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When Rosemary Mahoney, in 1998, took a solo trip down the Nile in a seven-foot rowboat, she discovered modern Egypt for herself. As a rower, she faced crocodiles and testy river currents; as a female, she confronted deeply-held beliefs about foreign women while cautiously remaining open to genuine friendship; and, as a traveler, she experienced events that ranged from the humorous to the hair-raising--including an encounter that began as one of the most frightening of her life and ended as an edifying and chastening lesson in human nature and cultural misunderstanding. Whether she's meeting Nubians and Egyptians, or finding connections to Westerners who traveled up the Nile in earlier times--Florence Nightingale and Gustave Flaubert among them--Mahoney's informed curiosity about the world never ceases to captivate the reader.



"A pilgrimage about pilgrims and holy places that is not only enlightening but also very funny." -Paul Theroux (on The Singular Pilgrim)


"Mahoney is a wonderfully effective catalytic agent: she goes to Ireland and just makes the country happen around her." -Jonathan Raban (on Whoredom in Kimmage)

"Mahoney, who has been rowing for 10 year, brilliantly juxtaposes an account of her own palm-blistering hours on the Nile....with the diary entries of two Victorian travelers-Gustave Flaubert and Florence Nightingale."
--Lisa Fugard, New York Times Book Review


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Stephen Shore is one of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century, best known for his photographs of vernacular America taken in the early 1970s two bodies of work entitled American Surfaces and Uncommon Places. These projects paved the way for future photographers of the 'ordinary' and 'everyday' such as Martin Parr, Thomas Struth, and Nan Goldin. Shore is one of the most important artists working today, and his prints are included in collections of eminent museums and galleries around the world.

On July 3, 1973, Stephen Shore set out on the road again. This road trip marked an important point in his career, as he was coming to the tail end of American Surfaces and embarking on a body of work that is known as Uncommon Places. While traveling, in addition to taking photographs, Shore also distributed a set of postcards that he had made and printed himself. While passing through Amarillo, Texas, Shore selected ten of his own photographs of places of note, such as Doug's Barb-B-Que and the Potter County Court House, and designed the back of the cards to look like a typical generic postcard. He sent these images to a well-known postcard printer and ordered 5,600 copies of each card. Then, driving from town to town, Shore surreptitiously inserted his own cards into postcard racks in stores across the country, mixing his own work with 'real' postcards and giving unsuspecting shopkeepers new stock free of charge.

In a deadpan, unemotional style, Shore's month-long journal itemizes where he stayed, what he ate, which television programs he watched, what photographs he took, how many miles he drove, and how many postcards he distributed on each day of his trip. The journal also includes postcards of the towns where he stayed as well as some of his own photographs alongside hotel, restaurant, and gas station receipts. As he traveled, recording his experiences in his journal, Shore photographed the towns and cities through which he passed, the people he met, the food he ate, the beds he slept in, and even the toilets he 'encountered', from New York to California and back again.

A Road Trip Journal marks the turning point between two major bodies of work in Shore's career and includes some classic portraits from this pioneering color photographer. Each page of the journal is reproduced exactly and bound in a book that matches the format of the original book down to its cover. Following this, every photograph taken over the course of the trip is also featured, whether a perfect composition or a slightly fogged negative of the same scene. A map marks Shore's journey and his own text on the history of the road trip in America is also included. The book also contains reproductions of a number of postcards that Shore made on his trip, allowing the reader the chance to tear them out and use them, or keep them as a piece of 1970s Shore memorabilia.

A Road Trip Journal is a highly collectible publication for any photo book collector, photography enthusiast or student, or anyone with an interest in American culture of the 1970s. This limited edition book numbered and signed by the photographer is an exciting addition to Phaidon's ever-growing, highly popular Shore list.

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America’s #1 bestselling travel series

Written by more than 175 outspoken travelers around the globe, Frommer’s Complete Guides help travelers experience places the way locals do.

