Jul 01 2008
Staff Picks
Browse by Region:
World, Asia, Middle East, West & South Asia, Australia & Oceania, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Central America, & Caribbean, Polar Regions
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World
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Travelers’ Tales the Best Women’s Travel Writing
edited by Lucy McCauley, $13.56 (20% off $16.95)
From the Travelers’ Tales series. Told by women who traveled the earth to discover new places, people, and facets of themselves.
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Travels with Herodotus
by Ryszard Kapuscinski, $11.96 (20% off $14.95)
From the master of literary reportage whose acclaimed books include Shah of Shahs, The Emperor, and The Shadow of the Sun, an intimate account of his first youthful forays beyond the Iron Curtain.
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The Last Grain Race
by Eric Newby, $11.99 (20% off $14.99)
Newby’s spell-binding account of this time spent on the Moshulu’s last voyage in the Australian grain trade.
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Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century
written by Bruce Sterling & Alex Steffen, foreword by Al Gore, $15.96 (20% off $19.95)
Packed with the information, resources, and ideas that give readers the tools to make a difference.
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Disappearing Destinations
by Heather Hansen & Kimberly Lisagor, $12.76 (20% off $15.95)
A beautiful and memorable look at some of the most gorgeous endangered places on the planet.
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The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
by Pico Iyer, $19.20 (20% off $24.00)
An acclaimed observer of globalism and Buddhism considers the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s work and ideas as a politician, scientist, and philosopher.
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The Best American Travel Writing 2007
edited by Susan Orlean, $11.20 (20% off $14.00)
The twenty pieces in this year’s collection showcase the best travel writing from 2006.
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The 10 Best of Everything: An Ultimate Guide for Travelers
by National Geographic, $15.96 (20% off 19.95)
Studded with colorful illustrations, cosmopolitan sidebars, and savvy tips, as well as a wealth of options for getting there via land, sea, or air, this elegant and sophisticated book will awaken yearnings for exotic travel in readers everywhere.
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The Conde Nast Traveler Book of Unforgettable Journeys: Great Writers on Great Places
edited by Klara Glowczewska, $12.80 (20% off $16.00)
A collection of travel tales from some of todays finest writers.
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The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World
by Eric Weiner, $20.79 (20% off $25.99)
Eric Weiner takes readers on a whirlwind tour of countries that are quietly pursuing the most American of obsessions - the pursuit of happiness.
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Cartographia: Mapping Civilizations
by Vincent Virga, $48.00 (20% off $60.00)
Offers a stunning array of 200 of the most beautiful, important, and fascinating maps in existence, from the world’s largest cartographic collection, at the Library of Congress.
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Maps: Finding Our Place in the World
edited by James Akerman & Robert W. Karrow, $44.00 (20% off $55.00)
Maps from different time periods and a variety of cultures.
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Transit Maps of the World
written by Mark Ovenden, edited by Mike Ashworth, $20.00 (20% off $25.00)
The first and only comprehensive collection of historic and current maps of every rapid-transit system on earth.
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Asia
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Eaves of Heaven Life in Three Wars
by Andrew X. Pham, $19.96 (20% off $24.95)
The author of Catfish and Mandala recounts the story of his once wealthy father, Thong Van Pham, who lived through the French occupation of Indochina, the Japanese invasion during WWII, and the Vietnam War.
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Beijing Coma
by Ma Jian, $22.00 (20% off $27.50)
A powerful allegory of a rising China, racked by contradictions, and a seminal examination of the Tiananmen Square protests.
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When Asia Was the World
by Stewart Gordon, $20.80 (20% off $26.00)
While European intellectual, cultural, and commercial life stagnated during the early medieval period, Asia flourished as the wellspring of science, philosophy, and religion.
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Walking the Gobi: 16,000 Mile-Trek Across a Desert of Hope and Despair
by Helen Thayer, $19.16 (20% off $23.95)
At the age of 63, Helen Thayer fulfilled her lifelong dream of crossing Mongolia’s Gobi Desert
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The Forbidden City
by Geremie Barme, $15.96 (20% off $19.95)
The Forbidden City (Zijin Cheng) lying at the heart of Beijing formed the hub of the Celestial Empire for five centuries.
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The Man Who Loved China
by Simon Winchester, $22.36 (20% off $27.95)
Simon Winchester brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China
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Mao’s Last Revolution
by Michael Schoenhals & Roderick MacFarquhar, $15.96 (20% off $19.95)
In a masterly book, Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals explain why Mao launched the Cultural Revolution and show his Machiavellian role in masterminding it.
