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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 David Grann

Interweaves the story of British explorer Percy Fawcett, who vanished during a 1925 expedition into the Amazon, with the author's own quest to uncover the mysteries surrounding Fawcett's final journey and the secrets of what lies deep in the Amazon jungle.

By Jennifer Baggett

Three friends at a crossroads in their twenties quit their high pressure New York media jobs, leave their friends and everything familiar behind, and embark on a year-long backpacking adventure around the world.

By Elizabeth Bard
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

“In Paris for a weekend visit, Elizabeth Bard sat down to lunch with a handsome Frenchman—and never went home again… (From the Publisher).”

By Suketu Mehta

The diversity of life in the city of Bombay is explored through various social situations.

By Colin Pyle
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

"Brothers Colin and Ryan take us with them as they travel through the diverse and extraordinary landscapes of China, from its border with North Korea, to the ancient Muslin city of Kashgar, across the vast empty spaces of the Mongolian grasslands, over the mountains and into the monasteries of Tibet (From the Publisher)."

By Robert Kanigel
Recommended By Brenda Cherry, Reference Librarian

“Presents a tribute to Ireland’s Great Blasket Island and the people it has influenced, examining how its seaside culture was nearly untouched by time throughout the first half of the twentieth century (From the Publisher).”

By Isak Dinesen

In describing her experiences managing a coffee plantation in Kenya, the author provides insight into the nature of African life.

By Doreen Oriorn

This humorous tale involves a husband and wife as they set out to travel cross–country in a converted bus and the marvelous places they visit and the interesting people they encounter along the way.

By Candice Millard

Chronicles the 1914 expedition of Theodore Roosevelt into the unexplored heart of the Amazon basin to explore and map the region surrounding a tributary called the River of Doubt, detailing the perilous conditions they faced.

By Bill Bryson
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

A sequel to Notes From a Small Island stands as the author’s tribute to his adopted country of England and describes his riotous return visit two decades later to rediscover the country, its people and its culture.

By James Dodson

The author writes about his once–in–a–lifetime trip with his young son through the great cities of Europe and all the adventures that come their way.

By Saira Shah

The Storyteller's Daughter is the work of a confident yet modest and self-effacing woman who is drawn to danger and whose greatest desire is to understand her incompatible worlds of East and West.

By Paul Theroux

The journeys of Paul Theroux take place not only in exotic, unexpected places of the world but in the thoughts, reading, and emotions of the writer himself. A gathering of people, places, and ideas in fifty glittering pieces of gold.

By David Lebovitz

Like so many others, David Lebovitz dreamed about living in Paris ever since he first visited the city in the 1980s. Finally, after a nearly two-decade career as a pastry chef and cookbook author, he moved to Paris to start a new life. Having crammed all his worldly belongings into three suitcases, he arrived, hopes high, at his new apartment in the lively Bastille neighborhood. But he soon discovered it's a different world en France.

By Marlena de Blasi
Recommended By Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services

“A journalist, restaurant critic, and food consultant, de Blasi left her home, her grown children, and her job as a chef in St. Louis to marry Fernando, a Venetian she barely knew. In defiance of the cynics who think true love in middle age is crazy, her marriage flourished, as these two strangers made a life together (Library Journal).”

By John Steinbeck

Steinbeck records his emotions and experiences during a journey of rediscovery in his native land.

By Chelsea Handler
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian

In her latest hilarious book of essays, Chelsea Handler recounts her travel hijinks.

By Frances Mays

The author buys and restores an abandoned villa in the Tuscan countryside and brings the reader along as she discovers the beauty and simplicity of life in Italy.

By Bill Bryson
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

"A laugh-out-loud account of an outrageously rugged hike - by the beloved comic author of Lost Continent and Notes from a Small Island. Published on the 75th anniversary year of the Appalachian Trail (From the Publisher)."