Florence

Sample

Edmund White

**From Amazon.com:** “One has the impression, reading *The Flâneur*, of having fallen into the hands of a highly distractible, somewhat eccentric poet and professor who is determined to show you a Paris you wouldn’t otherwise see…Edmund White tells such a good story that I’m ready to listen to anything he wants to talk about.”—*New York Times Book Review* A flâneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles through city streets in search of adventure and fulfillment. Edmund White, who lived in Paris for sixteen years, wanders through the streets and avenues and along the quays, into parts of Paris virtually unknown to visitors and indeed to many Parisians. In the hands of the learned White, a walk through Paris is both a tour of its lush, sometimes prurient history and an evocation of the city’s spirit. The Flâneur leads us to bookshops and boutiques, monuments and palaces, giving us a glimpse into the inner human drama. Along the way we learn everything from the latest debates among French lawmakers to the juicy details of Colette’s life.

Sample

Peter Jenkins

The author begins his 1500-mile hike from New York to Louisiana with disdain for American lifestyles and ends it with a feeling of expectation and discovery.

Sample

Peter Robb

A travelogue through modern-day Brazil captures both the exuberant life force of the country and its people, as well as the violence and death that poses a continuing threat, offering reminiscences of the food, music, climate, history, art, character, and other key aspects of the nation.

Sample

Allen Abel

For his third book, Allen Abel, at the age of forty-three, decided to do a very daring thing - even for a journalist and foreign correspondent. He would move home to Brooklyn, live with his mother (in the same apartment in which he spent his childhood), and explore and write about the borough of his birth. Accompanied sporadically by his thirty-something sister, known affectionately as "Little Debbie," he spent several months wandering along Flatbush Avenue, the thoroughfare that runs like a spine through Brooklyn - from the Manhattan Bridge all the way to a national park on the salt-water shore. The result is a delightful family memoir and exploration of a unique borough by a wryly humorous observer with an eye for an unforgettable character and an ear for a good story. He hobnobs with Mohawk high-steel workers, tries to learn voodoo secrets from Haitian immigrants, commiserates with policemen detailed to the subway (also known as "The Beast") or with beleaguered shopkeepers, and chats with an ex-zookeeper in Prospect Park. He revisits the scenes of his childhood, samples social life in distant Flatlands, and hunts for horseshoe crabs on the shoreline. He is a constant source of entertainment. . Flatbush Odyssey is a revelation - as are all fine travel books - and in it Allen Abel has produced a marvellous piece of storytelling. It is sure to appeal even to those benighted few who have never set foot in Brooklyn.