Travelogue Books

Set in a "world where time moves in more than one direction and no landscape holds steady for long," these essays are steeped in both American literary naturalism and environmental conservationism. John Lane offers geodes of clarity and beauty that are spiritual, philosophical, and autobiographical.

The book is divided into four themed sections: "Edges", "Field", "Home Territory", and "Family Wilderness". The essays are at times humorous and adventurous, but these essays also explore the human relationship to physical landscape, and many explore the landscape of the writer's consciousness. Lane becomes more than a recorder of landscape; he becomes a part of the landscape and, at times, the voice of the landscape itself.

In the closing essay, "Confluence: Pacolet River," Lane joins the resilience of our landscapes with the resilience of the human spirit. The essay has a spirit of hope and a sense of unknown possibilities. As Lane takes refuge in his home landscape, he finds space to reflect: "my history is adrift on it as surely as today I have drifted on the surface of this living stream."

John Lane witnesses the contradictions of our modern landscape and chooses to stir up conversations of national significance through these essays, while refraining from offering oversimplified solutions. Rather than advocating any type of political agenda, Lane sincerely models behaviors of inquiry, advocacy, and awareness in relation to our personal and physical landscapes.

John Lanes details into his daily life and his experiences are very well written in this novel. His collection of essays are interesting and enjoyable to read. The book was a pleasure to read, and I can not wait to pick up another copy hopefully very soon.

A loving and passionate collection of essays that leave the reader with intimate knowledge of a man who lives his life with intentionality and purose. Read slowly and thoughtfully, Waste Deep in Black Water reveals the many rewards of living with deep respect for community, landscape, ecosystems, people, and all living things. With generosity of spirit, John Lane leads readers to see that how he goes about his work, travels, and everyday activities is what enriches and brings meaning to life.

This book is a beautiful introduction to Tibetan culture and landscape and Buddhist beliefs and practices. It's left me longing to see Mount Kailas and the other sacred places he lovingly describes. I've since bought the author's more recent book, "Buddhist Reflections."

The author, Lama Anagarika Govinda, is an erudite and sophisticated buddhist who brings to life a land and a people who will hardly exist in their native Tibet much longer. For someone who wants to have a westener
explain the history, geography, art ,etc. of the "roof of the world" prior to the Chinese genocide, this is a wonderful guide. Of course there is a terrific description of buddhism in general and the specfic variety practised in Tibet. However, this may not be the best place to start. At least a basic knowledge of Tibet would be helpful, otherwise one could get mired down in so many strange names and concepts.

This is a wonderful insightful book on Tibet and Buddhism. It opened my mind even more to a different way of thinking and being.

As a student of the Overland experience and a resident near the original trail in Nevada County I was just fascinated by this wonderful account. I wholeheartedly recommend this book and have given it as a gift to other early West enthusiasts.

Edwin Bryant's work is a classic not only of overland travel in 1846 but also of life in early California during the same time period.
The Kentucky newspaperman's writing style approaches poetic composition. He was a keen observer of every minute detail on the trail and when in California:
Geography; Indians; weather; describing the many people along the route; river fordings; acting the part of doctor to the many ailing emigrants; traveling with the Donner party; he and a handful of men separating from the main wagon train in Fort Laramie to go it alone; the perils, mishaps, hazards and beauty of the trail; meeting several celebrated individuals including Joseph Walker, Fremont, Sublette, Hastings, Hudspeth and Kearney to mention a few.
When in California, Bryant walked right into the United States' conquest of California from Mexico. He was a volunteer in Fremont's army to thwart insurgents. These and other timely events are well depicted. Bryant's description of what happened in the horrific Donner party expedition are piercing.
This is an exceptional book and highly recommended for enthusiasts of the early west.

In his own words Bryant describes his life on a wagon train going to California from the East Coast. If Bryant had a fault, it was that he too descriptive of the trail and events on the trail! If this wasn't enough, he was a doctor of the day, well, in his words, "Almost a Doctor." He was going to California to complete his studies. Like any good intern, he kept notes of who he treated on the trail and how he treated them. Also, being a bachelor, he was invited by the father of an eligible daughter to travel with them, "to let nature run it's course." This book should be a text book on the high school or the collegiate level.

_Where the Earth Ends_ by John Harrison is an informative and entertaining travelogue and history of southernmost South America, mostly about the lands of Tierra del Fuego but also other areas of Chile as well as the author's travels to Antarctica and Juan Fernandez Island.

