By John Higham

After more than a decade of planning, John Higham and his wife leave their jobs and suburban lives and pack up their home and set out with their two young children to travel around the world. In the course of the next 52 weeks, they crossed 24 time zones, visited 28 countries and experience a lifetime of adventures.

By Amy Elizabeth Smith
Recommended By Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services

“Details the author's yearlong journey organizing book clubs devoted to Jane Austen novels in six Central and South American countries, during which she discovered friendship and love, and learned about life and the power of Austen (From the Publisher).”

By Matthew Polly

This is the story of the childhood dream that led Polly to study martial arts at China’s famed Shaolin Temple, his initial disenchantement that turned into respect for the instructors, and the training that eventually led him to represent the Temple in international competitions.

By Gabrielle Walker

A profile of Antarctica and its indigenous life traces the history of regional exploration and the science currently being conducted there while explaining how Antarctica reveals key insights into the planet’s environmental future.

By Sarah Vowell
Recommended By Sharon Long, Assistant Library Director

“Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other - a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage (From the Publisher).”

By David Miller
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

“In 2003, David Miller left his job, family, and friends to fulfill a dream and hike the Appalachian Trail. AWOL on the Appalachian Trail is Miller’s account of this thru-hike along the entire 2,172 miles from Georgia to Maine (From the Publisher).”

By Chuck Thompson
Recommended By Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian

“Describes the author’s road trip investigation into the cultural divide of the United States during which he met possum-hunting conservatives and prayer warriors before concluding that both sides might benefit if the South seceded (From the Publisher).”

By John Silverwood

When Californians John Silverwood and his wife Jean decided to take their four children on a sail around the world on their fifty-five-foot catamaran, Emerald Jane, they could not foresee the range of adventure that awaited them. The pressures of a family and a marriage in such cramped quarters were nothing compared to the terrifying forces of nature. But while in the South Pacific, just as it seemed to them that they had mastered every challenge, their world was shattered in a split second of unimaginable horror. Now the real test began, forcing them to fight for their very lives.

By Nancy Pearl

Provides reading recommendations for one hundred twenty travel destinations, and includes memoirs, fiction, travel writings, and famous international authors.

By Rebecca Makkai

When her favorite patron, a book-loving ten-year-old, runs away from overbearing parents who force him to attend anti-gay classes with a celebrity pastor, children's librarian Lucy Hull flees with the boy and discovers that they are being pursued by an anonymous adversary.

By James Campbell
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

The author describes his journey to the far reaches of Alaska with his teenage daughter where the harsh environment tested them and their relationship.

By Amit Chaudhuri

An account of the author's two years in Calcutta depicts the city's vibrant architecture, diverse classes, and evolving politics while exploring its self-renewing culture and resilience against globalization.

By Jennifer DuBois
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

American student Lily Hayes is implicated in the brutal murder of her roommate while spending a semester studying in Buenos Aires, leading to a case that reveals deceptions, secrets, and suspicious DNA.

By Peter Gethers

“...The extraordinary feline with the great Scottish Fold ears, is hightailing it to the south of France - and making pit stops all over the globe (with his favorite human, of course) ... (From the Publisher).”

By Peter Gethers

“At one time, publisher and author Peter Gethers was a confirmed cat hater … THE CAT WHO WENT TO PARIS proves that sometimes all it takes is paws and personality to change a life (From the Publisher).”

By Peter Gethers

“A good balance of laugh-out-loud and tear-jerking recollections: Gethers makes Norton immortal, delivering an affecting narrative that belongs on the bookshelf of all cat-fanciers (Kirkus Reviews).”

By Madison Smartt Bell

With a writer’s keen eye, a longtime resident’s familiarity, and his own sly wit, acclaimed novelist Madison Smartt Bell leads us on a walk through his adopted hometown of Baltimore, a city where crab cakes, Edgar Allan Poe, hair extensions, and John Waters movies somehow coexist.

By Tim Jarvis

Outfitted solely with authentic items from the time period, a leading explorer recounts his modern-day journey to retrace the perilous 1914 expedition of Sir Ernest Shackleton, a three-year Antarctic adventure that became one of the greatest stories of endurance and survival ever recorded.

By John Berendt

An intimate look at the magic, mystery and decadence of the city of Venice and its inhabitants.

By Peter Hessler

The author details his 7,000 mile journey across northern China, following the Great Wall, from the East China Seat to the Tibetan plateau.

By David W. Shaw

A portrait of Norwegian immigrants George Habo and Frank Samuelsen explores the lives of these first men to row across the Atlantic Ocean, their families, and their dreams and disappointments, through chronicles of their long and nearly fatal 1896 journey.

By Roland Merullo

Meeting during a highly publicized official visit at the Vatican, the Pope and the Dalai Lama embark on an unsanctioned, undercover vacation through the Italian countryside to rediscover the everyday joys of life.

By George Orwell

This unusual fictional account, in good part autobiographical, narrates without self-pity and often with humor the adventures of a penniless British writer among the down-and-out of two great cities. In the tales of both cities we learn some sobering Orwellian truths about poverty and society.

By Tim Bauerschmidt
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

Describes how, after being advised to undergo extensive therapy for her cancer diagnosis, ninety-year-old Miss Norma decides to skip the hospital bed and instead travel the country with her retired son Tim, his wife Ramie, and their dog Ringo.

By Elizabeth Gilbert
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, November 30, 2010.  1 PM & 7:30 PM.

After a failed marriage Gilbert sets off to discover her true self by eating in Italy, praying in India and finding love in Indonesia.

Became the movie: Eat, Pray, Love.

By Jose Saramago

The tale of an elephant named Solomon who travels through sixteenth century Europe, from Lisbon to Vienna.

