Travel Writing Memoirs

Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other, a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.

Years ago, an overachieving and harried young mother accidentally flushed her gold watch down the toilet. Time passed, but the image of the lost watch continued to haunt her, a symbol of an overcommitted life. Two decades later, propelled by a series of curious coincidences, she leaves behind her busy professional life, her cell phone, and her family to escape the tyranny of time and walk 500 miles across Northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela.

Annette Joseph's years in Italy revealed this truth: Italy, in all its multifaceted, glorious history and culture has to be experienced in full. Over almost three decades, Italy has fed, entertained, confused, excited, lured, promised, lied, satisfied, occasionally disappointed, and utterly enchanted her. She's left, but can't stay away - she'll always return. Always. Just like a beloved partner....

Few books have captured the haunting world of music and rivers and of the sport they provide as well as A River Never Sleeps. Roderick L. Haig-Brown writes of fishing not just as a sport, but also as an art. He knows moving water and the life within it - its subtlest mysteries and perpetual delights. He is a man who knows fish lore as few people ever will, and the legends and history of a great sport. Month by month, he takes you from river to river, down at last to the saltwater and the sea.

We will teach you how to write creative nonfiction in seven easy steps. This guide is designed to provide you with all the tools you need in a concise, easy-to-understand format that will answer all your burning questions and get you on your way to successful nonfiction writing.

Award-winning investigative journalist and contributing Wired editor Scott Carney leads listeners on a breathtaking journey through the macabre underworld of the global body bazaar, where organs, bones, and even live people are bought and sold on The Red Market. The Red Market sheds a blazing new light on the disturbing, billion-dollar business of trading in human body parts, bodies, and child trafficking, raising issues and exposing corruptions almost too bizarre and shocking to imagine.

In Ruth Reichl’s latest book—one that will delight her fans and convert those as yet uninitiated to her charming tales—the author brings to life her adventures in pursuit of good meals and good company. Picking up where Tender at the Bone leaves off, Comfort Me with Apples recounts Reichl’s transformation from chef to food writer, a process that led her through restaurants from Bangkok to Paris to Los Angeles and brought lessons in life, love, and food.

Es ist ein sonniger Junimorgen, als Hape Kerkeling, bekennende "couch potato", endgültig seinen inneren Schweinehund besiegt und in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port aufbricht. Sechs Wochen liegen vor ihm, allein mit sich und seinem elf Kilo schweren Rucksack: über die schneebedeckten Gipfel der Pyrenäen, durch das Baskenland, Navarra und Rioja bis nach Galicien zum Grab des heiligen Jakob, seit über 1000 Jahren Ziel für Gläubige aus der ganzen Welt.

Rosie Schaap had a solid career as a journalist and a life that looked to others like nonstop fun: all drinking and dining and traveling to beautiful places—and getting paid to write about it. But under the surface she was reeling from the loss of her husband and her mother—who died just one year apart. Caring for them had claimed much of her daily life in her late thirties. Mourning them would take longer. It wasn’t until a reporting trip took her to the Northern Irish countryside that Rosie found a partner to heal with: Glenarm, a quiet seaside village in County Antrim.

Throughout history, precious stones have inspired passions and poetry, quests and curses, sacred writings and unsacred actions. Blending adventure travel, geology, exciting new research and her own irresistible charm, Finlay has fashioned a treasure hunt for some of the most valuable, glamorous, and mysterious substances on earth. Jewels is a unique and often exhilarating voyage through history, across cultures, deep into the earth's mantle, and up to the glittering heights of fame, power and wealth.

When Romi Grossberg decided, at thirty-five, to give up her job as a social worker in Australia for a two-year contract in the slums of Cambodia, she could never have imagined that the experience would change her life forever. Hip Hop & Hope is part memoir, part history, part travelogue, and completely engaging. Its portrait of Phnom Penh is complicated and indelible. Its story of work in an NGO is inspirational. At this hip hop youth centre, Romi evolves from a frightened burrung to a respected manager who knows the words, the tunes, and the moves.

Li Juan and her mother own a small convenience store in the Altai Mountains in Northwestern China, where she writes about her life among grasslands and snowy peaks. To her neighbors' surprise, Li decides to join a family of Kazakh herders as they take their 30 boisterous camels, 500 sheep, and over 100 cattle and horses to pasture for the winter.

When best-selling mystery writer David Rosenfelt and his family moved from Southern California to Maine, he thought he had prepared for everything. They had mapped the route, brought three GPSs for backup, as well as refrigerators full of food, and stoves and microwaves on which to cook them. But traveling with 25 dogs turned out to be a bigger ordeal than he anticipated, despite RVs, the extra kibble, volunteers (including a few readers), and camping equipment.

Unable to commit to his fiancée of nearly four years - and with no clear understanding of what’s holding him back - Andrew McCarthy finds himself at a crossroads, plagued by doubts that have clung to him for a lifetime. Something in his character has kept him always at a distance, preventing him from giving himself wholeheartedly to the woman he loves and from becoming the father that he knows his children deserve. So before he loses everything he cares about, Andrew sets out to look for answers.

Nicolas Vanier lâche son attelage. Devant lui, un défi immense : la Yukon Quest, la course de traîneaux à chiens la plus difficile au monde. 1600 kilomètres entre le Canada et l'Alaska, le long de la route de la ruée vers l'or. Des températures glaciales qui dépassent les - 50 degrés. Des vents qui vous renversent au premier relâchement. Un parcours accidenté exténuant.

Back again with even more "mostly true" tales from the trail, Lawton Grinter's new book I Hike Again is sure to find a place in every adventurer's library! I Hike Again imparts hard-earned wisdom from trails both in the United States (Arizona Trail, Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Grand Enchantment Trail, Wind River High Route) and abroad (Spain's GR11 and New Zealand's Te Araroa).

Set in the remote arctic region of Northern Canada, this book takes listeners on a harrowing canoe voyage that results in tragedy, redemption, and, ultimately, transformation. George Grinnell was one of six young men who set off on the 1955 expedition led by experienced wilderness canoeist Art Moffatt. Poorly planned and executed, the journey seemed doomed from the start. Ignoring the approaching winter, the men became entranced with the peace and beauty of the arctic in autumn.

Keith Foskett’s dream of escape started with a single step. When the long-distance hiker chose to backpack all 2,180 miles of the Appalachian Trail, he left ordinary life behind for five months. Enduring an incredible test of physical and psychological strength, Foskett was pushed to his limits....

Neil King Jr.’s desire to walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City began as a whim and soon became an obsession. By the spring of 2021, events had intervened that gave his desire greater urgency. His neighborhood still reeled from the January 6th insurrection. Covid lockdowns and a rancorous election had deepened America’s divides. Neil himself bore the imprints of a long battle with cancer.

When David Lebovitz began the project of updating his apartment in his adopted home city, he never imagined he would encounter so much inexplicable red tape while contending with perplexing work ethic and hours. Lebovitz maintains his distinctive sense of humor with the help of his partner, Romain, peppering this renovation story with recipes from his Paris kitchen.