Travel bestsellers

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

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 »

In the vein of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, a riveting work of narrative nonfiction centering on the unsolved disappearance of an American backpacker in India—one of at least two dozen tourists who have met a similar fate in the remote and storied Parvati Valley.

For centuries, India has enthralled westerners looking for an exotic getaway, a...

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...

From the #1 bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat 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, intent on a better...

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

Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their... 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 »

Winner of the National Book Award

This bestselling, groundbreaking exploration of the Far North is a classic of natural history, anthropology, and travel writing.

The Arctic is a perilous place. Only a few species of wild animals can survive its harsh climate. In this modern classic, Barry Lopez explores the many-faceted wonders of the Far North:... 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 »

For years, America's national parks have provided public breathing spaces in a world in which such spaces are steadily disappearing, which is why close to 300 million people visit the parks each year. Now, to honor the centennial of the National Park Service, Terry Tempest Williams, the author of the beloved memoir When Women Were Birds, returns... Read more »

From the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All Over but the Shoutin' and The Best Cook in the World, a collection of irresistible columns from Southern Living and Garden & Gun

Celebrated author and newspaper columnist Rick Bragg brings us an ode to the stories and history of the Deep South, filled with “eclectic nuggets about... Read more »

More than 40,000 listeners have enjoyed this story on cassette. Now anyone who's ever dreamed of getting away from it all can enjoy the charms and challenges of A Year in Provence on CD!
Peter Mayle and his wife had been to Provence as tourists. They had dreamed of one day trading the long, gray winters and damp summers of England for the blue...

Did Garibaldi do Italy a disservice when he helped its disparate parts achieve unity? Was the goal of political unification a mistake? These questions are asked and answered in a number of ways in this engaging, original consideration of the many histories that contribute to the brilliance—and weakness—of Italy today.

David Gilmour's... Read more »

When Pico Iyer decided to go to Kyoto and live in a monastery, he did so to learn about Zen Buddhism from the inside, to get to know Kyoto, one of the loveliest old cities in the world, and to find out something about Japanese culture today—not the world of businessmen and production lines, but the traditional world of changing seasons and the...

If you want to learn Chinese in less time while also enjoying yourself, then pay attention...

What is the best way to learn Chinese? We should remember how we learned our own language when we were children. If we could learn a second language in the same way, it would not seem so difficult. 

Think of what a child does; he or she listens to what...

In Old Man River, Paul Schneider tells the story of the river at the center of America's rich history—the Mississippi. Some fifteen thousand years ago, the majestic river provided Paleolithic humans with the routes by which early man began to explore the continent's interior. Since then, the river has been the site of historical significance,... Read more »

The Feather Thief

“The Feather Thief is true crime at its best — a tale starting with the Amazonian explorations of Darwin-era naturalists, rooted in the eccentric sensibilities of Victorian collectors, fueled by the obscure cult of fly-fishing tying, and culminating with a shocking 2009 British Museum heist by a shy American flautist. All of these elements are deftly brought together at a thriller’s pace by author Kirk Johnson, a veteran of the Iraqi reconstruction effort suffering from PTSD, who stumbles across the story while fly-fishing in New Mexico in 2011. I mean, you can’t make this stuff up.”

Keltie, Parnassus Books

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

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

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

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

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR:
THE NEW YORK TIMES • NPR • THE GUARDIAN

From pole to pole and across decades of lived experience, National Book Award-winning author Barry Lopez delivers his most far-ranging, yet personal, work to date. Horizon moves indelibly, immersively, through the author’s travels to six regions of the world: from Western... 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 »

“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 »

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

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 »

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 »

In Other Words

“Lahiri traces the origins, tribulations, and tiny victories that have fueled her decades-long courtship with the Italian language in a bilingual memoir that reads more like an intimate diary. The chapters and short stories offer a vivid timeline of Lahiri's turbulent relationship with language, bouncing around from English to Bengali during her childhood, immersing herself in the Italian culture by moving her family overseas, and finally attempting to write a book in a new voice. In Other Words is much more than an attempt -- at self-reflection and reinvention it's a mastery.”

