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Armchair Travel August 2018
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Tip of the Iceberg: My 3,000-mile Journey Around Wild Alaska, the Last Great...
by Mark Adams
What it's about: Mark Adams, author of Turn Right at Machu Picchu, traveled via road, ferry, foot, and canoe around coastal Alaska, retracing the 1899 Harriman expedition (whose members included naturalist John Muir and photographer Edward Curtis). While doing so, he encountered a much-changed land, fascinating people, and wild animals.
Who it's for: fans of Bill Bryson, as well as anyone who likes personable tour guides and amusing, artful blends of history and travel.
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| River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter HesslerWhat it's about: Peace Corps volunteer teacher Peter Hessler arrived in the remote town of Fuling in China's Sichuan province in 1996, where he was one of two foreigners.
Why you might like it: Hessler intelligently and evocatively describes his experiences with an unfamiliar people, culture, and landscape, as well as bigger events (Hong Kong reverting to China, construction of the Three Gorges Dam, and the death of Deng Xiaoping).
Try this next: For other young Americans' experiences in China, pick up Michael Meyer's The Road to Sleeping Dragon or John Pomfret's Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China. |
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| Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar NafisiStarring: Azar Nafisi, who left Iran at 13 to study overseas and returned home with a Ph.D years later to a changing land where religious fundamentalists ruled and women now had to wear head scarves.
What it's about: Leaving college instruction in 1995, Nafisi secretly taught banned Western Literature (Lolita, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, and more) to a group of seven young women for two years.
For fans of: classic novels, Iranian history, and thought-provoking, moving memoirs. |
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| Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy WickendenWhat it's about: In 1916, two well-to-do best friends, Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, left their homes in Auburn, New York, to teach school in the remote settlement of Elkhead on the Colorado frontier.
About the author: Dorothy Wickenden is the executive editor of The New Yorker and the granddaughter of Dorothy Woodruff; she used letters, conducted interviews, and read newspaper articles to inform this fresh, fascinating fish-out-of-water tale. |
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Me and Shakespeare : adventures with the Bard
by Herman Gollob
What it's about: Revealing the extraordinary power of literature to enrich one's life, a retired editor describes how his fascination with the life and works of William Shakespeare prompted a latent passion for literary scholarship and became a spiritual and intellectual adventure that transformed his life.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Central Mississippi Regional Library System
100 Tamberline Street
Brandon, Mississippi 39042
601-825-0100
http://www.cmrls.lib.ms.us
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