The New York Times: Footsteps: From Ferrante’s Naples to Hammett’s San Francisco, Literary Pilgrimages Around the World

The New York Times: Footsteps: From Ferrante’s Naples to Hammett’s San Francisco, Literary Pilgrimages Around the World

by New York Times

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A curated collection of the New York Times‘ travel column, “Footsteps,” exploring iconic authors’ relationships to landmarks and cities around the world
 
Before Nick Carraway was drawn into Daisy and Gatsby’s sparkling, champagne-fueled world in The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald vacationed in the French Riviera, where a small green lighthouse winked at ships on the horizon. Before the nameless lovers began their illicit affair in The Lover, Marguerite Duras embarked upon her own scandalous relationship amidst the urban streets of Saigon. And before readers were terrified by a tentacled dragon-man called Cthulhu, H.P. Lovecraft was enthralled by the Industrial Trust tower– the 26-story skyscraper that makes up the skyline of Providence, Rhode Island.

Based on the popular New York Times travel column, Footsteps is an anthology of literary pilgrimages, exploring the geographic muses behind some of history’s greatest writers. From the “dangerous, dirty and seductive” streets of Naples, the setting for Elena Ferrante’s famous Neapolitan novels, to the “stone arches, creaky oaken doors, and riverside paths” of Oxford, the backdrop for Alice’s adventures in Wonderland, Footsteps takes a fresh approach to literary tourism, appealing to readers and travel enthusiasts alike.

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A Paris Year: My Day-to-Day Adventures in the Most Romantic City in the World

A Paris Year: My Day-to-Day Adventures in the Most Romantic City in the World

by Janice MacLeod

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Part memoir and part visual journey through the streets of modern-day Paris, France, A Paris Year chronicles, day by day, one woman’s French sojourn in the world’s most beautiful city. Beginning on her first day in Paris, Janice MacLeod, the author of the best-selling book, Paris Letters, began a journal recording in illustrations and words, nearly every sight, smell, taste, and thought she experienced in the City of Light. The end result is more than a diary: it’s a detailed and colorful love letter to one of the most romantic and historically rich cities on earth. Combining personal observations and anecdotes with stories and facts about famous figures in Parisian history, this visual tale of discovery, through the eyes of an artist, is sure to delight, inspire, and charm.

JANICE MACLEOD, the illustrator and author of the New York Times best-selling book Paris Letters, was born in Canada and worked in advertising for many years until she decided to slip away from corporate drudgery and spend time abroad. During her time in Paris, she painted letters about her travels and mailed them to friends, who encouraged her to sell the personalized illustrated letters on Etsy. Since then, MacLeod has sent out thousands of letters to fans worldwide.

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Tough Rides: Brazil: In To the Depths of the Amazon

Tough Rides: Brazil: In To the Depths of the Amazon

by Ryan Pyle

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Join adventurer motorcyclist Ryan Pyle as he spends months exploring the most exciting and remote locations in Brazil. In his book Tough Rides: Brazil he takes us on the most incredible journey in an effort to better understand the stunning and complex country of Brazil. In the end, Ryan completed his circumnavigation of Brazil in sixty days, pushing himself beyond limits while also learning the helplessness of being trapped in the remote Amazon, hundreds of miles away from any help or assistance.

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Under the Stars: How America Fell in Love with Camping

Under the Stars: How America Fell in Love with Camping

by Dan White

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“The definitive book on camping in America. . . . A passionate, witty, and deeply engaging examination of why humans venture into the wild.”—Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild

From the Sierras to the Adirondacks and the Everglades, Dan White travels the nation to experience firsthand—and sometimes face first—how the American wilderness transformed from the devil’s playground into a source of adventure, relaxation, and renewal.

Whether he’s camping nude in cougar country, being attacked by wildlife while “glamping,” or crashing a girls-only adventure for urban teens, Dan White seeks to animate the evolution of outdoor recreation. In the process, he demonstrates how the likes of Emerson, Thoreau, Roosevelt, and Muir—along with visionaries such as Adirondack Murray, Horace Kephart, and Juliette Gordon Low—helped blaze a trail from Transcendentalism to Leave No Trace.

Wide-ranging in research, enthusiasm, and geography, Under the Stars reveals a vast population of nature seekers, a country still in love with its wild places.