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Hiroshige: One Hundred Views of Edo
by Melanie Trede, $120.00 (20% off $150.00)
Hiroshige’s Edo: Masterful ukiyo-e woodblock prints of Tokyo in the mid-19th century.
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Middle East
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A Short Walk in Hindu Kush
by Eric Newby, $11.99 (20% off $14.99)
A frank and funny account of an ill-prepared Himalayan expedition from one of the world’s best-loved travel writers. Ranked 16th in the National Geographic Adventure magazine ranking for the Top 100 advendure books of all time. fate through one boy’s epic journey into the wild.
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Invisible Nation: How the Kurds Quest for Statehood Is Shaping Iraq
by Quil Lawrence, $20.76 (20% off $25.95)
Lawrence’s intimate and unflinching portrait of the Kurds and their heretofore quixotic quest offers a vital and original lens through which to contemplate the future of Iraq and the surrounding Middle East.
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Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace… One School at a Time
by Greg Mortenson, $12.00 (20% off $15.00)
The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban’s backyard.
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Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life
by Sari Nusseibeh, with Anthony David, $12.80 (20% off $16.00)
This autobiography brings rare depth and compassion to the story of the author’s country.
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Dreams and Shadows
by Robin Wright, $21.56 (20% off $26.95)
A magnificent reckoning with the changes engulfing the Middle East, by one of our greatest reporters.
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The Septembers of Shiraz
by Dalia Sofer, $11.16 (20% off $13.95)
In the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, Isaac Amin is arrested and wrongly accused of being a spy; his family must reconcile a new world of cruelty and chaos with the collapse of everything they have known.
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Persian Girls: A Memoir
by Nahid Rachlin, $11.96 (20% off $14.95)
Rachlin turns her sharp novelist’s eye on her own remarkable life.
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In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams
by Tahir Shah, $19.20 (20% off $24.00)
A dazzling treasury of traditional stories, gleaned from the heritage of “A Thousand and One Nights.”
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Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon
by Claudia Roden, $28.00 (20% off $35.00)
A beautiful cookbook filled with history, stories, and more than 150 recipes.
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Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean
by Ana Sortun, $27.96 (20% off $34.95)
Details the way certain spices complement one another and how they flavor other foods.
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West & South Asia, Australia & Oceania
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Unaccustomed Earth
by Jhumpa Lahiri, $20.00 (20% off $25.00)
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lahiri delivers eight dazzling stories that take readers from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life
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The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857
by William Dalrymple, $13.56 (20% off $16.95)
Dalrymple is the first to present an Indian perspective on the fall of Delhi.
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Planet India: How the Fastest Growing Democracy Is Transforming America and the World
by Mira Kamdar, $12.00 (20% off $15.00)
A lively exploration of America’s stake in India’s gambit to transform itself into a global powerhouse.
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Africa
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When a Crocodile Eats the Sun
by Peter Godwin, $11.6 (20% off $14.99)
Award winning author and journalist Peter Godwin writes with pathos and intimacy about Zimbabwe’s spiral into chaos and, along with it, his family’s steady collapse.
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In the Country Of Men
by Hisham Matar, $9.60 (15% off $12.00)
Set in Libya in 1979, the boy narrator learns about the roots of betrayal in a totalitarian society.
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Unbowed: A Memoir
by Wangari Maathai, $11.96 (20% off $14.95)
Maathai recounts her extraordinary life as a political activist, feminist, & environmentalist in Kenya.
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Monique and the Mango Rains
by Kris Holloway, $14.36 (20% off $17.95)
The true story of the life of a remarkable West African midwife.
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Knots
by Nuruddin Farah, $12.00(15% off $15.00)
After 20 years, a Somali woman returns home, intent on reclaiming a family house from a warlord.
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Europe
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Love and War in the Apennines
by Eric Newby, $10.36 (20% off $12.95)
An unforgettable record of his time as an escaped POW on the run in Italy in 1943 as the Nazis invaded from the North.
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A Small Place in Italy
by Eric Newby, $10.36 (20% off 12.95)
In 1967, Eric and Wanda Newby fulfilled a life-long dream when they bought a run-down farmhouse in northern Tuscany.
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God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215
by David Levering Lewis, $23.96 (20% off $29.95)
A panoramic history of Islamic culture in early Europe.
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Out Stealing Horses
by Per Petterson $11.90 (20% off $14.95)
A moving tale about the painful loss of innocence and of traditional ways of life that are gone forever.
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Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through Spain and Its Silent Past
by Giles Tremlett, $13.56 (20% off $16.95)
Tremlett unveils the tinderbox of disagreements that mark the country today.
