When Keith Stapperpfennig and his family give their grandfather the trip of a lifetime an all expenses paid holiday to any destination in the world the eccentric old man arbitrarily chooses China, and he asks Keith to accompany him. But when Keith loses all the money for the journey at a casino, he goes into hiding mostly under his desk and his grandfather equally uninterested in actually traveling to China heads down the road to engage in a similar subterfuge. And it is here that the novel opens, two men in hiding, mere miles apart. But when his grandfather dies unexpectedly, Keith is left to continue the farce alone. With the aid of a guidebook, Keith writes a series of letters home to his brothers and sisters, detailing their imaginary travels and the bizarre sights they see. These start off harmlessly, but before long he starts adding invented details: non-stop dental hygiene shows on television, dog vaccinations at the post office and the letters get longer and longer. Engaging, strange, and ultimately moving, this hilarious novel from Tilman Rammstedt won him the prestigious Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2008 and confirmed him as one of Germany s most compelling writers.

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Each volume in the Go! Girl travel guides series is specifically designed with a special focus on health and safety for traveling women. Featuring full-color photos, illustrations, and maps, the Go! Girl guides all feature sections on Before You Go, culture and customs, volunteering, food and recipes, Q & A, and local language usage, all with an eye for overcoming the particular challenges that traveling women may face on their own in a foreign country. There are a million reasons to fall in love with Argentina, but traveling the country does not come without its challenges. Argentina is still firmly rooted in machismo culture, and it can be difficult for a woman's voice to be heard, especially in stressful situations. This book is for those times when everything feels much more complicated than it should be, for days when the locals offer 10 different directions to the grocery store, or when catcalls from lovestruck men happen at the most inopportune moments. Offering the combined experience of six trips to the large, meat-loving paradise, it provides sound advice on everything from riding the bus across the country to renting an apartment in Buenos Aires.

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What happens to a family of four when it travels over 18,000 miles in five weeks? In this nonfiction account the author's family follows in the century-old footsteps of writer Holly J. Pierce's grandmother Ruth Crapo taken during her six-month Grand Tour of Europe and beyond. While the Grand Tour was designed to educate and refine a 27-year-old young lady, this contemporary journey initially planned to be both one of connection with the past and a chance to strengthen family bonds turns into a hectic, often grimly humorous forced march. Based on the words of Grandmother Ruth's diary, the trek taken a century later comes to life through the candid words hastily scratched into the author and her daughters' diaries as the family scrambled to make connections with trains, ferries, metros and planes. How the whine of circular saws, pushy Italian futbol players and French onion soup serve to both tear apart and heal wounds and grievances among these four travelers make it a trip not to be missed.

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Personally researched, this guide to Italy includes recommendations of over 280 Places to Stay in Bed & Breakfasts, Apartments and Villas as well as Eight, Regional, Countryside Itineraries-everything the traveler needs to plan a memorable trip. From affordable to decadent, recommendations of where to stay include places to stay in Rome, Florence, Milan and Venice, and charming Bed and Breakfasts in small towns and villages throughout the countryside-over half have rates of €100 or less! The regional itineraries include suggestions for pacing, sightseeing and the most scenic routes. Experience this diverse and beautiful country by exploring Italy from "tip to toe": discover the romantic hilltowns of Tuscany, the beguiling back roads of Umbria, the scenic Lake District, the dramatic Amalfi Coast, the wonders of Sicily and the incredible culture and history of Rome, Venice, Florence and Milan. Karen Brown is pleased to publish her recommendations in electronic format. Enhanced with color photos, maps that link to interactive maps, direct website and email links-this E-book is a powerful travel tool and resource.

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Solo sailors are widely known to be a breed apart, and here's an unforgettable book that shows just how wide a berth they give themselves from the crowds. Several years ago, Miles Hordern, a schoolteacher by training-though he had run away to sea a few times before-set sail on a twenty-eight-foot boat from New Zealand to South America, the largest uninterrupted stretch of water on earth, and into the dominion of icebergs, cyclones, and swells of monumental proportions. The trip would take him through the fjords of Patagonia, one of the last uncharted areas in the world, then north on the Peru Current before he began his homeward voyage. Sailing the Pacific recounts that trip in prose so vivid you can almost feel the spray sting your face and the deck heave beneath your feet. Here is prose so hawser-taut that it takes you back to Conrad, Melville, and Poe, indeed all those writers whose works about the bounding main have launched countless imaginations. Hordern pauses to consider those who have gone before him, recounting the stories that have given life to this lonely and magisterial part of the world. Writers, adventurers, fictional characters, cartographers, doomed voyages from history's pages-from the Whaleship S.S. Essex to the HMS Bounty: the South Pacific drew them all, and in their way they left mark on its vast surface. Part sailing yarn, part adventure story, part homage to an unending but beckoning horizon, Sailing the Pacific will appeal to the sailor in each one of us, whatever the way we choose to answer the ocean's call.

