Winner Travel Guides & Essays The 2020 Best Book Awards
Exploring Wine Regions-Bordeaux France is the second book in its series that brings a unique approach in educating and inspiring readers about the wine regions of the world. Bordeaux takes you on a journey exploring the long and fascinating history of wine, gastronomy, castles and joie de vivre, the French way of living life. The perfect companion for any wine lover or travel enthusiast.
With a passion for wine and travel, author and photographer Michael C. Higgins delves deep into the history of Bordeaux, which he refers to as the “center of the universe for wine.” Combining wine education, insiders travel guide and his spectacular photography, Higgins continues to dazzle his audience with another informative and beautiful book. Higgins helps readers understand the complexities of Bordeaux wine by presenting each region separately and explaining their nuances. He helps them navigate their own way through this historic wine region by highlighting the chateaux, including the ones where you can stay in their castles, restaurants and experiences with detailed maps and insider tips.
With breathtaking photography and personal commentary, readers are mesmerized by the Bordeaux world of wine, food and travel. Extensive resources are provided for wine lovers who want to know where to go, what to look for, what questions to ask, and how to understand complex answers. Everyone can learn how to develop a palate to appreciate the finest wine and food the French has to offer. Both connoisseurs and novices turn to this book series for insider information and inspiration. A must-have book for expanding your knowledge of Bordeaux and its wines.
The Butterfly Bruises is a collection of poems and stories regarding animals, the ocean, miscommunication, childhood, Northeastern versus Southern American culture, family, nature versus technology, and the imagination of the introvert. In these lyrical texts, a couple sleepwalks together, a therapist is imagined as a snake, a manatee befriends a widow, a ghost haunts an old Charleston home, and New York City becomes its own character. Stepping into these pages brings about new worlds—some full of magic, others full of mystery.
A couple of grizzled old geezers leave for a months-long RV trip in February 2020.
But they are about to hit a bump in the road.
Gerri Almand and her husband Michael have been living part-time in their RV for years. She has gone from a reluctant RV wife to a deep appreciator of the open road, so when it comes time for their next trip, she knows she’s ready.
Enter Covid-19.
When the pandemic breaks out, their return home becomes impossible. They must run for their lives to elude the dreaded coronavirus, and they do what any logical senior couple would do…
They sell their home and embrace a full-time RV life.
They spend six weeks in a nudist RV park, chase after Dennis Hopper’s ghost in Taos, deny themselves a Koi fishing expedition in Cripple Creek, learn the art of the ‘wike’ in Leadville, survive a snowstorm outside Colorado Springs, stroll across the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, and nestle in the desert in southern California as the pandemic rages.
Running from COVID in Our RV Cocoon is the humorous true story of one couple’s paradoxical journey of both losing and finding freedom during Covid-19. It is packed with helpful tips to becoming full-time nomads and offers the complicated truths of what it’s like to live in an RV during a terrifying pandemic.
"This is a joyous collection, taking joy in the sun on the Rhine and in the “big red table umbrella dripping down on all sides”; in “droplets of sweat slipping to the parched ground” and in ships sailing “like sugar cubes through molasses”; in a boy in a red Alpine hat and a grandfather with a mandolin. The poems travel through the Black Forest, but they also travel through four generations—generations who, in the poems of this book, are lovingly connected." —Janet Burroway, Pulitzer Prize Nominated Novelist, author of Imaginative Writing and Raw Silk
"If you want a rich taste of travel, an excursion into the Black Forest, a cruise down the Rhine, and can’t afford the ticket or the time, let Joe Carey guide you with his beautifully observed, loving travel poems to the places you might go if you could, in his Black Forest Dreams. The poems are wise, clear, and exhilarating." —Steve Katz, author of The Exaggerations of Peter Prince, Saw and Moving Parts
Think Under the Tuscan Sun meets La Passione. Through heart-warming and humorous stories that unfold across Italy's 20 regions over the span of 15 years, Italy Through the Rear-View Mirror makes a persuasive case for why so many of us fall in love with Italy.
