Stewart McPherson
I’m guessing most viewers of the Pixar flick Up were convinced that the surreal, twisted landscape on the top of the mountain where the balloon-house landed were figments of overheated animators’ brains. However, based on the pictures in Lost Worlds of the Guiana Highlands, it is clear that …
Ian Frazier
Frazier’s dense and fascinating look at Siberia from seven trips over two decades makes a nowhere place into somewhere. Most often associated with gulag camps and cold, Siberia is as as vast and varied hunk of land as the US. Starting with his early fascination with the country, …
Stephen Fry
British actor and comedian Stephen Fry (Jeeves of Jeeves and Wooster fame) is that rare breed of European – one who actually likes Americans. In his attempt to show his British audiences that we aren’t all a bunch of loud, vulgar, gun-toting religious nuts he undertakes a project …
Catherine Price
I was a bit disappointed that many of the places Price lists are related to a personal anecdote (albeit hilarious), don’t really exist (hell) or you would not be able to experience yourself (being a bull at the running of the bulls). However, there are plenty of doozies …
Matt Polly
Chinese kung-fu is one of the most glorious examples of obsessive-compulsive behavior in the history of human culture.
There is a certain type of person who needs something to hang onto, make their own and Focus On (yes, with caps). For some reason, martial arts (and religion) seem …
Eyewitness Travel
This is SUCH a dangerous book if you like to travel. Here are a thousand alternative trips and places to visit off the standard tourist trail. Usually less expensive than the big names, much less-visited and often harder to get to, these destinations are so very tempting. Find …
This trio of true adventure books are completely gripping. The Lost City of Z, written by New Yorker columnist David Grann, chronicles his obsession with Victorian explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett. Trained by the Royal Geographical Society in London, Fawcett undertook numerous trips exploring the Amazon basin. Based on pottery …
Guillame de Laubier
WHOA! It’s library porn! Seriously, there are huge center fold out with *drool* spiral staircases, grilled shelves, tromp l’oil ceilings and (oh baby!) rare manuscripts housed in little nooks and alcoves. I think I need to lie down.…
Bill Steen, Athena Steen, Eiko Komatsu, Photos by Yoshio Komatsu
This book is a massive collection of hand-built homes and buildings from the around the world. Loosely grouped by material and use, the photos and brief text show a world of housing totally unlike anything we see in the US. …
David Hatcher Childress
I first ran about Nan Madol last month in Oliver Sack’s Island of the Colorblind. The city of Nan Madol is located deep in Micronesia. The partially sunken city once covered 11 square miles and was cut through with Venetian style canals and ringed with man-made …
Diane Bursten
I’m not sure what photos surprised me more in London Then and Now – the photos of landmarks virtually unchanged in over 100 years or those that were completely obliviated with not a hint that they ever existed. In both cases, images of massive stone and brick edifices …
Snowdon
This clever collection of photos showcases strange and outré buildings in London. Originally built as gate houses, gazebos or follies (mock-historical buildings built just for the heck of it) most have now been converted into expensive yuppie dwellings or garden sheds. With everything from mock-churches, tiny Victorian wrought-iron stands, …
Bill Belleville
Travel writer Belleville has visited some of the most remote and inaccessible sites in the world. Drawn to the water, he has explored reefs, tunnels, underwater caves, murky tropical rivers and cenote (sinkholes sacred to the Maya) visited by less people than have visited the moon. Sunken Cities …
Morna Gregory and Sian James
A thoroughly enjoyable photo essay collection of toilets of the world. From a hole in the sand in the middle of a vast desert, a tree marked “p” on a hiking trail, to an ultra-modernist egg shaped pods at a London club, the world takes …
Gary Gladstone
By the same photographer who shot and wrote Passing Gas is another fantastic collection of photography. Choosing towns with silly and often obscene sounding names, Gladstone and his spent months driving the country, hoping these towns still existed and then photographing them and their residents. Some residents are …
Saul Rubin
I can’t begin to tell you how upset I was to discover the Madison Museum of Bathroom Tissue had closed a few scant years ago. Such a shrine, virtually in my own back yard! A well, there are plenty of other great places to visit – The Nut …
