Following the original steps of pioneering naturalists, Gail Fishman profiles thirteen men who explored North America's southeastern wilderness between 1715 and the 1940s, including John James Audubon, Mark Catesby, John and William Bartram, John Muir, and Alvan Wentworth Chapman. The book is also Fishman's personal travelogue as she experiences the landscape through their eyes and describes the changes that have occurred along the region's trails and streams.
Bicycling Through Paradise is a collection of twenty historically themed cycling tours broken into 10-mile segments centered around Cincinnati, Ohio. Written by two longtime cyclists--one a professor of history and one an architect--the book is an affectionate, intimate, and provocative reading of the local landscape and history from the perspectives of cycling and Cincinnati enthusiasts. Tours, navigated by Smythe and Hanlon, take cyclers past Native American sites, early settler homesteads, and locations made know through recent Ohio change-makers as navigated by the authors. With extensive details on routes and sites along the way, tours between 20 and 80 miles in length are designed for all levels of cyclists, and even the armchair explorer. Riders and readers will visit towns called Edenton, Loveland, Felicity, and Utopia. Along the journey, they'll encounter an abandoned Shaker village near the Whitewater Forest and a tiny dairy house called "Harmony Hill," the oldest standing structure in Clermont County, Ohio. They'll also take in the view from the top of a 2,000-year-old, 75-foot tall, conical Indian mound at Miamisburg. Riders can follow the Little Miami Scenic Trail and take a detour to a castle on the banks of the Little Miami River. Other sights include a full-scale replica of the tomb of Jesus in Northern Kentucky and the small pleasures of public parks, covered bridges, tree-lined streets, riverside travel, and one-room schoolhouses. And if all this isn't exactly Paradise, well, it's pretty close.
What does it mean to bring progress—schools, electricity, roads, running water—to paradise? Can our consumer culture and desire to “do good” really be good for a community that has survived contentedly for centuries without us? In October 2008, climbing expedition leader and attorney, Jeffrey Rasley, led a trek to a village in a remote valley in the Solu region of Nepal named Basa. His group of three adventurers was only the third group of white people ever seen in this village of subsistence farmers. What he found was a people thoroughly unaffected by Western consumer-culture values. They had no running water, electricity, or anything that moves on wheels. Each family lived in a beautiful, hand-chiseled stone house with a flower garden. Beyond what they already had, it seemed all they wanted was education for the children. He helped them finish a school building already in progress, and then they asked for help getting electricity to their village. Bringing Progress to Paradise describes Rasley’s transformation from adventurer to committed philanthropist. We are attracted to the simpler way of life in these communities, and we are changed by our experience of it. They are attracted to us, because we bring economic benefits. Bringing Progress to Paradise offers Rasley’s critical reflection on the tangled relationship between tourists and locals in “exotic” locales and the effect of Western values on some of the most remote locations on earth.
WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED... If Lewis Carroll had proclaimed the reality of Alice's Wonderland? What if he had gathered a following & launched an expedition? THE TRUE STORY OF A JOURNEY TO A FANTASTIC LAND IT WAS THE EARLY 1960s. The place, a far-off corner of the Himalayas long fabled in Tibetan tradition to be hiding a valley of immortality among its peaks and glaciers--a real-life Shangri-La. They waited generations for the prophesied lama to come, the one with the secret knowledge of how to 'open' the Hidden Land. Then, one day, he came. His name was Tulshuk Lingpa. THIS BOOK TELLS THE TRUE STORY of this charismatic visionary lama and his remarkable expedition. Against the wishes of the kings of both Sikkim and Nepal, he and over three hundred followers ventured up the snowy slopes of the third highest mountain of the planet. Their aim: to open a crack in the very fabric of reality and go to a land we would all wish to inhabit if it were only there--a land of peace and concord. FORTY YEARS LATER, the author spends over five years tracking down the surviving members of this extraordinary expedition. He deftly weaves their stories together with humor, wisdom, and scholarly research into Tibetan traditions of Hidden Lands, all the while reflecting on what this