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.

The bestselling author of The Architecture of Happiness and The Art of Travel spends a week at an airport in a wittily intriguing meditation on the "non-place" that he believes is the centre of our civilization. In the summer of 2009, Alain de Botton was invited by the owners of Heathrow airport to become their first ever writer-in-residence. Given unprecedented, unrestricted access to wander around one of the world's busiest airports, he met travellers from all over the globe, and spoke with everyone from baggage handlers to pilots, and senior executives to the airport chaplain. Based on these conversations he has produced this extraordinary meditation on the nature of travel, work, relationships, and our daily lives. Working with the renowned documentary photographer Richard Baker, he explores the magical and the mundane, and the interactions of travellers and workers all over this familiar but mysterious "non-place," which by definition we are eager to leave. Taking the reader through departures, "air-side," and the arrivals hall, de Botton shows with his usual combination of wit and wisdom that spending time in an airport can be more revealing than we might think.

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.

Adorno, Foucault, and the Critique of the West argues that critical theory continues to offer valuable resources for critique and contestation during this turbulent period in our history. To assess these resources, it examines the work of two of the twentieth century's more prominent social theorists: Theodor W. Adorno and Michel Foucault. Although Adorno was situated squarely in the Marxist tradition that Foucault would occasionally challenge, Cook demonstrates that their critiques of our current predicament are complementary in important respects. Among other things, they converge in their focus on the historical conditions economic in Adorno and political in Foucault that gave rise to the racist and authoritarian tendencies that continue to blight the West. But this book will also show that as Adorno and Foucault plumb the economic and political forces that have shaped our identities, they offer remarkably similar answers to the perennial question: What is to be done?

In 1993, Alan Rabinowitz, called "the Indiana Jones" of wildlife science by The New York Times , arrived for the first time in the country of Myanmar, known until 1989 as Burma, uncertain of what to expect. Working under the auspices of the Wildlife Conservation Society, his goal was to establish a wildlife research and conservation program and to survey the country's wildlife. He succeeded beyond all expectations, not only discovering a species of primitive deer completely new to science but also playing a vital role in the creation of Hkakabo Razi National Park, now one of Southeast Asia's largest protected areas. Beyond the Last Village takes the reader on a journey of exploration, danger, and discovery in this remote corner of the planet at the southeast edge of the Himalayas where tropical rain forest and snow-covered mountains meet. As we travel through this "lost world" -- a mysterious and forbidding region isolated by ancient geologic forces -- we meet the Rawang, a former slave group, the Taron, a solitary enclave of the world's only pygmies of Asian ancestry, and Myanmar Tibetans living in the furthest reaches of the mountains. We enter the territories of strange, majestic-looking beasts that few people have ever heard of and fewer have ever seen -- golden takin, red goral, blue sheep, black barking deer. The survival of these ancient species is now threatened, not by natural forces but by hunters with snares and crossbows, trading body parts for basic household necessities.The powerful landscape and unique people the author befriends help him come to grips with the traumas and difficulties of his past and emerge a man ready to embrace the world anew. Interwoven with his scientific expedition in Myanmar, and helping to inform his understanding of the people he met and the situations he encountered, is this more personal journey of discovery.

Sensuous, exotic, gritty, contradictory -- Cuba in all its glory In Ay,Cuba! , Andrei Codrescu and David Graham seek the heart and soul of this island ninety miles off the Florida coast and yet a world away. Carousing with Cuban prostitutes, intellectuals, hustlers, and laborers, Codrescu and Graham combine edgy narratives with stunning color photography to create a daring and compelling travelogue. Exploring the architecture, the bizarre two-tier economy of peso and dollar, revivals of both Catholicism and the Afro-Cuban religion of santeria, and the sexual and social mores of a post-cold war communist society, Ay,Cuba! uncovers the maddening and seductive complexities of this fiercely proud yet deeply divided society. This is a provocative look behind the headlines at a world both familiar and exotic.