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A Vineyard in Tuscany: A Wine Lover’s Dream
Ferenc Mate, $21.20 (20% off $24.95)
How the Mates converted an ancient friary and abandoned farm into a world-renowned winery.
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Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean
by John Julius Norwich, $16.00 (20% off $20.00)
A brilliant portrait of the intermingling of ancient conflicts and modern sensibilities.
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The Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal
by Peter Thomson, $23.96 (20% off $29.95)
Thomson’s pilgrimage to the world’s largest, deepest, & oldest lake, home to hundreds of unique creatures.
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My Life in France
by Julia Child, with Alex Prud’homme, $11.96 (20% off $14.95)
The delightful memoir of Julia’s years in Paris, Marseille, and Provence.
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House of Meetings
by Martin Amis, $11.96 (20% off $14.95)In this novel, Amis revisits the Soviet gulag, a subject he tackled in his 2002 book Koba the Dread.
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Italy, the Romagnoli Way: A Culinary Journey
by G. Franco Romagnoli, $19.96 (20% off $24.95)
Sharing the geography, history, and art of each region as well as the character of its people, the Romagnolis bring little-known Italy to life.
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We Always Had Paris…and Provence: A Scrapbook of Our Life in France
by Walter Wells & Patricia Wells, $21.56 (20% off $26.95)
Patricia Wells, long recognized as the leading American authority on French food, and her husband, Walter, live the life in France that many of us have often fantasized about.
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North America
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Last Fish Tale: The Fate of the Atlantic & Survival in Gloucester
by Mark Kurlansky, $20.00 (20% off $25.00)
Mark Kurlansky turns his attention to a disappearing way of life: fishing-how it has thrived in and defined one particular town for centuries, and what its imperiled future means for the rest of the world.
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Tuna: A Love Story
by Richard Ellis, $21.56 (20% off $26.95)
he author of “The Book of Sharks, Imagining Atlantis,” and “Encyclopedia of the Sea” turns his gaze to the tuna–one of the most highly evolved of marine animals and the source of some of the world’s most popular delicacies–now hovering on the brink of extinction.
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The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
by David Wroblewski, $20.76 (20% off $25.95)
This riveting saga of an American family in Wisconsin captures the deep and ancient alliance between humans and dogs, and the power of fate through one boy’s epic journey into the wild. 
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AIA Guide to Boston
by Michael Southworth & Susan Southworth, $23.96 (20% off $29.95)
The most comprehensive guide to Boston architecture ever published, this new edition documents the dramatic reorganization of the city by the Big Dig and other recent projects.
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Crescent City Cooking: Unforgettable Recipes from Susan Spicer’s New Orleans
by Susan Spicer, $28.00 (20% off $35.00)
One of New Orleans’ culinary stars marries Southern cooking with influences from around the world.
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The Iambics of Newfoundland: Notes from an Unknown Shore
by Robert Finch, $12.76 (20% off $15.95)
Finch explores the people, geography, and wildlife of a lovely but often dangerously inhospitable place.
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The Fabric of America
by Andro Linklater, $12.79 (20% off $15.99)
Relates in fascinating detail how the borders and boundaries that formed states and a nation inspired the sense of identity that has ever since been central to the American experiment.
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South America, Central America, & Caribbean
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The Savage Detectives
by Roberto Bolano, $12.00 (15% off $15.00)
The story of two modern-day Quixotes on a tragicomic quest through their darkening world.
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The Ministry of Special Cases
by Nathan Englander, $11.96 (20% off $14.95)
A Jewish family is caught up in Argentina’s “Dirty War.”
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A Sacred Landscape: The Search for Ancient Peru
by Hugh Thompson, $13.56 (20% off $16.95)
An encompassing vision of the complex cosmologies of pre-Columbian Andean civilizations.
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The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman’s Fight to Save the World’s Most Beautiful Bird
by Bruce Barcott, $20.80 (20% off $26.00)
Sharon Matola’s inspiring crusade to stop a multinational corporation in its tracks.
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Polar Regions
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The Last Polar Bear: Facing the Truth of a Warming World
by Steven Kazlowski, $31.96 (20% off $39.95)
places the reality of climate change in our hands. We see the plight of the polar bear, an indicator species already feeling the detrimental effects of our reliance on fossil fuels, as its icy habitat melts.
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Vanishing World: The Endangered Arctic
by Mireilla de la Lez, $32.00 (20% off $40.00)
A celebration of the wildlife that inhabits this harsh & unforgiving climate & a tale of global warming.
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