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  Kingdoms in the Air - Dispatches...

  Bob Shacochis

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  This “exuberant travel and cultural anthology” by the National Book Award–winning author “brings each setting to life with a perceptive eye” (Booklist, starred review).   Best known for his sweeping political novels, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist, The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, Bob Shacochis began his career as a journalist and contributing editor for Outside magazine and Harper’s. Kingdoms in the Air brings together the very best of Shacochis’s culture and travel essays in a collection that spans his global adventures and passions; from Kathmandu to Mozambique, from his love of surfing to his obsession with the South American dorado.   In the titular essay “Kingdoms,” the longest work in the collection, Shacochis ventures to Nepal with his friend, the photographer Thomas Laird, who was the first foreigner to live in Nepal’s Kingdom of Mustang as the forbidden Shangri-La prepared to open its borders to trekkers and trade. Replete with Shacochis’s swagger, humor, and wisdom, Kingdoms in the Air is an essential collection of travel writing by an author who “has extended his knowledge and imagination into places most of us have never ventured” (Washington Post).

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  Transit of Venus - Travels in...

  Julian Evans

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  With the potent myths of the Pacific Ocean in mind, Julian Evans journeys ever deeper into a world of gin-clear lagoons, palms and sand, in search of both remnants of the fabulous kingdoms of the nineteenth-century European imagination -fed by an abundance of fruits, fish and guilt-free sex -and their twentieth century reality. Ever since Captain Cook first went to Tahiti in 1769 to observe the transit of Venus across the sun, the Pacific has offered this promise of Paradise, shadowed by a darker underbelly. With humour and honesty, Evans uncovers the modern reality: a brave new ocean where the islanders have money and booze, military coups and cold-war politi, atomic explosions and rising sea levels, but where, in the remotest atolls, beyond all our modernity and rationality, the old dreams continue to assert themselves.

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  Haunted Montgomery Alabama

  Faith Serafin

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  Meet the ghosts who wander this Southern capital—photos included!   In Montgomery—cradle of the Confederacy and capital city of Alabama—lost highways bring visitors to the grave of legendary country singer Hank Williams and the home of the Jazz Age princess Zelda Fitzgerald. This book reveals the famous, and sometimes infamous, haunted history of Montgomery, digging up the bones on the feather duster murder from the Garden District, and sharing information about which spirits at Huntingdon College make this campus their eternal home.   Take a stroll through the Old Alabama Town, listen for the ghost of the Lucas Tavern, and join ghost hunter and folklorist Faith Serafin for a trip through the Heart of Dixie and Montgomery's paranormal history.

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  Murphy's Car Museum - Over 100...

  Patricia L. Lawrence

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  Over 100 years of automobile history are celebrated at Murphy's Car Museum in Oxnard California.  There are over 50 cars in the indoor museum that visitors can get close to and sometimes sit in.

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  The Book of Puka-Puka - A Lone...

  Robert Dean Frisbie

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  In 1924, Robert Frisbie arrived on the island of Puka-Puka, one of the most remote in the South Pacific, to run a trading post. Within months he had learned the language and become absorbed into the ways of its ancient, indigenous community – fishing, picnicking, swimming, sleeping and falling in love. Fortunately for us he also had a pitch-perfect ear for stories.
  Before the book is done, we feel the power of the surf and the coral reefs, hear death chants and witness thirty torch-lit canoes setting out to net flying fish at night. Frisbie's interest in and love for the culture of this island and its inhabitants are infectious.

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  My Life As an Explorer

  Sven Hedin

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  In this classic memoir and travelogue, the Swedish explorer shares the story of his epic journey along the ancient Silk Road.After a childhood spent reading tales of adventure in far-off places, Sven Hedin knew by the time he was twelve years old that he wanted to be an explorer. He lived in an age when maps still contained uncharted territories and he wished to travel to these mysterious destinations. By the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, he traveled along the Silk Road in Asia for three decades.In My Life as an Explorer, Hedin recounts his journeys along the ancient route. He discovers long-lost cities, maps unfamiliar rivers, and finds himself in many life-threatening situations. He makes a perilous trek through the Taklamakan desert in China where his party runs dangerously low on water. He climbs treacherous mountains and evades ruthless bandits. He infiltrates Lhasa, the Tibetan city restricted from Westerners by penalty of death. And while he lives to tell the tale, his journey is not without sacrifice . . .Originally published in 1926, Hedin’s story of real-life adventure was a worldwide bestseller. It delighted audiences then and continues to do so.“A fascinating period piece as well as a nail-biting read.” —The Guardian

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