Recommendations based on "Landlines: The remarkable story of a thousand-mile journey across Britain from the million-copy bestselling author of The Salt Path"

**Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography**“Reading this guy on the subject of waves and water is like reading Hemingway on bullfighting; William Burroughs on controlled substances; Updike on adultery. . . . a coming-of-age story, seen through the gloss resin coat of a surfboard.”—Sports IllustratedIncluded in President Obama’s 2016 Summer Reading List Barbarian Days is William Finnegan’s memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates, it is something else: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life. Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa. A bookish boy, and then an excessively adventurous young man, he went on to become a distinguished writer and war reporter. Barbarian Days takes us deep into unfamiliar worlds, some of them right under our noses—off the coasts of New York and San Francisco. It immerses the reader in the edgy camaraderie of close male friendships forged in challenging waves.Finnegan shares stories of life in a whites-only gang in a tough school in Honolulu. He shows us a world turned upside down for kids and adults alike by the social upheavals of the 1960s. He details the intricacies of famous waves and his own apprenticeships to them. Youthful folly—he drops LSD while riding huge Honolua Bay, on Maui—is served up with rueful humor. As Finnegan’s travels take him ever farther afield, he discovers the picturesque simplicity of a Samoan fishing village, dissects the sexual politics of Tongan interactions with Americans and Japanese, and navigates the Indonesian black market while nearly succumbing to malaria. Throughout, he surfs, carrying readers with him on rides of harrowing, unprecedented lucidity.Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, an intellectual autobiography, a social history, a literary road movie, and an extraordinary exploration of the gradual mastering of an exacting, little-understood art.Praise for Barbarian Days:“Without a doubt, the finest surf book I’ve ever read . . . But on a more fundamental level, Barbarian Days offers a clear-eyed vision of American boyhood. Like Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, it is a sympathetic examination of what happens when literary ideas of freedom and purity take hold of a young mind and fling his body out into the far reaches of the world.”—The New York Times Magazine“Incandescent . . . I’d sooner press this book upon on a nonsurfer, in part because nothing I’ve read so accurately describes the feeling of being stoked or the despair of being held under. . . . [But] it’s also about a writer’s life and, even more generally, a quester’s life, more carefully observed and precisely rendered than any I’ve read in a long time.”—Los Angeles Times

Winner of the National Book AwardThis bestselling, groundbreaking exploration of the Far North is a classic of natural history, anthropology, and travel writing.The Arctic is a perilous place. Only a few species of wild animals can survive its harsh climate. In this modern classic, Barry Lopez explores the many-faceted wonders of the Far North: its strangely stunted forest, its mesmerizing aurora borealis, its frozen seas. Musk oxen, polar bears, narwhal, and other exotic beasts of the region come alive through Lopez’s passionate and nuanced observations. And, as he examines the history and culture of the indigenous people, along with parallel narratives of intrepid, often underprepared and subsequently doomed polar explorers, Lopez drives to the heart of why the austere and formidable Arctic is also a constant source of breathtaking beauty, beguilement, and wonder.Written in prose as memorably pure as the land it describes, Arctic Dreams is a timeless mediation on the ability of the landscape to shape our dreams and to haunt our imaginations.Look for Barry Lopez's new book, Horizon, available now.

You’re falling through time so all I can do is fall with you.The numbness had set in long before I sat at your bedside. But even with senses impaired as the flight touches down at Belfast City I can somehow still feel the screeching of wheels on tarmac scorching something deep into me.So begins Gary Lightbody's phenomenal companion book to Snow Patrol’s number one album of the same name. While you don’t have to read it to understand the album, you may want to give the album a wee listen for some parts of the book to make sense. There are references to the record with song lyrics dotted around within it.The book explores some of the main themes of the album: time, home, love, death, life. It is also a prequel to the record which tells the story of his dad, Jack’s death and the numb journey it sent him on, the end of which seemed to unlock a part of him that had been dormant until he started to write songs again.Not to give away the ending or anything, but just so you know this book is not one of wallowing.There is a purpose to it.

Never opened collection of Hunter S. Thompson's work put together by his wife, Anita. Expansive body for work put together lovingly.

Recounts the true stories of five women who climbed the dangerous K2 mountain, describing how they overcame the harshest climbing and weather conditions of any mountain in the world.

“Hypnotic….It is ever tempting to try to fathom his restless spirit and his determination to challenge fate.”—Janet Maslin, New York TimesWerner Herzog (Grizzly Man) is one of the most revered and enigmatic filmmakers of our time, and Fitzcarraldo is one of his most honored and admired films. More than just Herzog’s journal of the making of the monumental, problematical motion picture, which involved, among other things, major cast changes and reshoots, and the hauling (without the use of special effects) of a 360-ton steamship over a mountain , Conquest of the Useless is a work of art unto itself, an Amazonian fever dream that emerged from the delirium of the jungle. With fascinating observations about crew and players—including Herzog’s lead, the somewhat demented internationally renowned star Klaus Kinski—and breathtaking insights into the filmmaking process that are uniquely Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless is an eye-opening look into the mind of a cinematic master.