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'We could always go overland now that we have wheels,' Ross had suggested out of the blue. I'd pulled out an atlas and we'd traced a route down through Africa via countries still marked with their colonial names. Only two strips of water interrupted the flow of land between Edinburgh and Chingola; the English Channel and the Straits of Gibraltar. Fourteen months had passed since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon so Africa couldn't be that difficult, could it? A month later we boarded the ferry for Calais. In 1970 newly-weds Ross and Sara set off, with extraordinary naivety and a lack of proper preparation, to drive from Edinburgh to Zambia in a standard saloon car. Appointment in Zambia is the story of their epic car journey. Sara was 21 (and could not drive) and Ross was 23 when they and their brand new Hillman Hunter (in 'Golden Sand', a colour chosen before they'd opted to drive through the Sahara.) started out. For eight weeks, in a trip of over 20 000 kms, they slept in the car, coped with illness and looked up the barrel of rifles from the wrong end. Apart from the car their only technology was a compass. Their journey encompassed the Sahara, where they had to dig themselves out of trouble with Tupperware containers. They also braved war-torn Biafra, navigated storm-wrecked roads through equatorial forests and traversed the main tributary of the Congo River (on a raft cobbled together with dug-out canoes by locals). They met lepers, pygmies, drunken officials, prostitutes and missionaries while their journey took them across 13 countries with widely different frontiers, customs, currencies and language before they reached Chingola - just in time for Ross to start his new job. Appointment in Zambia is a unique take on an epic journey - a young couple and their basic car travel acrosss Africa, not because they want to challenge themselves and prove something, but because they decide it's the best way to get to a new job in Zambia.

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First hand accounts of history are windows into the past. Imagine what it must have been like to live and travel in the northeastern corridor of the United States during the nation's formative years in the 1840's. Here are selections from two works written only four years apart during that decade, Dickens' American Notes and D. Appleton & Co.'s The American Guide Book. The juxtaposition of the Guide's observations to those of Dickens is a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The self-professed objective of the Guide's editors: "comprehensiveness with brevity being essential qualities for a work of this kind, all extraneous matter has been omitted, and it is hoped the work will be found to consist of all that is likely to be useful or interesting to travelers." Dickens is one of those travelers, but his coverage of the same areas is more idiosyncratic, and frequently observed with a comic eye unique to Dickens. What emerges between the two is a fascinating portrait of a new, growing nation. According to the Guide, "If they continue united [the States] they will then become the greatest nation in the world; and the most powerful of the states of Europe would rank as secondary to them." Dickens makes more opinionated observations. On the one hand he can be highly complimentary of the American character: "They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and affectionate. Cultivation and refinement seem but to enhance their warmth of heart and ardent enthusiasm; and it is the possession of these latter qualities in a most remarkable degree, which renders an educated American one of the most endearing and most generous of friends." He has problems, however, with Americans as well, their cleanliness, their boorishness, the muckraking, "licentious" nature of their Press, and, in particular, the odious institution of Slavery. Ultimately, Dickens' trip

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An award-winning author has created his most expansive work to date-a captivating family epic, a novel that moves effortlessly from past to present on its journey to the truth of how we grow out of, away from, and into our parents."Are we there yet?" It's the time-honored question of kids on a long family car trip-and Emil Czabek's children are no exception. Yet Em asks himself the same thing as the family travels to celebrate his parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary, and he wonders if he has escaped their wonderfully bad example. The midwestern drive is Em's occasion to recall the Czabek clan's amazing odyssey, one that sprawls through the second half of the twentieth century. It begins with his parents' wedding on the TV show It's Your Marriage, and careens from a suburban house built sideways by a drunken contractor to a farm meant to shelter the Czabeks from a country coming apart. It is the story of Em's father, Wally-diligent, distant, hard-drinking-and his attempts to please, protect, or simply placate his nervous, restless, and sensual wife, Susan, all in plain sight of the children they can't seem to stop having. As the tumultuous decades merge in his mind like the cars on the highway, Em must decide whether he should take away his parents' autonomy and place them in the Heartland Home for the Elders. Beside him, his wife, Dorie, a woman who has run both a triathlon and for public office, makes him question what he's inherited and whether he himself has become the responsible spouse of a drifting partner-especially since she's packing a diaphragm and he's had a vasectomy. Wildly comic and wrenchingly poignant, The Company Car is a special achievement, a book that drives through territory John Irving and Jonathan Franzen have made popular to arrive at a stunning destination all its own. From the Hardcover edition.