“What can I say: Susan's 'Italy Through the Rear-View Mirror' IS Italy." —Franco Cavalleri, Italian Journalist and Photographer
While pursuing her insatiable passion for Italy, Italy and its inhabitants helped Susan discover the real reason behind a growing attachment to this sun-drenched country. Beneath the obvious beauty and intriguing diversity that we learn about, she knew there was something more profound building her sense of connection to a country she otherwise had no connection with. A rear-view mirror perspective opened Susan's eyes to the underlying role that every-day aspects of the Italian lifestyle—its traditions and rituals, its food, its people and their engaging approach to 'living life in the piazza'—played in cultivating this sense of connection. These were the ties binding it all together for her, and her to it. Travel was the vehicle and Italy the teacher, helping to illuminate how we are all wired for connection, how we crave a sense of belonging, and how simple human encounters can feed our soul.
Italy Through the Rear-View Mirror inspires us to reflect on our own journey, whether it involves travel or not, and in the process learn about our connection to this global community we call humanity. In fragile times, when our capacity to travel may be constrained and our ability to connect feels distant, the message is even more relevant.
Operation Market Garden: Airborne Invasion of the Netherlands guides visitors to the battlefields of a daring plan for the largest airborne drop in the Second World War. Three Airborne Divisions (American 82nd and 101st and British 1st) parachuted behind enemy lines to capture and hold key river and canal bridges. An armored column raced across the Netherlands on a single narrow highway to secure the crossings. The effort was defeated at the critical bridge in Arnhem resulting in the destruction of the British 1st Airborne Division. The guide provides battle summaries, descriptions of museums, relics, battlefield locations, driving and in-city walking tour routes complete with GPS co-ordinates, and individual stories of men engaged in combat.
A wayward descendant of Mexico's national hero, a femme fatale who recites poems in cantinas, a Tunisian prostitute in Barcelona, a Spanish psychiatrist who fights brave bulls, the wise owner of the world's oldest restaurant. They are just a handful of the characters portrayed in VIDAS: Deep in Mexico and Spain, the first travel memoir to explore Mexico and Spain with the perspective of an American and the knowledge of an insider.
VIDAS: Deep in Mexico and Spain is a passage from adolescence to maturity, a tribute to nature and the open road, an exaltation of love, food and wine, a journey from the tender, mortal flesh to the luminous world of the spirit. It is also travel writing at its best, an evocation of peoples, places and rituals seldom glimpsed by natives or foreigners.
"If you are seventeen, at large in Mexico, seeing new things and learning every hour, any cheap dive, any impulse or encounter is pure as the snows on Popocatepetl, stained by hot ashes."
Postcards Home 2, Adventures Begin with the First Step, is a travel essay composite. Those steps W.D. Mast took over those many years are told in short adventurous stories and shown with vivid, representative photographic imagery and validated with the actual photo postcards he sent while traveling to those wonderful places. This unique compilation including some of the over 1,000 postcards he sent that were kept and returned to him has made Mast's first travel memoir, Postcards Home, an award wining favorite.
A modern travel tale—part personal pilgrimage, part political quest—that captures the power of human resilience
"McKiernan sticks his thumb out, and somehow a healthy dose of humanity manages to roll up alongside him. . . . This book is a paean to nuance, decency and possibility." —Colum McCann, National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author of Let the Great World Spin and Apeirogon.
Following the collapse of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger economy, social activist Ruairí McKiernan questions whether he should join the mounting number of emigrants searching for greater opportunity elsewhere. McKiernan embarks on a hitchhiking odyssey with no money, no itinerary and no idea where he might end up each night. His mission: to give voice to those emerging from one of the most painful periods of economic and social turmoil in Ireland’s history. Engaging, provocative and sincere, Hitching for Hope is a testimony to the spirit of Ireland. It is an inspirational manifesto for hope and healing in troubled times.