It's December 1997 And A Man-eating Tiger Is On The Prowl Outside A Remote Village In Russia's Far East. The Tiger Isn't Just Killing People, It's Annihilating Them, And A Team Of Men And Their Dogs Must Hunt It On Foot Through The Forest In The Brutal Cold. To Their Horrified Astonishment It Emerges That The Attacks Are Not Random: The Tiger Is Engaged In A Vendetta. Injured And Starving, It Must Be Found Before It Strikes Again, And The Story Becomes A Battle For Survival Between The Two Main Characters: Yuri Trush, The Lead Tracker, And The Tiger Itself. As John Vaillant Vividly Recreates The Extraordinary Events Of That Winter, He Also Gives Us An Unforgettable Portrait Of A Spectacularly Beautiful Region Where Plants And Animals Exist That Are Found Nowhere Else On Earth, And Where The Once Great Siberian Tiger - The Largest Of Its Species, Which Can Weigh Over 600 Lbs At More Than 10 Feet Long - Ranges Daily Over Vast Territories Of Forest And Mountain, Its Numbers Diminished To A Fraction Of What They Once Were. We Meet The Native Tribes Who For Centuries Have Worshipped And Lived Alongside Tigers - Even Sharing Their Kills With Them - In A Natural Balance. We Witness The First Arrival Of Settlers, Soldiers And Hunters In The Tiger's Territory In The 19th Century And 20th Century, Many Fleeing Stalinism. And We Come To Know The Russians Of Today - Such As The Poacher Vladimir Markov - Who, Crushed By Poverty, Have Turned To Poaching For The Corrupt, High-paying Chinese Markets. Throughout We Encounter Surprising Theories Of How Humans And Tigers May Have Evolved To Coexist, How We May Have Developed As Scavengers Rather Than Hunters And How Early Homo Sapiens May Have Once Fit Seamlessly Into The Tiger's Ecosystem. Above All, We Come To Understand The Endangered Siberian Tiger, A Highly Intelligent Super-predator, And The Grave Threat It Faces As Logging And Poaching Reduce Its Habitat And Numbers - And Force It To Turn At Bay. Beautifully Written And Deeply Informative, The Tiger Is A Gripping Tale Of Man And Nature In Collision, That Leads Inexorably To A Final Showdown In A Clearing Deep In The Siberian Forest.

'A memorable, oddly beautiful book' Wall Street Journal 'A marvellous glimpse of the Japan that rarely peeks through the country's public image' Washington Post One sunny spring morning in the 1970s, an unlikely Englishman set out on a pilgrimage that would take him across the entire length of Japan. Travelling only along small back roads, Alan Booth travelled on foot from Soya, the country's northernmost tip, to Sata in the extreme south, traversing three islands and some 2,000 miles of rural Japan. His mission: 'to come to grips with the business of living here,' after having spent most of his adult life in Tokyo. The Roads to Sata is a wry, witty, inimitable account of that prodigious trek, vividly revealing the reality of life in off-the-tourist-track Japan. Journeying alongside Booth, we encounter the wide variety of people who inhabit the Japanese countryside - from fishermen and soldiers, to bar hostesses and school teachers, to hermits, drunks and the homeless. We glimpse vast stretches of coastline and rambling townscapes, mountains and motorways; watch baseball games and sunrises; sample trout and Kilamanjaro beer, hear folklore, poems and smutty jokes. Throughout, we enjoy the wit and insight of a uniquely perceptive guide, and more importantly, discover a new face of an often-misunderstood nation.

Camping enthusiasts, hunters, and even the occasional hiker will benefit from this all-inclusive guide to the woods which offers tips on finding food, water, and shelter, and reveals fascinating secrets of the wilderness.

Walking Home - Clare Balding's Unmissable New Book Of Great British Adventures Clare Balding Is On A Mission To Discover Britain And Ireland. She's Conquered Over 1,500 Miles Of Footpaths, From The Pennine Way To The South-west Coast Path. As Well As Blisters And A Twisted Ankle, She's Walked With Extraordinary People - Botanists, Barefooted Ramblers, Whisky-drinking Widowers... In Walking Home She Shares These Stories And Tells Of More (mis)adventures With Her Family And Her Wayward Tibetan Terrier Archie. Along The Way There Are Beguiling Diversions And Life-changing Rambles. Finally, Clare Embarks On The Most Important Journey Of All - The Long Walk Home.