- Table View
- List View
Walking the Amazon: 860 Days. The Impossible Task. The Incredible Journey
by Ed StaffordIn April 2008, Ed Stafford began his attempt to become the first man ever to walk the entire length of the River Amazon. Nearly two and a half years later, he had crossed the whole of South America to reach the mouth of the colossal river.With danger a constant companion - outwitting alligators, jaguars, pit vipers and electric eels, not to mention overcoming the hurdles of injuries and relentless tropical storms - Ed's journey demanded extreme physical and mental strength. Often warned by natives that he would die, Ed even found himself pursued by machete-wielding tribesmen and detained for murder.However, Ed's journey was an adventure with a purpose: to help raise people's awareness of environmental issues. Ed had unprecedented access to indigenous communities and witnessed the devastating effects of the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest first-hand. His story of disappearing tribes and loss of habitats concerns us all.Ultimately though, Walking the Amazon is an account of a world-first expedition that takes readers on the most daring journey along the world's greatest river and through the most bio-diverse habitat on earth.
Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents
by Elisabeth EavesSpanning fifteen years of travel, beginning when she is a sophomore in college, Wanderlust documents Elisabeth Eaves’s insatiable hunger for the rush of the unfamiliar and the experience of encountering new people and cultures. Young and independent, she crisscrosses five continents and chases the exotic, both in culture and in romance. In the jungles of Papua New Guinea, she loses herself-literally-to an Australian tour guide; in Cairo, she reconnects with her high school sweetheart, only to discover the beginning of a pattern that will characterize her life over the long-term: while long-distance relationships work well for her, traditional relationships do not.Wanderlust, however, is more than a chronological conquest of men and countries: at its core, it’s a journey of self-discovery. In the course of her travels, Eaves finds herself and the sense of home she’s been lacking since childhood-and she sheds light on a growing culture of young women who have the freedom and inclination to define their own, increasingly global, lifestyles, unfettered by traditional roles and conventions of past generations of women.
When a Billion Chinese Jump: Voices from the Frontline of Climate Change
by Jonathan WattsWhen a Billion Chinese Jump tells the story of China's - and the world's - biggest crisis. With foul air, filthy water, rising temperatures and encroaching deserts, China is already suffering an environmental disaster. Now it faces a stark choice: either accept catastrophe, or make radical changes. Traveling the vast country to witness this environmental challenge, Jonathan Watts moves from mountain paradises to industrial wastelands, examining the responses of those at the top of society to the problems and hopes of those below. At heart his book is not a call for panic, but a demonstration that - even with the crisis so severe, and the political scope so limited - the actions of individuals can make a difference.Consistently attentive to human detail, Watts vividly portrays individual lives in a country all too often viewed from outside as a faceless state. No reader of his book - no consumer in the world - can be unaffected by what he presents.
When the Going Was Good (Forsyte chronicles)
by Evelyn WaughBetween 1929 and 1935 Evelyn Waugh travelled widely and wrote four books about his experiences. In this collection he writes, with his customary wit and perception, about a cruise around the Mediterranean; a train trip from Djibouti to Abyssinia to attend Emperor Haile Selassie's coronation in 1930; his travels in Aden, Zanzibar, Kenya and the Congo, coping with unbearable heat and plagued by mosquitoes; a journey to Guyana and Brazil; and his return to Addis Ababa in 1935 to report on the war between Abyssinia and Italy. Waugh's adventures on his travels gave him the ideas for such classic novels as Scoop and Black Mischief.
Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia
by Thant Myint-UChina and India have always been seperated not only by the Himalayas, but also by the impenetrable jungle and remote areas that once stretched across Burma. Now this last great frontier will likely vanish - forests cut down, dirt roads replaced by superhighways, insurgencies ended - leaving China and India exposed to each other as never before. This basic shift in geography is as profound as the opening of the Suez Canal and is taking place just as the centre of the world's economy moves to the East. Thant Myint-U has travelled extensively across this vast territory, where high-speed trains and gleaming shopping malls now sit alongside the last remaining forests and impoverished mountain communities. In Where China Meets India he explores the new strategic centrality of Burma, the country of his ancestry, where Asia's two rising giant powers - China and India - appear to be vying for supremacy. Part travelogue, part history, part investigation, Where China Meets India takes us across the fast-changing Asian frontier, giving us a masterful account of the region's long and rich history and its sudden significance for the rest of the world. Thant Myint-U is the author of The River of Lost Footsteps and has written articles for the New York Times, the Washington Post and the New Statesman. He has worked alongside Kofi Annan at the UN's Department of Political Affairs and currently works as a special consultant to the Burmese government.
