Travel bestsellers

So often, Africa has been depicted simplistically as a uniform land of famines and safaris, poverty and strife, stripped of all nuance. In this bold and insightful book, Dipo Faloyin offers a much-needed corrective, weaving a vibrant tapestry of stories that bring to life Africa's rich diversity, communities, and histories.

Starting with an... Read more »

From Scratch

“I just finished wiping away my last tear as I close the curtain on From Scratch, a brilliant, compelling memoir. Tembi Locke lost her larger-than-life Italian chef husband at an early age to cancer. The book is a love letter to him as well as to enchanting Sicily and its aromatic, tantalizing food. But more than anything, it is the most memorable and thoughtful gift that her daughter will ever receive. I highly recommend the audio version which is read by the author. From Scratch is one of the best memoirs that I have ever read and one of my top five best books that I read this Summer.”

Melinda, Buttonwood Books and Toys

When Chef Anthony Bourdain wrote "Don't Eat Before You Read This" in The New Yorker, he spared no one's appetite, revealing what goes on behind the kitchen door. In Kitchen Confidential, he expanded the appetizer into a deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet that lays out his twenty-five years of sex, drugs, and haute cuisine.

From his... Read more »

Narrated by Brianna Madia

In this beautifully written, vividly detailed memoir, a young woman chronicles her adventures traveling across the deserts of the American West in an orange van named Bertha and reflects on an unconventional approach to life

A woman defined by motion, Brianna Madia bought a beat-up bright orange van, filled it with her...

Into Thin Air

“This is the book that began my fascination with epic disasters in cold, icy places. I guess I wanted to understand why people risk their lives for adventure or exploration, which I admit I still don’t understand after reading dozens of books like this. But I keep reading them, just as drawn into the snowy, freezing landscapes as the mindset of these men and women who choose to go to the ends (and tops) of the world. What drives them? How do they explain themselves to family? How do they feel afterwards? And, always, what is the truth? Is there a truth? After reading Into Thin Air, I read The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev, which is about the same disaster on Mt. Everest, but with a different point-of-view. Boukreev at times contradicts Krakauer’s story. (He died in 1997 in an avalanche while climbing Annapurna in Nepal.) There are also other accounts of this particular Everest disaster (many other disasters have taken place on Everest, and still do today), each as riveting as the last. ”

Sarah, Loganberry Books

World Travel

“There are not words for how much I miss the voice of Anthony Bourdain. A new collection of his writings put together with Laurie Woolever (his assistant for 10 years) details his favorite places on earth and with notes on how to visit them. As we prepare to travel as safely as possible again, it's comforting to have Bourdain as my companion if only in the brief and beautiful, irreverent and never-to-be-matched words he has left behind. ”

Kelly, Fountain Bookstore

This program is read by the author.

A front-of-the-house Kitchen Confidential from a career maître d’hotel who manned the front of the room in New York City's hottest and most in-demand restaurants.

From the glamorous to the entitled, from royalty to the financially ruined, everyone who wanted to be seen—or just to gawk—at the hottest restaurants...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • #1 Indie Next Pick • Winner of the PEN New England Award

“Enchanting…A book filled with so much love…Long before Oregon, Rinker Buck has convinced us that the best way to see America is from the seat of a covered wagon.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Amazing…A real nonfiction thriller.” —Ian Frazier, The New York... Read more »

A Month in Siena

“Matar wrote this book in between books. The one he had just finished, The Return (which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017), was a memoir of his attempt to discover the fate of his father, who was disappeared by the Libyan regime when Matar was a child, and so his month in this Italian city was intended as a respite. And it reads that way: not as a vacation, but as a chance for Matar to wander, in body and mind, a project for which the ancient walled city turns out, paradoxically, to be ideal. Drawn at first by his almost inexplicable longtime attraction to the paintings of the Sienese School, Matar turns out to be equally drawn to chance encounters with locals (often fellow outsiders like himself) and to the play of his thinking through days of near silence. It's a small book about a small city that opens the space for large thoughts.”

Tom, Phinney Books

An intimate journey across America, as told by one of its most beloved writers
 
To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck's goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years.