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A Hole in the Wind: A Climate Scientist’s Bicycle Journey Across the United States

A Hole in the Wind: A Climate Scientist’s Bicycle Journey Across the United States

by David Goodrich

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An epic bicycle journey across the American hinterland that explores the challenges of climate change alongside a diverse array of American voices.
After a distinguished career in climate science as the Director of the UN Global Climate Observing System in Geneva, David Goodrich returned home to the United States to find a nation and a people in denial. Concerned that the American people are willfully deluded by the misinformation about climate that dominates media and politics, David thought a little straight talk could set things right. As they say in Animal House, he decided that “this calls for a stupid and futile gesture on someone’s part, and I’m just the guy to do it.”
Starting on the beach in Delaware, David rode his bike 4,200 miles to Oregon, talking with the people he met on the ultimate road trip. Along the way he learned a great deal about why climate is a complicated issue for many Americans and even more about the country we all share.Climate change is the central environmental issue of our time. But A Hole in the Windis also about the people Dave met and the experiences he had along the way, like the toddler’s beauty pageant in Delaware, the tornado in Missouri, rust-belt towns and their relationship with fracking, and the mined-out uranium ghost town in Wyoming. As he rides, David will discuss the climate with audiences varying from laboratories to diners to elementary schools.Beautifully simple, direct, and honest, A Hole in the Windis a fresh, refreshing ride through a difficult and controversial topic, and a rich read that makes you glad to be alive.

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At Home in the World: Reflections on Belonging While Wandering the Globe

At Home in the World: Reflections on Belonging While Wandering the Globe

by Tsh Oxenreider

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As Tsh Oxenreider, author of Notes From a Blue Bike, chronicles her family’s adventure around the world–seeing, smelling, and tasting the widely varying cultures along the way–she discovers what it truly means to be at home.

The wide world is calling.

Americans Tsh and Kyle met and married in Kosovo. They lived as expats for most of a decade. They’ve been back in the States–now with three kids under ten–for four years, and while home is nice, they are filled with wanderlust and long to answer the call.

Why not? The kids are all old enough to carry their own backpacks but still young enough to be uprooted, so a trip–a nine-months-long trip–is planned.

At Home in the World follows their journey from China to New Zealand, Ethiopia to England, and more. They traverse bumpy roads, stand in awe before a waterfall that feels like the edge of the earth, and chase each other through three-foot-wide passageways in Venice. And all the while Tsh grapples with the concept of home, as she learns what it means to be lost–yet at home–in the world.

“In this candid, funny, thought-provoking account, Tsh shows that it’s possible to combine a love for adventure with a love for home.” –Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Projectand Better Than Before

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A Land Without Borders: My Journey Around East Jerusalem and the West Bank

A Land Without Borders: My Journey Around East Jerusalem and the West Bank

by Nir Baram, Jessica Cohen (Translator)

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From horror to fatigue to indifference, an important look forward and back that provides a grass-roots sense… An honest and troubling snapshot of Israel–both Palestinian and Israeli–that reveals the creeping realization that a two-state solution may no longer be possible.— Kirkus (starred review)

Throughout their youth Nir Baram’s generation were bombarded with news about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict–the injustices, the wrongdoings, the killings. Over the decades, the horror and despair had become habit–he noticed people had begun to give up on the possibility of resolution. Yet, as Baram notes, ‘the vast majority of Israelis–as well as international onlookers– know next to nothing about life on the West Bank, the area at the heart of the conflict they have spent their adult lives dissecting’. Most have never visited the occupied territories, and thus ‘the debate revolves around a theoretical, ill-defined area sketched out in our political imagination.’

This book of reportage emerged from the author’s realization that Israel is separated from the West Bank not only by checkpoints but also, more significantly, by a cognitive barrier. And so began his quest to understand the occupation from both sides. The result is an essential and nuanced journey through places and experiences that receive little coverage.

Baram, widely considered one of the most important intellectual voices in Israel today, faces painful challenges to his personal political views and his hopes for a more peaceful future.

Nir Baram has worked as a journalist, editor, and advocate for Palestinian rights. He is the author of five novels in Hebrew. In 2010 he received the Prime Minister’s Award for Hebrew Literature.

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Tristes Tropiques

Tristes Tropiques

by Claude Levi Strauss

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This watershed work records Claude Levi-Strauss’s search for -a human society reduced to its most basic expression.- From the Amazon basin through the dense upland jungles of Brazil, Levi-Strauss found the societies he was seeking among the Caduveo, Bororo, Nambikwara, and Tupi-Kawahib. More than merely recounting his time in their midst, Tristes Tropiques places the cultural practices of these peoples in a global context and extrapolates a fascinating theory of culture that has given the book an importance far beyond the fields of anthropology and continental philosophy. The author’s fresh approach, sense of humor, and openness to the sensuous mystique of the tropics make the scientific thrust of the book eminently accessible.
Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009), the founder of structural anthropology, was born in Belgium and studied at the University of Paris. A member of the French Academy, he authored numerous works, including Structural Anthropology, The Savage Mind, and Myth and Meaning. Patrick Wilcken is the author of Claude Levi-Strauss: The Father of Modern Anthropology. He lives in London. John Weightman (1915-2004) and Doreen Weightman (d. 1985) together translated several important anthropological works of Claude Levi-Strauss and a book about Rousseau by Jean Guehenno.

