Instead of retiring to enjoy his loving and beautiful wife and large and happy family, Bill Bryson challenges himself to hike the Appalachian Trail: 2,200 miles of America's most unspoiled, spectacular, and rugged countryside from Georgia to Maine. The peace and tranquility he hopes to find, though, is anything but, when the only person he can find willing to join him on the trek is his long-lost former friend Katz, a down-on-his-luck serial philanderer....

A chronicle of the author's first four years in Italy, describing her purchase and restoration of an abandoned villa in the Tuscan countryside, her transformation of the overgrown gardens, and her discovery of the many links between the food and culture of the region.

Lizzie, along with classmates Gordo, Kate and Ethan are celebrating with a graduation trip to Italy. Lizzie becomes mistaken for Italy's biggest pop diva and falls for her handsome singing partner. Lizzie becomes transformed from awkward teen to international pop star. But will becoming Italy's next pop sensation mean leaving her family and friends behind?

Follows the trials and tribulations of a busload of tourists who get stranded in an abandoned mining town in the middle of the African desert. After a fine bout of partying, they fall prey to the heat, isolation, and fear of death that pushes them to the extremes of introspection and emotional exploration. And in a beautifully futile gesture, they begin to rehearse a production of Shakespeare's King Lear, which helps pry open a few fragile psyches...

The story of best friends who set out on a dangerous, but comedic journey that challenges the restrictions of a Jim Crow South to fulfill their dreams.

This is the absorbing true story of Venetian explorer Marco Polo's arduous trek to the East and beyond. The story follows Marco as he is enlisted to accompany a pair of priests to the court of Kublai Khan, Mongol conqueror of the East.