The White Lantern And Other Pursuits
by Evan S ConnellNever has master storyteller Evan Connell been more enthralling than in these incandescent pages - tales of real-life adventure ranging from the archaeology of Olduvai gorge to the exploration of the Antarctic; from Viking voyages to an Ice Age xylophone. Never has reality so far surpassed mere fiction or fantasy than in this magnificent volume.
The Wild Rover: A Blistering Journey Along Britain's Footpaths
by Mike ParkerMike Parker, bestselling author of Map Addict, offers a very full, intelligent and witty exploration into a glorious and passionate British subject - footpaths and the history of land ownership.
Wish You Were Here: England on Sea
by Travis ElboroughThe seaside, like football and the railways, is a distinctly English and largely nineteenth century invention. At the Festival of Britain in 1951, a replica of a seafront represented hope and modernity - once the preserve of the sickly elite, the seaside had become one of the great English egalitarian institutions. But when the advent of cheap flights allowed us to go and see how the rest of the world did it - with better weather and sandier beaches - our boarding houses and bandstands slowly rotted away. As the economy forced a reassessment of our holidaying habits, resorts from Morecambe to Bournemouth enjoyed a renaissance. Capitalising on the uniquely English combination of irony and pride, the English Riviera has been reborn. In many ways, our national character has been defined by our relationship with the seaside - and in tracing its development, we can see how our ideas about health, welath and happiness evolved. Our aspirations and snobbery, our attitudes to sex, our keen sense of fair play, our chequered relationship with national pride and our ability to laugh at ourselves have all been played out against a backdrop of stormy skies, pebbly beaches and sticks of rock. The seaside is the place we go to get better, to let our hair down, to downsize, to retire, to take drugs and to hide. Ranging from Agatha Christie to the Prince Regent via Billy Butlin and Brighton Rock, Travis Elborough explores how a coastline peppered with quasi-Oriental piers makes us quintessentially English. Erudite, charming and surprising, Wish You Were Here is a gloriously unorthodox social history of a nation of islanders.
The Wit and Wisdom of the North
by Rosemarie Jarski Stuart MaconieEy up, it's not only footie, pints and pies that are better up north - the humour also takes some beating. Whether it's comics like Peter Kay, Les Dawson and Victoria Wood, telly shows like Corrie and Open All Hours, or writers like Alan Bennett and Keith Waterhouse, the funniest and best-loved invariably hail from the land of perpetual drizzle (another thing they do better).This grand collection of northern wit is packed with these favourites and more. Likely lads and lippy lasses cast a wry eye on subjects close to the heart of every northerner, including - brass, grub, graft, courting, cricket, tittle-tattle and t'weather - adding up to a feast of northern hilarity.
World Cruising Destinations: An Inspirational Guide to all Sailing Destinations
by Jimmy Cornell'What Jimmy Cornell doesn't know about cruising isn't worth knowing' - Yachting WorldOne of the most influential cruising yachtsmen writing today, Jimmy Cornell has sailed over 200,000 miles on all the oceans of the world, including three circumnavigations and voyages to the Arctic and Antarctic. His successful guide to sailing around the world, World Cruising Routes, has helped many aspirational voyagers turn their dreams into reality and follow in his footsteps.This substantial new handbook profiles every cruising destination in the world and is intended as a partner to Cornell's bestselling World Cruising Routes. Every destination is detailed comprehensively, with information on cruising attractions, history, culture, climate(including average monthly temperatures and rainfall, plus tropical storm seasons), local laws, regulations and formalities, facilities available, plus public holidays and events, emergency telephone numbers, and much more. Lavishly illustrated throughout, it is not only a must-have onboard reference work for long distance sailors, but will undoubtedly inspire the adventurous to sail where they have never sailed before.
