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Armchair Travel April 2021
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The debatable land : the lost world between Scotland and England by Graham RobbBest-selling author Graham Robb finds that the 2,000-year-old map of Ptolemy unlocks a central mystery of British history. Two years ago, Graham Robb moved to a place of legend called the Debatable Land, an independent territory that once served as a buffer between Scotland and England. The oldest detectable territorial division in Great Britain, the Debatable Land was once the bloodiest region in the country. After most of its population was slaughtered or deported, it became the last part of Great Britain to be conquered by England and Scotland. Today, it has vanished from the map and its boundaries are matters of myth and generational memories. Under the spell of a powerful curiosity, Robb began a journey--on foot, by bicycle, and into the past. After correcting the grid of Ptolemy's map, Robb located lost towns and roads and discovered the true history of this maligned patch of land. These personal and scholarly adventures reveal an epic tale of Roman, medieval, and present-day Britain
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Nick by Michael F. SmithCritically acclaimed novelist Michael Farris Smith pulls Nick Carraway out of the shadows and into the spotlight in this "masterful" look into his life before Gatsby. Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby's periphery, he was at the center of a very different story-one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I. Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed firsthand, Nick delays his return home, hoping to escape the questions he cannot answer about the horrors of war. Instead, he embarks on a transcontinental redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance-doomed from the very beginning-to the dizzying frenzy of New Orleans, rife with its own flavor of debauchery and violence. An epic portrait of a truly singular era and a sweeping, romantic story of self-discovery, this rich and imaginative novel breathes new life into a character that many know but few have pondered deeply. Charged with enough alcohol, heartbreak, and profound yearning to paralyze even the heartiest of golden age scribes, Nick reveals the man behind the narrator who has captivated readers for decades.
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Owls of the eastern ice : a quest to find and save the world's largest owl by Jonathan C. Slaght When he was just a fledgling birdwatcher, Jonathan C. Slaght had a chance encounter with one of the most mysterious birds on Earth. Bigger than any owl he knew, it looked like a small bear with decorative feathers. He snapped a quick photo and shared it with experts. Soon he was on a five-year journey, searching for this enormous, enigmatic creature in the lush, remote forests of eastern Russia. That first sighting set his calling as a scientist. Despite a wingspan of six feet and a height of over two feet, the Blakiston's fish owl is highly elusive. They are easiest to find in winter, when their tracks mark the snowy banks of the rivers where they feed. They are also endangered. And so, as Slaght and his devoted team set out to locate the owls, they aim to craft a conservation plan that helps ensure the species' survival. This quest sends them on all-night monitoring missions in freezing tents, mad dashes across thawing rivers, and free-climbs up rotting trees to check nests for precious eggs. They use cutting-edge tracking technology and improvise ingenious traps. And all along, they must keep watch against a run-in with a bear or an Amur tiger. At the heart of Slaght's story are the fish owls themselves: cunning hunters, devoted parents, singers of eerie duets, and survivors in a harsh and shrinking habitat.
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Tropic of stupid by Tim Dorsey Devoted Floridaphile Serge Storms is a lover of history, so he’s decided to investigate his own using one of those DNA services from late-night TV. Excited to construct a family tree, he and Coleman hit the road to meet his kin. Along the way, he plans to introduce Coleman to the Sunshine State’s beautiful parks where he can brush up on his flora, fauna, and wildlife, and more importantly, collect the missing stamps for his park passport book. But as the old saying goes, the apple doesn’t fall far . . . Serge is thrilled to discover he may be related to a notorious serial killer who’s terrorized the state for twenty years and never been caught. Which one of his newfound relatives will be the one to help him hunt down this deranged maniac? Serge doesn’t know that a dogged investigator from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is also hot on the trail. Then Serge meets a park ranger who’s also longing to make a family re-connection. But all is not as it appears on the surface, and Serge’s newfound friendship in the mysterious swamps of Florida may lead to deadly results.
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Ebooks, available through Hoopla
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Henry Miller : The Paris Years by Brassaï The Paris Years His years in Paris were the making of Henry Miller. He arrived with no money, no fixed address, and no prospects. He left as the renowned if not notorious author of Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. Miller didn't just live in Paris-he devoured it. It was a world he shared with Brassaï, whose work, first collected in Paris by Night, established him as one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century and the most exquisite and perceptive chronicler of Parisian vice.
In Miller, Brassaï found his most compelling subject. Henry Miller: The Paris Years is an intimate account of a writer's self-discovery, seen through the unblinking eye of a master photographer. Brassaï delves into Miller's relationships with Anaïs Nin and Lawrence Durrell, as well as his hopelessly tangled though wildly inspiring marriage to June. He uncovers a side of the man scarcely known to the public, and through this careful portrait recreates a bright and swift-moving era. Most of all, Brassaï evokes their shared passion for the street life of the City of Light, captured in a dazzling moment of illumination.
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Eating Wild Japan : Tracking the Culture of Foraged Foods, With a Guide to Plants and Recipes by Winifred Bird Tracking the Culture of Foraged Foods, with a Guide to Plants and Recipes From bracken to butterbur to "princess" bamboo, some of Japan's most iconic foods are foraged, not grown, in its forests, fields, and coastal waters-yet most Westerners have never heard of them. In this book, journalist Winifred Bird eats her way from one end of the country to the other in search of the hidden stories of Japan's wild foods, the people who pick them, and the places whose histories they've shaped.
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Dear Paris : The Paris Letters Collection by Janice MacLeod The Paris Letters Collection Be transported to the banks of the Seine, a corner boulangerie, or beneath the Eiffel Tower with these beautifully illustrated vignettes of life in the City of Light. What began as a way to fund travel became ten years of a letter subscription service delivering thousands of painted letters to subscribers who delight in fun mail!
Eat, Pray, Love meets Claude Monet in this epistolary ode to Paris. What started as a whim in a Latin Quarter café blossomed into Janice MacLeod's yearslong endeavor to document and celebrate life in Paris, sending monthly snippets of her paintings and writings to the mailboxes of ardent followers around the world. Now, Dear Paris collects the entirety of the Paris Letters project: 140 illustrated messages discussing everything from macarons to Montmartre.
For readers familiar with the city, Dear Paris is a rendezvous with their own memories, like the first time they walked along the Champs-Élysées or the best pain au chocolat they've ever tasted. But it's about more than just a Paris frozen in nostalgia; the book paints the city as it is today, through elections, protests, and the World Cup-and through the people who call it home. Wistful, charming, surprising, and unfailingly optimistic, Dear Paris is a vicarious visit to one of the most iconic and beloved places in the world.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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