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In 1995, Iowa native Bill Bryson took a motoring trip around Britain to explore that green and pleasant land. The uproarious book that resulted, Notes from a Small Island, is one of the most acute portrayals of the United Kingdom ever written. Two decades later, Bryson—now a British citizen—set out again to rediscover his adopted country. In these pages, he follows a straight line through the island—from Bognor Regis to Cape Wrath—and shows...
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"In the vein of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, a riveting work of narrative nonfiction centering on the unsolved disappearance of an American backpacker in India--one of at least two dozen tourists who have met a similar fate in the remote and storied Parvati Valley. For centuries, India has enthralled westerners looking for an exotic getaway, a brief immersion in yoga and meditation, or in rare cases, a true pilgrimage to find spiritual revelation....
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Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out. This time in Australia.
His previous excursion along the Appalachian Trail resulted in the sublime national bestseller A Walk in the Woods. In A Sunburned Country is his report on what he found in an entirely different place: Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest,...
His previous excursion along the Appalachian Trail resulted in the sublime national bestseller A Walk in the Woods. In A Sunburned Country is his report on what he found in an entirely different place: Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest,...
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"On an autumn morning in 1849, Henry David Thoreau stepped out his front door to walk the beaches of Cape Cod. Over a century and a half later, Ben Shattuck does the same. With little more than a loaf of bread, brick of cheese, and a notebook, Shattuck sets out to retrace Thoreau's path through the Cape's outer beaches, from the elbow to Provincetown's fingertip. This is the first of six journeys taken by Shattuck, each one inspired by a walk once...
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[Lasell] Memoirs
Medfield Memoirs for Adults - Critically Acclaimed
SOM Challenge 3: Read a nature memoir or travelogue
Medfield Memoirs for Adults - Critically Acclaimed
SOM Challenge 3: Read a nature memoir or travelogue
Description
The story of a 1,100 mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe--and built her back up again.
In the wake of her mother's death, Strayed's family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. With nothing to lose, she made an impulsive decision: to hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State. And she would do it alone. This is...
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"The author retraces Frederick Law Olmsted's journey across the American South in the 1850s, on the eve of the Civil War. Olmsted roamed eleven states and six thousand miles, and the New York Times published his dispatches about slavery and its defenders. More than 150 years later, Tony Horwitz followed Olmsted's route, and whenever possible his mode of transport--rail, riverboats, in the saddle--through Appalachia, down the Ohio and Mississippi,...
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"Does George Washington still matter? The bestselling author argues for his unique contribution to the forging of America by retracing his journey as a new President through the former colonies, now an unsure nation. A new first-person voice for Philbrick, weaving history and personal reflection into one narrative. When George Washington became president in 1798, the United States of America was still a loose and quarrelsome confederation and a tentative...
10) On the road
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Based on his adventures with Neal Cassady, Kerouac tells the story of two friends, whose four cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Teeming with the rhythms of fifties underground America, jazz, illicit drugs, and the mystery and promise of the open road, Kerouac's novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be "Beat"--Adapted from publisher description
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After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve "the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century": what happened to British explorer Percy Fawcett. In 1925 Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization. For centuries Europeans believed the world's largest jungle concealed the glittering El Dorado. Thousands had died looking for it, leaving many convinced that the Amazon was...
13) Roughing it
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Mark Twain's ramblings took him all over the American West during the 1860s. He prospected for gold and silver, speculated on timber and mining stocks, sailed to Hawaii, and worked for a succession of small newspapers. This is his fictionalized account of these years, tall tales abound, as do sketches of the unforgettable characters he encountered.
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Thirty-five years ago, when "searching for America" was not yet the cliche it has since become, Steinbeck hit the highways with his French poodle, Charley. In a custom-built camper he named Rosinante after Don Quixote's steed, the two traveled the country--10,000 miles and 34 states. Their varied experiences comprise several slices of small-town back-roads Americana. Steinbeck laments the rise of plastic-covered everything, the vacuousness of "sad...
15) My year abroad
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"From the award-winning author of Native Speaker and On Such a Full Sea, a brilliant, exuberant and entertaining story of a young American whose life is transformed when a Chinese-American businessman suddenly takes him under his wing on a global adventure"--
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"America's northern border is the world's longest international boundary, yet it remains obscure even to Americans. The northern border was America's primary border for centuries--much of the early history of the United States took place there--and to the tens of millions who live and work near the line, the region even has its own name: the northland. Travel writer Porter Fox spent three years exploring 4,000 miles of the border between Maine and...
17) Captain Underpants and the revolting revenge of the radioactive robo-boxers: the tenth epic novel
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Captain Underpants volume 10
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George and Harold are forced to contemplate a world without Captain Underpants.
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"A stunning, revelatory memoir about a 330-mile walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City--an unforgettable pilgrimage to the heart of America across some of our oldest common ground. Neil King Jr's desire to walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City began as a whim and soon became an obsession. Determined to rediscover what matters in life and to see our national story with new eyes, Neil turned north with a small satchel on his back and one...
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With wit, heartwarming stories and a keen insight into new and exciting ways to see both the past and the future of the country, the actor, writer and woodworker takes a literary journey to America's frontier to celebrate the people and landscape that have made it great.
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The novel, published in 1974, uses a long motorcycle trip to frame a prolonged exploration of the world of ideas, about life and how best to live it. It references perspectives from Western and Eastern Civilizations as it explores the central question of the how to pursue technology so that human life is enriched rather than degraded. Narrated in the first person, it incorporates a parallel presentation of trip details and an ongoing retrospective...
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