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The Lonely Sea and the Sky

The Lonely Sea and the Sky

by Francis Chichester

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The complete autobiography of the great adventurer Sir Francis Chichester, the first and fastest man to singlehandedly circumnavigate the globe

Aged18 and with a taste for adventure, Francis Chichester emigrated to New Zealand with ten pounds in his pocket. He tried his hand at a number of ill-fated careers a boxer, shepherd, lumberjack, and gold prospector, to name a few before returning to England. Having qualified as a pilot, in 1929 he embarked on his most famous solo flight in the de Havilland Gipsy Moth from England to Australia. Shortly afterward, he survived a near-death catastrophe in an attempt to fly solo around the world. Turning to sailing, he won the first single-handed transatlantic yacht race in Gipsy Moth III, despite having been diagnosed with cancer two years previously. In 1967, he became the first person to sail around the world solo from west to east via the great capes. Here, his entire life including his greatest failures and successes are told by the man who experienced it all firsthand. A foreword from his son, Giles Chichester, is also included.”

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100 Journeys for the Spirit SACRED * INSPIRING * MYSTERIOUS * ENLIGHTENING

100 Journeys for the Spirit SACRED * INSPIRING * MYSTERIOUS * ENLIGHTENING

By PICO IYER

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At dawn I wake up to bells . . . red-tailed hawks above the golden pampas grass and the great, still blue plate of the Pacific far below . . . Many places offer you beauty, grandeur, spaciousness; none but Big Sur, in my experience, tells you so powerfully that all those blessings lie within.
—Pico Iyer on Big Sur, California

Some places move us at a profound level—with a kind of inner beauty that puts us in direct touch with the spirit. It might be a temple, a church, a monument, a wayside shrine, or a landscape feature that is saturated in the ambience of ancient sacred traditions. Such places are worth taking the trouble to visit. They add meaning to our lives, awakening a sense of beauty, tranquility or awe.

From the prehistoric megaliths of Carnac in Brittany to the Buddhist temple complex of Borobodur in Java, from the giant medicine wheel at Bighorn, Wyoming in the USA to the Confucian Temple of Heaven in Beijing, this book will guide you on a journey to 100 of the world’s most spiritually uplifting sites. Accompanying the superb photographs are evocative descriptions of each place, many from esteemed writers who share their personal responses in their own inimitable style. Read Joseph Williams III on Pipestone in Minnesota, Jan Morris on Croagh Patrick in County Mayo, Michael Ondaatje on the Arankale Forest Monastery in Sri Lanka, and more. And if you wish to seek out these places for yourself, there is a helpful gazetteer at the back of the book giving key facts for visitors.

By immersing ourselves in those special places where landscape, art, and spirit meet in a radiant intersection, we enlarge our perspective on life. This book gives us the inspiration and knowledge to do so.

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How to get from Rome’s Airport to city center by train

Getting around Morocco by Taxi

Not My Job: Travel Guru Rick Steves Gets Quizzed

In 1976, he started his business, Rick Steves’ Europe, which has grown from a one-man operation to a company with a staff of 80 full-time, well-travelled employees at his headquarters in Washington state. There he produces more than 50 guidebooks on European travel, America’s most popular travel series on public television, a weekly hour-long national public radio show, a weekly syndicated column, and free travel information available through his travel center and website. Rick Steves’ Europe also runs a successful European tour program. Rick Steves lives and works in his hometown of Edmonds, Washington.

Listen to NPR’s Peter Segal of, ” wait, wait …don’t tell me!”,  as he host Rick Steves

 

Adventures In Vietnam — Street Food, Love And Taking Chances with Graham Holliday

Graham Holliday grew up in Rugby, England, and moved to Iksan, South Korea, in 1996 to teach English. He relocated to Việt Nam the following year. He started work as a journalist in Sài Gòn in 2001. He is the author of the blog noodlepie, about street food in Sài Gòn. He has written for the Guardian (UK), the New York Times Magazine, the South China Morning Post, Time, BBC, CNN, and many other media outlets. He went on to become a foreign correspondent for Reuters news agency in Rwanda, and now works as a journalism trainer for the BBC and other organizations. He is currently based in Dakar, Senegal, and is writing a novel.

Listen to NPR’s the Salt as Rachal Martin interviews Graham Holliday.