I steal steps. That's right, steps. I take them away from those who arrive home late in the evening and can't wait to lie down on the armchair in the living room to get stupid in front of the TV. From those who use the car for any trip, especially short, and maybe don't worry about parking in a double row in order to avoid the unnecessary effort of an extra meter on foot. I steal from those who stay in bed all Sunday to soak up a solemn hangover, from those who willingly exchange the tanni...

This book was born from the idea of providing useful advice and suggestions to those who are about to embark on the Camino de Santiago for the first time.I walked them all: in 2006 the Camino Francés, from St. Jean Pied-de-Port to Fisterra, in 2008 the Via de la Plata from Seville, in 2010, the Jacobean holy year, the Camino Primitivo from Oviedo and the stage from Fisterra to Muxía, in 2012 the Camino del Norte. I put the figures in a column, I try to add them. Three thousand kilom...

Spain is an immemorial land like no other, one that James A. Michener, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author and celebrated citizen of the world, came to love as his own. Iberia is Michener’s enduring nonfiction tribute to his cherished second home. In the fresh and vivid prose that is his trademark, he not only reveals the celebrated history of bullfighters and warrior kings, painters and processions, cathedrals and olive orchards, he also shares the intimate, often hidden country he...

Beginning with a vivid description of his wedding in the splendid medieval ceremonial chamber in Barcelona's city hall, Hughes launches into a lively account of the history, art, and architecture of the storied city. He tells of architectural treasures abounding in 14th-century Barcelona, establishing it as one of Europe's great Gothic cities, while Madrid was hardly more than a cluster of huts. The city spawned such great artists as Antoni Gaudi, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Salvador Dali, a...

An American writer and his wife find a new home—and a new lease on life—in the charming sixteenth-century hill town of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.When Los Angeles novelist Tony Cohan and his artist wife, Masako, visited central Mexico one winter they fell under the spell of a place where the pace of life is leisurely, the cobblestone streets and sun-splashed plazas are enchanting, and the sights and sounds of daily fiestas fill the air. Awakened to needs they didn’t know they ha...

The experiences of an ordinary man on the pilgrim’s path are charted in this narrative that walks along the Camino Francés to the shrine of Saint James at Santiago de Compostela and then on to Finisterre, the westernmost point of Spain. The history of the Camino is recounted, as well as several of the myths, legends, and miracle stories that have become attached--and given special meaning--to this itinerary. Emphasizing that personal myths are an essential part of this lore, this chronicle...

Over a long, turbulent life, Picasso continually discovered new ways of seeing the world and translating it into art. A restless genius, he went through a blue period, a rose period, and a Cubist phase. He made collages, sculptures out of everyday objects, and beautiful ceramic plates. True Kelley's engaging biography is a wonderful introduction to modern art.

Tony Cohan’s On Mexican Time, his chronicle of discovering a new life in the small Mexican mountain town of San Miguel de Allende, has beguiled readers and become a travel classic.Now, in Mexican Days, point of arrival becomes point of departure as—faced with the invasion of the town by tourists and an entire Hollywood movie crew, a magazine editor’s irresistible invitation, and his own incurable wanderlust—Cohan undertakes a richer, wider explora...

Displaying her "real talent for conjuring far-flung times and places," Kathryn Harrison tells the mesmerizing story of her 200-mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. In the spring of 1999, Kathryn Harrison set out to walk the centuries-old pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela. "Not a vacation, " she calls it, "but a time out of time." With a heavy pack, no hotel reservations, and little Spanish, she wanted an experience that would be both physically and psychically demandin...

The sky darkens and the wind increases rustling the leaves of the trees. The fragrance of Eucalyptus is in the air, and it feels biblical. As soon as I step under a canopy of trees, the sky opens up. I leap up under a tree and lean against the muddy wall of the trail and wait as God unleashes His power.

Bruno Cadogan has flown from New York to Buenos Aires in search of the elusive and legendary Julio Martel, a tango singer whose voice has never been recorded yet is said to be so beautiful it is almost supernatural. Bruno is increasingly drawn to the mystery of Martel and his strange and evocative performances in a series of apparently arbitrary sites around the city. As Bruno tries to find Martel, he begins to untangle the story of the singer's life, and to believe that Martel's increasin...

Strange Pilgrims is a collection of unforgettable stories about distinctive South American individuals in Europe from the Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera.'The first thing Señora Prudencia Linero noticed when she reached the port of Naples was that it had the same smell as the port of Riohacha'The twelve stories here tell of Latin Americans adrift in Euro...