• More annually updated guides than any other series

• 16-page color section and foldout map in all annual guides

• Outspoken opinions, exact prices, and suggested itineraries

• Dozens of detailed maps in an easy-to-read, two-color design

You'll never fall into the tourist traps when you travel with Frommer's. It's like having a friend show you around, taking you to the places locals like best. Our expert authors have already gone everywhere you might go--they've done the legwork for you, and they're not afraid to tell it like it is, saving you time and money. No other series offers candid reviews of so many hotels and restaurants in all price ranges. Every Frommer's Travel Guide is up-to-date, with exact prices for everything, dozens of color maps, and exciting coverage of sports, shopping, and nightlife. You'd be lost without us!

Completely updated every year (unlike most of the competition), Frommer's Hawaii features gorgeous color photos of the stunning beaches and thrilling adventures that await you. Meticulously researched by one of Hawaii's most noted journalists, this is hands-down the most reliable, up-to-date, and comprehensive guide to the islands.

Each of our candid hotel reviews is based on a detailed personal inspection. You'll find lavish beachfront resorts, intimate rain-forest B&Bs, family-friendly condos, and much, much more. Our dining reviews are simply the best in the business, whether you crave cutting-edge Asian-fusion cuisine or a hearty, affordable plate lunch.

Our author makes sure that you'll truly experience the spirit of aloha, and she'll help you steer clear of anything that's overpriced, touristy, or inauthentic. With Frommer's in hand, you'll know where to find secluded beaches; secret spots for snorkeling; the best outfitters to choose for everything from diving to deep-sea fishing; and where to find the top galleries and shops.

Inside you'll find extensive coverage of family-friendly accommodations and activities; tips on how to get married in the islands; recommendations for the best honeymoon resorts; and valuable advice on finding the best airfares and package deals. Whether you want to watch the fiery spectacle at the Big Island's volcano, play a challenging round of golf, snorkel with sea turtles, or simply kick back with a mai tai to watch the sunset, you can design the perfect trip with Frommer's Hawaii. You'll even get a color fold-out map, and an online directory that makes trip-planning a snap!


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As a young child in Naples, Italy, Sergio Esposito sat at his kitchen table observing the daily ritual of his large, loud family bonding over fresh local dishes and simple country wines. While devouring the rich bufala mozzarella, still sopping with milk and salt, and the platters of fresh prosciutto, sliced so thin he could see through it, he absorbed the profound relationship of food, wine, and family in Italian culture.
Growing up in Albany, New York, after emigrating there with his family, he always sat next to his uncle Aldo and sipped from his wineglass during their customary hours-long extended family feasts. Thus, from a very early age, Esposito came to associate wine with the warmth of family, the tastes of his mother’s cooking—and, above all, memories of his former life in Italy. When he was in his twenties, he headed for New York and undertook a career in wine, beginning a journey that would culminate in his founding of Italian Wine Merchants, now the leading Italian wine source in America. His career offered him the opportunity to make frequent trips back to Italy to find wine for his clients, to learn the traditions of Italian winemaking, and, in so doing, to rediscover the Italian way of life he’d left behind.
Passion on the Vine is Esposito’s intimate and evocative memoir of his colorful family life in Italy, his abrupt transition to life in America, and of his travels into the heart of Italy—its wine country—and the lives of those who inhabit it. The result is a remarkably engaging and entertaining wine/travel narrative replete with vivid portraits of seductive places—the world-famous cellars of Piedmont, the sweeping estates of Tuscany, the lush fields of Campania, the chilly hills of Friuli, the windy beaches of Le Marche; and of memorable people, diverse and vibrant wine artisans—from a disco-dancing vintner who bases his farming on the rhythm of the moon to an obsessive prince who destroys his vineyards before his death so that his grapes will never be used incorrectly.
Esposito’s luscious accounts of the wonderful food and wine that are so much a part of Italian life, and his poignant and often hilarious stories of his relationships with his family and Italian friends, make Passion on the Vine an utterly unique and enchanting work about Italy and its eternally seductive lifestyle.

