Two Americans walk Japans Kiso Road, the mountainous section of one of the ancient highways that once connected Kyoto and Tokyo. Going from traditional inn to traditional inn, they follow the road through rain and cold, attend a fiery religious ceremony, eat a lot of rice and fish, and discover at a pilgrims pace the beauty and graciousness of rural Japan.

The Joys of Travel: And Stories that Illuminate Them is a collection of Thomas Swick’s personal essays on what he has identified as the seven joys of travel”: anticipation, movement, break from routine, novelty, discovery, emotional connection and heightened appreciation of home.The Joys of Travel awakens readers to pleasures that, as travelers, they may be taking for granted. It also shows non-travelers what they’ve been missing. It offers tips on how people can...

From Booklist's Starred Review: "[Swick] keenly and empathically observes the world, bringing both a relatably human approach and learned appreciation for the art of travel and of life."Working as a feature writer in 1976, Thomas Swick falls in love with a visiting Polish student named Hania and soon moves with her to Warsaw. The next decade sees Thomas living in Poland, Greece, and Philadelphia. He declines an invitation t...

The founder of LiveWellWithLess.com “promotes minimalism as a way to fend off ‘stuffocation’ and be happier and more productive” (Publishers Weekly).We simply have too much stuff in our lives. Burdened by our heavy consumerist culture to continually own and consume without purpose, we lose ourselves to debt, dissatisfaction, and despair. If having more, doing more, and being more does not allow us to live abundantly, what can?Minimalism can make al...

For word nerds and grammar geeks, a witty guide to the most commonly mispronounced words, along with their correct pronunciations and pithy forays into their fascinating etymologies and histories of use and misuse.With wit and good humor, this handy little book not only saves us from sticky linguistic situations but also provides fascinating cocktail-party-ready anecdotes. Entries reveal how to pronounce boatswain like an old salt on the deck of a ship, trompe ...

An account of Cuban exiles, CIA informants, and cocaine traffickers in Florida by the National Book Award–winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking.In *Miami, New York Times–*bestselling author Joan Didion looks beyond postcard images of fluorescent waters, backlit islands, and pastel architecture to explore the murkier waters of a city on the edge.From Fidel Castro and the Bay of Pigs invasion to Lee Harvey Oswald and the Ke...

The funny, poignant memoir of one man’s struggle to come to terms with his celiac diagnosis, forcing him to reexamine his relationship with food.When Paul Graham was suddenly diagnosed with celiac disease at the age of thirty-six, he was forced to say goodbye to traditional pasta, pizza, sandwiches, and more. Gone, too, were some of his favorite hobbies, including brewing beer with a buddy and gorging on his wife’s homemade breads. Struggling to understand why he a...

A "delightful, witty" memoir about starting over as a beekeeper in the Ozarks ( Library Journal).Alone on a small Missouri farm after a thirty-year marriage, Sue Hubbell found a new love—of the winged, buzzing variety. Left with little but the commercial beekeeping and honey-producing business she started with her husband, Hubbell found solace in the natural world. Then she began to write, challenging herself to tell the absolute truth about her life and th...

A cup of coffee is a miracle, a wonderful assemblage of relationships”. This classic follows coffee's journey around the world, from London to Brazil, telling in fascinating detail and amusing anecdote the singular history of the legendary commodity, from its discovery that chewing on the beans were keeping goats awake in Yemen to the author’s own experiences with the bean in 1935.Referred to as a documentary novel” back during its inception, H.E. Jacobs pioneered the concept of ...

New York Times Bestseller: The true story of twelve Jews who went underground in Nazi Berlin—and survived: "Consummately suspenseful" ( Los Angeles Times).When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, approximately one hundred sixty thousand Jews called Berlin home. By 1943 less than five thousand remained in the nation's capital, the epicenter of Nazism, and by the end of the war, that number had dwindled to one thousand. All the othe...

Blogger Marcia Kester Doyle tells it like it is and nothing is off limits. Who Stole My Spandex? is a witty selection of stories from Doyle's madcap world of menopausal pitfalls, wardrobe malfunctions, and a family full of pranksters. This clever compilation includes laugh-out-loud pieces like "Queen of Klutz," "One Size Fits None," and "Hands off my Egg Roll!" From couples' colonoscopies to nightmare holidays to disappearing spandex, no topic—no matter how crazy or unimaginable—is too tab...

A guide to well-being from the renowned social psychologist and New York Times –bestselling author of The Art of Loving and Escape from Freedom .Though laptops, smartphones, and TVs have in many ways made life more convenient, they have also disconnected us from the real world. Days are spent going from screen to machine, machine to s...