Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year Final reflections on a happy life-from acclaimed historian Tony Judt. Tony Judt's The Memory Chalet is a memoir unlike any other. Each essay brings the smallest details of personal experience into the larger frame of history. Judt's youthful love of a London bus route becomes a reflection on public civility. Food and trains and smells all come alive as Judt takes us from the postwar London of his childhood through Paris, Prague, and points east to New York, where he found his home. Judt brings his moral clarity and wit to bear on everything from fast cars to radical politics and, finally, the devastating illness that took his life. This book, composed when Judt was paralyzed and unable physically to write, found its shape in the ordered rooms of a Swiss Chalet of the mind: a warm refuge in the closing darkness of his final years. Judt's book, Ill Fares the Land , republished in 2021 featuring a new preface by bestselling author of Between the World and Me and The Water Dancer , Ta-Nehisi Coates.

In an exhilarating tale of historic adventure, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Confederates in the Attic retraces the voyages of Captain James Cook, the Yorkshire farm boy who drew the map of the modern world Captain James Cook's three epic journeys in the 18th century were the last great voyages of discovery. His ships sailed 150,000 miles, from the Artic to the Antarctic, from Tasmania to Oregon, from Easter Island to Siberia. When Cook set off for the Pacific in 1768, a third of the globe remained blank. By the time he died in Hawaii in 1779, the map of the world was substantially complete. Tony Horwitz vividly recounts Cook's voyages and the exotic scenes the captain encountered: tropical orgies, taboo rituals, cannibal feasts, human sacrifice. He also relives Cook's adventures by following in the captain's wake to places such as Tahiti, Savage Island, and the Great Barrier Reef to discover Cook's embattled legacy in the present day. Signing on as a working crewman aboard a replica of Cook's vessel, Horwitz experiences the thrill and terror of sailing a tall ship. He also explores Cook the man: an impoverished farmboy who broke through the barriers of his class and time to become the greatest navigator in British history. By turns harrowing and hilarious, insightful and entertaining, BLUE LATITUDES brings to life a man whose voyages helped create the 'global village' we know today.

A profound rumination on the concept of freedom from the bestselling author of The Perfect Storm 'Sebastian Junger bears witness to a hard-won and an uncertain new world, framed in vital and brilliant prose: a true and honest accounting of everything that underlies the frantic performance of life' Philip Hoare, author of Albert and the Whale Throughout history, humans have been driven by the quest for two cherished ideals: community and freedom. The two don't coexist easily: we value individuality and self-reliance, yet are utterly dependent on community for our most basic needs. In this intricately crafted and thought-provoking book, Sebastian Junger examines this tension that lies at the heart of what it means to be human. For much of a year, Junger and three friends--a conflict photographer and two Afghan war vets--walked the railroad lines of the east coast. It was an experiment in personal autonomy, but also in interdependence. Dodging railroad cops, sleeping under bridges, cooking over fires and drinking from creeks and rivers, the four men forged a unique reliance on one another. In Freedom, Junger weaves his account of this journey together with primatology and boxing strategy, the role of women in resistance movements and apache renegrades, and the brutal reality of life on the Pennsylvania frontier. Written in exquisite, razor-sharp prose, the result is a powerful examination of the primary desire that defines us.

Rose's remarkable account follows the journey of Robert Fortune, a Scottish gardener, who was deployed by the British East India Company to steal China's tea secrets in 1848. This thrilling narrative combines history, geography, and old-fashioned adventure.

Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a trading route to China, and his unexpected landfall in the Americas, is a watershed event in world history. Yet Columbus made three more voyages within the span of only a decade, each designed to demonstrate that he could sail to China within a matter of weeks and convert those he found there to Christianity. These later voyages were even more adventurous, violent, and ambiguous, but they revealed Columbus's uncanny sense of the sea, his mingled brilliance and delusion, and his superb navigational skills. In all these exploits he almost never lost a sailor. By their conclusion, however, Columbus was broken in body and spirit. If the first voyage illustrates the rewards of exploration, the latter voyages illustrate the tragic costs, political, moral, and economic. In this book the author re-creates each of these adventures as well as the historical background of Columbus's celebrated, controversial career.

264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox: potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in the Tokyo apartment of his great uncle Iggie.