means for the rest of us. "LIKE NO OTHER BOOK I have ever read...a riveting tale of adventure...honest to the real spirit of Tibet...both unique and intriguing...an engrossing read. Highly recommended." JETSUNMA TENZIN PALMO, from the Foreword From Tulshuk Lingpa's Guidebook to the Hidden Land: "DON'T LISTEN TO ANYBODY. Decide by yourself and practise madness. Develop courage for the benefit of all sentient beings. Then you will automatically be free from the knot of attachment. Then you will continually have the confidence of fearlessness and you can then try to open the Great Door of the Hidden Place." FIRST PUBLISHED BY PENGUIN 2011 CITY LION PRESS EDITION 2017 THIS EDITION IS NOT FOR SALE IN SOUTH ASIA, MALAYSIA, OR SINGAPORE
A light-hearted, uplifting and inspiring account of one couple's fifteen day odyssey through the French and Italian Alps, exploring the Vanoise and Gran Paradiso National Parks. The third book in the Alpine Thru-Hiking collection. Just five days after their demanding four-week adventure around the Matterhorn, Esther and Dan set out into the wilderness once again. Their goal is simple, to enjoy a peaceful walking holiday in the Alps. However, as usual, the moment their shoes hit the trail their plans go straight out of the window and the adventure takes on a life of its own. Driven by an inexplicable thirst to always look beyond the next summit, their initially sedate hike from refuge-to-refuge soon becomes an expedition across blizzard-ridden 3000-metre passes, tumultuous boulder fields and snow-packed glaciers, turning each day into a unique pilgrimage through some of the most remote and stunning Alpine scenery they've ever seen. Sleeping in everything from luxury hotels to snow-covered storm-shelters and abandoned tree houses, their quest to lose themselves in the heart of the Alps becomes far more than a search for nice views and exciting stories. It's about rediscovering the solitude of the hills and the calm of the night sky, miles from civilisation and the chaos of the modern world. A perfect book for anyone who wants to experience the awe-inspiring magic of Europe's most beautiful wilderness.
Thirty years ago, a young Colorado ski racer falls in love with the freedom and sensuality of a remote Costa Rican rainforest. However, unlike most of us who return home from our tropical vacations, she sets out to make this sensation her life, and to help others experience it. With her own hands, and the help of a Costa Rican boyfriend, she builds an ecolodge in the remote rainforest of Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula. During her journey, a tractor trailer rolls over on her, breaking her leg in four places, her house burns to the ground, and she completely runs out of money. These calamities only strengthen her resolve. In the end, she succeeds in building a lodge praised by media ranging from Travel + Leisure to CNN, and in helping people from all over the world experience one of the most biologically diverse places on earth. She also creates the nonprofit Whitehawk Foundation to save the Osa rainforest.
“A curious, often amusing travelogue of [Sardar’s] quest for understanding and the Muslims he has encountered along his journeys.”—Publishers Weekly Ziauddin Sardar, one of the foremost Muslim intellectuals in Britain, learned the Koran at his mother’s knee in Pakistan. As a young student in London he set out to grasp the meaning of his religion, and, hopefully, to find “paradise,” his quest leading him throughout the Muslim world, from Iran to China to Turkey. Along the way he accepts that he may never reach paradise—but it’s the journey that’s important. At a time when the view of Islam in the West is so often distorted and simplistic, Desperately Seeking Paradise—self-mocking, frank and passionate—is essential reading. “Intoxicating . . . upon finishing the book, I turned back and started reading it all over again.”—Kamila Shamise, New Statesman “At once and earnest and humorous, light-hearted and profound, this is a book that displays a sustained capacity for self-questioning of a kind that has few parallels in the liberal West.”—The Independent “This challenging book not only acts as a guide for Muslims but provides insight and clarification for those outside the Islamic faith.”—Financial Times “The only funny book I’ve read about Islam.”—Mail on Sunday
In the 1930s, the Federal Writers' Project paid Stetson Kennedy and Zora Neale Hurston, along with other lesser-known writers, to create driving tours of Florida. The FWP and the State of Florida jointly published the results as Florida: A Guide to the Southernmost State. In Backroads of Paradise, Cathy Salustri retraces the routes these writers traveled, bringing a modern eye to the historic tours.
