The Dead Ladies Project: Exiles, Expats, and Ex-Countries

All Roads Lead to Austen: A Yearlong Journey with Jane

Amy Elizabeth Smith · 367 pages

How successfully does the world of Jane Austen translate into Spanish? One intrepid author finds out in this literary exploration/travel memoir. On sabbatical, Austen devotee Smith embarked on a project to discuss Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma with reading groups in Latin America. Displaying the good cheer and wry humor befitting an Austenite (as opposed to, say, an Emily Bro

Travels with Herodotus

Ryszard Kapuscinski · 288 pages

From the renowned journalist comes this intimate account of his years in the field, traveling for the first time beyond the Iron Curtain to India, China, Ethiopia, and other exotic locales.In the 1950s, Ryszard Kapuscinski finished university in Poland and became a foreign correspondent, hoping to go abroad -- perhaps to Czechoslovakia. Instead, he was sent to India -- the first stop on a decades-

Imagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City

Anna Quindlen · 169 pages

Anna Quindlen first visited London from a chair in her suburban Philadelphia home--in one of her beloved childhood mystery novels. She has been back to London countless times since, through the pages of books and in person, and now, in Imagined London, she takes her own readers on a tour of this greatest of literary cities.While New York, Paris, and Dublin are also vividly portrayed in fiction, it

Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D. H. Lawrence

Geoff Dyer · 256 pages

Geoff Dyer wanted to write a book about D. H. Lawrence. He wanted, in fact, to write his 'Lawrence book'. The problem was Dyer didn't really know what his 'Lawrence book' would be, what form it would take, or even when he'd start writing it. He set out simply to explore and record his reactions - both as a reader, and as a writer himself. But, just as Lawrence's study of Thomas Hardy ended up bei

The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them

Elif Batuman · 297 pages

Literally and metaphorically following the footsteps of her favorite authors, Batuman searches for the answers to the big questions in the details of lived experience, combining fresh readings of the great Russians, from Pushkin to Platonov, with the sad and funny stories of the lives they continue to influence--including her own.

Around the World in Seventy-Two Days

Nellie Bly

Nelly Bly, inspired by Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days," sets out to break that book's record, starting her journey by visiting M. and Mme. Jules Verne in their home in France.

Bicycle Diaries

David Byrne · 303 pages

Since the early 1980s, renowned musician and visual artist David Byrne has been riding a bike as his principal means of transportation in New York City. Two decades ago, he discovered folding bikes and started taking them with him when traveling around the world. Byrne's choice was initially made out of convenience rather than political motivation, but the more cities he saw from his bicycle, the

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.

Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea

Kira Salak · 379 pages

Four Corners is Kira Salak's riveting account of her epic, solo jungle trek across the remote Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea—often called the last frontier of adventure travel. Traveling by dugout canoe and on foot, confronting the dangers and wonders of a largely untouched world, she became the first woman to traverse this remote country and write about it. A New York Times Notable Tra

The Braindead Megaphone

George Saunders · 257 pages

George Saunders's first foray into nonfiction is comprised of essays on literature, travel, and politics. At the core of this unique collection are Saunders's travel essays based on his trips to seek out the mysteries of the "Buddha Boy" of Nepal; to attempt to indulge in the extravagant pleasures of Dubai; and to join the exploits of the minutemen at the Mexican border. Saunders expertly navigate

Bad Feminist

Roxane Gay · 360 pages

A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. "Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink, all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once l

Roads To Mussoorie

Ruskin Bond · 125 pages

Anecdotes of the English author about his travels to Mussoorie, India.

Paris to the Moon

Adam Gopnik · 342 pages

Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafes, breathtaking facades around every corner--in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured the American imagination for as long as there have been Americans. In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York City for the urbane glamour of the City of Light.

Watermark

Joseph Brodsky · 135 pages

Heroines

Kate Zambreno · 309 pages

"On the last day of December, 2009 Kate Zambreno began a blog called Frances Farmer Is My Sister, arising from her obsession with the female modernists and her recent transplantation to Akron, Ohio, where her husband held a university job. Widely reposted, Zambreno's blog became an outlet for her highly informed and passionate rants about the fates of the modernist "wives and mistresses." In her b

Paris Was Ours: Thirty-Two Writers Reflect on the City of Light

Penelope Rowlands · 279 pages

Paris is “the world capital of memory and desire,” concludes one of the writers in this intimate and insightful collection of memoirs of the city. Living in Paris changed these writers forever. In thirty-two personal essays—more than half of which are here published for the first time—the writers describe how they were seduced by Paris and then began to see things differently. They came to writ

The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: An American Woman's Adventures in the Oldest City on Earth

Jennifer Steil · 352 pages

An Italian Education

Tim Parks · 352 pages

Paris, I Love You but You're Bringing Me Down

Rosecrans Baldwin · 304 pages

Book Lust to Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers

Nancy Pearl · 301 pages

Includes both nonfiction and fiction reading recommendations for armchair or "real" travelers. This librarian famous for reader's advisory covers places as diverse as Afghanistan, Appalachia, Arizona, Baltimore, Boston, Burma, Congo, Corfu, Detroit, England, Finland, the Galapagos, Guernica, Hawaii, Iceland, Iran, Ireland, Jordan, Korea, Law Vegas, Los Angeles, Maine, Malaysia, Martha's Vineyard,

Annapurna: A Woman's Place

Arlene Blum · 251 pages

This special new edition of Annapurna: A Woman's Place marks the twentieth anniversary of the American Women's Himalayan Expedition reaching the summit of Annapurna I. At 26,540 feet, it is considered one of the world's most challenging mountains to climb. It was on October 15, 1978, that two women and two Sherpas stood at last on the summit - but the celebration was short-lived, for two days late

The Art of Memoir

Mary Karr · 256 pages

Karr breaks down the key elements of great literary memoir, opening our concepts of memory and identity, and illuminating the cathartic power of reflecting on the past; anybody with an inner life or complicated history, whether writer or reader, will relate.

The Lost Art of Walking: The History, Science, and Literature of Pedestrianism

Geoff Nicholson · 282 pages

A fascinating, definitive, and very personal rumination on the history, science, philosophy, art, and literature of walking, by a skilled cultural commentator. Geoff Nicholson, author of Bleeding London and Sex Collectors, turns his eye to the intellectual and cultural history of that most common of activities — walking. This simple, omnipresent activity has inspired numerous subcultures, literary

Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris

A.J. Liebling · 185 pages

From an interview with thriller writer Jane Ciabattari on LitHub: *"In the restaurant on the Rue Saint-Augustin, M. Mirande would dazzle his juniors, French and American, by dispatching a lunch of raw Bayonne ham and fresh figs, a hot sausage in crust, spindles of filleted pike in a rich rose sauce Nantua, a leg of lamb larded with anchovies, artichokes on a pedestal of foie gras, and four or five