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A drug-fueled trip through the gruesome levels of Hell may sound like a fictional horror story to some, and since the traveler in question was movie distributor Stephen Biro, it could just as easily have been one of his film projects. But Stephen's experiences were the real, life-changing sort. They're also proof that the Lord does work in mysterious ways - extending all the way to squares of LSD and nitrous oxide cartridges. Armed with psychedelics, hallucinogenics and a brave desire to meet God no matter the personal cost, Stephen pushed beyond the boundaries of safe drug use. He took the most nightmarish of trips from a cramped one-bedroom apartment that he used for running his underground video business. With initial difficulty finding God in his altered state, Stephen instead encountered depravity and grotesquery enough to make his soul weep, but he pushed on. And if that wasn't bad enough, his Hellish experiences bled over into his waking days, and his friends and acquaintances began identifying themselves to him as Antichrists, deities and other assorted beings from "the other side." Reality was blurring and shifting, and Stephen was run utterly ragged. Could he fulfill his quest to learn universal truths before his extreme drug use took its toll Hellucination: A Memoir spares no disturbing detail of the unusual route that one man took to find Christ and the God of the Bible. The memoir also follows younger Stephen through his 1970s childhood and his bizarre early encounters with religion that drove him to Atheism."An utterly surreal memoir. I'd say it was 'mindbending,' but HELLUCINATION doesn't just bend your mind, it twists it, stretches it, stabs it, and tosses it on the grill!" - Jeff Strand, author of the upcoming book, "PRESSURE" and "WOLF HUNT" He's been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award in 2006, 2008, and 2010."HELLUCINATION takes the form of a page-turning memoir, combining personal trip reporting with science fiction, horror movie, and religious

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The walk from my apartment in Greenwich Village to my studio in Tribeca takes about twenty minutes, depending upon the route and whether I stop for a coffee and the Times. Invariably, though, it begins with a trip down the stairs. And so sets out architecture critic Michael Sorkin on his daily walk from his home in a Manhattan old-law-style tenement building. Sorkin has followed the same path for over fifteen years, a route that has allowed him to observe the startling transformations in New York during this period of great change. Twenty Minutes in Manhattan is his personal, anecdotal account of his casual encounters with the physical space and social dimensions of this unparalleled city. From the social gathering place of the city stoop to Washington Square Park, Sorkin's walk takes the reader on a wry, humorous journey past local characters, neighborhood stores and bodegas, landmark buildings, and overlooked streets. His perambulations offer him-and the reader-opportunities to not only engage with his surroundings but to consider a wide range of issues that fascinate Sorkin as an architect, urbanist, and New Yorker. Whether he is despairing at street garbage or marveling at elevator etiquette, Twenty Minutes in Manhattan offers a testing ground for his ideas of how the city can be newly imagined and designed, addressing such issues as the crisis of the environment, free expression and public space, historic preservation, and the future of the neighborhood as a concept. Inspired by Sorkin's close, attentive relationship to his beloved city, Twenty Minutes in Manhattan is in the end a valentine to the idea of the city that ultimately offers a practical set of solutions that are relevant to not only the preservation and improvement of New York but to urban environments everywhere.

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California, 1993: Neil Collins and Adam Tayler, two young British men on the cusp of adulthood, meet at a hostel in San Diego. They strike up a friendship that, while platonic, feels as intoxicating as a romance; they travel up the coast together, harmlessly competitive, innocently collusive, wrapped up in each other. On a camping trip to Yosemite they lead each other to behave in ways that, years later, they will desperately regret. The story of a friendship built on a shared guilt and a secret betrayal, The Faithful Couple follows Neil and Adam across two decades, through girlfriends and wives, success and failure, children and bereavements, as power and remorse ebb between them. Their bifurcating fates offer an oblique portrait of London in the boom-to-bust era of the nineties and noughties, with its instant fortunes and thwarted idealism. California binds them together, until-when the full truth of what happened emerges, bringing recriminations and revenge-it threatens to drive them apart. The Faithful Couple confirms Miller as one of the most exciting and sophisticated novelists in the UK - someone who can tell a great story, with a sense of serious moral complexity. This is that rare bird: a literary novel with mass appeal as well as the potential to win prizes.