With Charley,... Read more »

A loving and hilarious—if occasionally spiky—valentine to Bill Bryson’s adopted country, Great Britain. Prepare for total joy and multiple episodes of unseemly laughter.

Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to discover and celebrate that green and pleasant land. The result was Notes from a Small Island, a true classic and... Read more »

The Feather Thief

“A fascinating true crime book, The Feather Thief recounts the theft of more than 200 bird skins from a museum in England. Along the way, Johnson also covers Darwin contemporary Alfred Russel Wallace's travels to acquire birds of paradise, the theory of evolution, and the decimation of bird species in the name of fashion. It is a book about obsession, from the fly-tying community's hunt for specific bird species to Johnson's own need for justice and closure after the case is resolved. This is a gripping, multifaceted book about our need to possess beauty in the name of historical authenticity.”

Anton Bogomazov, Politics & Prose

No one writes about mountaineering and its attendant victories and hardships more brilliantly than Jon Krakauer. . In this collection of thirteen of his finest essays and reporting – including the essay, “Is Yosemite Going To The Dogs” – Krakauer writes of mountains from the memorable perspective of one who has himself struggled with solo... Read more »

Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, sixty-seven-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. And in September 1955, atop Maine's... Read more »

Bestselling author and world-renowned chef David Lebovitz continues to mine the rich subject of his evolving ex-Pat life in Paris, using his perplexing experiences in apartment renovation as a launching point for stories about French culture, food, and what it means to revamp one's life. Includes dozens of new recipes.
 
When David Lebovitz... Read more »

The Outermost House is a classic of American nature literature.

In 1926, Henry Beston spent two weeks in a two-room cottage on the sand dunes of Cape Cod. He had not intended to stay longer, but, as he later wrote, "I lingered on, and as the year lengthened into autumn, the beauty and mystery of this earth and outer sea so possessed and held me...

Lisa Napoli was in the grip of a crisis, dissatisfied with her life and her work as a radio journalist. When a chance encounter with a handsome stranger presented her with an opportunity to move halfway around the world, Lisa left behind cosmopolitan Los Angeles for a new adventure in the ancient Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan—said to be one of the... Read more »

From the New York Times architecture critic, his celebrated walking tours of New York City, now expanded, covering four of the five boroughs and some 540 million years of history, accompanied by some of the people who know it best

As New York came to a halt with COVID, Michael Kimmelman composed an email to a group of architects, historians,... Read more »

Spotting danger before it happens is a skill that can be developed and may even save your life.

A mother dropping her teenager off at the mall, a young man leaving home for college, a family about to head out on their first trip overseas. What do all of these people...

National Bestseller

Essential lessons in hospitality for every business, from the former co-owner of legendary restaurant Eleven Madison Park.

Will Guidara was twenty-six when he took the helm of Eleven Madison Park, a struggling two-star brasserie that had never quite lived up to its majestic room. Eleven years later, EMP was named the best... Read more »

The Appalachian Trail trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America–majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you’re going to take a hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaining guide you’ll find. He introduces us to the history and...

Vacationland

“If you're already a fan of John Hodgman, then you know what to expect from Vacationland: wit that veers from gentle to biting, poignancy and hilarity, clear-eyed self-examination, peevishness and compassion. If you're new to his work, then you're in for a treat. Hodgman's newest book, based on material from his comedy tour of the same name, is hilarious, heartbreaking and charming. And the audiobook is an extra treat. Hodgman knows when he's being funny and when he's not, and his delivery and comic timing is never lacking. Enjoy Vacationland on your next road trip!”

Emily, Inklings Bookshop

“If you've been looking for something different to level up your health, fitness, and personal growth, this is it.”—Melissa Urban, Whole30 CEO and New York Times bestselling author

Discover the evolutionary mind and body benefits of living at the edges of your comfort zone and reconnecting with the wild.

In many ways, we’re more comfortable than... Read more »

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for... Read more »

“Wonderfully written…Mr. Owen writes about water, but in these polarized times the lessons he shares spill into other arenas. The world of water rights and wrongs along the Colorado River offers hope for other problems.” —Wall Street Journal

An eye-opening account of where our water comes from and where it all goes.