Dance provides a way to travel far beyond the typical tourist experience. By connecting with local people through a shared love of movement, dancers catalyze many unique opportunities. They build cross-cultural friendships with dance as the only shared language, discover ways to train with celebrated teachers, experience cultural immersion key to their personal development, and more. In this anthology, you'll find stories from renowned performers, dance educators, and other avid dance adventurers. Their tales about epic dance adventures across North America, Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa highlight various dance traditions, as well as unique aspects of each country's geography, history, demographics and educational systems. In this way, Dance Adventures celebrates the power of dance to connect us to the best parts of humanity, as well as to the best parts of ourselves.
Finalist Travel Guides & Essays The 2020 Best Book Awards
SOLA chronicles the true story of a young woman’s plunge from her pleasant narrow life into a rich foreign continent brimming with Panpipe-playing Zen masters, nighttime motorboat rides redlining through the jungle, hikes to Inca ruins and Patagonian glaciers, witches, mummies, goddesses, Brazilian bikinis, and a snow-covered volcano to climb -- accidentally. At the center of it all stands a quirky slightly-unstable surf guru who bends her mind with insightful wacky tidbits of wisdom and ultimately prompts the question: Can you ever go home again?
Finalist Travel Guides & Essays The 2020 Best Book Awards
In summer 2006, twenty-year-old Gerald Yeung and his childhood friends from Hong Kong travel to South America and Africa on their parents' dime. Confronted by challenges foreign to their privileged upbringing, the "Wannabe Backpackers" persevere in their Christian Dior clothes. They make plans to do it again when they turn thirty.
The decade that follows doesn't go exactly to plan. Gerald chases the American Dream in a town of twenty thousand and subzero winters. Others pursue a fast-and-furious life in Hong Kong. They all experience failed relationships, career setbacks, and a decreasing ability to impress girls at clubs.
Finalist Travel Guides & Essays The 2020 Best Book Awards
Joyful and informative Places I Remember: Tales, Truths, Delights from 100 Countries presents writings and illustrated photos in a memoir covering over 50 years of travel throughout the world. You'll find a range of unforgettable people and places through vivid personal experiences--good, bad and often, laugh-out-loud funny.
Lea Lane is an award-winning author of eight books, and has contributed to a dozen guidebooks. She has written for magazines, websites, and newspapers, including The New York Times and The Miami Herald. She is currently a regular contributor to forbes.com.
Greg Correll, former illustrator for The New Yorker and CLIO winner, has created stunning fine-art illustrations, based on her photos.
Finalist Travel Guides & Essays The 2020 Best Book Awards
In "Dance Life: Movin' & Groovin' Around the Globe", Lisa Alpine combines her three all-encompassing passions—writing, travel, and dance—into a bouquet of 27 stories that span her lifetime and the globe. From twerking with a nun in an Albanian orphanage to salsa dancing with a hottie under the burning sun in Cuba, to braving an attempt at flamenco on a Parisian tabletop, these toe-tapping tales will inspire you to follow the call of a wild life, leaving home with your passport in hand and your dance shoes stuffed into the suitcase.
Finalist Travel Guides & Essays The 2020 Best Book Awards
On the heels of a breakup, author Nathan Pettijohn rents an RV and takes off on the road with his dog to explore the Pacific Northwest for the month of October. Along their journey, Pettijohn and his dog Raphael, or “Hafa,” meet with locals in small towns and stay at sites ranging from national parks, trailer parks, and campgrounds, to parking lots and open spaces. While going to a number of iconic bucket-list road trip stops, Pettijohn shares his views on everything from dog training to dating apps, in a modern exploration of life on the road today in America for adventurers, vagabonds, and dog lovers.
Finalist Travel Guides & Essays The 2020 Best Book Awards
Have you ever dreamed of adventure?
Thomas J. Elpel had the rare opportunity to carve a dugout canoe with Churchill Clark, the great-great-great-great grandson of Captain Clark. Together they whittled a 10,000 lb. Douglas fir log down to a 500+ lb. canoe.
Enlisting friends with additional canoes to join the adventure, Tom led a five-month "Missouri River Corps of Rediscovery" expedition, paddling the 2,341-mile Missouri River segment of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail fromMontana to St. Louis. It was an archetypical story of adventure—to carve and paddle a dugout canoe like the famed explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
