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Finally arriving on bookshelves is the long-awaited last travelogue in a trilogy that traces the year-long sojourn across 1933 Europe by 18-year-old Patrick Leigh Fermor, who then "thought himself a failure" but later became one of the best travel writers the world has known. Using Fermor's almost-finished manuscript, which melds lush descriptions with history and fascinating adventures, biographer Artemis Cooper and travel author Colin Thubron edited this book after Fermor's death at the age of 96. Erudite readers and lovers of lyrical language will embrace this delightful read, which covers Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece; those who haven't read Fermor will want to pick up A Time of Gifts, about the 1st leg of his eye-opening journey that began in Holland.

  914.96044 F361-on order

"Time of Gifts"-available as an ebook

also might enjoy another book by the author, "Between the Woods and the Water"- 914.96F361

Though she had reached the age of 67 in 1955, the woman known as Grandma Gatewood was not content to rest on her (mountain) laurels. Not only did this mother of 11 and grandmother of 23 hike the Appalachian Trail solo once (the first woman to ever do so), she did it three times (becoming the first person, man or woman, to repeat and three-peat). Conducting interviews with those who knew Gatewood and drawing on her diaries and correspondence, journalist Ben Montgomery gives readers a "quiet delight of a book" (Kirkus Reviews) and shines a welcome light on the amazing Emma Gatewood's life, exploring why she did what she did and looking at her efforts to bring public attention to the poorly maintained 2,050 mile trail.

 

BG259m- on order

Lions, tigers, and baboons, oh my! Growing up at the Londolozi private game reserve in South Africa, Boyd Varty's childhood included plenty of excitement (hosting Nelson Mandela after his 1990 release from prison) and danger (such as a black mambo slithering over his 11-year-old legs). And there was also a lot of love from his fascinating family, made up of a visionary, conservation-minded father, a renowned filmmaking uncle, a caring but not-easily-shaken mother, and a sister who was his beloved companion and playmate. In this dramatic memoir, Varty reflects on his time with Mandela, shares campfire stories of his family and their adventures, and documents his own tale of personal evolution, which saw him travel around the world only to come back home again.

 on order-639.9096827 V326

also available as an eaudiobook

After turning 57, entertaining author Bruce Weber decided to bike the United States from coast to coast...again. Having already made the journey back in 1993 when he was 39, he set out for the second time in 2011. Based on the author's popular New York Times series about his adventure, Life Is a Wheel chronicles Weber's ups and downs, both literal and figurative, as he discusses the physical path he is traveling as well as his thoughts and emotions about life. Anyone approaching late-middle age will certainly appreciate Weber's insights, and fans of Bill Bryson's books will appreciate Weber's witty way with words.

 

on order-796.60973 W373

Children should not have to see the horrors of war, much less commit them. But as conflict rages in hot spots around the world, children are always affected, and in some heart-wrenching cases, they are actually forced to become solders who do terrible things. In this powerful, candid autobiography, Ishmael Beah, now a human rights activist, tells how he went from a mischievous 12-year-old schoolboy to a hardened 13-year-old government soldier carrying an AK-47 and fighting in the civil war that raged in Sierra Leone in the 1990s before he was rescued by UNICEF and pulled himself back from violence.

 

B B365-five copies in English; book is also available in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese

also available as an eaudiobook  and book on CD

Examining North Korea under the regime of "dear leader" Kim Jong-il (father of current leader, Kim Jong-un), journalist Barbara Demick spent seven years extensively interviewing six North Koreans who had managed to escape from the repressive regime. She tells how the country's schoolchildren sang anthems praising their leader even as many of them suffered from malnutrition, some to the point of dying, and how everyone guarded their secrets and complaints lest the government put them in horrific labor camps. This grim though "strongly written and gracefully structured" (Wall Street Journal) book offers an eye-opening look at a land most of us will never set foot in.

 

306.095193 D378-two copies

also available as as an eaudiobook and ebook

During the Bosnian war between 1992 and 1995, horrible atrocities occurred, including torture, rape, murder, and genocide -- sometimes committed by those in charge, sometimes committed by neighbors against neighbors who'd been friendly just hours before. In this book that won The Los Angeles Times book prize for nonfiction, war correspondent Peter Maass offers a stunning portrait of that time, from the battlefield of Sarajevo (host city of the 1984 Winter Olympics), to the shocking crimes that occurred, to the lives of innocents caught in the crossfire. Though this "angry, stinging, profanely eloquent and often painful book" (The New York Times) isn't light reading, it is compassionate and certainly worthwhile.

 

949.7024 M111-five copies

When Megan K. Stack was still a child, she already knew (thanks to a family friend who was a marine) that people affected by war could "survive and not survive, both at the same time." In this evocative account, she herself goes to war as a young reporter. Covering the time between September 11, 2001 and the end of 2006, this book describes her encounters with warlords, CIA operatives, and regular people as well as how she witnessed death and carnage, dealt with innocent people being killed, and heard government officials lie to the public. Traveling throughout the Middle East, Stack visited Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel, among other places, and this eloquent, personal book, which was a National Book Award finalist, provides much food for thought about a strife-filled region that continues to make the news.

 

956.054 S775-two copies