World globe centred on the UK (large print)
by RnibThis is a globe map centred on the United Kingdom. As the land masses shown are on the curved surface of the Earth, this image will be distorted, especially at its edge. There is a locator dot shown, which will be at the top left of the page when the image is the correct way up. Land is shown on the tactile image as a fine dotted texture and the sea by fine horizontal lines. These are green and blue respectively on the Large Print image. This globe map represents the Earth as seen from space, directly above the United Kingdom. The UK is in the centre of the map, to its right is mainland Europe and further right is the continent of Asia. Down the page from the UK is Spain and Portugal, and further down is the continent of Africa, reaching to the bottom of the globe. Up and left from the UK are the Atlantic Ocean, Iceland and Greenland. To the left of the UK are the eastern half of North America with the Arctic up the page and the northern tip of South America down the page.
World globe centred on the UK (UEB contracted)
by RnibThis is a globe map centred on the United Kingdom. As the land masses shown are on the curved surface of the Earth, this image will be distorted, especially at its edge. There is a locator dot shown, which will be at the top left of the page when the image is the correct way up. Land is shown on the tactile image as a fine dotted texture and the sea by fine horizontal lines. These are green and blue respectively on the Large Print image. This globe map represents the Earth as seen from space, directly above the United Kingdom. The UK is in the centre of the map, to its right is mainland Europe and further right is the continent of Asia. Down the page from the UK is Spain and Portugal, and further down is the continent of Africa, reaching to the bottom of the globe. Up and left from the UK are the Atlantic Ocean, Iceland and Greenland. To the left of the UK are the eastern half of North America with the Arctic up the page and the northern tip of South America down the page.
World globe centred on the UK (UEB uncontracted)
by RnibThis is a globe map centred on the United Kingdom. As the land masses shown are on the curved surface of the Earth, this image will be distorted, especially at its edge. There is a locator dot shown, which will be at the top left of the page when the image is the correct way up. Land is shown on the tactile image as a fine dotted texture and the sea by fine horizontal lines. These are green and blue respectively on the Large Print image. This globe map represents the Earth as seen from space, directly above the United Kingdom. The UK is in the centre of the map, to its right is mainland Europe and further right is the continent of Asia. Down the page from the UK is Spain and Portugal, and further down is the continent of Africa, reaching to the bottom of the globe. Up and left from the UK are the Atlantic Ocean, Iceland and Greenland. To the left of the UK are the eastern half of North America with the Arctic up the page and the northern tip of South America down the page.
World Map- basic outline (tactile)
by Sheffield Vi ServiceThis is an outline map of the world with North and South America to the left, Australia to the right and Antarctica at the bottom of the image.
World Map (large print)
by RnibThis is a map of the world. The map is framed by a dashed image border. There is a locator dot shown, which will be at the top left of the page when the image is the right way up. All land masses are textured (green) and sea areas are untextured (blue). On the left of the page are North and South America, in the centre Europe and Africa and to the right Asia and Australasia. Some areas have been given two-letter alphabetic labels due to space considerations. These are described in a key at the bottom left of the page.
The Zohra's Ladder: And Other Moroccan Tales (Eye Classics #0)
by Pamela WindoPamela Windo lived in Morocco for many years, falling in love with the country and its people. In Zohra's Ladder she recalls her most memorable encounters. Her stories peel back layers of history and the finely embroidered fabric of daily life, discovering the mysterious and exotic. Her writing describes the colours, flavours, sounds and textures of an almost dream-like place: a world of fleeting affairs, warmth and subtle moments. Experience Morocco as it comes alive in this entrancing book.
90-Day Geisha: My Time as a Tokyo Hostess
by Chelsea HaywoodStep into the surreal world of a Tokyo hostess club and gain an exclusive underground pass courtesy of Chelsea Haywood as she sets out to explore a vocation where £400 dinners, Harajuku shopping sprees and first-class trips to Kyoto are just part of the job.This is the true story of one girl's immersion in the world of hostessing, a late-night entertainment for wealthy Japanese men drawn from the traditional institution of the geisha. In an attempt to make the foreign familiar, Chelsea's initial fascination takes an unexpected turn as she struggles to maintain sanity in an illusory world full of empty flattery, unrelenting temptation and material excess.
