Adventure Writing

In an empire ruled by the honored dead, seraphs are the ultimate weapons. Fueled by the pilot's very soul, these colossal humanoid war machines are unstoppable in battle. Only a few possess the gift to control such craft, and those men and women are prized above all others. Seth Elexen and a small group of elite pilots have tracked the renegade Veketon to the far side of the galaxy. With only one ship and a single squadron of seraphs, they alone must face the tyrant within the heart of his growing power. But Veketon is no easy mark.

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.

Here, There, Elsewhere draws together for the first time William Least Heat-Moon's greatest short-form travel writing. Taking us from Japan, England, Italy, and Mexico to Long Island, Oregon, Arizona, and more, , Here, There, Elsewhere is a sharply observed, funny, and touching series of uncommon adventures narrated by America's keenest writer of place, people, and sublime connection. For decades, William Least Heat-Moon's readers have been clamoring for him to gather his shorter pieces; now, that wait is over.

Culinary Tourism is the first book to consider food as both a destination and a means for tourism. The book's contributors examine the many intersections of food, culture and tourism in public and commercial contexts, in private and domestic settings, and around the world. The contributors argue that the sensory experience of eating provides people with a unique means of communication. Editor Lucy Long contends that although the interest in experiencing "otherness" is strong within American society, total immersion into the unfamiliar is not always welcome.

In 1983, Ma Jian turned 30 and was overwhelmed by the desire to escape the confines of his life in Beijing. Deng Xiaoping was clamping down on 'Spiritual Pollution'; young people were rebelling. With his long hair, jeans and artistic friends, Ma Jian was under surveillance. One day he bought a train ticket to the westernmost border of China and set off in search of himself.

In their book Drive Nacho Drive, Brad and Sheena Van Orden traded the American Dream for the open road, and set off in their temperamental 1984 VW van named "Nacho." After 13 months of humorous and sometimes demoralizing misadventures along the Pan-American Highway, our intrepid subjects eventually arrived at the southernmost town in the world in Tierra del Fuego.

The Rio Grande is simultaneously one of the most watched and least understood rivers in the world. Some stretches of the Rio pass for endless miles through remote wilderness, boxed in by canyons hundreds of feet high and inhabited by only the hardiest animals and humans. That's why journalist Keith Bowden decided to become the first person to travel the entire length of the Rio as it forms the border between America and Mexico.

When she first read of Victorian explorer Mary Kingsley’s travels in the French colony of Gabon, Alexander knew she had to experience the present-day nation for herself. Soon she is retracing Kingsley’s route - struggling through tangled vines in humid rain forests, chugging up the churning Ogooué River in a packed steamer, and fending off gigantic cockroaches. The country she discovers is a challenging mixture of Africa’s exotic past and its practical present

John Marshall had read about the growth of voluntourism, and frankly, it was the only kind of extended trip he could afford. He'd heard that some peoples' lives were changed by a week of overseas service - what might half a year accomplish for his family? His wife, Traca, was all in favor of it; his kids, especially his 14-year-old daughter, were strongly opposed. Wide-Open World is the totally engaging, bluntly honest story of the Marshall family's life-changing adventure.

For 20,000 miles, Peter Matthiessen crisscrossed the South American wilderness, traveling from the Amazonian rain forests to Machu Picchu high in the Andes, down to the edge of the world at Tierra del Fuego and back. In the course of his journey he followed the trails of old explorers, encountered river bandits, wild tribesmen, and the evidence of ancient ruins, and discovered a fossilized snout of a giant unknown crocodilian hidden in the depths of the jungle on the wild mountain rivers of Peru.

Couchsurfer, hitchhiker, and rogue wanderer Jamie Ma"lin embarks on a couchsurfing adventure to the homeland of "firebrand", "populist", "anti-American” president Hugo Chavez: the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Alone in the crime capital of the world (with a murder rate higher than Iraq's), Maslin immediately finds himself in trouble - arrested by knife-wielding police officers and inoculated with an unwanted vaccination.

Many childhood summers, Mark Woods piled into a station wagon with his parents and two sisters and headed to America's national parks. Mark's most vivid childhood memories are set against a backdrop of mountains, woods, and fireflies in places like Redwood, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon national parks. On the eve of turning 50, and a little burned out, Mark decided to reconnect with the great outdoors. He'd spend a year visiting the national parks.

Antarctica lends itself to tales of adventure and heartbreak. The landscape is polarized, beautiful and deadly in equal measure. But Alexa doesn't scale mountains or trek to the Pole. Instead, armed with an old cookbook, she attempts to create three-course meals with no electricity or running water and struggles to defrost meat in sub-zero temperatures. Life in a thin nylon tent in the company of scientists, explorers, and eccentrics soon begins to take on extraordinary dimensions.

Wie viele Touristen jährlich Nordkorea besuchen, lässt sich exakt sagen: Wenige. Und nur einer kam wegen einer Wasserrutsche. Satiriker und TV-Autor Christian Eisert reiste 1500 Kilometer durch die Kim-Diktatur. An seiner Seite eine kratzbürstige Fotoreporterin mit gefälschter Biografie - und der nordkoreanische Geheimdienst. Diese Ferien in Nordkorea halten viele Überraschungen bereit: Hotelzimmer mit Softeisautomaten, Gestecke aus Blumen und Raketen und an der gefährlichsten Grenze der Welt: Ein Tänzchen zu "Tränen lügen nicht".

Abandoned as an infant, 15-year-old Bonnie Hartwright doesn't know who she really is. And that just might get her killed. After her latest scrape with the law, foster girl Bonnie is abruptly carted off to a "reform sailing camp" on the Carolina coast. There, she discovers the camp is actually a training compound of a centuries-old secret society, all of whose members are descendants of a notorious pirate.

Kendra Thompson's simple life goes from predictable to living nightmare when her sixteen-year-old son Kyle records the unthinkable. Now Kendra and her son are running for their lives, hunted by a vicious street gang with eyes and ears everywhere, who are determined to silence Kyle forever. In a deadly race to stay one step ahead of a ruthless gang, a crooked cop, and a corrupt politician, Kendra is the only one who can save him from a web of corruption that leaves her with almost no one she can trust.

Sam Nolan is a man with a history he is desperately hiding from. Born a cattle rancher, he grew up near the Gila Wilderness, where he learned how to live off the land from an Apache friend. As he grew older, he applied these skills as a hunting guide, local Search and Rescue leader, and ultimately, after 9-11, as a United States Special Forces Operative. Now, while living alone in the wilderness near his family's ranch and trying to recover from PTSD, Sam learns that his brother, Bryson, also a skilled hunter and survivalist, has mysteriously gone missing, deep in Canada's Yukon Territory.

Twyla’s been living in hiding on Earth, hoping to leave her past behind. But when her mother, Madam Cassiopeia DeConnett finds her and kidnaps her back to the Paraxous Star Cluster, she expects her daughter to take her rightful place within the family business. The DeConnetts are Dashia—a group of genetically- engineered telepaths who use their powers to control some and ruin others. Their criminal organization is rich, powerful, and spans The Cluster.

Charlie has always brought magic and mayhem to Maximillion's life, but when Charlie's son Torr is taken captive by a rival Western Network tribe, things are about to get even more exciting for the two beloved brothers. Meanwhile, the long-lost sea dragon Mushi whisks Sanna to the Eastern Network, embroiling her in the war between sea dragons and mermaids.

Max doesn't see wraiths...but he does. After a near-death experience with the plague, memories of Max's mere and pere haunt him. He can't sleep, can't rest. When his aunt Serafina dies, he must come face-to-face with the truth—and the family—he's been avoiding for years.