"People don't take trips -- trips take people." ~ John Steinbeck (1902-1968), American author, Travels with Charley
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Christchurch Photo Hunt 2014 |
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New and Recently Released!
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| Travels with Casey by Benoit Denizet-LewisAuthor and professor Benoit Denizet-Lewis wasn't at all sure that his mixed-breed retriever Casey liked him... even though they'd been together for nearly a decade. Deciding to explore the world of dogs and the humans who love them (and to help him understand his relationship with Casey), the pair took a 13,000 mile cross-country RV trip. They visited farm dogs, racing dogs, wolf-dog hybrids, and various other dogs as well as talking with dog people, including dog trainer Cesar Millan, a stray rescuer, a K9 cop, a psychic who works with dogs, and many others. If you'd love to read an amusing travelogue that'll put a smile on your face, sit down with Travels with Casey. For other books featuring dogs in RVs travelling across America, pick up John Steinbeck's classic Travels with Charley or David Rosenfelt's more recent The Puppy Express. |
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Alaska: a visual tour of America's great land
by Bob Devine
A tour of Alaska's history, landscape, geography, and culture includes photographs, illustrated sidebars, little-known facts, and maps as well as travel tips and practical recommendations for visitors to the forty-ninth state.
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Travels with a Mexican circus
by Katie Hickman
Katie Hickman went to Mexico looking for magic. She found it in the circus - Big Top, clowns, elephants and all - where cheap, torn materials and tarnished sequins are transformed into nights of glittering illusion. Gradually adjusting to the harsh ways of the circus's nomadic lifestyle, she soon became absorbed into this hypnotic new world, at first as a foreigner but later as 'La Gringa Estrella', a performer in her own right. Travels with a Mexican Circus is an unforgettable account of a year-long journey through an extraordinary and bizarrely beautiful country.
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Naked and marooned: one man. one island
by Ed Stafford
'I stood on the beach truly alone for the first time. I would not see another person for sixty days. I was on an uninhabited tropical island and I had nothing with me to help me survive. No food, no equipment, no knife and not even any clothes. All I had was my camera kit so that I could intimately record my self-inflicted sentence.' For sixty days, with only his explorer's instinct and a video camera to record his experiences, Ed faces the ultimate feat of physical and mental endurance. He confronts blazing heat and brutal loneliness; eats snails to escape starvation and battles illness, dehydration and fatigue in what is his most dangerous, and at times life-threatening, challenge to date.
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While the gods were sleeping: a journey through love and rebellion in Nepal
by Elizabeth Enslin
Love and marriage brought American anthropologist Elizabeth Enslin to a world she never planned to make her own: a life among Brahman in-laws in a remote village in the plains of Nepal. As she faced the challenges of married life, birth, and childrearing in a foreign culture, she discovered as much about human resilience, and the capacity for courage, as she did about herself. While the Gods Were Sleeping : A Journey Through Love and Rebellion in Nepal tells a compelling story of a woman transformed in intimate and unexpected ways. Set against the backdrop of increasing political turmoil in Nepal, Enslin's story takes us deep into the lives of local women as they claim their rightful place in society--and make their voices heard.
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Blue Creek bride: a Kiwi rides into the Rockies with her warden husband
by Leanne J. Minton
This is the engaging account of a park warden's wife as she travels with him on horseback into the backcountry of the Canadian Rockies. Newly married, this New Zealand woman in her early 40s faces many challenges in this unfamiliar territory. She tells of her struggles with humour and honesty, as she learns new attitudes and skills, and finds her place in the unique world of wardens and their horses. Inspired by the rugged beauty of the Rockies, her captivating imagery and photographs combine with the realism of her experiences, to make Blue Creek Bride a fascinating read.
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Me and my Hero
by Tim Mulliner
New Zealander Tim Mulliner decides to forgo the lightweight touring bicycle and expensive modern accompaniments and get back to basics. Starting in Nepal, he purchases himself a Hero - the largest manufactured bicycle in the world. After pushing his Hero over the Himalayan foothills, Tim dissects India from north to south passing through some of the poorest and richest regions in India. Me and My Hero tells the story of Tim's impressions of rural and urban India as he struggles to come to terms with the rigid caste system that still dictates life for many. It details the rigour and joy of travelling by bicycle in what is arguably one of the most colourful and fascinating countries in the world.
