Showing results by publisher "HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books" in Travel & Tourism

In this extraordinary work of narrative reportage, Kapka Kassabova returns to Bulgaria to explore the border it shares with Turkey and Greece. When she was a child, the border zone was rumored to be an easier crossing point into the West than the Berlin Wall, and it swarmed with soldiers and spies. On holidays in the "Red Riviera" on the Black Sea, she remembers playing on the beach only miles from a bristling electrified fence whose barbs pointed inward toward the enemy: the citizens of the totalitarian regime.

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.

Acclaimed travel writer Jonathan Raban invites us aboard his boat, a floating cottage cluttered with books, curling manuscripts, and dead ballpoint pens. He's about to sail alone from Seattle to the Alaskan Panhandle, following an ancient sea route rich in history, riddles, and whirlpools. It's the perfect setting for Raban's prodigious intellect, eloquence, and eye for detail.

In Elixir, in a wild river valley and amid the three mountains that define it, Kapka Kassabova seeks out the deep connection between people, plants, and place. The Mesta is one of the oldest rivers in Europe and the surrounding forests and mountains of the southern Balkans are an extraordinarily rich nexus for plant gatherers.

In the summer of 1849, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy's legendary revolutionary, was finally forced to abandon his defense of Rome. He and his men had held the besieged city for four long months, but now it was clear that only surrender would prevent slaughter and destruction at the hands of a huge French army. Against all odds, Garibaldi was determined to turn defeat into moral victory.

Through the stories of fellow travelers, Greene explores the challenges and opportunities facing the new Russia: a nation that boasts open elections and newfound prosperity yet still continues to endure oppression, corruption, and stark inequality. Set against the wintery landscape of Siberia, Greene’s lively travel narrative offers a glimpse into the soul of 20th century Russia: how its people remember their history and look forward to the future.

In this book, Rob Arnold reveals how innovative whiskey producers are recapturing a sense of place to create distinctive, nuanced flavors. He takes listeners on a world tour of whiskey and the science of flavor, stopping along the way at distilleries in Kentucky, New York, Texas, Ireland, and Scotland. Arnold puts the spotlight on a new generation of distillers, plant breeders, and local farmers who are bringing back long-forgotten grain flavors and creating new ones in pursuit of terroir.

Any travel guide to Rome will urge visitors to go the Colosseum, but none answers a simple question: Why is it called the Colosseum? The History of Rome in 12 Buildings: A Travel Companion to the Hidden Secrets of the Eternal City is compelling, concise, and fun, and takes you behind the iconic buildings to reveal the hidden stories of the people that forged the Roman Empire.

Lake Ohrid and Lake Prespa. Two ancient lakes joined by underground rivers. Two lakes that seem to hold both the turbulent memories of the region's past and the secret of its enduring allure. Two lakes that have played a central role in Kapka Kassabova's maternal family. As she journeys to her grandmother's place of origin, Kassabova encounters a historic crossroads.

Gretchen Sorin recovers a forgotten history of black motorists, and recounts their creation of a parallel, unseen world of travel guides, black only hotels, and informal communications networks that kept black drivers safe. At the heart of this story is Victor and Alma Green's famous Green Book, begun in 1936, which made possible that most basic American right, the family vacation, and encouraged a new method of resisting oppression.

Moscow takes us on deep dives (sometimes literally) with fisherfolk, farmers, scientists, community activists, historians, hunters, and more, bringing back stories of the communities, workers, and environments involved—some thriving, some in jeopardy, all interconnected with food.

Philip Caputo, who had just turned 70, his wife, and their two English setters took off in a truck hauling an Airstream camper from Key West, Florida, en route via back roads and state routes to Deadhorse, Alaska. The journey took four months and covered 17,000 miles, during which Caputo interviewed more than 80 Americans from all walks of life to get a picture of what their lives and the life of the nation are really about in the 21st century.

In the last few years, Paris has undergone a huge transformation. It's fostered one of the coolest creative scenes in Europe, some of the continent's best nightlife, and a "bistronomy" movement that has influenced dining around the globe. Yet while millennial travelers pour into the city, travel guides continue to focus on a staid checklist approach to Paris's big attractions. There's currently no book on the market aimed at younger (perhaps more budget-conscious) American visitors that truly captures the city's revived energy - until this one.

With generous splashes of popular culture and human interest, the NPR Road Trips series introduces you not only to far-off locations and unusual destinations, but to the people who inhabit themand seek them out. Each story focuses on real locations, real people, and real history in the thought-provoking, imaginative and entertaining way you've come to expect from NPR. Meet Colin Angus and Julie Wafael, who spent two years circumnavigating the globe using their hands and feet. Turn on the radio in Katmandu and hear music from the 70s. Learn how robot jockeys are solving a human rights problem in Dubai.

Shifting into High Gear charts the course of Kyle Bryant's transformation as he journeys on a recumbent tricycle across the United States in the throes of Friedreich's ataxia, a life-shortening and disabling disease. Full of humor and reflection, it's a heroic journey of a man driven to reframe the language of disease through action and service.

In his highly anticipated debut essay collection, Impossible Owls, Brian Phillips demonstrates why he's one of the most iconoclastic journalists of the digital age, beloved for his ambitious, off-kilter, meticulously reported essays. The eight essays assembled here go beyond simply chronicling some of the modern world's most uncanny, unbelievable, and spectacular oddities. Researched for months and even years on end, they explore the interconnectedness of the globalized world, the consequences of history, the power of myth, and the ways people attempt to find meaning.

In this crackling memoir, the journalist and novelist Michael Idov recounts the tempestuous years he spent living alongside - and closely observing - the media and cultural elite of Putin's Russia. After accepting a surprise offer to become the editor in chief of GQ Russia, Idov and his family arrive in a Moscow still seething from a dubious election and the mass anti-Putin rallies that erupted in response. Idov is fascinated by the political turmoil but nonetheless finds himself pulled in unlikely directions.

Drawing on testimony from a great range of witnesses - from Balzac and Hugo to assorted boulevardiers, rabble-rousers, and tramps - Sante, whose thorough research is matched only by the vividness of his narration, takes the listener on a whirlwind tour.

With generous splashes of popular culture and human interest, the NPR Road Trips series introduces you not only to far-off locations and unusual destinations, but to the people who inhabit them - and seek them out. Each story focuses on real locations, real people, and real history in the thought-provoking, imaginative and entertaining way you've come to expect from NPR. We all have memories of family vacations - some successful, some less so, and some gone terribly awry. When it comes to reporting colorful, compelling tales of family vacations, no one does it better than National Public Radio.

Calvin Trillin proves that he is one of America's funniest food writers, while recalling his efforts to write a definitive history of the Buffalo chicken wing to his attempts to lure his older daughter back from California by finding an irresistible bagel.