"A revelatory memoir of the author's efforts to develop the strength and resilience to survive in the demanding landscapes of Norway and Alaska describes her physically exhausting survival endeavors on a ruthless arctic tundra marked by violent natural and human threats."--NoveList.

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004, edited by Steven Pinker, is another "provocative and thoroughly enjoyable [collection] from start to finish" (Publishers Weekly). Here is the best and newest on science and nature: the psychology of suicide terrorism, desperate measures in surgery, the weird world of octopuses, Sex Week at Yale, the linguistics of click languages, the worst news about cloning, and much more.

"When Broad City star Abbi Jacobson announced that she planned to drive across the country alone, she was met with lots of questions and opinions. Why wasn't she going with friends? Wouldn't it be incredibly lonely? The North route is better! Was it safe for a woman? The Southern route is the way to go! You should bring mace! And a common one: Why? But Abbi had always found comfort in solitude and needed space to step back and hit the reset button. As she spent time in each city and town on her way to Los Angeles, she mulled over the big questions: What do I really want? What is the worst possible scenario in which I could run into my ex? How has the decision to wear my shirts tucked in been pivotal in my adulthood? In this collection of anecdotes, observations, and reflections, readers are in the passenger seat on a fun and ultimately inspiring journey."--Back cover

A collection of "first-rate frontline journalism" from the Spanish Civil War to US actions in Central America "by a woman singularly unafraid of guns" (Vanity Fair). For nearly sixty years, Martha Gellhorn's fearless war correspondence made her a leading journalistic voice of her generation. From the Spanish Civil War in 1937 through the Central American wars of the mid-eighties, Gellhorn's candid reporting reflected her deep empathy for people regardless of their political ideology. Collecting the best of Gellhorn's writing on foreign conflicts, and now with a new introduction by Lauren Elkin, The Face of War is a classic of frontline journalism by "the premier war correspondent of the twentieth century" (Ward Just, The New York Times Magazine ). Whether in Java, Finland, the Middle East, or Vietnam, she used the same vigorous approach. "I wrote very fast, as I had to," she says, "afraid that I would forget the exact sound, smell, words, gestures, which were special to this moment and this place." As Merle Rubin noted in his review of this volume for The Christian Science Monitor, "Martha Gellhorn's courageous, independent-minded reportage breaks through geopolitical abstractions and ideological propaganda to take the reader straight to the scene of the event."

"An intimate narrative history of porcelain, structured around five journeys through landscapes where porcelain was dreamed about, fired, refined, collected, and coveted"--

From the New York Times bestselling author of Walking the Bible and Abraham comes a revelatory journey across four continents and 4,000 years exploring how Adam and Eve introduced the idea of love into the world, and how they continue to shape our deepest feelings about relationships, family, and togetherness. Since antiquity, one story has stood at the center of every conversation about men and women. One couple has been the battleground for human relationships and sexual identity. That couple is Adam and Eve. Yet instead of celebrating them, history has blamed them for bringing sin, deceit, and death into the world. In this fresh retelling of their story, New York Times columnist and PBS host Bruce Feiler travels from the Garden of Eden in Iraq to the Sistine Chapel in Rome, from John Milton's London to Mae West's Hollywood, discovering how Adam and Eve should be hailed as exemplars of a long-term, healthy, resilient relationship. At a time of discord and fear over the strength of our social fabric, Feiler shows how history's first couple can again be role models for unity, forgiveness, and love. Containing all the humor, insight, and wisdom that have endeared Bruce Feiler to readers around the world, The First Love Story is an unforgettable journey that restores Adam and Eve to their rightful place as central figures in our culture's imagination and reminds us that even our most familiar stories still have the ability to surprise, inspire, and guide us today.