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This is an e-guide to a 10 days trip in the land of the Etruscan, from Rome to Florence through Cerveteri, Civitavecchia, Tarquinia, Orbetello, Grosseto, Massa Marittima, Siena, Volterra and San Gimignano. It is ideal for use on your smart phone, it contains active links to the web sites of many Tripadvisor reviews for the best recommended restaurants that are at the location described. There are active links to the Tripadvisor review pages, you can use them if you have an active Internet connection, but, if you don't, you have the basic information ready: the name, address and telephone number are included in the guide. There is the possibility of making reservations for places where to stay: Hotels, Apartments, Farm Houses, Bed & Breakfasts, Condo Hotels and Country Houses. And of course there are extensive descriptions and photos of the attractions.

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An American soldier, Sergeant Abbey "McJack" finds herself recently widowed in the Iraqi war. Her life tour and her original career in aviation cut short. She had lost everything she held dear to her from the love of her life, to her ideals, her faith, and dealing with the world in general. Having no family of her own, her deceased husband's family already distant and mute, she is advised by a mutual friend and co-worker to take stock of her life and to take a trip abroad in order to find out what she wants to do with her new life. In her travels, she ends up in Ullapool finding the idyllic life much to her liking that she finds starting over much easier than she thought until she meets Gregory McGregor. For Greg, this new and attractive tourist piques his interest, though he is not the only one in the small town to notice her. He finds her weary from her tour of duty in the American-Iraqi war. He first assumes she is on military leave, for she barely talks about the past and keeps to herself on most occasions. In due time, he realizes they may have met before and is reminded of his promise for revenge. For she was the one to cost him nearly his life and for taking his brother's life, practically rendering his family apart. However, there was one small problem; he had become smitten with her. Did the faes of fate have a sick sense of humor or was God above to blame? Only time would tell, completing its full intricate weave on its circular path.

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When American author Stephen Markley was a fresh-faced, impressionable university student in Ohio, he saw Quentin Tarantino describe a trip he'd taken to Iceland. "Supermodels working at McDonald's," said Tarantino of the Icelandic. Markley never forgot those words. Seven years later, Markley set out with two friends for Iceland, and adventure would ensue. The three young men found a country straddling Europe and North America, recovering from its 2008 economic crisis, struggling to regain its national identity, influenced by the entire globe yet trafficking in its singular Icelandic sagas and legends. With Tales of Iceland, Markley delivers the fastest, funniest memoir and travelogue of an American experience in Iceland. Beware: You will NOT learn how to say "Which way to the potato farm" in the Icelandic language. Nor will you learn how to locate the finest dining options in Reykjavik, or the best opera house. This is not that kind of travel book. Markley and his two irrepressible twenty-something American pals do not like opera, had no money to eat much besides eggs and skyr, and learned only how to say "Skál!" "Takk," and "Skyr." The author of the growing cult classic Publish This Book, Markley dives headfirst into Icelandic history and culture while not ignoring all those weird stories found in the best travel writing: A road trip around the golden circle Partying in Reykjavík on National Day Drinking late into the night with gorgeous Icelandic women Hiking over pristine white glaciers featured in Game of Thrones Encountering a drunk, raging Kiefer Sutherland Crashing in the band Of Monsters and Men's old apartment Getting hit on by a Wiccan in the famed Blue Lagoon Searching for signs of Icelandic "hidden people" Interviewing Jón Gnarr, the actor-comedian who accidentally became the funniest mayor in the world (by vowing not to form a coalition government with anyone who hadn't watched all five seasons of The Wire) And countless oth

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What would compel a daily newspaper journalist, raised in an affluent family in the South, to abandon his career and embark on a spiritual odyssey that would take him, his wife, and young daughter to live among the Plain people of the prairies, the Hutterian Brethren? From 1995 to 2002, the author and his family gave up all claims to personal property, moved to Starland Colony in Minnesota, and joined the often contradictory Old World existence of the Hutterites, whose isolated farming communes stretch across the American Great Plains and the prairie provinces of Canada. In Nightwatch, the author explores the modern-day expression of Hutterianism, born amid the flames and persecution of the Reformation and transplanted in the 1870s from Russia to the western United States. This is a story not only of spiritual questioning, but an inquiry into what it is to be strangers among strangers, looking at the inner callings that bring people together, and in some cases drive them apart. Several months after we had moved to Starland, a period during which we had passed a long and dormant winter, seldom traveling because of the deep and smothering snow, I made a trip into the Twin Cities, about 80 miles away. Having lived so far from the rest of society, even for a few months, I felt a distinct anxiety when I found myself in downtown Minneapolis that first time, navigating the crowds and passing among buildings much taller than our colony's feed mill leg, which was the tallest object in all of Sibley County. An encounter with the homeless in Minneapolis, or the sight of a man and woman begging for money beneath an overpass while their small fire smoldered and snow drifted around them, filled me with despair and dread. Returning to our place that night, down the snow-streaked county roads, past gray dairies and mailboxes with Norwegian names, I sat in the minister's living room. I told him I was glad I had such a place to come home to, that we didn"t have to live like the people in the big evil cities. David Vetter looked at me a moment and said something I did not expect: Spoken like a true Pharisee, he said. You"ve only been here a few short months, and already you"re getting to be just like us.