A New York Times Bestselling AuthorRiding a bicycle across the United States is one of those bucket-list goals that many dream about but few fulfill. In 2011 at the age of fifty-seven, New York Times obituary writer Bruce Weber made the trip alone and wrote about it as it unfolded mile by mile. Now, expanding upon the articles and blog posts that quickly became a must-read adventure story, Weber gives us a witty, inspiring, and reflective diary of his journey.

Provocateurs Will Self and Ralph Steadman join forces in this post-millennial meditation on the vexed relationship between psyche and place in a globalised world, bringing together for the first time the very best of their 'Psychogeography' columns for the Independent . Ranging from the Scottish Highlands to Istanbul and from Morocco to Ohio, Will Self's engaging and disturbing vision is perfectly counter-pointed by Ralph Steadman's edgy and beautiful artwork.

In August 1948, 545 passengers boarded an overcrowded, clapped-out vessel in Marseilles to face an uncertain future in Australia and New Zealand. they came from displaced persons camps in Germany, death camps in Poland, labour camps in Hungary, gulags in Siberia and stony Aegean islands. there were those who had been hunted by the Nazis and those who had welcomed them; those who had followed the Communists and those who had fled from them. the epic voyage lasted almost three months and was marked by conflict and controversy until it seemed as though this hellship had absorbed the traumas of its passengers. As the conditions on board deteriorated, tension and violence simmered above and below decks. But romances and seductions also flourished, and lifelong bonds were formed. Diane Armstrong set sail on the Derna with her parents when she was nine years old. Like a detective searching for clues, she has located over a hundred of the passengers. through their recollections and memorabilia, as well as archival documents, she has recreated the voyage and traced what became of their hopes and dreams. the result is the unique portrayal of a migrant ship and its passengers.

Hang on for a Wild Journey through the Political and Spiritual Adventures of the Baby-Boom Generation Join Wes "Scoop" Nisker as he takes us on a hilarious, wild ride through the heyday of the Beats and the Hippies and the birth of the modern environmental movement, and the surge of Buddhism in the West.

A firsthand report on contemporary Vietnam presents a portrait of a nation that is struggling under the hold of Communism and places the Vietnam war in the perspective of a four-thousand-year-old history. 25,000 first printing. $25,000 ad/promo.

Nonfiction. This is a document about an underground movement we're slowly bridging together through scattered clans of free thinkers, rebels and artists: groups of angry young people fed up living paycheck to paycheck in the wageslave braindeath passive observer (sub)urban trap that is our daily backdrop. An underground movement that has its poetic roots in the old traditions of traveling gypsies and pirates but is alive and well and lurking outside your door and maybe stirring somewhere in your hearts right at this very minute.

After more than thirty years as an expatriate, Irma Kurtz gave in to her growing curiosity about her American roots and set off on a grand adventure to explore 'the most baffling of all places' - by Greyhound bus. Taking only the barest necessitites for travel, she entered the vast network of America's bus routes and a seething, fleeting world of brief encounters and changing landscapes.

No detailed description available for "Letters from Sardis".

incl. illust. - Eginhard of Franconia ibn Khordadhbeh Judah Haleli Rabbi Petachia Rabbi Jacob Ven Rabbi R.N. Ha Cohen David Azulai and other travellers

An intimate portrait of life in a small rural town in Tuscany recounting David Leavitt and Mark Mitchell's restoration of a dilapidated 1950's farmhouse in southern Tuscany and the process by which they became initiated into a part of Italian life that foreigners rarely see. The pleasures of the olive harvest and picking wild asparagus are juxtaposed with the vagaries of political corruption and self-perpetuating bureaucracy. Landscape and weather provide the stuff of reverie, as do the benefits of boredom and the longing for peanut butter. A celebration and exploration of a little-known part of Italy, In Maremma is also a fond if sometimes critical corrective to other more rapturous portrayals of Tuscany.

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