First time in paperback, with a new Introduction and final chapter World affairs expert and intrepid travel journalist Robert D. Kaplan braved the dangers of war-ravaged Afghanistan in the 1980s, living among the mujahidin—the “soldiers of god”—whose unwavering devotion to Islam fueled their mission to oust the formidable Soviet invaders. In Soldiers of God we follow Kaplan’s extraordinary journey and learn how the thwarted Soviet invasion gave rise to the ruthless Taliban and the defining international conflagration of the twenty-first century. Kaplan returns a decade later and brings to life a lawless frontier. What he reveals is astonishing: teeming refugee camps on the deeply contentious Pakistan-Afghanistan border; a war front that combines primitive fighters with the most technologically advanced weapons known to man; rigorous Islamic indoctrination academies; a land of minefields plagued by drought, fierce tribalism, insurmountable ethnic and religious divisions, an abysmal literacy rate, and legions of war orphans who seek stability in military brotherhood. Traveling alongside Islamic guerrilla fighters, sharing their food, observing their piety in the face of deprivation, and witnessing their determination, Kaplan offers a unique opportunity to increase our understanding of a people and a country that are at the center of world events.

"Hadley Freeman knew her grandmother Sara had lived in France, just as Hitler started to gain power in Europe, but rarely did anyone in her family talk about it. Until long after her grandmother's death, she found a shoebox tucked in a closet. In it was: a photograph of her grandmother with a mysterious stranger; a cryptic telegram from the Red Cross; and a drawing signed by Picasso. This discovery sent Freeman on a decade-long journey, as she tried to uncover the significance of these keepsakes. Her search took her from the Picasso archives in Paris to a secret room in a farmhouse in the Auvergne, from Long Island to Auschwitz. Here, Freeman pieces together the puzzle of her family's past. Sarah had three brothers: Jacques, Henri, and Alex. Their lives in France during the war--at times typical, at times remarkable--illustrates the broad range of experiences of Eastern European Jews. Jacques was one of the first to be arrested and sentenced to the concentration camps, where he died. He was on the same train as Irene Nemirovsky, the author of Suite Francaise. Henri hid in his apartment, and survived. He invented a microfilming machine that the resistance used to protect French secrets. Alex, a successful haute couture designer before the war, served in the French Legion. When he was arrested in 1943 and sent to Auschwitz, he pulled up the floorboards of the train, escaped, and was hidden by communists in the French countryside. He went on to become an influential gallerist, and a close friend of Picasso; the boy who began life in a ghetto ended his days living in the most expensive street in Paris. Sarah left for America. Freeman assumed her grandmother must have been thrilled to escape, but the truth was she was miserable-she'd been tricked by her brothers into leaving in the first place. This is a thrilling family saga, with extraordinary twists, vivid characters, and famous cameos. It describes the Jewish and immigrant experience, discussing issues like assimilation, identity and home-issues still relevant today"--

From the highly acclaimed author of Out of Egypt and Call Me by Your Name , a series of linked essays on memory by "the poet of disappointed love--and of the city" ( New York Times Book Review ). In these fourteen essays Andre Aciman, one of the most poignant stylists of his generation, dissects the experience of loss, moving from his forced departure from Alexandria as a teenager, though his brief stay in Europe and finally to the home he's made (and half invented) on Manhattan's Upper West Side. From False Papers : We remember not because we have something we wish to go back to, nor because memories are all we have. We remember because memory is our most intimate, most familiar gesture. Most people are convinced I love Alexandria. In truth, I love remembering Alexandria. For it is not Alexandria that is beautiful. Remembering is beautiful.

A zesty memoir of the celebrated writer's travels to England where she meets the cherished friends from 84, Charing Cross Road.

A celebration of her life-long love for New York, Hanff embarked on this project as an assignment, and realized she had not been to many of the main tourist attractions- the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, the World Trade Center. As make-believe tourists, off she and Patsy travel to describe the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grant's Tomb, Fraunces Tavern, some of New York's very special small museums, Orchard Street, a tour of Harlem, and much more. Hanff weaves in historical events and tidbits on some of New York's most notorious personalities.

"Sea and Sardinia" chronicles D.H. Lawrence's captivating journey through the island of Sardinia. Part travelogue, part autobiographical reflection, this evocative account offers a unique glimpse into the Mediterranean landscape and the author's personal experiences. Lawrence's observations paint a vivid portrait of the island's culture, people, and terrain, capturing the essence of his travels in Italy. This enduring work, originally published in 1921, showcases Lawrence's signature prose style, blending keen observation with introspective musings. Readers interested in travel literature and literary biography will appreciate this timeless exploration of a place and a writer's soul. Travel with D.H. Lawrence as he navigates the "Sea and Sardinia," and discover the beauty and complexities of this captivating island. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.