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The friendship highway: two journeys in Tibet
by Charlie Carroll
Contending with Chinese bureaucracy, and sickness-inducing altitude, Charlie experienced twenty-first-century Tibet in all its beauty. Tibetan-born Lobsang fled the volatile region in 1989. An exile in Nepal, then a student in India, he was called back to Tibet by love. This book is about their encounter on the roof of the world.
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Walking home from Mongolia: ten million steps through China, from the Gobi Desert to the South China Sea
by Rob Lilwall
Starting in the Gobi desert in winter, adventurer Rob Lilwall sets out on an extraordinary six month journey, walking 3,000 miles across China. Along the way he and cameraman Leon brave the toxic insides of China's longest road tunnel, explore desolate stretches of the Great Wall, and endure interrogation by the Chinese police. As they walk on through the heart of China, the exuberant hospitality of cave dwellers, coal miners, and desert nomads keeps them going despite sub-zero blizzards and treacherous terrain. Rob writes with humour and honesty about the hardships of the walk, reflecting on the nature of pilgrimage and the uncertainties of an adventuring career, while also giving insight into life on the road amid the epic landscapes and rapidly industrialising cities of backwater China.
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The unlikely voyage of Jack de Crow
by A. J. Mackinnon
'A couple of quiet weeks sailing the River Severn was the intention. Somehow things got out of hand a year later I had reached Romania and was still going.' Truly hilarious books are rare. Even rarer are those based on real events. Join A.J. Mackinnon, your charming and eccentric guide, on an amazing voyage in a boat called Jack de Crow. Equipped with his cheerful optimism and a pith helmet, this Australian Odysseus in a dinghy travels from the borders of North Wales to the Black Sea 4,900 kilometres over salt and fresh water, under sail, at the oars, or at the end of a tow-rope through twelve countries, 282 locks and numerous trials and adventures, including an encounter with Balkan pirates. Along the way he experiences the kindness of strangers, gets very lost, and perfects the art of slow travel.
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| In the kingdom of ice: the grand and terrible polar voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton SidesOn his first Polar voyage in 1873, nothing in the frigid north appealed to Lieutenant George De Long, but he soon became obsessed. A few years later, leading an 1879 Arctic expedition and tasked with finding a mythical open-sea passage, De Long and his crew faced deadly trouble when their ship became trapped in the ice. Using letters, diaries, expedition records, newspaper reports, and other documents, bestselling author Hampton Sides provides a dramatic account of what happened to De Long and his crew. If you'd like to embark on another gripping nautical tale but in warmer climes, try In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick. For a compelling modern adventure around the various countries that make up the Arctic, pick up Sara Wheeler's eloquent The Magnetic North. |
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Holiday at home: creating relaxed spaces of your own
by Jason Grant
Hold onto the memories of your perfect trip with advice and inspiration for creating interior spaces that capture that relaxed, holiday vibe. That sun-drenched, peaceful feeling of a perfect vacation shouldn't have to go away when you get back home. Taking inspiration from beach houses, road-trips, country hotels and summer holidays spent camping under the stars, acclaimed stylist Jason Grant shows you how to style your spaces to evoke that carefree, fresh and fun holiday feeling in your own home.
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Cumin, camels, and caravans: a spice odyssey
by Gary Paul Nabhan
Gary Paul Nabhan takes the reader on a vivid and far-ranging journey across time and space in this fascinating look at the relationship between the spice trade and culinary imperialism. Drawing on his own family's history as spice traders, as well as travel narratives, historical accounts, and his expertise as an ethnobotanist, Nabhan describes the critical roles that Semitic peoples and desert floras had in setting the stage for globalised spice trade. Travelling along four prominent trade routes - the Silk Road, the Frankincense Trail, the Spice Route, and the Camino Real (for chiles and chocolate) - Nabhan follows the caravans of itinerant spice merchants from the frankincense-gathering grounds and ancient harbours of the Arabian Peninsula to the port of Zayton on the China Sea to Santa Fe in the southwest United States.
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The hills of Chianti: the story of a Tuscan winemaking family, in seven bottles
by Piero Antinori
In this family memoir Piero Antinori reveals the passion, tradition, and love of craft that have driven twenty-seven generations of vintners: from the first ancestor who signed up to the winemakers guild in the fourteenth century to Antinori's own three daughters, poised to carry this most celebrated family of artisans into the future. But The Hills of Chianti is about much more than wine. At its heart the Antinori story is about "Tuscan-ness": a connection to the land, an appreciation for good food and drink, and the quintessentially Italian love of hospitality that make this one of the world's most inspiring and memorable destinations.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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