Travelogues Books

If you've read "Row to Alaska By Wind & Oar" by Pete and Nancy Ashenfelter, you will enjoy this book more. It's the same place only in 1937 and rowed by a woman just out of college using a dugout canoe and oars. The book was only recently finished having been a lifetime project for the author. But it's full of really nice B&W photos of the journey and enough detail that if you were planning this trip it would give you an idea about where the dangerous water lies and the kind of things you might want to bring. A great armchair adventure.

In 1937 one Betty Carey embarked on the ultimate adventure, rowing from Puget sound Alaska by dugout canoe but her adventure didn't end there. Her explorations of the Inside Passage and adventures with loggers, lightkeepers, fishermen, missionaries and other residents recounted in Bijaboji: North To Alaska By Oar creates an astounding adventure story armchair readers won't want to miss.

This is simply one of the very best books written about the joy, adventure, contact and contemplation of water. I have dipped into it frequently and recommended it to many. And I have quoted it 8 times (few authors other than Thoreau were quoted more frequently) in my own recent book Deep Immersion: The Experience of Water (nominated for top environmental book of the year). Jerome's prose is wonderful and his stories engaging. He simply loves to get wet and would well understand Thoreau's maxim: "That part of you that is wettest is fullest of life" (quoted in Profitably Soaked: Thoreau's Engagement With Water, Green Frigate Books, 2003).

John Jerome has, in recent years, become one of my favorite writers thanks to his elegant and straightforward prose style. I ordered "Blue Rooms" the moment I heard it was out, and I was not disappointed. This is a terrific book.

"Blue Rooms" is about a lifelong love affair with water. From playing in the muddy San Marcos river as a boy, to kayaking the cold waters of Canadian lakes as a grown man, it seems Jerome has always been fascinated by water. Most of the earth's surface, he points out, is water. So is most of the human body.

What strikes me most about this book is the way in which Jerome takes a personal obsession and makes it understandable to his readers. By the end of the book I could have sworn I had a lifelong love affair with water, too, even though I'm a mediocre swimmer who lives in hills far from any large water source. Really, this is a terrific book. Go out and buy it. You won't be sorry.

Rosie ~ Thanks for a great book from one woman to another. This book NEVER gets boring. Now I only have to thank my dad for lending it to me!!

In September 1997 a woman by the name of Rosie Thomas set off in a modified Volvo with her co driver, Phil Bowen to take part in the re enactment of the first ever run International Motor Rally. Ms. Thomas has written this book about her very memorable LONG road trip. Along the way she hankers for a decent glass of wine in "dry" countries, argues with Phil and fantasizes about what kind of guy she would like Phil to be. The reader will cheer the two of them as they continue on their journey.One gem in this book is when Rosie gets to the stage where she can't face another meal of Chinese food and no doubt would like a good old American meal of steak and potatoes!!!You will feel like you are in the car with them on this momentous journey. This is a very well written book about a very long, but never boring journey by car.Well done Rosie and I salute you!!!

I loved this book - it's thoughtful, warm, and wise -- and it says so much about both the natural world and the human heart. I hightly recommend it!

Bringing the Mountain Home by SueEllen Campbell is a book to treat both your emotions and your senses. The book of essays is largely about the Colorado Rocky Mountains but also has some gems about an Africa sojourn. The essays are visceral, intelligent, personal, and universal. As she eloquently says in the book: "In fact, I realized I was taking two walks at once. One was intensely personal and immediate, my body, sense, memories moving through a specific and extraordinary place and moment. The other was shared, my own experience formed by my culture, by other, earlier visitors to wild places, by circumstances, attitudes, assumptions, words, even emotions I had no part in creating but had somehow absorbed into myself" (x).

I love the gentle humor (such as the time she finds her friends all enjoying a backpacking trip while she somehow ends up as cook and camp-person) and the keen observations. I grew up in this area, but Campbell has looked at it with such wonder and detail, I can hardly wait to open my eyes and look around me more carefully. She knows every wildflower, every animal, every path and the reader is inspired to hike with eyes and ears wide open. With chapters titled with elements such as desire, pristine, trudging, grandeur, and misery, she captures so much of the wilderness experience in its many facets. I feel the misery of paddling a canoe when those muscles ache as well as the glory of seeing wildflowers in full profusion in a mountain valley. Campbell perfectly describes the sudden urges to get out in the wilderness, and then fearlessly describes both the glories and glooms of those trips.

Campbell's writing is lyrical, enthusiastic, honest, sensory. She is a master of words and of wilderness. I relish reading and rereading this book of essays and will never go on an Alaskan backpacking trip without it.

This book is the perfect gift for a hiking friend or a city-bound person who is far from the wilds. I recommend it to Amazon readers without hesitation. You're in for a treat, and so are your friends.

Philip Marsden's book is a small masterpiece. It is poetic and evocative. He has a sharp sense of details. No wonder he has now written his first novel after a couple of travel books.
Trough his friendship with Zofia Illinski and access to her mother's letters, diaries etc he portrays a lost world, the upper classes in Poland and Belarus between the wars, and how their world is completely shattered by it.
The various personalities in the book are fascinating among them Zofia's mother who is an exceptional woman, strong, talented, beautiful and with a spirit that saves the family from extinction.
Marsden's journey together with Zofia to her childhood is very moving.
All in all this is a very good read. You don't have to be interested in Poland or in history and the likes. This book will interest and move you.

The language is so poetic and fluent, it hurls you away, lightly and fluffily to a different era; a world long gone and forgotten. It has something of an East European Gone With The Wind theme, only much more concise and fleetingly. I longed for more pages, a hundred more, fivehundred more, in this novel too timid and subdued somehow. Perfect script for a fullblown-no-expenses -spared Hollywood film!