The Colorado River is an... Read more »

Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube

“The brilliant and engaging writing in this memoir belies the author's young age. Braverman offers a taut and honest recounting of a young woman fiercely chasing down her dream and confronting myriad dangers -- both natural and man-made -- with intelligence and grit. This white-knuckle read left me in awe of Braverman's conviction, and her lyrical rendering of the landscape of Alaska took my breath away.”

Katie McGrath, Arcadia Books

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The astonishing and hugely entertaining story that completely changed the way we run. An epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt?

“Equal parts quest, physiology treatise, and running history.... The climactic race reads like a sprint.... It simply makes you want to run.” —Outside... Read more »

Part travelogue, part culinary history, all capitalist critique—comedian Jamie Loftus's debut, Raw Dog, will take you on a cross-country road trip in the summer of 2021, and reveal what the creation, culture, and class influence of hot dogs says about America now.

Hot dogs. Poor people created them. Rich people found a way to charge fifteen...

From the acclaimed author of The Wild Places comes an engrossing exploration of walking and thinking.

In this exquisitely written book, Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge, England, home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads, and sea paths that crisscross both the British landscape and its waters and territories beyond....

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author

In recognition of her long and lauded career as a master essayist, a landmark collection including her most beloved pieces and some rarely seen work, rigorously curated by the author herself

“Annie Dillard’s books are like comets, like celestial events that remind us that the reality we inhabit is itself a celestial...

Oprah's Book Club 2.0 selection.

A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.
 
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon... Read more »

First audiobook of this new, unabridged translation of one of Verne's best-known novels.
The Mysterious Island was published in 1874, and it is one of Verne's longest novels. The plot depicts a group of men who have become castaways stranded on an island in the Pacific during the American Civil War. The novel describes their attempts not only to... Read more »

A transformational journey through Italy, India, and Bali searching for pleasure and devotion—the massive bestseller from the author of The Signature of All Things

This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the... Read more »

One incredible weekend in Maine, and Beckett Porter is officially a distracted man. He’s not unfamiliar with hot and heavy flings. He knows how it goes. But Evie wove some sort of magic over him during their tumble in the sheets. He can’t stop thinking about her laugh, her hand pressed flat against his chest, her smiling mouth at his neck, her... Read more »

“You can almost taste the food in Bill Buford’s Dirt, an engrossing, beautifully written memoir about his life as a cook in France.” —The Wall Street Journal

What does it take to master French cooking? This is the question that drives Bill Buford to abandon his perfectly happy life in New York City and pack up and (with a wife and three-year-old... Read more »

The Stranger in the Woods

“This is one heck of a very strange true story. When Christopher Knight was just 20 years old, he drove his car north towards Maine. When the car gave out, he began walking, carrying a tent and a few belongings, hiding in the woods, then finding a place that he liked in between some boulders. He made a camp, where he lived for almost three decades, without speaking to another human being. The winters were bitter cold and he set his watch to wake up and move so he wouldn’t freeze to death. He stole food and fuel (and books) from nearby cabins. He walked on stones and boulders so he wouldn’t leave footprints, and he buried all his trash. When he was finally arrested, the writer Michael Finkel became obsessed with Knight, going to visit him in prison, trying to understand why Finkle became a hermit and how he survived for so long. Knight finally told Finkel to stay away from him. The book is gripping, and the narrator, Mark Bramhall, tells us this story with a bare bones voice, simple and direct. This is a haunting and astonishing book.”

Sarah, Loganberry Books

A captivating exploration of beach resort culture—from its roots in fashionable society to its undervalued role in today’s world economy—as the industry approaches a climate reckoning.

With its promise of escape from the strains of everyday life, the beach has a hold on the popular imagination as the ultimate paradise. In The Last Resort, Sarah...

