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Cities of Gold: A Journey Across the American Southwest
Douglas Preston · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe Oregon Trail: A New American Journey
Rinker Buck · 450 pages
Spanning 2,000 miles and traversing six states from Missouri to the Pacific Ocean, the Oregon Trail is the route that made America. In the fifteen years before the Civil War, when 400,000 pioneers used it to emigrate West, the trail united the coasts, doubled the size of the country, and laid the groundwork for the railroads. The trail years also solidified the American character: our plucky deter
On the Trail of Genghis Khan: An Epic Journey Through the Land of the Nomads
Tim Cope · 509 pages
"The relationship between man and horse on the Eurasian steppe gave rise to a succession of rich nomadic cultures. Among them were the Mongols of the thirteenth century--a small tribe, which, under the charismatic leadership of Genghis Khan, created the largest contiguous land empire in history. Inspired by the extraordinary life nomads lead, Tim Cope embarked on a journey that hadn't been success
Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses
Bruce Feiler · 488 pages
The author recounts his ten-thousand-mile journey across the Middle East in search of the roots of the Bible to discover whether it was an abstraction or a living, breathing entity.
In Patagonia
Bruce Chatwin · 250 pages
"An exhilarating look at a place that still retains the exotic mystery of a far-off, unseen land, Bruce Chatwin's exquisite account of his journey through Patagonia teems with evocative descriptions, remarkable bits of history, and unforgettable anecdotes. Fueled by an unmistakable lust for life and adventure and a singular gift for storytelling, Chatwin treks through "the uttermost part of the ea
Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia
Janet Wallach · 419 pages
Reared in the comfortable and privileged world of the "eminent Victorians," Gertrude Bell turned her back on convention and sought adventure in Arab lands. Traveling numerous times through the Syrian Desert and, at risk to her life, through the great Arabian desert of the Nejd - the last European to do so before the eruption of World War I - she wrote of her travels in widely acclaimed books. T
Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town
Paul Theroux · 494 pages
"A rich and insightful travel book in the tradition that made Paul Theroux's reputation, Dark Star Safari takes us the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, forgotten train, and rusting steamer. Theroux confronts delay, discomfort, bullets, and bad food while encountering a remarkable mix of places and people. Beginning in Cairo and ending in Cape Town, he goes on the ultimate safari to the true hea
Foreign Devils on the Silk Road
Peter Hopkirk · 258 pages
"In the 1950's one of the most commonly-asked questions in America was, Who Lost China? Well, comfortable as it might have been to pin the blame upon 'fellow travelers' or suchlike, the real answer may involve such names as Sven Hedin, Aurel Stein, von Le Coq, and Langdon Warner. And who, pray, were they? Merely individuals who in the name of science plundered China as the generals and merchants n
Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village
Elizabeth Warnock Fernea · 346 pages
Autobiographical account of two year's spent in a village of southern Iraq. The author accompanied her husband, who was doing anthropological research in the area.
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
Sahara
Michael Palin · 256 pages
Michael Palin's epic voyages have seen him circumnavigate the globe, travel from the North to the South Pole and circle the countries of the Pacific Ocean, but this was perhaps the greatest challenge yet: to cross the vast and merciless Sahara desert. As the journey unfolds, the Sahara reveals not the emptiness of endless sand dunes, but a huge and diverse range of cultures and landscapes and a lo
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Cheryl Strayed · 315 pages
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'd lost everything when her mother died young of cancer. Her family scattered in their grief, her marriage was soon destroyed, and slowly her life spun out of control. Four years after her mot
Wind, Sand, and Stars
Antoine de Saint-Exupery · 258 pages
English translation of "Terre des hommes". Autobiographical account of air travel, captures the grandeur, danger, and isolation of flight.
Arabian Sands
Wilfred Thesiger · 347 pages
Story of five years of travel with the nomad Arabs in the unknown deserts of Southern Arabia.
Come, Tell Me How You Live: An Archaeological Memoir
Agatha Christie Mallowan, Agatha Christie · 192 pages
Agatha Christie was already a celebrated writer of mysteries in 1930 when she married archaeologist Max Mallowan. She enthusiastically joined him on archaeological expeditions in the Middle East, providing backgrounds for novels and "everyday doings and happenings". Pre-war Syria years are remembered here, not chronologically, but in a cluster of vignettes about servants and aristocrats who pepper
The Road to Oxiana
Robert Byron · 292 pages
Of the journey by travel writer Robert Byron to the Middle East, this serves as a rare account of the architectural treasures of a region now innaccessible to most Western travellers, and a nostalgic look back at a more innocent time.
The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky
Ellen Meloy · 330 pages
In this invigorating mix of natural history and adventure, artist-naturalist Ellen Meloy uses turquoise--the color and the gem--to probe deeper into our profound human attachment to landscape. From the Sierra Nevada, the Mojave Desert, the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Bahamas to her home ground on the high plateaus and deep canyons of the Southwest, we journey with Meloy through vistas of both great
Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback (Vintage Departures)
Robyn Davidson · 280 pages
“I arrived in the Alice at five a.m. with a dog, six dollars and a small suitcase full of inappropriate clothes.... There are some moments in life that are like pivots around which your existence turns…” For Robyn Davidson, one of these moments comes at age twenty-seven in Alice Springs, a dodgy town at the frontier of the vast Australian desert. Davidson is intent on walking the 1,700 miles of
Danube: A Sentimental Journey from the Source to the Black Sea
Claudio Magris · 416 pages
Exploration Fawcett: Journey to the Lost City of Z
Percy Harrison Fawcett · 312 pages
Half Broke Horses
Jeannette Walls · 313 pages
It is 1970 in a small town in California. "Bean" Holladay is twelve and her sister, Liz, is fifteen when their artistic mother, Charlotte, takes off to find herself, leaving her girls enough money to last a month or two. When Bean returns from school one day and sees a police car outside the house, she and Liz decide to take the bus to Virginia, where their widowed Uncle Tinsley lives in the decay