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Armchair Travel October 2016
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| Best. State. Ever. A Florida Man Defends His Homeland by Dave BarryWe've all seen the headlines: Florida Man [Does Something Bizarre]. Of late, the state has become a bit of a joke according to Dave Barry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist who's lived in Florida for decades, so he feels he needs to defend his adopted home. In this lighthearted examination of the Sunshine State, he travels to an assortment of typically Florida places that aren't as well known as Disney World, including Gatorland (reptiles!), Cassadaga (psychics!), and Weeki Wachee Springs (mermaids!), offering informative yet funny insights into Florida as a place of history and fun. Our headline? Proud Florida Man Writes Hilarious Book. |
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| When in French: Love in a Second Language by Lauren CollinsAn Anglophone American in London falls in love with a Frenchman and moves to Francophone Geneva, Switzerland. Once there, she decides to learn French; not only does she want to be able to buy things, but she wants to become closer to her new husband and, when the time comes, not be "a Borat of a mother." Chronicling her amusing adventures overseas and her attempts to communicate in a new tongue, talented New Yorker writer Lauren Collins serves up a funny, romantic, intelligent memoir, which provides "a thoughtful, beautifully written meditation on the art of language and intimacy" (The New York Times). |
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| Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella MortonThe world is full of the strange and curious that few know about. Well, until now. The co-founders of the collaborative website Atlas Obscura (plus one of its editors) offer a tour of 700 of the world's most unique and amazing places and things (including glowworm caves in New Zealand and a baby-jumping festival in Spain). Using short entries highlighting natural wonders, weird and magical structures, and mind-boggling events from around the globe (even Antarctica!), Atlas Obscura looks like a guide book -- but because many of the wonders aren't open to the public or are difficult to get to, and interesting bits of history and facts are included, armchair travelers should enjoy dipping into these wonder-full pages. |
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Around the World in 50 Years: My Adventure to Every Country on Earth
by Albert Podell
In this "jokey, politically incorrect, thoughtful and continuously engaging chronicle" (Wall Street Journal), lawyer and former magazine editor Albert Podell describes some of the exciting adventures he experienced as he traveled through 196 (!) countries. Podell, who drove around the world with a friend and co-wrote a successful book about it in the 1960s called Who Needs a Road?, didn't take the easy way either; he used local transportation and tried to scratch beneath the surface of the places he visited. Fans of adventurous travel tales will want to read this extraordinary book, which describes encounters with dangerous animals in Botswana, eating monkey brains in Hong Kong, almost drowning in Costa Rica, and so much more.
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| Utopia Drive: A Road Trip Through America's Most Radical Idea by Erik ReeceIn the years between 1820 and 1850, around 200 utopian communities began in the United States. Long fascinated by these wannabe paradises and believing that the country currently faces social, economic, environmental, and political crises, writer Erik Reece set out in his truck to travel to several utopias -- both historic and modern-day -- looking for answers. Visiting Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York during his epic road trip, he found a wide variety of people and beliefs. "Compelling narratives with a personal voice, with some utopian political bite," says Kirkus Reviews. |
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Walking the Himalayas
by Levison Wood
What does an adventurous travel writer do after walking the length of the Nile? Take a 1,700 mile trek through the Himalayas! Recounting his trip from Afghanistan (where a helicopter dropped him off in a remote area) to Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bhutan, British explorer and travel writer Levison Wood discusses the history, religions, and cultures of the people he encounters, including His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. There were adventurous moments, too, of course, involving landslides, monsoons, tigers, and crocodiles. Where will Wood go next? It's recently been announced he'll say "hola" to Central America, walking from northeastern Mexico to Colombia.
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Quit Your Job! Travel Instead!