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Take a trip to Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, where you'll meet the women of the Kauffman Amish Bakery in Lancaster County. As each woman's story unfolds, you will share in her heartaches, trials, joys, dreams … and secrets. You'll discover how the simplicity of the Amish lifestyle can clash with the "English" way of life-and the decisions and consequences that follow. Most importantly, you will be encouraged by the hope and faith of these women, and the importance they place on their families. Miriam Lapp, who left the Amish community of Bird-in-Hand three years ago, is heartbroken when her sister calls to reveal that her mother has died suddenly. Traveling home to Pennsylvania, she is forced to face the heartache from her past, including her rift from her family and the breakup of her engagement with Timothy Kauffman. Her past emotional wounds are reopened when her family rejects her once again and she finds out that Timothy is in a relationship with someone else. Miriam discovers that the rumors that broke them up three years ago were all lies. However, when Timothy proposes to his girlfriend and Miriam's father disowns her, Miriam returns to Indiana with her heart in shambles. When Miriam's father has a stroke, Miriam returns to Pennsylvania, where her world continues to fall apart, leaving her to question her place in the Amish community and her faith in God.

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Overworked computer programmer Zelda Richardson is teetering on the edge of burnout. Inspired by a girlfriend's trip around the world, she sublets her apartment in Seattle, Washington, buys a backpack and flies to Kathmandu as a volunteer English teacher - determined to make a difference and find herself whilst doing it. She can't wait to immerse herself in Nepalese life - wear a Sari, eat with her right hand and wipe with her left - but becomes overwhelmed by its foreignness. Despite the power outages, lack of running water and difficulty in learning the language, she sticks it out, wanting to prove to her friends and family - but mainly to herself - that she can survive without the luxuries of home. One distraction is the charming Ian, the sexy Australian backpacker whom she gets to know on arriving in Nepal. When her students laugh her out of the classroom and the headmaster publically humiliates her, Zelda flees to the tourist district of Thamel to drown her sorrows with Ian. What follows is every traveler's nightmare as they find themselves entangled with an international gang of smugglers who believe Ian and Zelda have stolen their diamonds. Can Zelda find a way to get the smugglers off their backs and her Nepalese students to respect her, before her time in Kathmandu is over?

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The success of the Victorian explorer and missionary David Livingstone's first book, Missionary Travels (1857), led to his receiving government funding in 1858 for an expedition up the Zambezi River. The trip was expected to last two years, and was intended to further commercial and scientific as well as missionary aims. However, owing to internal disagreements, illness (including the death of Livingstone's wife), drought and tribal warfare, the explorers" mission took six and a half years and achieved little apart from collecting plant and geological specimens. The upper reaches of the Zambesi proved unnavigable owing to rapids and waterfalls, and the expedition was recalled. This account, published in 1865 by Livingstone (1813-1873) and his younger brother Charles, who had accompanied him, was in part an attempt to excuse the problems which had beset the expedition, and restore Livingstone's reputation in order to gain backing for further ventures.