By Maeve Binchy
Recommended By Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services

“An evening class in Italian becomes a catalyst in the lives of its participants, students and teacher alike, as they come together, becoming absorbed in one another’s lives and experiencing changing and growing relationships as their class culminates in a magical trip to Italy (From the Publisher)."

By David Lida

A wide-ranging literary portrait of Mexico City by a former New Yorker profiles the Mexican capital as a thriving urban center comprising centuries of history as well as rapid development, in a kaleidoscopic depiction that offers insight into its growing relevance on the world stage.

By Aman Sethi

Depicts the lives of a group of homeless friends living in the Old Delhi Railway Station in India and the adventures and misfortunes they experienced that ultimately brought each of them there.

By Marianne C. Bohr
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

Thirty-plus years after first backpacking through Europe, Marianne Bohr and her husband leave their lives behind and take off on a yearlong quest for adventure.

By Eric Weiner
Recommended By Donna Burger, Readers' Services Librarian

Draws on the author's experiences as a foreign correspondent to evaluate more than three dozen countries for their happiness potential, in a survey that includes profiles of such locales as the American shores, glacial Iceland, and the Bhutan jungles.

By Aspen Matis

After suffering an emotional trauma, the author seeks healing in the freedom of the wild, on the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail leading from Mexico to Canada, during which she came to terms with her sexual assault and her parents disappointing reaction, and found strength, hope, love and acceptance.

By Reader's Digest

The world's great explorers, their triumphs and tragedies.

By Peter Genovese

Describes such Route 1 highlights as restaurants, roadside curiosities, historic sites, and well-known local characters.

By David McCullough

Relates the story of the American artists, writers, and doctors who traveled to Paris in the nineteenth century, fell in love with the city and its people, and changed America through what they learned there.

By Jonathan Swift

The unusual voyages and travels of Englishman Lemuel Gulliver carry him to such strange locales as Lilliput, where the inhabitants are six inches tall; Brobdingnag, a land of giants; an island of sorcerers; and a nation ruled by horses. Beneath the surface of this enchanting fantasy lurks a devastating critique of human malevolence, stupidity, greed, vanity, and short-sightedness. It is a brilliant combination of adventure, humor, and philosophy.

By Jacob Tomsky

A veteran of the hospitality business uses humor and irreverence to describe working in the industry, coming clean on the housekeeping department, the unwritten code of bellhops and what really goes on in a valet parking garage.

By Andrew Carroll
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

“A fifty-state tour of lesser-known historical sites based on a campaign backed by “National Geographic” reveals the events that took place at near-forgotten locales (From the Publisher).”

By Terry Tempest Williams
Recommended By Brenda Cherry, Reference Librarian

To honor the centennial of the National Park Service, Williams writes a literary celebration of our national parks, what they mean to us, and what we mean to them. Through twelve carefully chosen parks, Williams creates a series of lyrical portraits that illuminate the unique grandeur of each place while delving into what it means to shape a landscape with its own evolutionary history into something of our own making. Part memoir, part natural history, and part social critique, The Hour of Land is a meditation and manifesto on why wild lands matter to the soul of America. Our national parks stand at the intersection of humanity and wildness, and there’s no one better than Williams to guide us there. Beautifully illustrated, with evocative black-and-white images by some of our finest photographers, The Hour of Land will be a collector’s item as well as a seminal work of environmental writing and criticism about some of America’s most treasured landmarks.

By Sarah Glidden
Recommended By Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian

“A graphic memoir chronicles the author's Israeli government sponsored trip through Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and Masada and a non-chaperoned trip into the West Bank (From the Publisher).”

By Bill Bryson
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

“...A book filled with hysterical scenes of one man's attempt to reacquaint himself with his own country, but it is also an extended, if at times bemused, love letter to the homeland he has returned to after twenty years away (From the Publisher).”

By Bill Bryson
Recommended By Brenda Cherry, Reference Librarian, Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

“Bryson shares accounts of his travels in Australia, which has the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest weather, and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife on the planet (From the Publisher).”

By Anand Giridharadas
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

“Reversing his parents' immigrant path, a young American-born writer returns to India and discovers an old country making itself new… (Giridharadas) paints an intimate portrait of a country becoming modern while striving to remain itself (From the Publisher).”

By Jon Krakauer
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian

The story of Chris McCandless, a young man who embarked on a solo journey into the wilds of Alaska and whose body was discovered four months later, explores the fascinating allure that the wilderness has for the American imagination.

Became the movie: Into the Wild.

By Elizabeth Bettina
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

Take a journey with the author as she discovers much to her surprise, that her grandparent's small village, nestled in the heart of southern Italy, housed an internment camp for Jews during the Holocaust, and that it was far from the only one.

By Sophie Cousens
Recommended By Donna Burger, Readers' Services Librarian

Arriving in the Channel Islands to write an article about her parents romance, hopeless romantic and lifestyle reporter Laura, after grabbing the wrong suitcase, discovers the owner is clearly her dream man as she sets out to find him, learning some hard truths along the way.

By Peggielene Bartels
Recommended By Megan Kass, Systems Manager

“King Peggy is the charming real-life fairy tale of an American secretary who discovers she has been chosen king of an impoverished fishing village on the west coast of Africa (From the Publisher).”

By David Sedaris

A collection of essays by the humorist author traces his offbeat world travel experiences, which involved surreal encounters with everything from French dentistry and Australian kookaburra eating habits to Beijing squat toilets and a wilderness Costco in North Carolina.

By Bruce Weber

“Based on his popular New York Times series, chronicles the author’s revelatory cross-country bicycle trip during the summer and fall of 2011 (From the Publisher).”

By Avi Steinberg

A witty travelogue through the landscapes associated with The Book of Mormon, it argues for taking it seriously as work of American storytelling.