Showing results by publisher "Random House Audio" in Travel & Tourism

Journalist Susan Casey was in her living room when she first glimpsed this strange place and its resident sharks, their dark fins swirling around a tiny boat in a documentary. These great whites were the alphas among alphas, the narrator said, some of them topping 18 feet in length, and each fall they congregated here off the northern California coast.

Jeff Shaara, America's premier Civil War novelist, gives a remarkable guided tour of the 10 Civil War battlefields every American should visit: Shiloh, Antietam, Fredericksburg/Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, New Market, Chickamauga, the Wilderness/Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg/Appomattox. Shaara explores the history, the people, and the places that capture the true meaning and magnitude of the conflict.

Ever wish you can leave the rat race for the simple life? Here's some inspiration. On Mexican Time is Cohan's passionate, evocatively written memoir of how he and his wife found a new home - and a new lease on life - in the charming 16th century hill town of San Miguel de Allende.

As a young woman, Kate Betts nursed a dream of striking out on her own in a faraway place and becoming a glamorous foreign correspondent. After college—and not without trepidation—she took off for Paris, renting a room in the apartment of a young BCBG (bon chic, bon genre) family and throwing herself into the local culture. She was determined to master French slang, style, and savoir faire, and to find a job that would give her a reason to stay.

With the writers of the Golden Age as her guides - Pushkin and Tolstoy, among others - Sara Wheeler searches for a Russia not in the news, traveling from rinsed northwestern beet fields and the Far Eastern Arctic tundra to the cauldron of nationalities, religions, and languages in the Caucasus. Wheeler follows local guides; boards with families in modest homestays; eats roe, pelmeni, and cabbage soup; invokes recipes from Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking; learns the language; and observes the pattern of outcry and silence that characterizes life under Vladimir Putin.

For the last five years, James and Deborah Fallows have been traveling across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, they have met hundreds of civic leaders, workers, immigrants, educators, environmentalists, artists, public servants, librarians, businesspeople, city planners, students, and entrepreneurs to take the pulse and understand the prospects of places that usually draw notice only after a disaster or during a political campaign. The America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems, but it is also crafting solutions.

Drawing on historical documents and contemporary accounts and on exclusive interviews with Carlsen's family, Delaney opens a window into the world of the merchant marine. With deep affection, and respect, for the weather and all that goes with it, he places us in the heart of the storm, a "biblical tempest" of unimaginable power. He illuminates the bravery and ingenuity of Carlsen and the extraordinary courage that the 37-year-old captain inspired in his stalwart crew.

Convencido de que quizá la Ciudad de México no sea el lugar más aconsejable para vivir, pero también de que es tan intrincada y apasionante que resulta imposible abandonarla, Villoro propone este libro escrito desde la devoción del urbanita recalcitrante y maravillado que se despliega como un rompecabezas infinito: los atajos viales, el cine de luchadores, los héroes nacionales, el comercio tepiteño, la tramitología gubernamental, el enigma de las vulcanizadoras, las incontables multitudes, la ingesta de chile, los templos ancestrales.

This classic essay from Jon Krakauer is now available as an unabridged audiobook download. This essay is also included in the Classic Krakauer collection. From the best-selling author of Missoula and Into the Wild: a selection of the singular investigative journalism that made Krakauer famous, covering topics from avalanches on Mt. Everest to a volcano in Washington state; from a wilderness therapy program for teens to an extraordinary cave in New Mexico so unearthly that is used by NASA to better understand Mars.

Frank Conroy first visited Nantucket with a gang of college friends in 1955. They came on a whim, and for Conroy it was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with this "small, relaxed oasis in the ocean." This book, part travel diary, part memoir, is a hauntingly evocative and personal journey through Nantucket: its sweeping dunes, rugged moors, remote beaches, secret fishing spots, and hidden forests and cranberry bogs. Admirers of Conroy’s classic and acclaimed memoir Stop-Time will again delight in what James Atlas called his "genius for close observation."

One-third of the Earth's surface is classified as desert. Restless, unhappy in love, and intrigued by the Desert Fathers who forged Christian monasticism in the Egyptian desert, William Atkins decided to travel in eight of the world's driest, hottest places. Each of his travel narratives effortlessly weaves aspects of natural history, historical background, and present-day reportage into a compelling tapestry that reveals the human appeal of these often inhuman landscapes.

Jim Rogers and his fiancie, began their "Millennium Adventure" on January 1, 1999. They traveled through 116 countries, including many where most have rarely ventured, such as Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, and Angola. They saw the real world from the ground up - the only vantage point from which it can be truly understood - economically, politically, and socially and have saw the world and understood it as it really is.

In 1943, Austrian adventurer Heinrich Harrer escaped from a British internment camp in India and traveled through the rugged Himalayas seeking refuge from the war. He ended up in the Forbidden City of Lhasa in Tibet, with no money or permission to be in the country. His intelligence and his European ways intrigued the curious young Dalai Lama, and Harrer became his tutor and trusted confidant.

Having spent her summers in Tuscany for the past several years, Frances Mayes relished the opportunity to experience the pleasures of primavera, an Italian spring. Bella Tuscany, a companion volume to Under the Tuscan Sun, is her passionate and lyrical account of her continuing love affair with Italy.

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 by Town & Country one 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 delivers generosity, humor, and a sense of discovery.

Upstream is an in-depth and timely look at salmon - one of the last wild foods on our table - for fans of Susan Orlean, Mark Kurlansky, and John McPhee. As the author travels to meet a variety of colorful people associated with this unique species, from Alaskan anglers to fish farm owners to four-star chefs, he reports on its remarkable place at the intersection of nature, commerce, cuisine, and human history.

Kinky Friedman, the original Texas Jewboy, takes us on a rollicking, rock-and-rolling tour of his favorite city: Austin.

One of Haiti’s most renowned daughters returns to her homeland, taking listeners on a stunning, exquisitely rendered journey beyond the hedonistic surface of Carnival and into its deep heart. Edwidge Danticat had long been scared off from Carnival by a loved one, who spun tales of people dislocating hips from gyrating with too much abandon, losing their voices from singing too loudly, going deaf from the clamor of immense speakers, and being punched, stabbed, pummeled, or fondled by other lustful revelers. Now an adult, she resolves to return and exorcise her Carnival demons.

Hoch die Tassen und die Teller! Wladimir Kaminer trifft das alte und das zukünftige Europa bei Tisch. Kaum jemand ist so neugierig auf seine Nachbarn wie Wladimir Kaminer. Egal ob es um einzelne Menschen oder ganze Länder geht. Und wie könnte man einander besser kennenlernen als beim gemeinsamen Essen? Ist man zu Gast an fremden Tischen, verleibt man sich nicht nur die Kultur der anderen ein, man erfährt auch deren Träume, Wünsche, Sorgen und Hoffnungen.

Forty years ago, author and photographer Jon Waterman took his first paddling journey into the Noatak headwaters in the Alaskan Arctic. In this fully illustrated book, he ventures once again, this time “into the thaw,” documenting the changes – both environmental and cultural – wrought by climate change. Sharing this eye-opening adventure with his son, Waterman documents the effects on altered land, wildlife and the Inuit-Inupiat life.