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'We could always go overland now that we have wheels,' Ross had suggested out of the blue. I'd pulled out an atlas and we'd traced a route down through Africa via countries still marked with their colonial names. Only two strips of water interrupted the flow of land between Edinburgh and Chingola; the English Channel and the Straits of Gibraltar. Fourteen months had passed since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon so Africa couldn't be that difficult, could it? A month later we boarded the ferry for Calais. In 1970 newly-weds Ross and Sara set off, with extraordinary naivety and a lack of proper preparation, to drive from Edinburgh to Zambia in a standard saloon car. Appointment in Zambia is the story of their epic car journey. Sara was 21 (and could not drive) and Ross was 23 when they and their brand new Hillman Hunter (in 'Golden Sand', a colour chosen before they'd opted to drive through the Sahara.) started out. For eight weeks, in a trip of over 20 000 kms, they slept in the car, coped with illness and looked up the barrel of rifles from the wrong end. Apart from the car their only technology was a compass. Their journey encompassed the Sahara, where they had to dig themselves out of trouble with Tupperware containers. They also braved war-torn Biafra, navigated storm-wrecked roads through equatorial forests and traversed the main tributary of the Congo River (on a raft cobbled together with dug-out canoes by locals). They met lepers, pygmies, drunken officials, prostitutes and missionaries while their journey took them across 13 countries with widely different frontiers, customs, currencies and language before they reached Chingola - just in time for Ross to start his new job. Appointment in Zambia is a unique take on an epic journey - a young couple and their basic car travel acrosss Africa, not because they want to challenge themselves and prove something, but because they decide it's the best way to get to a new job in Zambia.

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Armed only with a romantic soul and a 1973 guide to communist Czechoslovakia, Rachael Weiss heads off in search of adventure, love and her Bohemian roots in this funny, flippant and fabulous story of her year of living and loving in Prague. 'I tripped across the Charles Bridge just before first light, all alone apart from a sleepy pickpocket just clocking on for the morning shift, my heels clacking on the cobblestones, the early morning sky a beautiful deep blue.' Armed only with a romantic soul and a pressing need to escape her overbearing family, Rachael Weiss heads for Prague in search of her Bohemian roots, with vague plans to write the next great Australian novel and perhaps, just perhaps, fall madly in love with an exotic Czech man with high cheekbones. They make it seem so easy, those other women who write of uprooting themselves from everything they know, crossing the world and forming effortless friendships with strangers, despite not understanding a word they say, while reinventing themselves in beautiful European cities. So it's not surprising that Rachael is completely unprepared for the realities that confront her in her strange new world. Initially starry-eyed, she quickly has to grapple with perplexing plumbing, extraordinarily rude checkout chicks, and the near-incomprehensible Czech language. In this warm and witty tale of life in a foreign land, Rachael, somewhat to her own surprise, finds herself gradually creating a second home in Prague, complete with an eccentric and unlikely tribe of extended family and friends; and realises along the way that while she's been striving so hard to become someone else, she has inadvertently grown to rather like the person she has always been. Me, Myself + Prague is a sweet and surprising memoir of discovering hope, self, family and friendship, Czech-style.

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The never-before-told story of the journey behind THE BRONZE HORSEMAN From the author of the celebrated, internationally bestselling Bronze Horseman saga comes a glimpse into the private life of its much loved creator, and the real story behind the epic novels. Paullina Simons gives us a work of non-fiction as captivating and heart-wrenching as the lives of tatiana and Alexander. Only a few chapters into writing her first story set in Russia, her mother country, Paullina Simons travelled to Leningrad (now St Petersburg) with her beloved Papa. What began as a research trip turned into six days that forever changed her life, the course of her family, and the novel that became tHE BRONZE HORSEMAN. After a quarter-century away from her native land, Paullina and her father found a world trapped in yesteryear, with crumbling stucco buildings, entire families living in seven-square-meter communal apartments, and barren fields bombed so badly that nothing would grow there even fifty years later. And yet there were the spectacular white nights, the warm hospitality of family friends and, of course, the pelmeni and caviar. At times poignant, at times inspiring and funny, this is both a fascinating glimpse into the inspiration behind the epic saga, and a touching story of a family's history, a father and a daughter, and the fate of a nation.

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Fast-paced, entertaining, and a mystery-lover's treat." -John Clement, co-author of the Dixie Hemingway series Book a ticket with this all-new mystery series featuring Amy and Fanny Abel, a spunky mother-and-daughter duo of travel agents who find their mystery tour becoming all too real…While Fanny takes care of the business end of Amy's Travel in New York City, Amy is traipsing around Monte Carlo, managing their first mystery-themed excursion, a road rally in which guests compete to solve a fictional murder along the way. Amy still has reservations about partnering up with her mother. But both women, having lost the men in their lives, need a fresh beginning. The trip starts off without a hitch. Clues quickly mount, the competition is lively, and just when the suspense is peaking, the writer they hired to script their made-up mystery is found murdered in his New York apartment. Suddenly, on top of running a new venture together, mother and daughter must solve a real-life case of foul play, while trying not to drive each other bonkers. But Amy and Fanny are ready, willing, and Abel to track down a clever killer with some serious emotional baggage, one who will go to any lengths to keep dark secrets from seeing the light of day…

