In 1954, as a twenty-nine-year-old grad student, Dick Jorgensen was selected to be one of four "ambassador" teachers in a first-ever exchange program with Japan. Jorgensen would represent the University of Michigan, where he was studying history, and would spend the next two years teaching at the University of Hiroshima, founded in the wake of the dropping of the atomic bomb on that city in 1945. Thus began an incredible journey for, as he describes himself, a Kid from the Midwest. Those t...

In this, the second of three planned memoirs, Dick Jorgensen takes readers along on his first around-the-world journey as he travels back to the United States from Japan in 1956. (O Tomodachi, Friend, Jorgensen's first book, tells the story of his two years of teaching at the University of Hiroshima from 1954-56.) Through Southeast Asia and then the Middle East, to Europe and finally, boarding a ship for New York from Genoa, Jorgensen gives us a firsthand view of life and times in the mid-...

This collection gathers the best travel essays from The New Yorker, Harpers, GQ and more—featuring Paul Theroux, Alice Gregory, Dave Eggers and others.Why do I travel? Why does anyone of us travel? Bill Bryson poses these questions in his introduction to The Best American Travel Writing 2016, and though he admits, "I wasn't at all sure I knew the answer," these questions start us on the path of some fascinating exploratio...

Few people have read as widely in the field of Canadiana as has John Robert Colombo. The curiosity of this Toronto writer, editor, and anthologist knows few if any bounds when it comes to the lore, literature, history, culture, and character of Canada. He has an inquiring mind and he seems able to find national and even international twists to subjects of interest or importance.Fascinating Canada, his latest book, is the product of over half a century of research, reading,...

The career of Stefanie Powers is one of so many stage, screen, and television credits that her name alone recalls memories as varied as her roles—on screen and off. From movie roles including John Wayne’s daughter in McLintock! and Lana Turner’s rival in Love Has Many Faces, to being terrorized by Tallulah Bankhead in Die, Die My Darling and befriending a Volkswagen in Herbie Rides Again, she stepped onto the television screen as the sex...

Pico Iyer has for many years described with keen perception and exacting wit the shifting textures of faraway lands anchored on a spinning globe that mixes and matches East and West. Now he casts a philosophical eye upon this curious state of floatingness.In the transnational village that our world has become, travel and technology fuel each other and us. As Iyer points out, "everywhere is so made up of everywhere else," and our very souls have been put into circulation. Yet even g...

“Reading [Davis] is like returning to the classroom of the best teacher you ever had.”— PeopleFor years, Kenneth C. Davis has enlightened and enthralled us, opening our minds and tickling our fancies with his wonderfully irreverent, fun, and factual Don't Know Much About® series. He has carried readers on wild and edifying rides through history, mythology, geography, the Bible, the Civil War, even across the universe. Now, following on the heels of his triumphant New York Times bes...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA visual adventure of Wes Anderson proportions, with a foreword by the legendary filmmaker himself. This gorgeous book features stunning photographs of real-life places that seem plucked from the world of his films, with the fascinating stories behind each façade.Accidentally Wes Anderson began as a travel bucket list, a catalog of visually striking and historica...

An extraordinary wide-ranging collection of essays with “distinctive wordplay and quirky opinions…Christopher Buckley is good company whether you’re looking for two quick pages and a smile, or want to linger” (The New York Times Book Review).Christopher Buckley, like his terrific volume But Enough About You, contains multitudes. Tackling subjects ranging from “How to Teach Your Four-Year-Old to Ski” to “A Short History of the Bug Zapper,” and “The...

**From Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Paul Goldberger, a full-fledged critical biography of Frank Gehry, undoubtedly the most famous architect of our time.“Fascinating. . . . An informative, startling journey into the inner sanctums of modern architecture’s power structure.” —The New York Times Book Review“Riveting. . . . Full of little-known facts about the Pritzker Prize-winner that will surprise the most knowledgable Gehry-philes.” —Architectural Digest*...

"An excellent and novel exploration of key ideas behind city spaces and the behaviors they engender." — Wall Street JournalFrom the acclaimed landscape designer, historian and author of American Eden, a lively, unique, and accessible cultural history of modern cities.Dream Cities explores our cities in a new way—as expressions of ideas, often conflicting, about how we should live, work, play, make, buy, and believe. It tells the sto...

The Pub Quiz Master's Trivia Compendium is an eclectic collection of 650 battle-tested questions and answers categorized and ready to use in your own pub trivia quiz.Whether you're a seasoned quiz master, hosting a quiz for the first time, or just looking for some great trivia, the Compendium is your one-stop reference.What is the name of the historical pledge Doctors take in many countries to practice medicine ethically?In World War II, what did the "D" in D-Day st...