How to Walk a Puma: My (mis)adventures in South America

Overloaded Ark

Gerald Durrell · 238 pages

A Year in Provence

Peter Mayle · 207 pages

In this witty and warm-hearted account, Peter Mayle tells what it is like to realize a long-cherished dream and actually move into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in the remote country of the Lubéron with his wife and two large dogs. He endures January's frosty mistral as it comes howling down the Rhône Valley, discovers the secrets of goat racing through the middle of town, and delights in the glo

Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe

Bill Bryson · 272 pages

Bill Bryson's second, achingly funny book, retracing his own steps as a student backpacking through Europe, twenty years later.Bill Bryson's first travel book, The Lost Continent, was unanimously acclaimed as one of the funniest books in years. In Neither here Nor there he brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journe

I'll Never Be French (no matter what I do): Living in a Small Village in Brittany

Mark Greenside · 244 pages

Author and teacher Mark Greenside recounts his struggles to fit into the life of a small Celtic village in Brittany.

Backpacked: A Reluctant Trip Across Central America

Catherine Ryan Howard · 278 pages

Two Old Fools on a Camel: From Spain to Bahrain and Back Again

Victoria Twead · 315 pages

Karma Gone Bad: How I Learned to Love Mangos, Bollywood and Water Buffalo

Jenny Feldon · 321 pages

When Jenny's husband gets transferred to India for work, she looks forward to a new life filled with glamorous expat friends and exciting adventures. What she doesn't expect is endless bouts of food poisoning, buffalo in the streets, and crippling loneliness in one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Ten thousand miles away from home, Jenny struggles to fight off depression and a

The Reluctant Tuscan: How I Discovered My Inner Italian

Phil Doran · 306 pages

A Book Sense Pick for May 2005, this is the humorous tale of how the author moved— against his will and his better judgment—to Italy with his wife, only to rediscover himself, his marriage, and the importance of getting in touch with his inner Italian.After years of working on a string of sitcoms, Phil Doran found himself on the outside looking in. Just as he and his peers had replaced the older g

How Not to Travel the World: Adventures of a Disaster-Prone Backpacker

Lauren Juliff · 319 pages

I had no life experience, zero common sense and had never eaten rice. I suffered from debilitating anxiety, was battling an eating disorder and had just had my heart broken. I hoped by leaving to travel the world I would be able to heal myself. Instead, Lauren's travels were full of bad luck and near-death experiences. Over the space of a year, she was scammed and assaulted; lost teeth and swallow

A Piano in the Pyrenees

Tony Hawks · 336 pages

Inspired by breathtaking views and romantically dreaming of finding love in the mountains, Tony Hawks impulsively buys an idyllic house in the French Pyrenees. And here, he imagines, he will finally fulfil his childhood fantasy of mastering the piano, all the while overlooking spectacular views as the troubles of the world pass by unnoticed. Tony's hopelessly ill-prepared stumbling into the world

The Penguin Lessons

Tom Michell · 240 pages

"A unique and moving real-life story of the extraordinary bond between a young teacher and a penguin, this book will delight readers who loved Marley & Me, Dewey the Library Cat, The Good Good Pig, and any book by Jon Katz. In 1975, twenty-three-year-old Englishman Tom Michell follows his wanderlust to Argentina, where he becomes assistant master at a prestigious boarding school. But Michell's adv

Everything Is Going to Be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour

Rachel Shukert · 312 pages

Traveling from Vienna to Zurich to Amsterdam, Shukert bounces through complicated relationships, drunken mishaps, miscommunication, and the reality-adjusting culture shock that every twentysomething faces when sent off to negotiate "the real world."

The Motion of the Ocean: 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers, and a Woman's Search for the Meaning of Wife

Janna Cawrse Esarey

The Ridiculous Race: 26,000 Miles, 2 Guides, 1 Globe, No Airplanes

Steve Hely, Vali Chandrasekaran · 315 pages

Uganda Be Kidding Me

Chelsea Handler · 257 pages

In this uproarious collection, the author answers the most frequently asked traveler's questions, hot travel trips, and travel etiquette, none of which should be believed. Wherever she travels, one thing is certain: she always ends up in the land of the ridiculous. Now, in this uproarious collection, she sneaks her sharp wit through airport security and delivers her most absurd and hilarious stori

Tune in Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries

Tim Anderson

Our Hearts Were Young and Gay: An Unforgettable Comic Chronicle of Innocents Abroad in the 1920s

Cornelia Otis Skinner, Emily Kimbrough · 247 pages

Two ingenues "do the Continent" pre-WWII. Skinner takes us from the innocence of youth in the 1920s to the dawn of WWII, replete with all the faux pas and fiascoes you would expect from youth taking Europe on their own in the early part of the twentieth century when innocence still existed and innuendo was unheard of. A great read.

American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China

Matthew Polly · 359 pages

Growing up a ninety-pound weakling tormented by bullies, Matthew Polly dreamed of one day journeying to the Shaolin Temple in China to become a fighter like in his favorite 1970s TV series, Kung Fu. Later, Matthew decided to pursue this quixotic dream: he dropped out of Princeton to spend two years training with the legendary sect of monks who invented kung fu and Zen Buddhism. Expecting to find a

Dork Whore: My Travels Through Asia as a Twenty-Year-Old Pseudo-Virgin

Iris Bahr · 224 pages

Dave Gorman vs. the Rest of the World

Dave Gorman

Yoga Bitch: One Woman's Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment

Suzanne Morrison · 339 pages

"When Suzanne Morrison decides to travel to Bali for a two-month yoga retreat, she wants nothing more than to be transformed from a twenty-five-year-old with a crippling fear of death into her enchanting yoga teacher, Indra--a woman who seems to have found it all: love, self, and God. But things don't go quite as expected."--Page 4 of cover.

The Boat Who Wouldn't Float

Farley Mowat · 243 pages

Bleaker House: Chasing My Novel to the End of the World

Nell Stevens · 256 pages

Every Day Is a Holiday

George Mahood · 326 pages