Travel Classics

One of the most entertaining travelogues ever written, Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra is a heady mix of fact, myth, and depictions of secret chambers, desperate battles, imprisoned princesses, palace ghosts, and fragrant gardens, described in a wistful and dreamlike eloquence.

Joshua Slocum was believed to be the first man to sail single-handed around the world. After a distinguished career, where he worked his way up from cabin boy to captain, Joshua Slocum wrecked his ship off the coast of Brazil. Turning this catastrophe to his advantage, he built a sailing canoe from the wreckage and sailed back to New York. Moreover, he wrote Voyage of the Liberdad, a chronicle of his trip, and earned some literary success.

A flash of lightning, quivering ground, and, instead of her grandparents' farm, Polly sees mist and jagged mountains - and coming toward her, a group of young men carrying spears. Why has a time gate opened and dropped Polly into a world that existed 3,000 years ago? Will she be able to get back to the present before the time gate closes - and leaves her to face a group of people who believe in human sacrifice?

Andrew Sachs reads Jonathan Swift's humorous and unforgettable tale of a strange man in some very strange lands. Gulliver had always wanted to see the world. But whenever he steps on board a ship, bad luck always seems near at hand. He is shipwrecked, abandoned, marooned and mutinied against - and each time lands in a strange and curious place.

This riveting history is a firsthand account of the long and arduous search for one of the greatest explorers of the 19th century. Journalist and adventurer Henry M. Stanley was known for his search for the legendary David Livingstone, and their eventual meeting led to the popular quotation "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" A real-life adventure story, How I Found Livingstone in Central Africa tells of the incredible hardships - disease, hostile natives, tribal warfare, impenetrable jungles, and other obstacles - faced by a daring explorer. This must-have account also includes a wealth of information on various African peoples.

Travel back in time in the magic tree house with Jack and Annie in this number one best-selling series, and meet the greatest warriors of all - the Romans! Then get whisked away and meet famous founding-father and inventor Ben Franklin!

Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels is a timeless exploration of the human spirit seen through the eyes of an adventurous traveler. In this work, Swift offers a playful yet clear reflection on society without detailing every fact. Instead, he invites readers to uncover hidden lessons through a series of curious encounters and unexpected adventures. The narrative gently nudges us to question the ways we live and the institutions that shape our lives, all while delighting us with visions of strange lands and unusual peoples.

Plucked from time, Sir Thomas More arrives on the human colony of Astrobe in the year AD 2535, where there is trouble in utopia: Can he and his motley followers save this golden world from the Programmed Persons, and the soulless perfection they have engineered? The survival of faith itself is at stake in this thrilling, uncategorizable, wildly inventive first novel - but the adventure is more than one of ideas. As astonishingly as Philip K. Dick and other visionaries of the 1960s new wave, Lafferty turns the conventions of space-opera science fiction upside down and inside out.

Published just months before his death in 1768, A Sentimental Journey is Sterne's lightly fictionalised account of his own European travels; and being Sterne, it is more about digressions, misunderstandings and risqué jokes than the places he visits. Narrated by the (apparently) innocent Parson Yorick, who appeared in Sterne's other masterpiece, Tristram Shandy, it is full of anecdote and incident, and is far more about the people than the landscapes on the road from Calais.

Jonathon Swift changed the way that prose was written forever, now for the first time ever you can listen to three of his best works collected in one bundle! Writing both fiction and satire, Jonathon Swift was noted for his poignant and often times cutting views of the society he lived in. He is still regarded as the most important prose satirist in the English language and is required reading in many schools.

Penguin Classics presents H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, adapted for audio and now available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by the actor Brian Cox. 'Great shapes like big machines rose out of the dimness, and cast grotesque black shadows, in which dim spectral Morlocks sheltered from the glare'.

Are thousands of orbs, with each containing a reality housing billions of souls, about to burn out and die? Can Trew find his daughter, or will everything he has sacrificed be for nothing? And what impact will a young scientist who believes that his reality exists inside of a computer simulation make on his world?

Created as an experiment by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community populated by over 10,000 children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, along with some handy robots from the far human future - all set down together on a Mediterranean island in the distant past.

In this coming-of-middle-age memoir, Kim Heacox, writing in the tradition of Abbey, McPhee, and Thoreau, discovers an Alaska reborn from beneath a massive glacier, where flowers emerge from boulders, moose swim fjords, and bears cross crevasses with Homeric resolve. In such a place Heacox finds that people are reborn too, and their lives begin anew with incredible journeys, epiphanies, and successes. All in an America free of crass commercialism and overdevelopment.

Spanning an extraordinary range of subjects and locations, these ten gripping essays show why Jon Krakauer is considered a standard-bearer of modern journalism.

Jason had it all, and yet he still couldn't prevent his father's death. He didn't even have time to grieve as his mission took precedence over all else. Pressing onward was the only path. But did he possess enough strength to clear the tower, even with Roy and Olivia at his back? The answer was obvious: Only with humanity's best could he stand a fighting chance. Yet as his actions influenced the world, the more things changed. Worse, his secret identity, Index, was in the spotlight for releasing knowledge that couldn't possibly be known.

Travel to other planets is now a reality, and with overpopulation stretching the resources of Earth, the necessity of finding habitable worlds is growing ever more urgent. There’s a problem though—because the spaceships are slower than light, any communication between the exploring ships and Earth would take years.

Tom and Pat are identical twin teenagers. As twins they’ve always been close, so close that it seemed like they could read each other’s minds.

In honor of Madeleine L'Engle's 100th Birthday, fans are invited to enjoy this archival audiobook, originally recorded in 1996 and newly restored! Listen to the voice of the author as Madeleine L'Engle reads A Swiftly Tilting Planet.

Frank was never the save-the-world type. He joined his college's Jedi dueling club to impress a chick he was into, and only stayed because he was too embarrassed to quit. He’s the type to have a crush, but the closest he’s gotten to action lately is when he stumbles upon his roommate having a hot threesome. Damn, he'd love to feel what it's like to be that guy. Be careful what you wish for…Life takes an unexpected turn when Frank discovers his grandpa's secret and travels back in time.

The attempted suicide of a countess and the death of a billionaire in the same luxury Paris hotel send Maigret to the Riviera and then to Switzerland, as he searches for the truth amid the glittering world of the super rich. Eyes half closed, head tilted against the back of his seat, he seemed not to be thinking, as the plane flew over a thick carpet of bright clouds. In reality, he was making an effort to bring names and shadowy figures to life, names and figures that even this morning had been as unknown to him as the inhabitants of another planet.