Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Audio, Inc." in Travel & Tourism

Here is the story of the infamous 1910 race to the South Pole, as told by its fearless yet desperate leader, Robert Falcon Scott. The New York Times called Scott's Last Expedition "A splendid record of heroism not soon to be forgotten."

Swapping his native San Francisco for the City of Light, travel writer David Downie arrived in Paris in 1986 on a one-way ticket, his head full of romantic notions. Curiosity and the legs of a cross-country runner propelled him daily from an unheated, seventh-floor walk-up garret near the Champs-Élysées to the old Montmartre haunts of the doomed painter Modigliani, the tombs of Père-Lachaise cemetery, the luxuriant alleys of the Luxembourg Gardens, and the aristocratic Île Saint-Louis midstream in the Seine.

The Huck Finn of foreign correspondents provides a colorful account of old Honolulu, the island nobility, the City of Refuge on the Kona coast, and the active volcano of Kilauea. These selections of Mark Twain's newspaper dispatches are both charming and informative. The light touch of the great humorist is seldom missing as he reveals the "loveliest fleet of islands that lie anchored in any ocean".

This sequel to King Solomon's Mines is filled with the spirit of adventure. Thrilled by rumors of a lost civilization, three Englishmen decide to travel to the heart of Africa with their Zulu guide where they meet with continual peril: an attack by a cruel warrior tribe, the scorch of underground volcanic fires, and an encounter with a huge species of ferocious black crab. Exhausted and depleted of supplies, the men at last arrive at a mysterious city in the highlands of the interior.

When Anthony Shadid—one of four New York Times reporters captured in Libya as the region erupted—was freed, he went home, not to Boston, Beirut, or Oklahoma, where he was raised by his Lebanese American family, but to an ancient estate built by his great-grandfather, a place filled with memories of a lost era when the Middle East was a world of grace, grandeur, and unexpected departures.

In the wake of San Francisco Noir, Los Angeles Noir, and Orange County Noir - all popular volumes in the Akashic Noir Series - comes the latest California installment, Oakland Noir. Masterfully curated by Jerry Thompson and Eddie Muller, the "Czar of Noir", this volume will shock, titillate, provoke, and entertain. The diverse cast of talented contributors will not disappoint.

Desiree Le Mire ran into the cave, anxious to explore, tempted by the legends of Inca gold. Harry Lamar and his brother Paul had no choice but to follow. After all, they could not let the beautiful dancer enter the black depths alone. Others lived there, however, protecting the gold of their ancestors, others now misshapen after generations of living underground. That was why no one who entered the cave ever emerged into daylight. But no one who had entered was as beautiful as Desiree - or as determined as the Lamars.

A continuation of the popular Very Christmas Series, this collection brings together the best French Christmas stories of all time in an elegant and vibrant collection featuring classics by Guy de Maupassant and Alphonse Daudet, plus stories by the esteemed 20th-century author Irène Némirovsky and contemporary writers Dominique Fabre and Jean-Philippe Blondel.

Phileas Fogg, a distinguished member of London's Reform Club, takes up a wager to circle the globe in just 80 days. Together with manservant Passepartout and a detective named Fix, Fogg makes a fantastic world tour utilizing every means of transportation available in the 1870s. This is a marvelous travelogue mixed with dazzling suspense, delightful fantasy, and lively comedy.

In 1839, two years after graduating from Harvard, Henry David Thoreau and his older brother, John, took a boat-and-hiking trip from Concord, Massachusetts, to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. After John's sudden death in 1842, Thoreau began to prepare a memorial account of their excursion during his stay at Walden Pond. Modern listeners have come to see Thoreau's story of the river journey as an appropriate predecessor to Walden, depicting the early years of his spiritual and artistic growth.

Tales of Tahitian Waters describes Grey's fishing expeditions to the Tahitian Islands during 1928, 1929, and 1930, in which he claims to be the first big-game fisherman to fish these waters. He came to the area after having passed nearby on other fishing trips. Hearing accounts of there being marlin that were 30 feet long and sharks that measured 50 feet in length, he became determined to pursue these fish and add to his many fishing records. It was here where he describes catching a marlin weighing 1,040 pounds. The catch was recorded as the first 1,000-pound fish ever caught.

When not writing his famous Western novels, Zane Grey was an insatiable angler. Tales of Southern Rivers recounts his tales of fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Keys, the Everglades, and on remote rivers in the jungles of Mexico. With many of these venues being some of today's most popular saltwater fly-fishing destinations, no one will want to miss these highly entertaining and informative stories. Armchair fishing will never be the same. 

This is a first-hand look at a city that people can't seem to stop talking about. It's a guidebook of sorts, but not to restaurants and sightseeing. Instead, Alexander Barrett is your friendly guide to the quirky characters and atmosphere of Portland, Oregon, and how fun, beautiful, and ridiculous it can be. With its approachable, often hilarious tone, this book is perfect for anyone who wants to learn more about bikes, beards, beers, rain, and everything else important about the city you've heard you should like. The expanded second edition of this popular book is sure to delight!

After a decade of chasing stories around the globe, intrepid travel writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest followed the magnetic pull home - only to discover that her native South Texas had been radically transformed in her absence. Ravaged by drug wars and barricaded by an 18-foot steel wall, her ancestral land had become the nation's foremost crossing ground for undocumented workers, many of whom perished along the way.

At the dawn of the 20th century, a young Lebanese adventurer leaves the Levant to explore the wilds of Africa, encountering an eccentric English colonel in Sudan and enlisting in his service. In this lush chronicle of far-flung adventure, the military recruit crosses paths with a compatriot who has dismantled a sumptuous palace in Tripoli and is transporting it across the continent on a camel caravan.

In Mississippi Noir, literary crime fiction master Tom Franklin has assembled a phenomenal short-story collection that highlights a mesmerizing and diverse set of styles and subject matter. Urban, suburban, and rural settings alike unveil new shades of darkness that fall upon Mississippi's past and present.

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. In the wake of Chicago Noir, Twin Cities Noir, and Kansas City Noir - all popular volumes in the Akashic Noir Series - comes the latest Midwest installment, St. Louis Noir. Masterfully curated by Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest (adapted for film, starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton), this volume will chill the listener with heartland menace.

Laure Dugas is a champagne baby, born into a family of winemakers from two storied regions of France: Champagne and the Rhône Valley. But Laure wants little to do with the family business. It is only at age 23, when her uncle offers to send her to New York City to learn English and represent his wines to the American market, that Laure bids adieu to her boyfriend and begins her journey of discovery.

Since graduating from college with a journalism degree, Phil Cousineau's wanderlust has driven him to visit nearly 100 countries as a backpacker, a documentary filmmaker, a travel writer, a photographer, and an art and literary tour leader. For him, travel provides what his mentor Joseph Campbell called "the key to the realm of the muses".

One rainy morning in the winter of 1909, a man with an altogether average look about him quit his job at the London Morning Leader, kissed his wife and children goodbye, and took a train to Swansea in Wales, where he talked his way aboard a freighter bound for somewhere in the upper reaches of the Amazon. Three years later, Tomlinson published a book about his adventures. This book made him famous.

'The right good book,' says Mr. Tomlinson, 'is always a book of travel: it is about a life's journey.'