Harrison from an early age had wanted to visit this region of the world. His great-grandfather had sailed past the Horn in the great square-riggers, his grandfather sailed the Horn in steam and diesel, and the author himself had grown up reading accounts of the region, always wanting to "sail the waters of Coleridge's albatross and enter the watercolors' blue horizons and sit on Crusoe's imaginary shore."

The indigenous inhabitants of the region were of great interest to the author as he provided accounts of their long lost ways of life, stories of first contact with Europeans, and sale tales of his seeking out the last full-blooded members of various tribes or information on extinct groups. The reader will learn something about the Tehuelche Indians (the name literally meaning "people of the South"), a people who once lived in toldos (guanaco skin tents) and hunted not with bows or arrows but with bolas. They later became such excellent horseman that several brought home the top lassoing and riding prizes from the 1904 St Louis World Fair, beating American cowboys and South American gauchos. Another Indian group was the Yamana, who once lived in shelters made of branches and beech leaves along the shores of the straits. They ate great quantities of mussels, throwing the shells outside the door, moving the door around as the wind changed; eventually, circular middens of trash grew up and were colonized by various plants fond of the calcium-rich waste. These circles are common in the area.

Most Indian tribes seemed to have perished from disease and/or assimilation, but some were actively destroyed. The nomadic Selk'nam for instanced didn't build canoes or fish, but hunted guanaco. When the settlers came, drove off the guanaco, and brought in sheep, the Selk'nam hunted the sheep, and in turn the settlers hunted them. Bounties were placed on them, made on production of an Indian's ears.

Much of the history of the region revolved around shipwrecks and mutinies. At Puerto San Julian, Ferdinand Magellan had to contend with a mutiny in April of 1520, when three of his five ships came under the control of rebel officers. Fifty-eight years later, Francis Drake in the very same spot (some of Drake's men made souvenirs out of parts of Magellan's ship that were found) had to contend with his own mutiny. In between that time, twenty-one other ships had been unable to repeat Magellan's trip, either wrecking or being forced to return home, and many other ships wrecked in the centuries since then, several vividly described by the author.

Some ships were wrecked deliberately. Harrison visited the sunken hulk of a once great clipper ship. Once the _County of Peebles_ which under clouds of canvas could reach 14 knots even in light winds rounding the Horn, it was now a partially sunken ship and part of a pier. Square-rigged sailing ships remained in service long after steamships had replaced them throughout most of the world because it could take months to unload two or three thousand tons of cargo (chiefly copper ore at first but later nitrates, much of it the product of vast seabird colonies). As steamers could not afford to be idle so long, what finally put the sailing ships out of business was not it seems replacement by steam ships but rather the invention of methods to synthesize nitrates at home in Europe.

Not all disasters and sad tales involved ships. One story Harrison related was that of Captain Allen F. Gardiner, one of the first missionaries to attempt to work in the region and a "walking evangelical catastrophe...of a masochistic brand of religion." His 1850 mission plagued by hostile natives, lost supplies, storms, scurvy, and starvation, everyone on it died, leaving behind diary entries.

The author visited many of the cities and towns of the region. He spent a good deal of time in Ushuaia, Argentina which is billed as the southernmost city in the world, a city originally founded by missionaries. Another Feugian town he visited was that of Puerto Williams, the most southerly town in the world, founded in 1953 to help consolidate Chile's claims to Antarctic territory.

Interestingly, for many years the Chilean and Argentinean governments believed that the only way to settle the south was for convicts to build the town's infrastructure and for settlers to follow; Punta Arenas in 1842 was the first, which began with 600 convicts and prison guards. In 1851, there were 248 prisoners and families, 144 soldiers, and 44 free civilians. The next year new arrivals found ashes and skeletons, not a single survivor.

Harrison saw a great deal of wildlife on his trip. He visited a Chilean colony of Magellanic penguins, 130,000 strong, and interviewed a researcher who had been working with them for twelve years. On his way to Antarctica the author viewed wandering and black-browed albatrosses, various petrels (which he said were named after St. Peter because sailors saw them pattering on the water), Minke whales, and dolphins. While in Antarctica he saw Adelie and gentoo penguins, snowy sheathbills, and leopard and elephant seals among others.

The author spent some time considering the albatross that was shot in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem of the _Ancient Mariner_ and the one shot by a man by the name of Simon Hatley in 1726 (described in a book on the voyages of George Shelvocke around the world and a source of inspiration for Coleridge).

