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  Walking the Americas - 1800...

  Levison Wood

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  A trek through Central America from the author of Walking the Himalayas, “just the kind of guy you want with you on an adventure” (The Washington Post). 
   
   
  Beginning in the Yucatán—and moving south through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama—Wood’s journey takes him from sleepy barrios to glamorous cities to Mayan ruins lying unexcavated in the wilderness. Wood encounters indigenous tribes in Mexico, revolutionaries in a Nicaraguan refugee camp, fellow explorers, and migrants heading toward the United States. The relationships he forges along the way are at the heart of his travels—and the personal histories, cultures, and popular legends he discovers paint a riveting history of Mexico and Central America. While contending with the region’s natural obstacles like quicksand, flashfloods, and dangerous wildlife, he also partakes in family meals with local hosts, learns to build an emergency shelter, negotiates awkward run-ins with policemen, and witnesses the surreal beauty of Central America’s landscapes, from cascading waterfalls and sunny beaches to the spectacular ridgelines of the Honduran highlands. Finally, Wood attempts to cross one of the world’s most impenetrable borders: the Darién Gap route from Panama into South America, a notorious smuggling passage and the wildest jungle he has ever navigated. 
   
  A Sunday Times bestseller and longlisted for the Banff Mountain Book Award for adventure travel, Walking the Americas is a thrilling personal tale, an accomplished piece of cultural reportage, and a breathtaking journey across some of the most diverse and unpredictable regions on earth. 
   
  “A thrilling narrative trek . . . [Wood] elevates this already fascinating landscape with lively prose that combines travel journal with history lessons, memoir, and survivalist handbook.”—Booklist

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  Haunted Lansing

  Jenn Carpenter

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  A tour guide for Demented Mitten Tours shares chilling supernatural tales from the history of Michigan’s capital.   Hastily dubbed the new capital in 1847, Lansing overcame derision and setbacks to become a booming metropolis. Yet its rich history hides chilling legends…   Bertie Clippinger plays tricks on the unwary at the Capitol Building, where the teen accidentally fell to his death when a game went horribly wrong. One of Lansing's founding families keeps a spectral vigil over its homestead, the Turner Dodge House. Malevolent spirits stalk the derelict Michigan School for the Blind. A witch's vengeful curse follows those who trespass on Seven Gables Road, one of the state's most haunted stretches. Founder of Demented Mitten Tours and local author Jenn Carpenter leads readers to the dark side of the Capital City.

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  Texas in 1837 - An Anonymous...

  Andrew Forest Muir

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  The earliest known eyewitness account of the first year of the Republic of Texas.   Written anonymously in 1838–39 by a “Citizen of Ohio,” Texas in 1837 is the earliest known account of the first year of the Texas republic. Providing information nowhere else available, the still-unknown author describes a land rich in potential but at the time “a more suitable arena for those who have everything to make and nothing to lose than [for] the man of capital or family.”   The author arrived at Galveston Island on March 22, 1837, before the city of Galveston was founded, and spent the next six months in the republic. His travels took him to Houston, then little more than a camp made up of brush shelters and jerry-built houses, and as far west as San Antonio. He observed and was generally unimpressed by governmental and social structures just beginning to take shape. He attended the first anniversary celebration of the Battle of San Jacinto and has left a memorable account of Texas’ first Independence Day. His inquiring mind and objective, acute observations of early Texas give us a way of returning to the past, and revisiting landmarks that have vanished forever.

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  China Days - A Visual Journal...

  Henrik Drescher

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  In this unique travelogue, an artist depicts his experiences and observations while living in western China with colorful illustrations. 
   
  The nation of China is a constant source of fascination, yet we rarely glimpse life beyond its urban centers. Far west of Beijing and Shanghai, in the remote Chinese province of Yunnan, pioneering artist Henrik Drescher settled over a decade ago. While residing in his adopted home, Drescher records his experiences and observations in his illustrated notebooks, capturing everyday life in settings ranging from street markets to mountainscapes. These richly illustrated pages are compiled here for the first time. Drescher’s loyal fans will appreciate this window onto the life of the artist at the height of his powers, while those with an interest in Chinese culture will marvel at this rarely seen view of a country in the global spotlight.

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  Derby Fever

  Jim Bolus

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  Each spring as the Kentucky Derby grows near, a kind of frenzy hits a wide section of the population. People suddenly turn their attention to Churchill Downs, and the anticipation of the Run for the Roses sends everyone into "Derby fever." Here in his third book on the Kentucky Derby, Jim Bolus brings together a collection of his favorite Derby Stories that are sure to make an avid race fan out of anyone. Bolus covers a wide range of topics--from "the Duke" at the Derby; to the famous Derby photograph of the Fighting Finish in 1933; to his favorite Derby, the 1969 running. Also included are such champions as Whirlaway, Exterminator, Secretariat, Spend a Buck, and Nashua. Bolus has devoted a chapter to the Stevens family, whose horse-racing roots trace back more than 120 years, and to the Derby chart callers, those men who through the years have documented the race for posterity. Bolus also relates his own personal experiences as a bettor (and a loser!) on the Derby. In particular, he devotes a chapter to Holy Land, a horse who ran in the 1970 race but lost his jockey and the race. It's a pick Bolus has been kidded about a lot over the years. An authority on the subject, Jim Bolus has conducted hundreds of interviews about the Derby. With this book, readers will understand his passion for the grand old race and its traditions as they learn why so many get Derby fever every spring. Also by Jim Bolus are Remembering the Derby and Kentucky Derby Stories, both published by Pelican.

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  Londoners - The Days and Nights...

  Craig Taylor

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  Residents tell their stories in a “kaleidoscopic portrait of a great, messy, noisy, daunting, inspiring, maddening, enthralling, constantly shifting” city (The New York Times Book Review).Londoners is a fresh and compulsively readable view of one of the world’s most fascinating cities—a vibrant narrative portrait of the London of our time, featuring unforgettable stories told by the real people who make the city hum. Craig Taylor has spent years traversing every corner of the capital, getting to know the most interesting Londoners, including the voice of the London Underground, a West End rickshaw driver, an East End nightclub doorperson, a mounted soldier of the Queen’s Life Guard at Buckingham Palace, and a couple who fell in love at the Tower of London—and now live there. With candor and humor, this diverse cast—rich and poor, old and young, native and immigrant, men and women (and even a Sarah who used to be a George)—shares indelible tales that capture the city as never before. “Fans of Studs Terkel’s insightful oral histories will be delighted to discover a successor in Taylor . . . His book brings London to life as it is—ever changing, ever eternal, ever unforgettable.” —Library Journal (starred review) “A treasury of compact vignettes from voices that are rarely heard but come closer to the truth of the city than any travel brochure or official document.” —Pittsburgh Tribune-Review “Delightful. . . . In Taylor’s patient and sympathetic hands, regular people become poets, philosophers, orators.” —The New York Times Book Review “Remarkable.” —San Francisco Chronicle

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