Moving away from home, leaving the nest, could be the beginning of a voyage that ends in a faraway country we would not have even considered when we set out—until we got there and discovered its secrets, its culture, its undiscovered paradises. Half a lifetime ago, the author ended his voyage of discovery in the Philippines, a country with one foot in the world of fairies and spirits, and where every event has an unusual twist, whether wedding or funeral, kidnapping or vasectomy, getting a...

Spanning the late 1980s to 2000, Coach Class to the Americas reveals aspects of life and times in the Americas that will probably not appear in history books—in short stories that take the reader from the lighter side of elections in Washington DC to fashions in Waikiki, from the guilt of sun seekers in Canada to the violence of fishers in the Galapagos Islands, from the grilles of US automobiles to the restrooms of Detroit airport, from altitude sickness in Quito to shrimp trappi...

Today, the Pacific islands reflect the best and worst in western society. On the one hand are the bravery and persistence of early European navigators, missionaries, and government officers; the early, well-meaning efforts by many westerners to help the islanders become ‘civilized’; the assistance readily given in times of natural disasters; and the grants and concessional loans to help Pacific countries develop into independent economic entities, to name but a few. On the other hand are t...

The strange death of three young children in a small coastal village in far away Papua New Guinea in March 1972 did not rate a mention in the territory’s annual report that year to its Australian governors—let alone make a ripple in international ponds. Yet, it was an event of incredible proportions. It marked the end of a chain of knowledge that extended back more than 45,000 years; it heralded the beginning of an era of immense, baffling phenomena and disasters around the world; and it m...

A kindly visitor from another galaxy arrives to find Earth in a bad state. Humans have overrun the planet and are living on a knife’s edge, supported by increasingly higher technology to maintain life while the climate changes around them and even the gas from the fart of a fly could tip them over the edge.Calling himself Astral Traveler, or AT, he brings the two authors together, planting in their heads stories about the disastrous fate of his former planet, which was destroyed un...

With the rise of the wind brings together short stories about one person’s thoughts and insights as he absorbs the wonder and mystery surrounding the shore on a tiny piece of the South China Sea; not only about the rise of the wind that can draw out once buried thoughts and emotions dormant in the hearts of those who occasionally stand or sit near the shore and become hypnotized by the power and moods of the sea. There are little stories here also about the people living beside th...

Mostly in Economy Class continues the ups and downs of flights and sights in Europe revealed in—and reveled in—Sometimes in Business Class, but this time in Asia—where adventure, surprise and wonder are around every corner, in incidents and events from the apparently trivial to the exotic to the erotic.Mostly in Economy Class begins with an adventure in China in the early 1980s that may or may not have ended in a dangerous escape to the west; the reader must decide. After the secre...

Which Asian country had a killer fish designed as a counter insurgency measure, a president who took over an island to make a private family game park of African wild animals; a revolution involving millions of people without bloodshed; coup plotters who took phone messages for you; more earthquakes, eruptions, floods, landslides and typhoons than just about any other country; a mountain where the bizarre becomes the ordinary; cities and villages where poverty and death display an innocent...

Here is a perfect book for airplane and armchair travelers; an alternative view of airlines, flying and destinations. Many people fly around the world from meeting to meeting, soaking up wine and the attention of airline stewards and stewardesses, clocking up free mileage, and working out tax breaks or how to sock away their travel allowances. But, as these stories about 1990s travel show, there is much to be learned along the way, from the airline wine tasters' ramblings, to the mystery o...

Recent decades have been marked by the decline or collapse of one fishery after another around the world, from swordfish in the North Atlantic to orange roughy in the South Pacific. While the effects of a collapse on local economies and fishing-dependent communities have generated much discussion, little attention has been paid to its impacts on the overall health of the ocean's ecosystems.In a Perfect Ocean: The State of Fisheries and Ecosystems in the North Atlantic Ocean

Inspired by the work of the renowned fisheries scientist Daniel Pauly, this book provides a detailed overview of ecosystem-based management of fisheries. It explores the complex and interdisciplinary nature of the subject by bringing together contributions from some of the world's leading fisheries scientists, managers and conservationists. Combining both research reviews and opinion pieces, and reflecting the breadth of Pauly's influence within the field, the book illustrates the range of...

Where is paradise on earth? Somewhere far from the maddening crowds, the cold, the politics, work, of course. People have been searching for their paradise for centuries, even before taxation was invented. The stories of those who wrote about their exploits often reveal more about themselves than the nature of the paradises they sought and sometimes found. Did you know that Sir Walter Raleigh was the world’s first pusher of paradise real estate? Or that among the explorers of tropical para...