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Why does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Did someone make a mistake?

We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!)—have become so engrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence. But that's where the real mystery begins. Every edge of the familiar wooden jigsaw pieces of our childhood represents a revealing moment of history and of, well, humans drawing lines in the sand.

How the States Got Their Shapes is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Here are the stories behind the stories, right down to the tiny northward jog at the eastern end of Tennessee and the teeny-tiny (and little known) parts of Delaware that are not attached to Delaware but to New Jersey.

How the States Got Their Shapes examines:

• Why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania
• Why Michigan has an upper peninsula that isn't attached to Michigan
• Why some Hawaiian islands are not Hawaii
• Why Texas and California are so outsized, especially when so many Midwestern states are nearly identical in size

Packed with fun oddities and trivia, this entertaining guide also reveals the major fault lines of American history, from ideological intrigues and religious intolerance to major territorial acquisitions. Adding the fresh lens of local geographic disputes, military skirmishes, and land grabs, Mark Stein shows how the seemingly haphazard puzzle pieces of our nation fit together perfectly.

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For those who think that travel guidebooks are the gospel truth.

The waitress suggests that I come back after she closes down the restaurant, around midnight. We end up having sex in a chair and then on one of the tables in the back corner. I pen a note in my Moleskine that I will later recount in the guidebook review, saying that the restaurant “is a pleasant surprise . . . and the table service is friendly.” –Thomas Kohnstamm, professional travel writer and author of numerous Lonely Planet guidebooks

WANTED: Travel Writer for Brazil
QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED
Decisiveness: the ability to desert your entire previous life–including well-salaried office job, attractive girlfriend, and basic sanity for less than minimum wage
Attention to detail: the skill to research northeastern Brazil, including transportation, restaurants, hotels, culture, customs, and language, while juggling sleep deprivation, nonstop nightlife, and excessive alcohol consumption
Creativity: the imagination to write about places you never actually visit
Resourcefulness: utilizing persuasion, seduction, and threats, when necessary, to secure a place to stay for the evening once your pitiable advance has been (mis)spent
Resilience: determination to overcome setbacks such as bankruptcy, disillusionment, and an ill-fated one-night stand with an Austrian flight attendant

As Kohnstamm comes to personal terms with each of these job requirements, he unveils the underside of the travel industry and its often-harrowing effect on writers, travelers, and the destinations themselves. Moreover, he invites us into his world of compromising and scandalous situations in one of the most exciting countries as he races against an impossible deadline.

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"In many ways, I was an independent woman," writes Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Alice Steinbach. “For years I’d made my own choices, paid my own bills, shoveled my own snow.” But somehow she had become dependent in quite another way. “I had fallen into the habit of defining myself in terms of who I was to other people and what they expected of me.” But who was she away from the people and things that defined her? In this exquisite book, Steinbach searches for the answer to this question in some of the most beautiful and exciting places in the world: Paris, where she finds a soul mate; Oxford, where she takes a course on the English village; Milan, where she befriends a young woman about to be married. Beautifully illustrated with postcards from Steinbach’s journeys, this revealing and witty book transports you into a fascinating inner and outer journey, an unforgettable voyage of discovery.

