, the marital crisis brought on by chronic illness, the role of dumb luck at the heart of life-Gallagher dramatizes her stories with acute insight, strong feeling, and edgy wit.
La Bella Figura
by Beppe SevergniniJoin the bestselling author ofCiao, America!on a lively tour of modern Italy that takes you behind the seductive face it puts on for visitors—la bella figura—and highlights its maddening, paradoxical true self You won’t need luggage for this hypothetical and hilarious trip into the hearts and minds of Beppe Severgnini’s fellow Italians. In fact, Beppe would prefer if you left behind the baggage his crafty and elegant countrymen have smuggled into your subconscious. To get to hisItalia, you’ll need to forget about your idealized notions of Italy. AlthoughLa Bella Figurawill take you to legendary cities and scenic regions, your real destinations are the places where Italians are at their best, worst, and most authentic: The highway:in America, a red light has only one possible interpretation—Stop! An Italian red light doesn’t warn or order you as much as provide an invitation for reflection. The airport:where Italians prove that one of their virtues (an appreciation for beauty) is really a vice. Who cares if the beautiful girls hawking cell phones in airport kiosks stick you with an outdated model? That’s the price of gazing upon perfection. The small town:which demonstrates the Italian genius for pleasant living: “a congenial barber . . . a well-stocked newsstand . . . professionally made coffee and a proper pizza; bell towers we can recognize in the distance, and people with a kind word and a smile for everyone. ” The chaos of the roads, the anarchy of the office, the theatrical spirit of the hypermarkets, and garrulous train journeys; the sensory reassurance of a church and the importance of the beach; the solitude of the soccer stadium and the crowded Italian bedroom; the vertical fixations of the apartment building and the horizontal democracy of the eat-in kitchen. As you venture to these and many other locations rooted in the Italian psyche, you realize that Beppe has become your Dante and shown you a country that “has too much style to be hell” but is “too disorderly to be heaven. ” Ten days, thirty places. From north to south. From food to politics. From saintliness to sexuality. This ironic, methodical, and sentimental examination will help you understand why Italy—as Beppe says—“can have you fuming and then purring in the space of a hundred meters or ten minutes. ”
Kiwis Might Fly: A New Zealand Adventure
by Polly EvansNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERPolly Evans was a woman with a mission. Before the traditional New Zealand male hung up his sheep shears for good, Polly wanted to see this vanishing species with her own eyes. Venturing into the land of giant kauri trees and smaller kiwi birds, she explores the country once inhabited by fierce Maori who carved their enemies' bones into cutlery, bushwhacking pioneers, and gold miners who lit their pipes with banknotes--and comes face-to-face with their surprisingly tame descendants. So what had become of the mighty Kiwi warrior? As Polly tears through the countryside at seventy-five miles an hour, she attempts to solve this mystery while pub-crawling in Hokitika, scaling the Southern Alps, and enduring a hair-raising stay in a mining town where the earth has been known to swallow houses whole. And as she chronicles the thrills and travails of her extraordinary odyssey, Polly's search for the elusive Kiwi comes full circle--teaching her some hilarious and surprising lessons about motorcycles, modern civilization, and men.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Italy in Mind: An Anthology
by Alice Leccese PowersComprised of short stories, novel excerpts, essays, poetry journals and letters, this work will delight anyone who loves Italy or great travel writing. Pieces include Barbara Grizzuti Harrison marveling at baroque Sicilian confections, Mary McCarthy celebrating Venice's threadbare dignity, and Henry James's Isabel Archer succumbing to the treacherous antiquities of Florence.
Ireland in Mind: An Anthology
by Alice Leccese PowersFrom Oscar Wilde to James Joyce, from Virginia Woolf to Frank McCourt: three centuries of Irish, English, and American writers in search of the real Ireland.From the editor of the outstandingly popular Italy in Mind comes another superb collection: three centuries of fiction, poems, and essays, from both Irish expatriates and non-Irish visitors.From the comic terror of Frank McCourt's First Communion to the raucous pagan festival Muriel Rukeyser attended in County Kerry in the 1930s; from John Betjeman's lyrical evocation of a ruined abbey in the mist to Eric Newby's hilariously disastrous bicycle trip through Ireland; from William Trevor's gentle Irish clergyman encountering the long angry reach of his country's past tragedies to Brian Moore's wistful return from a life spent in exile, this anthology offers a kaleidoscope of this mysterious, elusive country. For travelers of all kinds, for those who have long been fascinated by Ireland and those who are feeling its lure for the first time, Ireland in Mind will provide a rich and rewarding imaginative journey. Contributors also include: Samuel Beckett, Wallace Stevens, Oliver Goldsmith, Jonathan Swift, Edna O'Brien, Paul Theroux, V.S. Pritchett, Anthony Trollope, George Bernard Shaw, T.H. WhiteFrom the Trade Paperback edition.