Another detective story the author related was the search for Elizabeth Island, a place discovered by Drake in 1578. For many years regarded as a lie or an erroneous report, later researchers determined that the island had been volcanic and had sunk beneath the waves.

In 1996 a former town planner took his first trip to Patagonia, an experience which would change his life and which was inspired by the earlier travels of a sailor great-grandfather. His exploration of the island where the real Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked and his discovery of native tribes, exploitation of native peoples and harsh environment comes to life in a 'you are there' adventure travel guide, a recommended pick for any who would visit the region from the comfort of an armchair.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

A thoughtful, informed and sometimes wry travel book, a welcome addition/update to Chatwin's "In Patagonia" and Wheeler's "Travels In a Thin Country."

Now in paperback for the first time, Wild Orchids Across North America: A Botanical Travelogue is offers detailed information concerning orchid biology, ecology, history, and conservation for nature lovers and gardeners alike. Full-color photographs throughout reveal the beauty of these wonderful flowers, making Wild Orchids Across North America a stunning visual treasury as well as a repository of information on all things orchid. The emotion that author and North American Native Orchid Alliance founding member Philip E. Keenan has for these captivating blossoms shows through in his exquisite attention to detail. Highly recommended especially for orchid lovers.

Memoirs and travelogues have long been a popular vehicle for sharing personal experiences on a wide variety of subjects. Most natural history tomes of this type are very general and have little specific information to generate vivid images for the reader. Not so with Philip Keenan's assemblage of more than two decades of traveling throughout most of North America in search of many of the wild orchids of that continent.

Keenan's descriptive prose is a fitting complement for his brilliant full-color images of wild orchids taken in situ from coast to coast. Having accompanied him on many of these forays I can say that each vignette or anecdote brings me back to the day of discovery! For those who have not been there, his photographs will give you a taste of what can be waiting for you.

Both the very rare and the frequent and familiar are treated with the same reverence and respect. For those who have lived in the Northeast the wide-spread pink lady's-slipper is still be to admired as much as the rapidly decreasing fairy-slipper. Keenan takes us to such diverse places as Newfoundland, Alaska (and its breathtaking Kodiak Island), the pinelands of New Jersey, and the open savannas of southeastern North Carolina. A few days in the 'sky islands' of southeastern Arizona yield several sought-after species. Although not a rabid 'life-lister' as are so many in various natural history fields, Keenan appreciates each new species and joins many of us in completing the study of all species within a genus.

This volume is both an excellent addition to the native orchidist's library or a perfect gift for anyone who appreciates nature. I can think of no other book on native orchids, or wildflowers in general, that would be as ideal as a first volume to intrigue and infect someone with an appreciation for the natural world around them. PMB

I have had the rare satisfaction of experiencing a manuscript about orchids that would be the envy of any writer on any subject, and a pictoral feast that certainly would put Keenan right up there as the Ansel Adams of orchids when it comes to photography.And somewhere up there Rachel Carson must be smiling down and thinking ,"Well done Mr. Keenan", for, like Carson, Keenan has great concern for our voyage through time on our spaceship earth and, in a most disarming manner, alerts us to our ecological responsibilities without being overbearing about it.This is not just about orchids - it's about life.

Vicki Kuyper artfully ties her physical journey to her spiritual journey in a series of 30 stories based on her vast travels around the world. She has an enjoyable conversational style of writing and shares her experiences with authenticity, humor and grace.

Short chapters in conversational style make this a perfect bedside read but is also applicable for personal devotions or a provocative small group study discussion. The word pictures of places you've never been make you feel on site and in awe. Perfect gift for anyone with a sense of adventure or desiring a deeper walk with God.

Vicki Kuyper's new book, "Wonderlust" is an engaging read! She takes us on her journey to places as ordinary as Colorado to the exotic locale of Assisi, Italy, to the horrific Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Along the way she shares with us her spiritual journeys, along with discussion questions for the reader.

I found her writing style to be very fluid and well-balanced between her description of each location and her spiritual awakening at each location. This book is a nice way to vicariously travel the world, and to deepen your walk with God at the same time.

Perfect gift for the traveler at heart!

Entertaining book by a world traveler with a heart. This book can get your Adrenalin up. It is definately worth reading at least twice. He manages to find good in almost everyone and everything.

Every fellow adventurer or traveler who enjoys a good read should read this book. How I envy his experiences and knowledge. Not only is the book very readable - in places it is hysterically funny - it is very educational. Once you start reading it, you will not be able to put it down. A Gem of a book!