Irish Male At Home And Abroad
by Joseph O'ConnorThe Irish Male at Home and Abroad is the hilarious sequel to Joe O'Connor's bestseller The Secret World of the Irish Male. From flirting lessons in downtown Manhattan to being offered a good ride in Disneyland by the now legendary Wanda, it was a long, strange and hilarious trip. Now, in The Irish Male at Home and Abroad, O'Connor returns faster, funnier and filthier than ever before.Impersonating Santa Claus in a busy Dublin store on Christmas Eve, spending a penny in Lord Jeffrey Archer's penthouse loo, traipsing the local-radio publicity circuit in 100-degree Australian heat, on the run in revolutionary Nicaragua, contemplating the Shroud of Turin, or making a deposit in a grotty sperm bank - here are tall tales and short stories: absurd, anarchic and unforgettably side-splitting adventures from home and abroad.Laugh-out-loud funny, yet always affectionate and sometimes poignant, O'Connor roams through an Ireland of wife-swapping sodomites and late-night sodalities, when not getting lost in the restless new Europe of beach holidays, terrible beauties and Baywatch lookalikes. It's going to be another weird and uproarious trip. But like Wanda once said: Hitch a ride, sweetheart, and hang on real tight!
A Pilgrim in Spain: Published In Association With The Daily Telegraph
by Christopher HowseChristopher Howse has spent more than two decades exploring Spain. For him, its centuries-old cathedrals, monasteries and shrines demand pilgrimage more than tourism.In a journey across the Castilian interior he follows in the footsteps of El Cid and St Dominic, examines St Teresa's arm, samples the legacy of the Cardinal who invaded Africa, finds the spot where St John of the Cross escaped from prison, and discovers in a mountain shrine the world's largest remnant of the True Cross.He comes across a slaughterhouse dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and a cock and hen living in a cathedral. He hears of uncivil war in Europe's most civilised square and enjoys the smells, heat, food, noise, prayers, tears, flies, smoke, violence and laughter of an ancient culture in its last years.With an eye for the humorous and strange, he spends time in Soria and Silos, Yuste and Segovia, before turning from the pilgrim destination of Santiago de Compostela to the valleys of Extremadura, where the Virgin of Guadalupe took the Spanish to an unknown world.
London Plaques (Shire Library)
by Derek Sumeray John SheppardLondon's buildings are dotted with commemorative plaques. Many are the famous blue plaques, indicating where a famous person was born, lived, stayed, or if a significant event took place there, or an earlier use of the site. This book is a comprehensive gazetteer of all of London's plaques. Using Derek Sumeray's classic book as a basis, this thoroughly revised new edition arranges plaques alphabetically by area, providing a text that is linked to London's geography and, therefore, of greater use to a resident or visitor wanting to explore the famous people and events commemorated in that area.
Tristes Tropiques
by Claude Lévi-StraussTristes Tropiques begins with the line 'I hate travelling and explorers', yet during his life Claude Lévi-Strauss travelled from wartime France to the Amazon basin and the dense upland jungles of Brazil, where he found 'human society reduced to its most basic expression'. His account of the people he encountered changed the field of anthropology, transforming Western notions of 'primitive' man. Tristes Tropiques is a major work of art as well as of scholarship. It is a memoir of exquisite beauty and a masterpiece of travel writing: funny, discursive, movingly detailing personal and cultural loss, and brilliantly connecting disparate fields of thought. Few books have had as powerful and broad an impact.
Holidays in Heck
by P. J. O'RourkeHolidays in Heck takes the reader on a globe-trotting journey to far-reaching places including China, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and the Galapagos Islands. The collection begins after the Iraq War, when P.J. retired from being a war correspondent because he was "too old to keep being scared stiff and too stiff to keep sleeping on the ground." Instead he embarked on supposedly more comfortable and allegedly less dangerous travels - often with family in tow - which mostly left him wishing he were under artillery fire again. The result is a hilarious and oftentimes moving portrait of life in the fast lane - only this time as a husband and father of three.Adventures include:- The first stag hunt in Britain after hunting had been banned. If the British had been half as caring about Indians and American colonists as they are about animals, they'd still rule the world.- A month-long tour of mainland China's economic hubs where P.J. learned that the entire Chinese concept of political freedom and individual liberty can be summed up in the words, 'New Buick'.- A harrowing horseback ride across the mountains of Kyrgyzstan - no towns, no roads, no people. "If something happened to my horse it would be shot. For me, the medical treatment wouldn't be that sophisticated."