France in Mind: An Anthology
by Alice Leccese PowersIn her third literary Baedeker, Alice Leccese Powers-editor of Italy in Mind and Ireland in Mind-explores France through the senses and sensibilities of thirty-three British and American authors.The food and the people, the culture and viniculture, the architecture and the expatriates, the pleasures (and frustrations) of France are described by intrepid travelers who also happen to be brilliant essayists, poets, and novelists. From Gertrude Stein's Paris to Ezra Pound's Pyrenees; from Tobias Smollett, who grumbled, to Peter Mayle, who settled in; and from Edith Wharton on falling in love to David Sedaris on falling over French grammar-here is France in all its splendor in the words of some of the best and most entertaining writers in the English language. Henry Adams * James Baldwin * Elizabeth Bishop * Mary Blume * James Fenimore Cooper * Charles Dickens * Lawrence Durrell * Lawrence Ferlinghetti * M. F. K. Fisher * F. Scott Fitzgerald * Janet Flanner * Adam Gopnik * Joanne Harris * Ernest Hemingway * Washington Irving * Henry James * Thomas Jefferson * Stanley Karnow * Peter Mayle * Mary McCarthy * Jan Morris * Ezra Pound * David Sedaris * Tobias Smollett * Gertrude Stein * Robert Louis Stevenson * Paul Theroux * Gillian Tindall * Calvin Trillin * Mark Twain * Edith Wharton * Richard Wilbur * William Carlos WilliamsFrom the Trade Paperback edition.
Four Quarters Of Light
by Brian KeenanBrian Keenan's fascination with Alaska began as a small boy choosing his first library book in a Belfast school. The book was Jack London's wondrousCall of the Wild. And it has permeated Keenan's life ever since. A short visit to Fairbanks several years ago was enough to seal his connection with the place and he resolved to return. Last year he did so with a head full of questions about its inspiring landscape and heart informed with his own love of the desolate and barren places of the world. In the course of a journey that takes him through four geographical quarters from snowmelt in May to snowfall in September, he discovers a land as fantastical as a fairytale but whose vastness has a very peculiar type of allure . . . From the Trade Paperback edition.
A Fine Place to Daydream: Racehorses, Romance and the Irish
by Bill BarichExperience the sheer thrill and joy of national hunt racing as an American novelist follows a select group of leading horses and their Irish trainers on their annual pilgrimage to the Cheltenham Festival, in this evocative book on the jumps and the Irish love of horse racing. The last thing Bill Barich expected when he left California for a holiday in London was to fall in love - and yet he did, with a charming Irish woman. This led to Dublin becoming his home from home. 'I had friends who thought I was being rash or just plain foolish,' he writes, 'but trust and conviction grow if real love is in the mix. ' His leap-of-faith left him slightly unmoored, adrift in a new city; so to anchor himself he began visiting the local betting shops to play the horses. Barich came to share Ireland's passion for the National Hunt. He even felt a kinship for the chasers and hurdlers who 'hang for a half-second in a cloud of uncertainty' every time they jump. That passion revealed to him a great deal about Irish culture, immediate and unvarnished, beyond any touristy stereotypes. So Barich wanted to go deeper. He spent a season - the season of Best Mate's third Gold Cup bid - with the leading Irish trainers, jockeys and horses, charting their progress on the road to their annual tilt against the British at the Cheltenham Festival. Here such major players as Jessica Harrington, Michael Hourigan, Paul Carberry, and Barry Geraghty are captured as never before, with Barich following the caravan from the humble races at Thurles to the glories of the Hennessy at Leopardstown. Here, too, are the big horses - Florida Pearl, Beef Or Salmon, and the quirky Moscow Flyer, who never loses except when he beats himself. A Fine Place to Daydream is a beautifully written elegy to a vanishing way of life. It will reveal an Ireland that is largely hidden to visitors, and will be a timeless account of what promises to be a vintage racing season.