I stumbled across this book accidentally while researching a book about Glen Canyon and Lake Powell. I started reading it in the library parking lot, and finished it the next night in bed, around two a.m.
I WOULD have finished the book the very same night I got it, except that Scott Thybony did such a terrific job of invoking the feeling of the outdoor West that I had to fill a backpack and take my wife on an unplanned desert camping trip.
"Burntwater" visits an amazing variety of my very favorite places in the West, and is full of interesting history, great stories, unique facts, and insightful observations. And the writing: the writing is superb. (Bats "flicker"!) I found this book to be every bit as good as Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire"--much more Zen-like, and much less preachy; a good description of the West is reason enough to protect the West--it doesn't always need an insane prophet to yell about it.
This book distills and bottles the spirit of the Four Corners states; read it in the West and you'll find yourself running outside to be a part of it; read it somewhere else, and you'll find yourself going crazy to get here.

Author Scott Thybony shares with readers his fascination with and love of the Four Corners region of the Southwest. Burntwater is a loosely joined series of descriptions of Thybony's travels to various locations within this sparsely populated region: the Grand Canyon, back country on the Navajo Reservation, the Goosenecks region of the San Juan River, northern New Mexico, and others. Scott's wandering narrative describes his experiences in each place, often involving travel companions or new found acquaintances and sometimes just himself. One moving chapter describes how he nearly died from dehydration in the Grand Canyon while hiking to the site of his brother's death in an airplane/helicopter collision.

This is a wonderful book filled with gentle descriptions of sometimes physically harsh locations and circumstances. Scott describes but does not judge and, unlike so many other authors, refrains from directing readers to specific emotions or thoughts. Those he leaves up to you. You can easily read this book's 117 pages in a single sitting, but the invitation to this marvelous part of the Southwest may result in a literary and even physical journey of discovery that can last a lifetime.

I actually phoned Richard Moses and he was gracious enough to speak with me. I told him how much I enjoyed reading his delightful book and felt as though I too went on a "'Round the World cruise!"

He is the consummate gentleman and it shows in his book. His writing is descriptive, humorous, and even educational.

Trust me, if you have a stressful job like me (stockbroker) it was such a joy to curl up in bed each night and "escape" to the high seas.

All I can say is, "Richard, please take ANOTHER trip and write again...SOON!!!!"

This author wasn't content with daydreaming. He actually signed on as a passenger to a freighter with a round-the-world itinerary, bringing socks, books, and his trusty popcorn popper. Mr. Moses records his trials and triumphs, his delight and disappointment, and his great joy throughout the long voyage. Traveling on a tramp freighter would be a grand adventure if you are gifted with Mr. Moses' flexibility and humor - if not, then with luck, someone like him will be on board to show you how it is done.
This is a gripping must-read. Don't miss the very last words of the book.

Canadian Summer is about the Mitchells' first, well, Canadian Summer. They rent a cabin, go exploring, fall off a boat, go exploring, meet the Jolicoers, go exploring, meet Mr. Magic, go exploring, get lost, go exploring, lose their dog, go exploring, help Peter with his wounded leg, go exploring, stop a forest fire, go exploring, throw a party, go exploring, get a new house, go exploring, and did I forget to mention that they went exploring?

Canadian Summer is a book that makes you count your blessings. Hilda VanStockum has become our family's favorite author. Her writing is magical. She draws you into the story so you feel as if you are a part of it.

Because of a job transfer and limited resources, the Mitchell family was forced to move to a rustic cabin in the mountains. The cabin was far from a town and they had no transportation. VanStockum makes us love the Mitchell family. We can feel their humiliation as they come into church, the first morning in a new town, all bedraggled or dirty for various reasons.

This book is a glimpse into family life with all of its ups and downs. When the book is finished you will feel a loss, but then you will appreciate the relatively easy life we all live due to modern conveniences.

I love Bill's art. He had a simple way of capturing the moment and beauty of the land, his land here in Canada. I'm so glad we've been able to see these marvellous paintings and sketches in a book format. In this way his work, which never gained him the notoriety he deserved while alive, allows us all to enjoy them around the world.

Bill Mason brings alive the Canadian wilderness in a way that I only imagined possible. The emotion in his paintings and words took me to the remote corners of canoe country like nothing short of being there would. The deep understanding that Mason had for the north country came out strongly in this book; so much so that I often found myself wandering into the corners of one of his paintings, remembering a trip to a similar lake, or waterfall, or wilderness escape. This is a MUST read for anyone who enjoys the outdoors

anyone who likes watching equestrian events, from the 'high life' of polo to the down and dirty racing action of a steeplechase in the country, should own a copy of capitol horse country. it's a guide of events around the capitol area, washington, maryland and virginia. you'll find out what to wear, what to bring, and most importantly, what to expect when you spend an enjoyable afternoon watching a top notch equestrian event. it's a must have book if you live in the capitol area....or if you love horses. the history is also fascinating. if you like this title, the author also wrote 'equal to the challenge' about the pioneering women in horse sports. give it to a young girl or woman and inspire them to reach new heights. great author and fascinating subjects.

anyone who likes watching equestrian events, from the 'high life' of polo to the down and dirty racing action of a steeplechase in the country, should own a copy of capitol horse country. it's a guide of events around the capitol area, washington, maryland and virginia. you'll find out what to wear, what to bring, and most importantly, what to expect when you spend an enjoyable afternoon watching a top notch equestrian event. it's a must have book if you live in the capitol area....or if you love horses. the history is also fascinating. if you like this title, the author also wrote 'equal to the challenge' about the pioneering women in horse sports. give it to a young girl or woman and inspire them to reach new heights. great author and fascinating subjects.