Across the Country from Thonon to Trent: Rambles and Scrambles in Switzerland and the Tyrol
by Douglas FreshfieldThis is a true 'Boys' Own' adventure story of how three English schoolboys spent the summer of 1863 trekking through the Swiss and Italian Alps before conquering Mont Blanc. It is an utterly unique journal written by one of that party who would go on the become one of the great mountain and travel writers of the Victorian era and make a huge contribution to the Royal Geographic Society and the Alpine Club. His name was Douglas William Freshfield. Douglas William Freshfield was born on Sunday, 27 April 1845 in London, the only son of Henry Ray Freshfield and Jane Quinton Crawford. After being educated at Eton College and University College, Oxford, he followed his father into the legal profession and was called to the bar in 1870. One of the features of his privileged childhood was the opportunity to travel with his parents and enjoy long summer holidays abroad. At the age of eight he had his first experience of the Swiss Alps undertaking a journey from Basel to Chamonix. Eventually, in 1863, he was ready to undertake an Alpine adventure of his own planning. This volume, which he arranged to have printed privately in 1865 was his first work of mountain literature and also his rarest. It is his journal of that trek made from the southern shores of Lake Geneva, in the company of two schoolfriends, through the Swiss Alps and into northern Italy during the summer of 1863. Freshfield was only 18 when he made the trip, and in the narrative of the journal can be found the beginnings of the style and observational genius that was to serve him well over the course of his writing career. The reader is engaged at once with the three young men as they begin their adventure and is bowled along as an unseen travelling companion through the high routes and passes, the valleys and gorges until making the summit with them on Mont Blanc. It is an engaging and informative journal of how privileged young Englishmen once spent their leisure time and reveals a lifestyle long gone now but still worthy of reminiscence.
Grape Britain: A Tour of Britains Vineyards
by David HarveyIn 2006 an English sparkling wine was voted best in the world. Sound too good to be true? It isn't. The face of UK wine has changed dramatically over the past few years. In this unique guide based on a tour that David Harvey made in 2006, Grape Britain celebrates in style the emergence of a distinctive and vibrant UK wine scene. At the time of the Domesday Book in the late 11th century, vineyards were recorded in 46 places in southern England, from East Anglia across to Somerset. By the time Henry VIII ascended the throne there were 139 sizeable vineyards in England and Wales. Adverse changes in the weather and the dissolution of the monasteries led to a gradual decline that has only recently been reversed. Since the 1960s there has been a rapid increase in the number of UK vineyards with the total area under cultivation rising to more than 2,000 acres and it is now a fully mature, vibrant industry boasting unique wines and a wealth of exciting grape varieties such as Seyval Blanc, Bacchus and Madeleine Angevine. There are now around 300 vineyards spread over the length and breadth of Britain and wine production is set to double in the near future in order to cope with the huge demand for its wines. David Harvey was so surprised to find a quality vineyard in Leeds that he quit his management job at Oddbin's to spend a year travelling around England and Wales in 2006 visiting as many vineyards as possible from Chateau de la Mare in Jersey to Leventhorpe in Yorkshire, and from the big Champagne challenger Nyetimber in Sussex to small producers like historic Parva in Wales. In this enlightening guide book, you will not only discover some wonderful vineyard settings, but also a wealth of information on the producing areas, the grapes, the wines themselves and how they are made and, most important of all, you will be introduced to the people who make them. This is the one essential book you will need to learn about this fascinating and, until now, largely ignored corner of the wine world.
100 Places You Will Never Visit: The World's Most Secret Locations
by Daniel Smith Dan SmithEver wondered what it takes to get into Fort Knox? Fancied a peek inside the Coca-Cola Safety Deposit Box? Would you dare to visit Three Mile Island? The world is full of secret places that we either don't know about, or couldn't visit even if we wanted to. Now you can glimpse the Tora Bora caves in Afghanistan, visit the Tuscon Titan Missile Site, tour the Vatican Archives, or see the Chapel of the Ark. This fascinating guide book takes a look at 100 places around the world that are either so hard to reach, so closely guarded, or so secret that they are virtually impossible to visit any other way.