NEWS
A Hard Place to Leave Wins a Lowell Thomas Award
Marcia DeSanctis's probing, evocative, and transporting memoir was honored with the prestigious 2023 Lowell Thomas Award. A Hard Place to Leave took the bronze award in the Travel Book category. Restless to leave, eager to return: this memoir in essays captures the unrelenting pull between the past and the present, between traveling the world and staying home.
Melissa Febos in The New York Times had this to say about the book: “Intrepid and empathetic, gifted with the dispassionate gaze of a born observer…a harmonious collage of worldview and character, a wunderkammer of experiences in a life fully lived.”
Congratulations, Marcia!
NEW BOOKS
A Hard Place to Leave
Winner of the 2023 Lowell Thomas Award!
Vogue's Best Books of 2022
“Intrepid and empathetic, gifted with the dispassionate gaze of a born observer…a harmonious collage of worldview and character, a wunderkammer of experiences in a life fully lived.” —Melissa Febos, The New York Times
Restless to leave, eager to return: this memoir in essays captures the unrelenting pull between the past and the present, between traveling the world and staying home.
Starting in a dreary Moscow hotel room in 1983, weaving back and forth to rural New England, and ending on a West Texas trail in 2020, Marcia DeSanctis tells stories that span the globe and half a lifetime. With intimacy and depth, over quicksand in France, insomnia in Cambodia, up a volcano in Rwanda, spinning through the eye of a snowstorm in Bismarck, and atop a dumpster in her own backyard, this New York Times bestselling author, award-winning essayist and journalist for Vogue and Travel + Leisure immerses us in places waiting to be experienced and some that may be more than we’re up for. She encounters spies, angels, leopards, shoes, the odd rattlesnake, a random head of state, and many times over, the ghosts of her past. Each subsequent voyage leads to revelations about her search for solitude, a capacity for adventure, and always, a longing for home.
The Temporary European
“Vivid, funny, perceptive, intimate, and charged with a love of travel and a deep sense of humanity.” —Rick Steves, from the Foreword
20+ Years as Rick Steves’ Right-Hand Man
A candid account of how the sausage gets made in the travel business—told with affection, warts-and-all honesty, and a sense of humor.
What is it like to write guidebooks, make travel television, and lead bus tours for a living? Find out with Cameron as he samples spleen sandwiches at a Palermo street market, stews in Budapest’s thermal baths, survives driving in Sicily without going insane, and much more. Along the way, he shares many lessons learned from his favorite Europeans. You’ll also get a reality check for what seems to be a traveler’s dream job—working with Rick Steves and his merry band of travelers. Not just for Rick Steves fans but for anyone who loves Europe, The Temporary European is inspiring, insightful, and fun.
La Dolce Vita University – 2nd Edition
Come travel with La Dolce Vita University (L◆D◆V◆U) to the heart of Italian culture in the seductive spirit of la dolce vita. L◆D◆V◆U is the perfect sampler to indulge anyone curious about—or already in amore with—Italy and its remarkably rich trove of cultural treasures. In dozens of entertaining yet authoritative mini-essays, including 60 new stories and 40 new illustrations in this fully updated 2nd edition, L◆D◆V◆U lets you explore, at your leisure, fascinating aspects of Italy’s cuisine, history, art, traditions, style, legendary personalities, and so much more.
The book is organized alphabetically, but nothing is ever quite that straightforward when it comes to Italy. Even if you choose to read these mini-essays sequentially, you may very well feel as though you’re wandering the mysterious alleys of a medieval town, the hidden vicoli of a larger city, or even along the serpentine canals of La Serenissima.
The End of the World Notwithstanding
“Every word the right word, this book is a genuine keeper.” —Kirkus Reviews***Starred Review***
Rife with misadventure, brushes with death, and moments of existential insight, The End of the World Notwithstanding is a hilarious and reflective look at the emotional experiences that make everyday life exciting—and the physical ones that remind us we’re lucky to be alive. These nail-biting stories, all true, fill the reader with wonder, as in, “How do any of us survive?”
Encounters with wildfire, hideous insects, psychotic house pets, bad weather, gravity, predators, bullies, and the most potent force of all—fear—unfold in remote landscapes of the American West; on neon-splashed Hollywood sidewalks; in a Catskills summer camp for actors; in the Boston apartment of a famous senator; on a cliff high above the Mediterranean; beneath the streets of Paris. Goodwin looks for and finds meaning, if not security, in a clear-eyed acknowledgment of the human condition—and in the saving grace of laughter.
The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 12
As Andrew McCarthy wrote in The New York Times Book Review, “For more than 20 years, Travelers’ Tales has been publishing books that might best be described as the literary equivalent of a group of travelers sitting around a dim café, sipping pints or prosecco and trading their best stories.”
Now comes The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 12: True Stories from Around the World—the latest collection in the best-selling, award-winning series that invites you to ride shotgun alongside intrepid female nomads as they wander the globe discovering new places, faces, and facets of themselves.
“In story after story,” McCarthy wrote about the previous volume of The Best Women’s Travel Writing, “the refreshing absence of bluster and bravado, coupled with the optimism necessary for bold travel, create a unifying narrative that testifies to the personal value and cultural import of leaving the perceived safety of home and setting out into the wider world.”
The essays in this volume are as diverse as the destinations, exploring themes of kindness, transformation, nature, friendship, family, strength, and resilience.
EDITORS’ CHOICE — This Week’s Story
Reconciliation
By Rosie Cohan
Silver Solas Award-winner in the Travel and Healing category
I land in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital in April, 2000. Kosovo, a small land-locked republic that was part of the former Republic of Yugoslavia. This ravaged land was part of the Serbian massacre of Muslims, as was Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1998-1999 Balkan war. Trudging down the metal steps onto the tarmac in the Spring of 2000, I see at least fifty UN and NATO soldiers in brown and camouflage uniforms, loaded down with ammunition belts and automatic weapons. They scurry around guarding a few commercial and military planes, tanks, and several white Red Cross ambulances. Entering a temporary metal shack that serves as an arrival area, a bald, middle-aged man is eyeing each passenger. Below his faded, black leather jacket is a slightly wrinkled white shirt that resembles his pale, drawn face. I am one of the few women and my bewildered look must have identified me. He asks my name, and introduces himself as Mustafa, Vice President of the Riinvest, the economic think-tank I am to consult with on behalf of a Washington, D.C. non-profit. Read more