Following his return to America after twenty years in Britain, Bill Bryson decided to reacquaint himself with his native country by walking the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine. The "AT" offers an astonishing landscape of silent forests and sparkling lakes--and to a writer with Bryson's comic genius, it also provides endless opportunities to test his own powers of ineptitude and to witness the majestic silliness...

Skeletons on the Zahara chronicles the true story of twelve American sailors who were shipwrecked off the coast of Africa in 1815, captured by desert nomads, sold into slavery, and subjected to a hellish two-month journey through the perilous heart of the Sahara.
The western Sahara is a baking hot and desolate place, home only to nomads and their camels, and to locusts, snails and thorny scrub — and its barren and ever-changing coastline...

West with the Night is the story of Beryl Markham--aviator, racehorse trainer, beauty--and her life in the Kenya of the 1920s and '30s.

At The Center of Martin Chuzzlewit -- the novel Angus Wilson called "one of the most sheerly exciting of all Dickens stories"--Is Martin himself, very old, very rich, very much on his guard. What he suspects (with good reason) is that every one of Iris close and distant relations. now converging in droves on the country inn where they believe he is dying, will stop at nothing to become the inheritor of Iris great fortune. Having unjustly disinherited...

I asked myself what I was doing there, with a sensation of panic in my heart as though I had blundered into a place of cruel and absurd mysteries not fit for a human being to behold'. Charles Marlow's dark intuition here arrives at the culmination of his physical and psychological quest in search of the infamous ivory-trader Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's most famous short story, Heart of Darkness. Ambiguously drawn to the powerful 'voice' of this autocratic...

The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (Martin Chuzzlewit) was serialized between 1843 and 1844, and is considered to be one of Charles Dickens's last picaresque novels. Raised by his grandfather and namesake, Martin Chuzzlewit is disinherited after revealing his love for his nursemaid, Mary. With no fortune, Martin apprentices himself to the greedy architect Seth Pecksniff and befriends Tom Pinch. Although Dickens considered Martin Chuzzlewit...

In 1846, before he became the first great historian of the American frontier, Francis Parkman left his privileged Boston home to follow the Conestoga wagons of the pioneers making their way west along the Oregon Trail. It was a year of decision for America--and a year of high adventure for Parkman. This is a spirited account of his experiences on the Great Plains and along the Great Divide, as Parkman and two companions traveled the Oregon Trail as...

Henry "Monty" Montague was bred to be a gentleman. His passions for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men, have earned the disapproval of his father. His quest for pleasures and vices have led to one last hedonistic hurrah as Monty, his best friend and crush Percy, and Monty's sister Felicity begin a Grand Tour of Europe. When a reckless decision turns their trip abroad into a harrowing...

"Life on the Mississippi is a powerful narrative concerning the past, present, and future of the Mississippi River, including its towns, peoples, and ways of life. Before addressing the river and his personal relationship to it, Twain provides a brief history of the Mississippi River. He comments in the first few chapters on the river's historic standing as a wonder that surpasses many rivers around the world. Twain also provides a history of explorers...

New York Times bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates and contributor to NPR's This American Life Sarah Vowell embarks on a road trip to sites of political violence, from Washington DC to Alaska, to better understand our nation's ever-evolving political system and history.
Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination...