Showing titles in Travel Writing & Commentary

Almost every couple faces a "now what?" moment as their last kid moves out of the house. There's a big empty nest looming over this new and uncertain stage in their lives. David and Veronica James chose to look at this next phase of life as a beginning instead of an ending. Rather than staying put and facing the constant reminders of empty bedrooms and backseats, a plan began to develop to sell the nest and hit the highway.

For 30 years, drummer, author, and songwriter Neil Peart had wanted to write a book about "the biggest journey of all in my restless existence: the life of a touring musician." Finally, the right time, and the right tour. In the summer of 2004, after three decades, 20 gold albums, and thousands of performances, the band Rush embarked on a 30th Anniversary World Tour. The "R30" tour traveled to nine countries, where the band performed 57 shows for more than half a million fans. Uniquely, Peart chose to do his between-show traveling by motorcycle, riding 21,000 miles of back roads.

AS HEARD ON THE CHRIS EVANS BREAKFAST SHOW - "It's not just for runners. It's for life! It's a great story." When Chris McDougall stumbled across the story of Churchill's 'dirty tricksters', a motley crew of English poets and academics who helped resist the Nazi invasion of Crete, he knew he was...

The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society finds Chris Stewart and his family still living on their farm, El Varo -- but life there never stands still. You will find yourself laughing out loud as Chris is instructed by his daughter on the way to treat dung beetles, bluffs his way as an art history guide to millionaire Bostonians, collects seeds in North Africa, and joins an Almond Blossom Appreciation Society. And you'll cringe as he tries his hand at office work in Granada.

Goethe was probably the greatest universal genius who ever lived. Although known primarily as a poet, playright, and novelist, he was also known for his work in anatomy, botany, color, art criticism, and jurisprudence. Many people are deterred from attempting to read anything by Goethe because of his extremely penetrating intelligence and dense prose. But his travel diary, Italian Journey, is by far easier to digest than anything else by him.

'A beautifully observed and sympathetic tour of modern Britain that runs on the tracks of our years.' David Quantick 'Charming…The accounts will make any fan of railways want to experience these delights for themselves.' – The Independent All aboard for a one-of-a-kind journey by train to...

Bloomsbury presents Dark, Salt, Clear written and read by Lamorna Ash. A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 'A bracing account of discovery ... Glistens with deftly told snippets and character-rich stories' Financial Times 'Marks the birth of a new star of...

Fanatical about cricket since he was a boy, MILES JUPP would do anything to see his heroes play. But perhaps deciding to bluff his way into the press corps during England's Test series in India wasn't his best idea. By claiming to be the cricket correspondent for BBC Scotland and getting a job...

After the success of his first book In Search of Greener Grass, Graham Field hits the road again with his bargain-basement KLR650, recording his experiences in his inimitable and revealingly honest diary style. The Caucasus region is often overlooked by travelers, but Graham may inadvertently be about to change all that.

They shouldn't have tear gassed best-selling (bald) author Adam Fletcher. It ruined his supposedly normal holiday in Istanbul, made him curious, and began a quest to visit places everyone else is trying to escape from, and tourists don't normally go to. In this hilarious travel memoir, he'll enter a blizzard in China armed with only biscuits; pose as a scientist to sneak into Chernobyl; be chased by Croatian police boats en route to Liberland (the world's newest country); become a reluctant diving board star in a North Korean water park, and much more.

Step aboard Boater, a mesmerising voyage along the tranquil waterways of England, written by former UK Canal Laureate, Jo Bell. ' It's not a lifestyle. It's a life ' For over twenty years, Jo Bell, archaeologist and poet, has travelled the waterways of England (and sometimes Wales) meeting...

Richard Henry Dana, a law student turned sailor for health reasons, sailed in 1834 aboard the brig Pilgrim on a voyage from Boston around Cape Horn to California. Drawing from his journals, Two Years Before the Mast gives a vivid and detailed account, shrewdly observed and beautifully described, of a common sailor's wretched treatment at sea, and of a way of life virtually unknown at that time.

In this original and evocative book, we accompany Raja on six walks taken between 1978 and 2006. The earlier forays are peaceful affairs, allowing our guide to meditate at length on the character of his native land, a terrain of olive trees on terraced hillsides, luxuriant valleys carved by sacred springs, carpets of wild iris and hyacinth, and ancient monasteries built over 1,000 years ago. Shehadeh’s love for this magical place saturates his renderings of its history and topography.

In June 1867, Mark Twain set out for Europe and the Holy Land on the paddle steamer Quaker City. His enduring, no-nonsense guide for the first-time traveler also served as an antidote to the insufferably romantic travel books of the period.

Brought to you by Penguin. For longer than recorded history there have been tales of spirits and of places where our hackles rise and our skin turns cold. Bestselling historian Neil Oliver travels the British Isles on a deliciously spine-chilling tour that spans several centuries and explores...

It would be hard to think of a more thoroughly Cornish name than Petroc Trelawny. His first name is shared with one of Cornwall's most celebrated saints, his second is the name of its unofficial national anthem. But when a stranger challenges the Radio 3 presenter on his ancestry, he is inspired...

'A message of hope' TLS 'Inspiring' Spectator 'A sumptuous mix of poetry, story and deep philosophical truths' FERGUS BUTLER-GALLIE 'Colin Heber-Percy is a reliable guide' REV RICHARD COLES This book is a hymn to getting lost. Drawing on his experience as a troubled schoolboy, a burnt-out...

Catching all the fascination and humour of travel in out-of-the-way places, One's Company is Peter Fleming's account of his journey through Russia and Manchuria to China when he was Special Correspondent to The Times in the 1930s. Fleming spent seven months with the "object of investigating the Communist situation in South China" at a time when, as far as he knew, "no previous journey had been made to the anti-communist front by a foreigner", and on its publication in 1934, One's Company won widespread critical acclaim.

One of BookPage's Best Audiobooks of 2023 "Loftus is a charming narrator...goofy, engaging, and always game to do a silly voice." —The New York Times "There’s something terribly irresistible about her narration, which is often incredibly funny." —BookPage Part travelogue, part culinary...

The countryside is almost sacred to many Britons. There is a depth of feeling about rural places, the moors and lochs, valleys and mountains, cottages and country houses. Yet the British countryside, so integral to our national identity, is rarely seen as having anything to do with British colonialism. In Our Island Stories, Corinne Fowler brings rural life and colonial rule together with transformative results. Through ten country walks with varied companions, Fowler combines local and global history, connecting the Cotswolds to Calcutta, Dolgellau to Virginia, and Grasmere to Canton.