A Library Journal 2020 Title to Watch

"Terrific - and an amazing achievement to cover so much ground in such a short and wonderfully readable book." -Peter Frankopan, bestselling author of The Silk Roads
 
Russia’s epic and dramatic story told in an accessible, lively and short form, using the country's fascinating history to illuminate its... Read more »

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Travels with George . . . is quintessential Philbrick—a lively, courageous, and masterful achievement.” —The Boston Globe
 
Does George Washington still matter? Bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick argues for Washington’s unique contribution to the forging of America by retracing his journey as a new president through... Read more »

Chasing the Thrill

“This book makes you feel like you’re on an adventure! More than just a saga about one eccentric millionaire’s treasure hunt, Chasing the Thrill is a nuanced and highly addictive story about Forest Fenn, his now infamous hidden treasure, and all of the controversies, joys, and tragedies that ended up being irrevocably intertwined with it. Barbarisi deftly anchors his narrative with an unvarnished look at his own experiences hunting for Forest Fenn’s hidden riches, keeping the reader on the edge of their seat until the very last page.”

Lucile, Copperfish Books

A year and a half into our marriage, I found out my husband had been having an affair with a nineteen-year-old for six months. I filed for divorce and left.

Two weeks later I met a man, and we fell madly in love. It was a fairy-tale romance for a month and a half, and he convinced me to join him on a romantic month-long vacation in Italy.... Read more »

From the author of Some Girls Do and Hot Dog Girl comes a sweet and salty queer YA rom-com about two girls on a summer road trip in an ice cream truck.

Fallon is Type A, looks before she leaps, and always has a plan (and a backup plan).
 
Chloe is happy-go-lucky, flies by the seat of her pants, and always follows her bliss.
 
The two girls used to be... Read more »

From the #1 bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat and Facing the Mountain comes an unforgettable epic of family, tragedy, and survival on the American frontier

“An ideal pairing of talent and material.… Engrossing.… A deft and ambitious storyteller.” — Mary Roach, New York Times Book Review

In April of 1846, twenty-one-year-old Sarah Graves,...

The Sun Is a Compass

“The Sun is a Compass is a biologist’s candid journey of self discovery complete with aggressive bears, playful humpback whales, feisty hummingbirds and scolding chickadees. Heading into the most remote areas of Alaska and Canada, Caroline Van Hemert and her husband Pat rowed, rafted, hiked, skied and canoed 4000 miles from Bellingham, Washington to Kotzebue, Alaska. How do two people have such resilience to survive dangerous situations – unpredictable storms, the threat of an avalanche, swimming across a frigid Arctic river, and a depleting food supply? This memoir and others such as Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path, will compel you to observe and appreciate the healing forces of your own natural environment.”

Mindy, The River's End Bookstore

Bestselling travel writer Richard Grant “sensitively probes the complex and troubled history of the oldest city on the Mississippi River through the eyes of a cast of eccentric and unexpected characters” (Newsweek).

Natchez, Mississippi, once had more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in America, and its wealth was built on slavery and... Read more »

Anthony Bourdain's long time director and producer takes readers behind the scenes to reveal the insanity of filming television in some of the most volatile places in the world and what it was like to work with a legend.
 
In the nearly two years since Anthony Bourdain's death, no one else has come close to filling the void he left. His passion... Read more »

Following Atticus is the remarkable true story of a man and a dog embarking on the challenge of a lifetime. This is author Tom Ryan’s inspiring tale of how he and his miniature schnauzer companion, the “Little Buddha” Atticus M. Finch, attempted to scale all forty-eight of New Hampshire’s four thousand foot White Mountains twice in the dead of... Read more »

"Polished, poignant... an inspiring story of true love."—Entertainment Weekly

A BEST BOOK OF 2019, NPR's Book Concierge
SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BOOK AWARD
OVER 400,000 COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE

The true story of a couple who lost everything and embarked on a transformative journey walking the South West Coast Path in England

Just days after Raynor... Read more »

From the bestselling author of The Circle and What Is the What, the true story of a young Yemeni-American man, raised in San Francisco, who dreams of resurrecting the ancient art of Yemeni coffee but finds himself trapped in Sana'a by civil war.

Mokhtar Alkhanshali grew up in San Francisco, one of seven siblings brought up by Yemeni immigrants in... Read more »

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Trees, this guide to awakening your senses and engaging deeply with the forest is the perfect gift for hikers and walkers.

“This book will fast-track you into the joys of spending time amongst the trees.”—Tristan Gooley, author of The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs and How to...