What’s in it
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorUnder the Tuscan Sun
Frances Mayes · 287 pages
Now in paperback, the #1 San Francisco Chronicle bestseller that is an enchanting and lyrical look at the life, the traditions, and the cuisine of Tuscany, in the spirit of Peter Mayle's *A Year in Provence*. Frances Mayes entered a wondrous new world when she began restoring an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. There were unexpected treasures at every turn: faded frescos b
Scribbling the Cat
Alexandra Fuller · 271 pages
With the same disarmingly unguarded prose that won her critical acclaim for Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller tells of her unusual friendship with "K"—a white African and veteran of the brutal, racially divided Rhodesian War. An engrossing and haunting tale of love, godliness, hate, war, and survival, Scribbling the Cat recounts the journey she makes with K into the lands that h
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
John Steinbeck · 256 pages
A quest across America, from the northernmost tip of Maine to California's Monterey Peninsula To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the tress, 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, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier
Thad Carhart
Thad Carhart never realized there was a gap in his life until he happened upon Desforges Pianos, a demure little shopfront in his Pairs neighborhood that seemed to want to hide rather than advertise its wares. Like Alice in Wonderland, he found his attempts to gain entry rebuffed at every turn. An accidental introduction finally opened the door to the quartier's oddest hangout, where locals -- f
A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (The Western Frontier Library Series)
Isabella L. Bird, Daniel J. Boorstin · 276 pages
The Curve of Time: The Classic Memoir of a Woman and Her Children Who Explored the Coastal Waters of the Pacific Northwest
M. Wylie Blanchet · 194 pages
A compendium of a young widow's summer travels among the islands and fjords of British Columbia with her five small children. The family lived and travelled on a small motor launch getting to know that remarkable coast and it's cast of characters starting in 1927. Her enchanting account has become a treasured local classic in B.C.
Extra Virgin: A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera, Where Every Month Is Enchanted
Annie Hawes · 345 pages
A small stone house deep among the olive groves of Liguria, going for the price of a dodgy second-hand car. Annie Hawes and her sister, on the spot by chance, have no plans whatsoever to move to the Italian Riviera but find naturally that it's an offer they can't refuse. The laugh is on the Foreign Females who discover that here amongst the hardcore olive farming folk their incompetence is positiv
The Road to Mecca
Muhammad Asad · 380 pages
This autobiographical work by one of Europe's best known convert to Islam gives us a rounded portrait of a man in search of adventure and truth. It is part spiritual autobiography, part summary of the author's intuitive insights into Islam and the Arabs, part an impressive travelogue. Punctuated with abundant adventure, moments of contemplation, colorful narrative, brilliant description and lively
Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland
Sarah Moss · 358 pages
Novelist Sarah Moss had a childhood dream of moving to Iceland, sustained by a wild summer there when she was nineteen. In 2009, she saw an advertisement for a job at the University of Iceland and applied on a whim, despite having two young children and a comfortable life in an English cathedral city. The resulting adventure was shaped by Iceland's economic collapse, which halved the value of her
The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca
Tahir Shah · 362 pages
Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
Anna Funder
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning
Laurie Lee · 192 pages
It was 1934 and a young man walked to London from the security of the Cotswolds to make his fortune. He was to live by playing the violin and by labouring on a London building site. Then, knowing one Spanish phrase, he decided to see Spain. For a year he tramped through a country in which the signs of impending civil war were clearly visible. Thirty years later Laurie Lee captured the atmosphere o
One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey
Sam Keith, Richard L. Proenneke · 223 pages
To live in a pristine land unchanged by man; to roam the wilderness through which few other humans have passed; to choose an idyllic site, cut trees, and build a log cabin; to be a self-sufficient craftsman, making what is needed from materials available; to be not at odds with the world, but content with one's own thoughts and company: thousands have had such dreams, but Richard Proenneke lived t
Istanbul: Memories and the City
Orhan Pamuk · 384 pages
A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share. With cinematic fluidit
The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese
Michael Paterniti · 349 pages
In the picturesque village of Guzma n, Spain, in a cave on the edge of town, there is a cramped limestone chamber known as "the telling room." This is where villagers have gathered for centuries to share their stories and secrets--usually accompanied by copious amounts of wine. It was here, in the summer of 2000, that Michael Paterniti found himself listening to a Spanish cheesemaker as he spun an
Last Days of the Bus Club
Chris Stewart · 270 pages
It's two decades since Chris Stewart moved to his farm on the wrong side of a river in the mountains of southern Spain and his daughter Chloe is preparing to fly the nest for university. In this latest, typically hilarious dispatch from El Valero we find Chris, now a local literary celebrity, using his fame to help his old sheep-shearing partner find work on a raucous road trip; cooking a TV lunch
Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout
Philip Connors · 251 pages
The author discusses his time spent ten thousand feet above ground as a fire lookout in a remote part of New Mexico, a job where he witnessed some of the most amazing phenomena nature has to offer.
M Train
Patti Smith · 288 pages
M Train is a journey through eighteen "stations." It begins in the tiny Greenwich Village cafâe where Smith goes every morning for black coffee, ruminates on the world as it is and the world as it was, and writes in her notebook. We then travel across a landscape of creative aspirations and inspirations: from Frida Kahlo's Casa Azul in Mexico, to a meeting of an Arctic explorer's society in Berlin
Mastering the Art of French Eating: Lessons in Food and Love from a Year in Paris
Ann Mah · 273 pages
When journalist Ann Mah’s diplomat husband is given a three-year assignment in Paris, Ann is overjoyed. A lifelong foodie and Francophile, she immediately begins plotting gastronomic adventures à deux. Then her husband is called away to Iraq on a year-long post—alone. Suddenly, Ann’s vision of a romantic sojourn in the City of Light is turned upside down. So, not unlike another diplomatic wife,
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
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
A Pig in Provence: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France
Georgeanne Brennan · 224 pages
Provence has always been a very special place for Georgeanne Brennan. She discovered it as a student in Aix and returned several years later with her husband and young daughter to buy a small farmhouse deep in the backcountry. Now, more than thirty years later, Brennan tells the vivid and fulfilling story of her life en Provence.