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Armchair Travel April 2021
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| Winter Pasture: One Woman's Journey With China's Kazakh Herders by Li JuanWhat it is: an award-winning memoir that combines nature and travel writing; an eye-opening look at a disappearing way of life; the lyrical English-language debut of a Chinese journalist.
The starting point: Though Li Juan had trouble finding a nomadic group who'd take an unmarried 30-something Han Chinese woman with them for their winter migration, a small Kazakh family of herders agreed.
What happened: Working with the father, mother, and teen daughter, she built a home using manure, gathered snow for water, endured nights with temps below zero, and took care of camel, sheep, and cattle. |
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| Ms. Adventure: My Wild Explorations in Science, Lava, and Life by Jess PhoenixStarring: Jess Phoenix, a geologist, volcanologist, Explorers Club Fellow, and co-founder of a nonprofit that produces research and works with students in hopes of bringing more diversity to scientific fields.
What it's about: Phoenix discusses her winding path to a science career, the barriers she's faced in a male-dominated field, her eye-opening time shooting a TV segment, and her adventures in California, Hawaii, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, and New York City.
For fans of: Jill Heinerth's Into the Planet and other compelling memoirs by adventurous women; accessible books combining science and travel. |
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| We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year by Charles WheelanWhat it's about: In 2016, college professor Charles Wheelan, his math teacher wife, 18-year-old daughter, 16-year-old daughter, and 13-year-old son left their New Hampshire home to spend nine months visiting six continents on a budget.
What happened: They visited Colombia, Australia, the Republic of Georgia, India, and other locales while seeing amazing sights, large spiders, and not always getting along with each other.
Read this next: For other entertaining family travelogues, try Dan Kois' How to Be a Family or Bruce Kirkby's Blue Sky Kingdom. |
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Walking to Samarkand : the Great Silk Road from Persia to Central Asia
by Bernard Ollivier
Recounts the author's second leg of his seven thousand-mile walk along the Silk Road, detailing his experiences in Iran's Great Salt Desert, Turkmenistan's Karakum, and the holy city of Mashhad, before reaching the golden domes of Samarkand, one of Central Asia's most ancient cities
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Walking the high desert : encounters with rural America along the Oregon Desert Trail
by Ellen Waterston
"Fascinated by the recent creation of the 800-mile Oregon Desert Trail, an initiative by the conservation organization Oregon Natural Desert Association to link together and bring attention to eastern Oregon's lesser known but visually spectacular high desert and canyonlands, author Ellen Waterston seeks to write a book that both brings the landscape to the fore and also situates it in terms of the people who live there and care about the land, as well as the conflicts over land that are never far from the surface, such as those that erupted at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in January 2016. This is a book for general readers seeking a critical look at the way our conversations about land shape a place; it's also a book that evokes the people and natural world of eastern Oregon"
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| The Salt Path by Raynor WinnThe problems: A friend's betrayal found 50-somethings Raynor and Moth Winn kicked off the Welsh farm they'd fixed up over 20 years. That same week, Moth learned he had a terminal disease.
What happened: Homeless and at a loss, they set out to walk and wild camp along England's challenging 630-mile South West Coast Path.
Read this next: Winn's lovely follow-up book, The Wild Silence; Caroline Van Hemert's The Sun Is a Compass, another inspirational memoir about a couple at a crossroads and the redemptive power of nature. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Mary Riley Styles Public Library 601 S. Oak St. [Temporary Location] Falls Church, Virginia 22046 703-248-5030 (TTY 711)www.fallschurchva.gov/library |
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