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Berlitz Handbook France is the ultimate practical, inspirational guide to beautiful country, with 304 pages combining authoritative narrative detail and stunning color photography. What sets the guide apart is the illuminating Unique Experiences section, packed full of practical advice on how to make the most of all the opportunities available to the visitor to France - from exploring the best vineyards and châteaux, heading out on a canal boat, or visiting the battlefields of the world wars. The guide starts with a rundown of France's Top 25 Attractions, ranging from the iconic Eiffel Tower to the perched villages of the Côte d"Azur. In the Trip Planner you'll find itineraries outlining suggestions for themed visits, whether you"re spending a week exploring Brittany's megalithic coast, ten days checking out the castles, coast and vineyards of Bordeaux, or two weeks following in the footsteps of Napoleon. The Places Section tackles each of France's regions in turn - starting with Paris then heading round the country, finishing our grand tour on the Mediterranean coast. Each chapter is color-coded for easy reference, and features everything you'll need to know about the sights and attractions in the area, as well as maps to help you get around, and carefully chosen listings of the best places to sleep, eat, drink, and get active. The Places section is interspersed with fully mapped tours, including walks round Montmartre in Paris and St Tropez on the Côte d"Azur, and Cultural Spreads that give a striking insight into an element of France's culture, from the châteaux of the Loire and Celtic heritage in Brittany to prehistoric cave art, and the catacombs and cemeteries in Paris. Further practical advice is provided in a chapter dedicated to accommodations, transportation, health and safety, money and budgeting, responsible travel, and family holidays. The Setting the Scene chapter is devoted to France's historical and cultural background, plus information on the country's cuisine. Finally, a handy 8-page Phrasebook section provides a wealth of language expertise for which the Berlitz brand is famous.

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A restless young woman thinks she's found a free ride to happiness and adventure. But it's a trip that may land her in prisonor worse. When Trudy Bell lands a job at a travel agency, she feels like a new woman. And her friendly personality soon wins her the adoration of her colleagueswith one exception. Ann Oliver, the only other African American employee, a high-level manager who despises Trudy's low-income background. But no one is going to ruin Trudy's new life. In fact, she's found a way to make it even better. As a secretary, Trudy has easy access to company credit cards. Including Ann's. Before long Trudy's leading a double-life Ann's lifecomplete with a secret apartment where she entertains the men she meets at upscale bars. But their worlds collide the night Trudy brings home the wrong manone who has an angry score to settle. With Ann. Now, unless Trudy can convince him she's not the woman he's after, she may pay the highest price of all. "Monroe serves up a tasty dish of murder, deception, lust, and just desserts."Library Journal on She Had it Coming"Monroe's richly drawn characters will stay with readers long after the book is finished."Booklist

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Fall in love with the powerful Viking warriors and ruggedly handsome Crusader knights of Miriam Minger's CAPTIVE BRIDES COLLECTION: Twin Passions, Captive Rose, and The Pagan's Prize! THE PAGAN'S PRIZE - The bold Viking warrior Rurik traveled alone on a mission of conquest. But along the way a golden-haired captive inflamed him with longing. He took up his sword to defend her…then swore to claim her for his own. A beautiful Russian princess betrayed by treachery, Zora spurned the powerful man who held her prisoner-and vowed never to yield. He had been sent as a spy to pave the way for her people's surrender. But his furious hunger for her heated touch-and her aching need for his burning caress-led to a fiery passion that was a greater prize than any kingdom. Best Medieval Historical Romance of the Year Award from Romantic Times "Another fine example of Ms. Minger's amazing talent. I thoroughly enjoyed it!" - New York Times bestselling author Johanna Lindsey "Brilliantly imaginative! The Pagan's Prize will totally engross the reader." - I'll Take Romance "Five stars. It is filled with rich detail that takes the reader on a rare trip to Russia in the eleventh century and is told so skillfully that the reader feels as if they have been there. The Pagan's Prize should be at the top of your shopping list!" - Affaire de Coeur "Outstanding! This is a well-written, moving story that shows the tremendous skill of the author. Marvelous barely describes my feelings." - Rendezvous About Miriam Minger ~ Known and loved for her lusty and adventurous stories that have captured the hearts of readers everywhere, Miriam Minger has earned rave reviews from Romantic Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and more who have praised her bestselling romance novels as "Brilliantly Imaginative," "A Marvelous Tapestry of Plots," and "Outstanding!" Miriam is also the author of Ripped Apart, an edge-of-your-seat "Absolute Gem of a Romantic Suspense Thriller!", and the fun Little