Carly Lenz, Boswell Book Company

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 »

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 »

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.

The breakout book from "the funniest writer in America"--not to mention an official "Genius"--his first nonfiction collection ever.

George Saunders's... Read more »

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....

Exceeding expectations rather than simply satisfying them is the cornerstone of the Disney approach to customer service. Now, in honor of the tenth anniversary of the original Be Our Guest, the Disney Institute, which specializes in helping professionals see new possibilities through concepts not found in the typical workplace, is revealing even... Read more »

From the author of the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning #1 New York Times bestseller All the Light We Cannot See and Cloud Cuckoo Land, a "dazzling" (Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran) memoir about art and adventures in Rome.

Anthony Doerr has received many awards—from the New York Public Library, the National Endowment for the... Read more »

#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 classic from the Lone Star State, John Graves' Goodbye to a River is a poignant narrative of one man's journey by canoe down the river of his memories. Along the way, he describes the colorful Texas landscape and recounts its rich history. When Graves learns that the river he knew and loved as a youth-the Brazos in north-central Texas-is... Read more »

“My father didn’t need this walk, not the way I do. For him it would have been a fun way to spend some time with his son. He had, I begin to realize, a talent for living in the moment… Perhaps a pilgrimage would help me find happiness. Perhaps I could walk my way into a better frame of mind, and somehow along the road to Canterbury I would find... Read more »

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “With winning candor, Jedidiah Jenkins takes us with him as he bicycles across two continents and delves deeply into his own beautiful heart.”—Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things
 
On the eve of turning thirty, terrified of being funneled into a life he didn’t choose, Jedidiah Jenkins quit his dream... Read more »

For upper beginners of Japanese and higher.

Learn Japanese vocabulary while listening to the stories of Momotaro and Usagi to Kame (Tortoise and the Hare).

Both stories are presented in four ways:

1) Story read slowly

2) Story read line-by-line followed by vocabulary in Japanese and English

3) Story read normal speed

4) Finally, the story read in...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A riveting, adrenaline-fueled tour of a vast, lawless, and rampantly criminal world that few have ever seen: the high seas.

There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense... Read more »

When Michelle Damiani dreamed of living in Italy, she imagined her family as it was in Virginia—her husband filling every moment with work, her teenage son experimenting with sarcasm, her daughter smiling at the scent of lilacs, her baby-cheeked son methodically clicking Legos together, and herself hovering over the happiness of them all—only... Read more »

Love Is an Ex-Country

“Randa Jarrar’s intimate memoir is nothing short of monumental. Intelligent, tender, and lacerating in equal measure, Love Is an Ex-Country takes readers on a journey across the U.S., probing what it means to live fully in a hostile environment and contemplate survival in the face of erasure. Jarrar navigates the profound with a light touch and infuses every page with humor, insight, and defiance. Above all, this is a story of being: being corporeal, being of many places and no place, and being joyful — triumphantly.”

Nika Jonas, Books Are Magic

From the incomparable John Baxter, the bestselling author of The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, a sumptuous and definitive portrait of Paris through the seasons, highlighting the unique tastes, sights, and changing personality of the city in spring, summer, fall, and winter.

“A man with a great appreciation of what makes Paris tick.”—...

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 »

A grand mystery reaching back centuries. A sensational disappearance that made headlines around the world. A quest for truth that leads to death, madness or disappearance for those who seek to solve it. The Lost City of Z is a blockbuster adventure narrative about what lies beneath the impenetrable jungle canopy of the Amazon.

After stumbling... Read more »

*One of the 57 Most Anticipated Books Of 2021—Elle 

Shivering, exhausted, gasping for oxygen, beyond doubt . . .
 
A hundred-year mystery lured veteran climber Mark Synnott into an unlikely expedition up Mount Everest during the spring 2019 season that came to be known as “the Year Everest Broke.” What he found was a gripping human story of... Read more »

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 »

"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 »