Iron and Silk

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

My Life in France

Julia Child, Alex Prud'Homme · 344 pages

Julia Child singlehandedly created a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, but as she reveals in this bestselling memoir, she was not always a master chef. Indeed, when she first arrived in France in 1948 with her husband, Paul, who was to work for the USIS, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the coun

Angry White Pyjamas: A Scrawny Oxford Poet Takes Lessons from the Tokyo Riot Police

Robert Twigger · 320 pages

The Way of the Fight

Georges St-Pierre · 227 pages

UFC fighter, Georges "Rush" St. Pierre, shares the lessons he learned on his way to the top, in The Way of the Fight, revealing how he overcame bullying and injury to become an internationally celebrated athlete and champion.

Foreign Babes In Beijing: Behind The Scenes Of A New China

Rachel DeWoskin · 332 pages

Almost French: A New Life In Paris

Sarah Turnbull · 320 pages

A delightful, fresh twist on the travel memoir, Almost French takes us on a tour that is fraught with culture clashes but rife with deadpan humor. Sarah Turnbull's stint in Paris was only supposed to last a week. Chance had brought Sarah and Frederic together in Bucharest, and on impulse she decides to take him up on his offer to visit him in the world's most romantic city. Sacrificing Vegemite f

Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain

Lori L. Tharps · 206 pages

My Fight / Your Fight

Ronda Rousey, Maria Burns Ortiz · 313 pages

Ronda Rousey, the Olympic medalist in judo, reigning UFC women's bantamweight champion, and new Hollywood action hero, charts her difficult path to glory. Rousey's account of the toughest fights of her life -- in and outside the Octagon -- reveals the painful loss of her father when she was eight years old, the intensity of her judo training, her battles with love, her meteoric rise to fame, the s

A Pirate Looks at Fifty

Jimmy Buffett · 420 pages

Jungle: A Harrowing True Story of Survival

Yossi Ghinsberg · 320 pages

I Was Born There, I Was Born Here

Mourid Barghouti · 216 pages

In 2000 Mourid Barghouti published I Saw Ramallah, the acclaimed memoir that told of returning in 1996 to his Palestinian home for the first time since exile following the Six-Day War in 1967. I Was Born There, I Was Born Here takes up the story in 1998 when Barghouti returned to the Occupied Territories to introduce his Cairo-born son, Tamim, to his Palestinian family. Ironically, a few years lat

The Good Shufu: Finding Love, Self, and Home on the Far Side of the World

Tracy Slater · 323 pages

"In this memoir of travel and love, a fiercely independent American woman finds everything she ever wanted in the most unexpected place. Shufu. In Japanese it means "housewife," and it's the last thing Tracy Slater ever thought she'd call herself. A writer and academic, Tracy had carefully constructed a life she loved in her beloved hometown of Boston. But everything was upended when she fell head

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

South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914 - 1917

Ernest Shackleton · 375 pages

In 1911 Roald Amundsen beat Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole, and Scott and his colleagues all died on the return journey. Ernest Shackleton, who had served with Scott on a previous expedition, decided that crossing Antarctica from sea to sea was the last great unattempted journey on the continent. His Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-17 was a failure. But perhaps because it failed

The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind and Almost Found Myself on the Pacific Crest Trail

Dan White · 384 pages

The Pacific Crest Trail stretches from Mexico to Canada, a distance of 2,650 grueling, sun-scorched, bear-infested miles. When Dan White and his girlfriend announced their intention to hike it, Dan's parents—among others—thought they were nuts. How could two people who'd never even shared an apartment together survive six months in the desert with little more than a two-person tent and some trail

Eastern Approaches

Fitzroy MacLean · 576 pages

Eastern Approaches is Maclean's classic, gripping account of the sybaritic delights of diplomatic life, the thrill of remote travel in the then-forbidden zones of Central Asia, and the violence and adventure of world-changing tours in North Africa and Yugoslavia. Maclean is the original British action hero and this is blistering reading.

I Married Adventure: The Lives of Martin and Osa Johnson

Osa Johnson · 399 pages

The classic 1930s travel adventures of Osa and Martin Johnson as they photograph, and eventually film, their way through darkest Africa and the treacherous cannibal islands of the South Pacific.

Just a Little Run Around the World: 5 Years, 3 Packs of Wolves and 53 Pairs of Shoes

Rosie Swale Pope · 336 pages

After her husband died of cancer, 57-year-old Rosie set off to run around the world, raising money in memory of the man she loved. Followed by wolves, knocked down by a bus, confronted by bears, chased by a naked man with a gun and stranded with severe frostbite, Rosie's breathtaking 20,000-mile solo journey is as gripping as it is inspiring.Rosie's solo run around the world started out of sorrow

Skywalker--Close Encounters on the Appalachian trail

Bill Walker · 246 pages

Dove

Robin Lee Graham, Derek L.T. Gill · 199 pages

Setting out in his sloop Dove to encircle the globe, a sixteen-year-old boy finds adventure and romance.

Laughing Without an Accent: Adventures of an Iranian American, at Home and Abroad

Firoozeh Dumas · 240 pages

In the bestselling memoir Funny in Farsi, Firoozeh Dumas recounted her adventures growing up Iranian American in Southern California. Now she again mines her rich Persian heritage in Laughing Without an Accent, sharing stories both tender and humorous on being a citizen of the world, on her well-meaning family, and on amusing cultural conundrums, all told with insights into the universality of the

The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman's Journey to Love and Islam

G. Willow Wilson · 304 pages

Documents the author's conversion from all-American atheist to Islam, a journey marked by her decision to relocate to Cairo, romance with a passionate young Egyptian, and her efforts to balance the virtues of both cultures.

All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes

Maya Angelou · 240 pages

Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal

Conor Grennan · 308 pages

Little Princes is the epic story of Conor Grennan’s battle to save the lost children of Nepal and how he found himself in the process. Part Three Cups of Tea, part Into Thin Air, Grennan’s remarkable memoir is at once gripping and inspirational, and it carries us deep into an exotic world that most readers know little about.