Travel Writing Memoirs

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.

What would happen if you quit your life for a year? In a pre-COVID-19 world, the Wheelan family decided to find out; leaving behind work, school, and even the family dogs to travel the world on a modest budget. Equal parts "how-to" and "how-not-to" - and with an eye toward a world emerging from a pandemic - We Came, We Saw, We Left is the insightful and often hilarious account of one family's gap-year experiment.

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.

Ray Walker had a secure career in finance until a wine-tasting vacation ignited a passion that he couldn't stifle. Ray neglected his work, spending hours poring over ancient French winemaking texts, learning the techniques and the language, and daydreaming about vineyards. After Ray experienced his first taste of wine from Burgundy, he could wait no longer. He quit his job and went to France to start a winery - with little money, a limited command of French, and virtually no winemaking experience.

As Ellie’s 50th birthday approaches and her ambitions of a steady income, a successful career and an ascent of Everest seem as far away as ever, she begins to doubt she’s capable of achieving anything at all. So when her best friend Mick suggests a gruelling cycle ride from Land’s End to John o’Groats, she takes up the challenge. They opt for the scenic route which takes them along cycle paths, towpaths and the back roads and byways of Britain, unable to resist sampling beers in the pubs they pass along the way.

In the summer of 1957, anxious to impress an admirer who had moved to Paris, while rebelling against her family, Gill Johnson, aged twenty-five, gave up her comfortable job at the National Gallery in London and travelled to Venice to take up a job teaching English to an aristocratic Italian family. Love from Venice is her vivid evocation of that summer, the last hurrah of the European Grand Tour, when the international jet set lit upon the city for their fun.

In 1986, fresh out of college, Gilman and her friend Claire yearned to do something daring and original that did not involve getting a job. Inspired by a place mat at the International House of Pancakes, they decided to embark on an ambitious trip around the globe, starting in the People's Republic of China. At that point, China had been open to independent travelers for roughly ten minutes. Armed only with the collected works of Nietzsche, an astrological love guide, and an arsenal of bravado, the two friends plunged into the dusty streets of Shanghai.

Wilderness guide and lifelong Alaskan Bjorn Dihle weaves personal experience with historical and contemporary accounts to explore the world of brown bears - from encounters with the Lewis and Clark Expedition to frightening attacks including the famed death of Timothy Treadwell, the controversies related to bear hunting, the animal's place in native cultures, and the impacts on the species from habitat degradation and climate change.

A deeply personal travel memoir that combines alpine adventure, family connections, and spiritual encounters in two very different worlds: a Himalayan village and Vancouver, Canada. In 2012, Michael Schauch and his wife, Chantal, undertook an expedition deep in the Himalaya of northern Nepal, into a remote valley that had been closed off to outsiders for decades. They led a team of artists (a photographer, a musician, and a painter), with the objective of capturing a moment in time through their unique lenses.

Raised in the extreme religious cult called the Children of God, Juliana Buhring was frequently punished for being a rebel and finally broke away. Her soul mate was an explorer seeking the source of unmapped rivers in Africa. When he was killed by a crocodile, her world went dark. To escape paralyzing grief, Buhring set herself a goal. Never having seriously ridden a bike, she set out to ride one around the world.

The ultimate laugh-out-loud, good life, meet the eccentric locals, house-hunting, foodie, travel-tour, fun memoir. There were highs, heartbreaks and cliff-hangers as British-born author Diz White scrambled between the Cotswolds, looking for a bargain cottage, and Hollywood, taking every hilariously wacky acting job to earn the down payment. Her search doubles as a travel tour, taking in every delight of this area.

From the authors of the number-one best-selling The Sea Hunters comes more unforgettable true adventures with famous shipwrecks.

Hello. It's Todd Barry. Yes, the massively famous comedian. I have billons of fans all over the world, so I do my fair share of touring. While I love doing shows in the big cities (New York, Chicago, Cleveland), I also enjoy a good secondary market (Rochester, Springfield, Toledo). There's something great about performing in a place where they don't expect to see you.

Tiziano Terzani, sapendo di essere arrivato alla fine del suo percorso, parla al figlio Folco di cos'è stata la sua vita e di cos'è la vita: "Se hai capito qualcosa, la vuoi lasciare lì in un pacchetto", dice. Così, all'Orsigna, sotto un albero a due passi dalla gompa, la sua casetta in stile tibetano, in uno stato d'animo meraviglioso, racconta di tutta una vita trascorsa a viaggiare per il mondo alla ricerca della verità.

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.

This extraordinary travel book tells the true story of how in 1997 writer Michael Paterniti agreed to take a road trip from New Jersey to California, reuniting the preserved brain of the great scientist Albert Einstein (1879-1955) with his granddaughter Evelyn. Paterniti's improbable travelling companion is 84-year-old Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who not only removed Einstein's brain from his head during the autopsy but purloined it from Princeton Hospital also!

Growing up in Tehran in the 1960s, Terence Ward and his brothers were watched over by Hassan, the family’s cook, housekeeper, and cultural guide. After an absence of 30 years and much turmoil in Iran, Ward embarks on a quixotic pilgrimage with his family in search of their lost friend. However, as they set out on this improbable quest with no address or phone number, their only hope lies in their mother’s small black and white photograph taken decades before.

Journeys to Impossible Places continues the story Simon started in his phenomenal Sunday Times best seller Step by Step, which traced the first decades of his life from depressed and unemployed teenager through to his early TV programmes. Now Simon takes us on the epic and thrilling adventures that followed, in beautiful, tricky and downright dangerous corners of the world, as he travelled through the Tropics, to remote paradise islands, jungles dripping with heat and life and on nerve-wracking secret missions.

Drawing together a fascinating body of writing from over 14 years of work, Figures in a Landscape ranges from profiles of cultural icons (Oliver Sacks, Elizabeth Taylor, Robin Williams) to intimate personal remembrances, from thrilling adventures in Africa to literary writings from Theroux's rich and expansive personal reading. Collectively these pieces offer a fascinating portrait of the author himself, his extraordinary life and his restless and ever-curious mind.

Du Fu (712-70) is one of China’s greatest poets. His career coincided with periods of famine, war and huge upheaval, yet his secular philosophical vision, combined with his empathy for the common folk of his nation, ensured that he soon became revered. Like Shakespeare or Dante, his poetry resonates in a timeless manner that ensures it is always relevant and offers something new to the modern generation. Broadcaster and historian Michael Wood follows in his footsteps to try to understand the places that inspired Du Fu to write some of the most famous and best-loved poetry the world has known.