Praise for Without Reservations:

“A rich account of one woman’s journey through Europe and into the self.”
—Us Weekly

“I loved going along with Alice Steinbach as she goes off on this rare, wonderful adventure, an escape into discovering herself and some of the truly magical places in this world.” —DOMINICK DUNNE

“More than a chronicle of the writer’s search for self-discovery, Without Reservations is a lovely travelogue.”
—Chicago Tribune

“The best books, like the best vacations, contain unexpected delights, surprises that enrich the soul as well as the senses. This is a book about love, and longing, and the passage of time. It’s about hope, and courage, and the resiliency of memory. This book is a feast. Bon appétit!”
—The Des Moines Register

“Beautifully written, clear, insightful, thoughtful . . . Steinbach’s book should be taken in slowly and savored all the way.”
—St. Petersburg Times

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The updated and expanded #1 introduction to tourism principles and practices retains its classic approach in this new tenth edition

Virtually every country has taken steps to increase its number of visitors in recent years, and with each new edition, Tourism has remained the must-have resource dedicated to providing an exciting, comprehensive introduction to the world's most rapidly growing industry. This Tenth Edition explores new trends in travel and tourism, while continuing the book's long-standing tradition of taking a global look into the economic, political, and social forces that drive and shape tourism.

Written by two internationally respected experts, Tourism, Tenth Edition includes:

• Extensive treatment of the changing world of travel distribution
• A new look at the future of travel
• New coverage of crisis management
• Updated lists of Internet sites for further research
• Numerous pedagogical aids throughout, including review questions, case problems, and Internet exercises

Completely revised and redesigned with a beautiful, full-color insert, Tourism examines how different components of the industry work together to create a successful travel experience. In six parts, it covers: an overview of the industry; how tourism is organized; travel behavior; tourism supply, demand, policy, planning, and development; research and marketing; and future prospects.

Tourism: Principles, Practices, Philosophies, Tenth Edition is an invaluable book for students studying travel and tourism.

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This gripping and triumphant memoir follows a living legend of extreme mountaineering as he makes his assault on history, one 8,000-meter summit at a time.

For eighteen years Ed Viesturs pursued climbing’s holy grail: to stand atop the world’s fourteen 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest. As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go.

A preternaturally cautious climber who once turned back 300 feet from the top of Everest but who would not shrink from a peak (Annapurna) known to claim the life of one climber for every two who reached its summit, Viesturs lives by an unyielding motto, “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory.” It is with this philosophy that he vividly describes fatal errors in judgment made by his fellow climbers as well as a few of his own close calls and gallant rescues. And, for the first time, he details his own pivotal and heroic role in the 1996 Everest disaster made famous in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air.

In addition to the raw excitement of Viesturs’s odyssey, No Shortcuts to the Top is leavened with many funny moments revealing the camaraderie between climbers. It is more than the first full account of one of the staggering accomplishments of our time; it is a portrait of a brave and devoted family man and his beliefs that shaped this most perilous and magnificent pursuit.

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Twenty miles south of the Arizona-Mexico border, the rugged, beautiful Sierra Madre mountains begin their dramatic ascent. Almost 900 miles long, the range climbs to nearly 11,000 feet and boasts several canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon. The rules of law and society have never taken hold in the Sierra Madre, which is home to bandits, drug smugglers, Mormons, cave-dwelling Tarahumara Indians, opium farmers, cowboys, and other assorted outcasts. Outsiders are not welcome; drugs are the primary source of income; murder is all but a regional pastime. The Mexican army occasionally goes in to burn marijuana and opium crops -- the modern treasure of the Sierra Madre -- but otherwise the government stays away. In its stead are the drug lords, who have made it one of the biggest drug-producing areas in the world.

Fifteen years ago, journalist Richard Grant developed what he calls "an unfortunate fascination" with this lawless place. Locals warned that he would meet his death there, but he didn't believe them -- until his last trip. During his travels Grant visited a folk healer for his insomnia and was prescribed rattlesnake pills, attended bizarre religious rituals, consorted with cocaine-snorting policemen, taught English to Guarijio Indians, and dug for buried treasure. On his last visit, his reckless adventure spiraled into his own personal heart of darkness when cocaine-fueled Mexican hillbillies hunted him through the woods all night, bent on killing him for sport.

With gorgeous detail, fascinating insight, and an undercurrent of dark humor, God's Middle Finger brings to vivid life a truly unique and uncharted world.

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