Travel Essays

This audiobook, read by Audie award-winning narrators, includes unabridged recordings of all Mark Twains's greatest works: 12 novels; over 120 of his beloved short stories; Chapters From My Autobiography; 5 pieces of short non-fiction; and 6 pieces of his groundbreaking, wide-ranging travel writing.

Understanding humans and human nature is one of the toughest jobs. Many time what seems right and good or vice versa can be completely different if explored to proper depth. In many instances, we all form an opinion about the people we meet without actually knowing anything about them. But hearing and learning about such instances helps us to redefine our thought process and become wiser. Sudha Murty's book Wise and Otherwise will take you to a journey across the length and breadth of India through narrations of 51 stories inspired by the extensive travels of the author herself.

In 1834, Ralph Waldo Emerson, formerly a Unitarian minister, began a new career as a public lecturer. Nature (1836), his first published work, contained the essence of his transcendental philosophy. This collection contains 11 of his most celebrated and memorable essays....

In 1935, Fred A. Birchmore left the small American town of Athens, Georgia, to continue his college studies in Europe. In his spare time, Birchmore toured the continent on a one-speed bike he called Bucephalus (after the name of Alexander the Great's horse). A born wanderer, Birchmore broadened his travels to include the British Isles and even the Mediterranean. After a lengthy, unplanned detour in Egypt, Birchmore put his studies on hold, pointed Bucephalus eastward, and just kept going.

Arising out of Naipaul’s lifelong obsession and passion for a country that is at once his and totally alien, India: A Million Mutinies Now relates the stories of many of the people he met traveling there more than 50 years ago. He explores how they have been steered by the innumerable frictions present in Indian society - the contradictions and compromises of religious faith, the whim and chaos of random political forces.

It begins with an ambushed commando raid that leaves all but one of the expatriate resistance fighters dead or captured. Though wounded, Jan Baalsrud, the sole survivor, takes off on a courageous, incredible trek into the wilds of the Lyngen Alps, while the Nazis pursue him relentlessly. He suffers frostbite, snowblindness, and a terrible fall in an avalanche. At last, delirious and near death, he chances on to a cabin, where the first in a series of remarkably brave and clever men and women come to his aid.

The audio edition of On the Grand Trunk Road is finally available, revised and updated with new material. Focusing on Coll's journeys in conflict-ridden India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Afghanistan as a bureau chief for The Washington Post, On the Grand Trunk Road reveals a little-seen area of the world where violence, corruption, and greed have had devastating effects on South Asians from all walks of life.

His destination Antarctica, his expectations high, veteran explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton set out, on the eve of the First World War, in pursuit of his goal to lead the first expedition across the last unknown continent. Instead, his ship, the Endurance, became locked in sea ice, and for nine months Shackleton fought a losing battle with the elements before the drifting ship was crushed and his crew marooned.

Spread over 15 of the country’s 28 states, India’s Maoist movement is now one of the world’s biggest and most sophisticated extreme-left movements. Hardly a week passes without people dying in strikes and counter-strikes by the Maoists - interchangeably known as the Naxalites - and the police and paramilitary forces.

Craig Carlson set out to do the impossible: open the first American diner in Paris. Despite never having owned his own business before - let alone a restaurant, the riskiest business of all - Craig chose to open his diner in a foreign country, with a foreign language that also happens to be the culinary capital of the world. While facing enormous obstacles, Craig and his diner, Breakfast in America, went on to be a great success - especially with the French. 

One of the classics of Urdu literature, Chaltay Ho To Cheen Ko Chaleay is a highly engaging and informative travelogue about China by Ibn e Insha. Through his experiences Ibn Insha takes the listener on a journey that teaches one about the rich Chinese culture, literature, history, lifestyle, technology, language and much more.

Ibn-e-Insha, real name Sher Muhammad Khan was a Leftist Urdu poet, humorist, travelogue writer and columnist. He also served the UN for some time and this enabled him to visit a lot of places and was the reason for his subsequent travalogues. Some of the places he visited include Japan, Phillippines, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Iran, India, France, UK, Turkey and the US. Nagri Nagri Phira Musafir is a humorous and fascinating account of many such travels.

When Taran N. Khan first arrived in Kabul in the spring of 2006 - five years after the Taliban government was overthrown - she found a city both familiar and unknown. Falling in with poets, archaeologists, and filmmakers, she begins to explore the city, and, over the course of several returns, discovers a Kabul quite different from the one she had expected. Shadow City is an account of these expeditions, a personal and meditative portrait of a city we know primarily in terms of conflict.

This is the account of a unique journey – a 600-mile trek on foot around Cyprus in the last year of the island's peace. Colin Thubron intertwines myth, history and personal anecdote in a quest from which the characters and places, architecture and landscape all spring vividly to the listener's ear.

Great Continental Railway Journeys is now a firmly established series on BBC2, following in the illustrious tracks of its predecessor - Great British Railway Journeys. Both series are fronted by ex-politician Michael Portillo, and in this European odyssey he travels around continental Europe using George Bradshaw's 1913 Continental Railway Guide.

In 1841, Nigel Halleck left Britain as a clerk in the East India Company. He served in the colonial administration for eight years before leaving his post, eventually disappearing in the mountain kingdom of Nepal, never to be heard from again. A century-and-a-half later, Kief Hillsbery, Nigel's nephew many times removed, sets out to unravel the mystery. Tracing his ancestor's journey across the subcontinent, his quest takes him from Lahore to Calcutta and finally to the palaces of Kathmandu. What emerges is an unexpected personal chapter in the history of the British Empire in India.

From the author of The Secret Knowledge of Water and Atlas of a Lost World comes a deeply felt essay collection focusing upon a vivid series of desert icons - a sheet of virga over Monument Valley, white seashells in dry desert sand, boulders impossibly balanced. Craig Childs delves into the primacy of the land and the profound nature of the more-than-human. 

Ever suffered the collective flatulence of 80 c-passengers while sailing on a serene Asian river? Or called out for rescue in true Bollywood style while locked up in a minaret in Persia? Or had to cross a pack of hyenas en route to the loo?

Challenged by an expert who said it couldn’t be done, Joshua Slocum, a fearless New England sea captain, set out in April 1895 to prove that a man could sail alone around the world. A little over three years and forty-six thousand miles later, the proof was complete. This is Slocum’s own account of his remarkable adventures during the historic voyage of the Spray.

John Gierach demonstrates once again that fishing, when done right, is as much a philosophical pursuit as a sport. Gierach travels to Wyoming and Maine and points in between, searching out new fly-fishing adventures and savoring familiar waters with old friends. Along the way he meditates on the importance of good guides, the challenge of salmon fishing, and the zen of fishing alone. On a more serious note, he ponders the damaging effects of disasters both natural and man-made.