You can go abroad as a tourist, a journalist, a long-term visitor, or as a traveller. Over parts of four decades, Charles Stickney traveled mainly on the cheap, even hitching, while proudly staying in places that most Americans would shun. "World Enough" records the strange, the unusual, as well as the prosaic and mundane. When we go someplace, what do we notice, what thoughts do we record, and what do we remember? He quotes Barbara Tuchman: " As individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record." An English professor, Stickney notes that poets write so often about such noncontent-
ments like unrequited love. Then he writes, "Sad to say, it really is lucky for regular folks that poets don't get laid as much as they'd like." This observation is central to his travels, because the reader is reliably informed whenever Stickney did or didn't get laid. And lucky for us regular folks, Stickney didn't get laid as much as he would have liked.
How has a place changed since the last time the author visited? How much have the times changed and how much has the author, himself, changed? Stickney goes the extra mile, so to speak, telling us not just what he saw, but how he felt. It would be fair to describe "World Enough" as a semi-autobiographical travel book. The writing is good and the writer is quite empathetic. Buy it.

It was an honor to contribute an essay to "The World Is a Kitchen," and the joy grows. Beyond the lovely essays and inspiring travel ideas, when I display this book at events, I'm always moved by the conversation it invokes, and the flood of feelings people share with me. Whether it is memories of their grandmother, the surprise of finding special recipes, or the insatiable desire to travel and really experience culture through food, people don't let go of this book.

I keep one copy in my kitchen, and one by my bed, an am transported to soulful kitchens every time I read it. And, as for so many other readers, the memories it stirs up bring joy to the soul.

Helen Gallagher, author Computer Ease

This book is wonderful. I bought it just before Christmas and in the little time available before the holiday read many of the essays and tasted the recipes in my mind. At Christmas, I set my mom and brother to work, and among the Christmas dinner dishes was Tarte Tartin, the Brazilian cod, tomatoes, pepper, and coconut milk dish, and the Japanese broiled eggplants--all from the book. Mother bruised and rolled eggplants and Brother cut apples and puff pastry and I chopped vegetables, and it was exactly the kind of cooking that is best--everybody cooking together.

Thank you Susan Brady and Michele Anna Jordan and TT. Everyone enjoyed the recipes--cooking and eating, and the essays are good reading.

Who doesn't love either food or travel? Traveler's Tales hits the jackpot with this new collection of stories to savor. What makes this collection different is the related recipes after each story and the fabulous resources at the end of the book for food related travel. The book itself is beautiful with an easy to follow and easy on the eye layout. The stories are literally from all over the world. And I love that these are NOT the ramblings of prefessional chefs. These are real people, some who know their way around a kitchen and some who clearly don't. But all have a great tale to tell and they all tell them in a way that will keep you reading and make you hungry. This book is the perfect gift for anyone who loves adventures in travel or in the kitchen!

The author really took me there with him in his experiences. This is an older book, and I wish there were something more current like it. I know that things have changed since it was written. Also, being a woman, I would wish for something similar from a woman's cultural perspective and reality.

This book is wonderful -- it paints a vivid picture of modern Sampi, of both the landscape and the people. As well as the bugs and mice and smoke and wind. It is full of rich details and captivating anecdotes. It is never dull, never dry, but always beautiful and human. I loved every page.

This is a well written account of a thoughtful outsider's experiences and observations of the Sami reindeer herders. Dr Beach participates in the culture and gains insights into Sami ways and the problems they encounter. A great story of the realities and hardships of a culture under great pressure to change their way of life. The author did his research in the field and it resulted in excellent data unobtainable through other methods. Very enjoyable reading, I recommend it highly to those interested in culture in the far north.

This is an amazingly realistic tale of former and modern Mexico and the US. I recommend it as a personal read or even as a text book on Mexican/American Studies. The New Author (new in writing not in life) has a talent to tell about his personal experiences and the reality of these countries. Great Buy!

Great book, covering economics and politics in Mexico during the period of 1988-1994 (president Carlos Salinas de Gortari). Without fear, it reveals many important facts previously unknown to the public. It as well deals with Mexican way of life and shows the causes of present situation in Mexico and possible solutions. New and innovative look at recent history of Mexico and its people. I personally recomend it to everyone who wants to understand the real face of Mexico and its people.

It is the exact truth about the Mexican peopl