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Elizabeth Quan's father had made a success in the New World, but he longed for his home in China. So in the early 1920's, he and his family set out on an arduous trip to the far side of the world. By train, ship, ferry, cart, and on foot, Elizabeth, her parents, and her brothers and sisters set off from Toronto to a village in China to visit the grandmother they have never met. From the mountain of luggage to the whales breaching in the Pacific and geishas on wooden sandals on the cobbled streets of Yokohama, Elizabeth Quan describes sights that would captivate any child. But hers is also a journey of personal discovery. Did she fit in in Canada, where her straight dark hair and even the foods she ate set her apart? Would she fit in in China where she was just as different to the people she met? In the course of her family's travels she learns that home is a state of mind and that the moon can find us, no matter where we are. The rhythms of travel and the longing for connection are conveyed in lyrical text and lovely watercolors in a truly memorable book.

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Era was born to an aristocratic family as the Russian Revolution raged. She was two months old when they fled to one of the last open ports on the Black Sea where they boarded a ship bound for Constantinople. They left Russia wealthy, landed gentry and stepped off the boat refugees. Era spent her childhood in exotic Constantinople and the Turkish countryside. She went back to Russia with her mother and sister on two harrowing trips, the second time knowing they could never return. When World War II erupted, she travelled with her wealthy husband from Iran to Lebanon as the English pushed the Germans from the Middle East. When the Americans entered the war her world came apart and changed forever.

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At a time when Americans were so riveted by questions about their place in a newly hostile world and were swearing off air travel, Elinor Burkett did not just take a trip - she took a headlong dive into enemy territories. Her yearlong odyssey began with her assignment as a Fulbright Professor teaching journalism in Kyrgyzstan, a faded fragment of Soviet might in the heart of Central Asia - a place of dilapidated apartments, bizarre food, and demoralized citizens clinging to the safety of Brother Russia. She then journeyed to Afghanistan and Iraq - where she mingled with tense Iraqis, watching the gathering storm clouds of an American-led invasion - as well as Iran, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, China, and Vietnam. Whether she's writing about being served goat's head in a Kyrgyz yurt, checking out bowling alleys in Baghdad, or trying to cook a chicken in a crumbling apartment, Burkett offers an eclectic series of adventures that are alternately comical, poignant, and discomfiting.

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Carter Evans is founder and editor-in-chief of Astounding-a formerly popular spec fiction magazine currently in its death throes. Not only can he do nothing to save it, but stuck in a rathole apartment with few interpersonal connections, he can't seem to do much to rescue his future either. And certainly all the booze isn't helping. He snaps when he receives yet another terrible story submission from the mysterious writer J. Harper-and in a drunken haze, Carter sends Harper a rejection letter he soon regrets.J. Harper turns out to be John Harper, a sweet man who resembles a '50s movie star and claims to be an extraterrestrial. Despite John's delusions, Carter's apology quickly turns into something more as the two lonely men find a powerful connection. Inexplicably drawn to John, Carter invites him along on a road trip. But as they travel, Carter is in for some big surprises, some major heartbreak… and just maybe the promise of a good future after all.

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An award-winning author has created his most expansive work to date-a captivating family epic, a novel that moves effortlessly from past to present on its journey to the truth of how we grow out of, away from, and into our parents."Are we there yet?" It's the time-honored question of kids on a long family car trip-and Emil Czabek's children are no exception. Yet Em asks himself the same thing as the family travels to celebrate his parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary, and he wonders if he has escaped their wonderfully bad example. The midwestern drive is Em's occasion to recall the Czabek clan's amazing odyssey, one that sprawls through the second half of the twentieth century. It begins with his parents' wedding on the TV show It's Your Marriage, and careens from a suburban house built sideways by a drunken contractor to a farm meant to shelter the Czabeks from a country coming apart. It is the story of Em's father, Wally-diligent, distant, hard-drinking-and his attempts to please, protect, or simply placate his nervous, restless, and sensual wife, Susan, all in plain sight of the children they can't seem to stop having. As the tumultuous decades merge in his mind like the cars on the highway, Em must decide whether he should take away his parents' autonomy and place them in the Heartland Home for the Elders. Beside him, his wife, Dorie, a woman who has run both a triathlon and for public office, makes him question what he's inherited and whether he himself has become the responsible spouse of a drifting partner-especially since she's packing a diaphragm and he's had a vasectomy. Wildly comic and wrenchingly poignant, The Company Car is a special achievement, a book that drives through territory John Irving and Jonathan Franzen have made popular to arrive at a stunning destination all its own. From the Hardcover edition.

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