Adventure Writing

In 2015, 36-year-old Chicago resident David King finds himself at a personal and professional crossroads. Feeling bored and restless, he longs to strike out on a crazy journey in a quest for beauty, kindness, and inspiration as to where his life should go from here. Having taken up biking as a hobby, he consults a map of the United States and, in a spur-of-the-moment decision, vows to ride across the country—from San Diego to Miami. Part travelogue, part memoir, part spiritual journey, America on Two Wheels is an ode to pursuing the open road with an open heart.

The audio edition of On the Grand Trunk Road is finally available, revised and updated with new material. Focusing on Coll's journeys in conflict-ridden India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Afghanistan as a bureau chief for The Washington Post, On the Grand Trunk Road reveals a little-seen area of the world where violence, corruption, and greed have had devastating effects on South Asians from all walks of life.

In Polish: This is a story about the journey of two brothers who travelled through the largest river in the world on...bikes. But not ordinary bikes - they were "Amazonian” bikes. The story is as bodacious as the trip itself, which seemed like an unachievable madness, but turned out to be a great adventure and a valuable life lesson. For one of its heroes it was a dream come true, for another the last chance for salvation. The book is written by Piotr Chmieliński - the first person on Earth who sailed through the Amazon River in a kayak.

In Polish: A stunning story of the trailblazing expedition into the heart of the most dangerous jungle in the world, full of venomous snakes, jaguars, and sandflies which spread infections. This is were the legendary, cursed City of the Monkey God was supposed to be. Many years of expeditions didn't show any results, until Steve Elkins, a documentalist, discoverer, and laureate of the Emmy Award, managed to find the position of the mistery Pre-Columbian city thanks to the use of modern laser technology.

From the Lambic breweries of Belgium, where beer is fermented with wild yeasts drawn down from the air around the brewery, to the aquifers below Burton-on-Trent, where the brewing water is rumored to contain life-giving qualities, Miracle Brew tells the full story behind the amazing role each of these fantastic four - a grass, a weed, a fungus, and water - has to play.

Would you risk being arrested by Iran’s secret police or subject yourself to a "torture massage" in North Korea just so you could say you’d survived to tell the tale? And would you even want to share a crude-oil bath with a retired croc hunter in Azerbaijan? Or pull a golden ring from a turd? Graham and his wife Lisa have done all of these things. Travel Agents - the warm and witty follow-up to the best-selling Travel Seekness - continues the unforgettable story of Lisa and Graham’s hilarious and often hair-raising escapades around the world.

John Muir (1838 -1914) was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness areas in the United States. In the late 1800s, Muir made several trips to the relatively unexplored territory of Alaska. Travels in Alaska, originally published in 1915, describes the beauty of the Alaskan wilderness and its inhabitants as observed during his travels between 1879 and 1890. In poetic prose, he describes the area’s magnificent glaciers and its animals like bears, bald eagles, wolves and whales.

A true story of how a middle-aged married couple abandon lucrative white-collar professional careers to become long-haul truck drivers for Schneider National in Green Bay, Wisconsin. David Hamel, a mechanical engineer, and Shelley Hamel, past Director of Product Development for the American Girl doll company, decide to ditch their urban life and go to truck-driving school. For David, driving school was a piece of cake. For Shelley, it was murder. Nearly flunking out of truck driving school, Shelley successfully faces her twin demons of double-clutching and 10 nasty gears.

Like her 2011 book of a similarly-epic long trek around Lake Michigan, this grand hike on the shores of five magnificent bodies of freshwater explores the natural and human history of the Great Lakes, while raising important questions about preserving our wild places and protecting fragile ecosystems on which we all depend.

The city long-adored for its medieval beauty, old-timey brasseries, and corner cafés has even more to offer today. In the last few years, a flood of new ideas and creative locals has infused a once-static, traditional city with a new open-minded sensibility and energy. Journalist Lindsey Tramuta offers detailed insight into the rapidly evolving worlds of food, wine, pastry, coffee, beer, fashion, and design in the delightful city of Paris. Tramuta puts the spotlight on the new trends and people that are making France’s capital a more whimsical, creative, vibrant, and curious place.

The Last River: The Tragic Race for Shangri-la is a breathtaking account of the ill-fated October 1998 expedition of an American whitewater kayaking team who traveled deep into the Tsangpo Gorge in Tibet to run the Yarlung Tsangpo, known in paddling circles as the "Everest of rivers." For Wick Walker and Tom McEwan, extreme whitewater pioneers, best friends, and trip leaders, the Tsangpo adventure was the culmination of a twenty-five-year quest for glory. Yet the team's magnificent dreams crumbled when their ace paddler was swept over a thunderous eight-foot waterfall, never to be seen again.

Award-winning author Mark Kurlansky presents an insider's view of Havana: the elegant, tattered city he has come to know over more than 30 years. Part cultural history, part travelogue, with recipes throughout, Havana celebrates the city's singular music, literature, baseball and food; its five centuries of outstanding neglected architecture; and its extraordinary blend of cultures.

Mike and his family sail the Western Mediterranean in a 72-foot yacht - a converted 100 ton Baltic Trader. The yachting anecdotes bring out the Irish in him.

The life you are living is a reflection of what you believe you deserve. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have your dreams come true? To wish for something and have it come into your life as if by magic? The magic is within you. Join manifestation goddess Sunni Boehme as she travels from Milwaukee to Majorca, from Piccadilly to Paradise, from Gothenburg to Golan, all the while fulfilling her wildest dreams of laughter, luxury, and love.

What would it be like to cast aside the industrial bustle of the early 20th century to hop a freighter bound for the verdant jungles and untamed wildlife of the fabled Amazon? H.M. Tomlinson did just that, trading the streets of Swansea, Wales, for the open sea of the Atlantic. Thanks to Tomlinson's sharp eye for detail, his spellbinding account of this 1909 journey is much more than a standard travel narrative.

Cathy has captured the drama of her Everest climbs, her passion for the challenge of climbing mountains, and her love for wild places in this story of her four attempts on the mountain. Cathy tries to answer the question of why, if climbing Everest can be so dangerous, people still want to do it.

In book one of his witty and insightful travelogue series, Andy chronicles his family’s move from grey, rainy England to hot and steamy Atlanta. He transports his wife, two kids, two dubious dogs and one very unhappy cat 4,000 miles across the pond. Through laugh-out-loud anecdotes and hard-won wisdom, Andy shares the thrilling highs, frustrating lows, and daunting challenges of uprooting your entire life to start over in a strange land.

Remember when you were a kid, and you used to go round to a friend's house to see if they were playing? Well, as adults we're not supposed to do that. Which is a shame... because Dave Gorman likes playing. He REALLY likes games. So he knocked on the biggest door you could ever imagine - the internet - and asked 76,000 people if they fancied a game. This is the story of what happened next.

In this powerful, passionate chronicle, Noah Adams, the beloved host of NPR's All Things Considered, takes us on a river journey through the heart of Appalachia - a journey shared by pioneers and preachers, white-water daredevils, bluegrass musicians, and an unforgettable cast of vivid historical characters.

Early on in his life, Matt craved a return to nature. When he became an adult, he set aside his comfortable urban life and lived entirely off the land. In this riveting narrative that brings together epic adventure and spiritual quest, he shows us what extraordinary things the human body is capable of when pushed to its limits. He learns the secrets of the Tarahumara Indians, which help him run the 1,600-mile Pacific Crest Trail in just 58 days and endure temperature swings of 100 degrees.