Falling Palace: A Romance of Naples
by Dan HofstadterA portrait of the sun-drenched volcanic city from an American who has lost his heart to the place and to a beguiling Neapolitan woman. InFalling PalaceDan Hofstadter brilliantly reveals Naples, from the dilapidated architectural beauty to the irrepressible theater of everyday life. We witness the centuries-old festivals that regularly crowd the city’s jumbled streets, and eavesdrop on conversations that continue deep into the night. We browse the countless curio shops where treasures mingle with kitsch, and meet the locals he befriends. In and out of these encounters slips Benedetta, the object of the author’s affections, at once inviting and unfathomable. Weaving the tale of an elusive love together with a vivid portrayal of a legendary metropolis, this is a startling evocation of a magical place.
Educating Alice: Adventures of a Curious Woman
by Alice SteinbachWhen Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Alice Steinbach decided to take a year off to explore Europe and rediscover what it was like to be an independent woman, she left her job, family, friends and routine behind. The result, WITHOUT RESERVATIONS, became a bestseller and inspired women everywhere to take that leap, if not in reality, at least in their imaginations. But having opened the door to a new way of living, Steinbach found herself unwilling to return to the old routine. She quit her job and left home again, only this time her objective was to find a way to combine three of her greatest passions: travelling, writing and learning. EDUCATING ALICE is the intimate, funny and richly entertaining story of her adventures roaming the world to conquer new challenges, large and small. Whether she is learning how to cook at the Hotel Ritz in Paris, tackling the intricacies of traditional Japanese arts in Kyoto, making a pilgrimage to Jane Austen's birthplace in England, uncovers the secrets of border collie training in Scotland or surrendering to the spontaneous joy of music and memories in Havana, Steinbach allows you to relish the adventure with her.
Educating Alice: Adventures of a Curious Woman
by Alice SteinbachEight years ago, Alice Steinbach, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Baltimore Sun, decided to take a break from her life. She took a leave from job, friends, and family for a European journey of self-discovery, and her first book, Without Reservations, was the exquisite result.But once Steinbach had opened the door to a new way of living, she found herself unwilling to return to the old routine. She quit her job and left home again, only this time her objective was to ?nd a way that would allow her, personally and professionally, to combine three of her greatest passions: learning, traveling, and writing.This funny and tender book is the result of her decision to roam around the world as an informal student, taking lessons and courses in such things as French cooking in Paris, Border collie training in Scotland, traditional Japanese arts in Kyoto, architecture and art in Havana. With warmth and wit, Steinbach guides us through the pleasures and perils of discovering how to be a student again. Along the way, she also learns the true value of this second chance at educating herself: the opportunity to connect with and learn from the people she meets on her journey.From the Hardcover edition.
Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris
by Clotilde DusoulierClotilde Dusoulier, a native Parisian and passionate explorer of the city’s food scene, has won a tremendous following online with her insider reports and wonderful recipes on her blog, www. chocolateandzucchini. com. Her book,Chocolate and Zucchini, introduced her to a wider, equally enthusiastic audience. Now inClotilde’sEdible Adventures in Paris,Clotilde reveals her all-time favorite food experiences in her native city. She takes us on a mouthwatering tour of the restaurants, markets, and shops she loves the most: from the best places to go for lunch, tea, or a glass of wine, to “neo bistros” and the newest places to find spectacular yet affordable meals. Packed with advice on everything from deciphering a French menu to ordering coffee correctly, this book is like having Clotilde as a personal guide. A dozen tempting recipes are also included, shared or inspired by Clotilde’s favorite chefs and bakers. For first-time visitors and seasoned travelers alike,Clotilde’sEdible Adventures in Parisoffers invaluable insider recommendations on eating and shopping with Parisian panache. The best of Paris, featuring 164 restaurants, bistros, wine bars, andsalons de thé, as well as over 130 bakeries, pastry shops, cheese shops, bookstores, chocolate and candy shops, cookware and tableware stores, specialty shops, outdoor markets, and much, much more!
The Art of Travel (Vintage International)
by Alain De BottonAny Baedeker will tell uswherewe ought to travel, but only Alain de Botton will tell ushowandwhy. With the same intelligence and insouciant charm he brought toHow Proust Can Save Your Life,de Botton considers the pleasures of anticipation; the allure of the exotic, and the value of noticing everything from a seascape in Barbados to the takeoffs at Heathrow. Even as de Botton takes the reader along on his own peregrinations, he also cites such distinguished fellow-travelers as Baudelaire, Wordsworth, Van Gogh, the biologist Alexander von Humboldt, and the 18th-century eccentric Xavier de Maistre, who catalogued the wonders of his bedroom. The Art of Travelis a wise and utterly original book. Don’t leave home without it. From the Trade Paperback edition.