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Paris Letters
by Janice MacLeod
The author recounts how, after giving up her corporate job as an art director, she moved to Paris, embarked on a romance with a Frenchman who spoke no English, and found a way using her artistic and writing skills to fund her dream of staying there permanently
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Wide-Open World: How Volunteering Around the Globe Changed One Family's...
by John Marshall
Maine TV producer John Marshall and his yoga-instructor wife had always wanted to travel around the world with their kids. With time running out (their son was 17 and their daughter 14), they figured out how they could afford it: voluntourism! Traveling to multiple countries in six months, the Marshalls spent time at a wildlife sanctuary in Costa Rica, at several organic farms in New Zealand, at schools in rural Thailand and the Himalayas, and at an orphanage in India. As an added bonus, Marshall briefly explores the family's reentry to regular life. Richly detailed and inspirational, Wide-Open World tallies up the spider monkey bites, depicts the family's experiences, and ends with a reconnected family.
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| Until I Say Good-Bye: My Year of Living with Joy by Susan Spencer-Wendel with Bret WitterThis isn't your typical travelogue. Until I Say Good-Bye unsentimentally chronicles the final year of a 45-year-old journalist and mother with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, an irreversible condition that progressively destroys nerves that control muscles. Once she was diagnosed, it wasn't long before Spencer-Wendel decided to quit her job (though she loved it) and use some of her remaining days traveling to such places as the Yukon, Hungary, the Bahamas, and Cyprus with friends and family, including individual trips with each of her three children. Readers joining her on her poignant, powerful journey will be inspired to find joy in their own situations. |
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Ghostland : An American History in Haunted Places
by Colin Dickey
Colin Dickey is on the trail of America's ghosts. Crammed into old houses and hotels, abandoned prisons and empty hospitals, the spirits that linger continue to capture our collective imagination, but why? Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone, crimes left unsolved. Spellbinding, scary, and wickedly insightful, Ghostland discovers the past we're most afraid to speak of aloud in the bright light of day is the same past that tends to linger in the ghost stories we whisper in the dark.
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The Midnight Assassin : Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer
by Skip Hollandsworth
In the late 1800s, the city of Austin, Texas was on the cusp of emerging from an isolated western outpost into a truly cosmopolitan metropolis. But beginning in December 1884, Austin was terrorized by someone equally as vicious and, in some ways, far more diabolical than London's infamous Jack the Ripper. For almost exactly one year, the Midnight Assassin crisscrossed the entire city, striking on moonlit nights, using axes, knives, and long steel rods to rip apart women from every race and class. At the time the concept of a serial killer was unthinkable, but the murders continued, the killer became more brazen. With vivid historical detail and novelistic flair, Texas Monthly journalist, Skip Hollandsworth, brings this terrifying saga to life.
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Atlas of Cursed Places : A Travel Guide to Dangerous and Frightful Destinations
by Olivier Le Carrer
This alluring read includes 40 locations that are rife with disaster, chaos, paranormal activity, and death. The locations gathered here include the dangerous Strait of Messina, home of the mythical sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis; the coal town of Jharia, where the ground burns constantly with fire; Kasanka National Park in Zambia, where 8 million migrating bats darken the skies; the Nevada Triangle in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where hundreds of aircraft have disappeared; and Aokigahara Forest near Mount Fuji in Japan, the world's second most popular suicide location following the Golden Gate Bridge.
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American Ghost : A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest
by Hannah Nordhaus
The award-winning journalist and author of The Beekeeper's Lament attempts to uncover the truth about her great-great-grandmother, Julia--whose ghost is said to haunt an elegant hotel in Santa Fe. La Posada's place of rest had been a grand Santa Fe home before it was converted to a hotel. The room with the canopy bed had belonged to Julia Schuster Staab, the wife of the home's original owner. She died in 1896, nearly a century before the hauntings were first reported. American Ghost is a story of pioneer women and immigrants, ghost hunters and psychics, frontier fortitude and mental illness, imagination and lore. As she traces the strands of Julia's life, Nordhaus uncovers a larger tale of how a true-life story becomes a ghost story and how difficult it can sometimes be to separate history and myth.
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Contact your librarian for more great books! |
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Prince George's County Memorial Library System 9601 Capital Lane Largo, Maryland 20774 301-699-3500www.pgcmls.info/ |
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