"

Monday, September 26, 2011

The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland 2012 (Unofficial Guides)

The Unofficial
The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland 2012 (Unofficial Guides)
by Bob Sehlinger, Seth Kubersky, Len Testa
5.0 out of 5 stars(1)
Publication Date: September 20, 2011

Buy new: $17.99 $10.98
37 used & new from $10.04

(Visit the Hot New Releases in Travel list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Review & Description

  • With nearly 13 million visitors, the original Disneyland Park® still ranks as one of America's Top 25 Visited Sites according to Forbes Traveler. 
  • Disneyland Park® and Disney's California Adventure® continue a 1 billion dollar expansion with new attractions based on the successful Pixar films- new attractions already added to the park include Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, Toy Story Mania, World of Color, and coming soon Goofy's Sky School and The Little Mermaid- Ariel's Undersea Adventure scheduled to debut in Spring 2011.
  • In 2012, Disney's California Adventure® is scheduled to continue with a 12 acre expansion adding a new land to the park based on the Pixar animated film, Cars. 
Read more


See all bestsellers Click Here

Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: An Anecdotal History of Elegant Delights

Encyclopedia of the Exquisite
Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: An Anecdotal History of Elegant Delights
by Jessica Kerwin Jenkins
4.5 out of 5 stars(26)

Buy new: $27.95 $18.45
52 used & new from $15.44

(Visit the Most Wished For in Travel list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Review & Description

Encyclopedia of the Exquisite is a lifestyle guide for the Francophile and the Anglomaniac, the gourmet and the style maven, the armchair traveler and the art lover. It’s an homage to the esoteric world of glamour that doesn’t require much spending but makes us feel rich.

Taking a cue from the exotic encyclopedias of the sixteenth century, which brimmed with mysterious artifacts, Jessica Kerwin Jenkins’s Encyclopedia of the Exquisite focuses on the elegant, the rare, the commonplace, and the delightful. A com­pendium of style, it merges whimsy and practicality, traipsing through the fine arts and the worlds of fashion, food, travel, home, garden, and beauty.

Each entry features several engaging anecdotes, illuminating the curious past of each enduring source of beauty. Subjects covered include the explosive history of champagne; the art of lounging on a divan; the emergence of “frillies,” the first lacy, racy lingerie; the ancient uses of sweet-smelling saffron; the wild riot incited by the appearance of London’s first top hat; Julia Child’s tip for cooking the perfect omelet; the polarizing practice of wearing red lipstick during World War II; Louis XIV’s fondness for the luscious Bartlett pear; the Indian origin of badminton; Parliament’s 1650 attempt to suppress Europe’s beauty mark fad; the evolution of the Japanese kimono; the pil­grimage of Central Park’s Egyptian obelisk; and the fanciful thrill of dining alfresco.

Cleverly illustrated, Encyclopedia of the Exquisite is an ode to life’s plenty, from the extravagant to the eccentric. It is a cele­bration of luxury that doesn’t necessarily require money.Look Inside Encyclopedia of the Exquisite

Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: Amorini and Putti
Amorini and Putti
View larger
Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: Champagne
Champagne
View larger
Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: Traje de Luces
Traje de Luces
View larger
Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: Trapeze
Trapeze
View larger


Read more


See all bestsellers Click Here

Journeys of a Lifetime: 500 of the World's Greatest Trips

Journeys of a Lifetime
Journeys of a Lifetime: 500 of the World's Greatest Trips
by National Geographic
4.6 out of 5 stars(44)

Buy new: $40.00 $25.00
106 used & new from $14.08

(Visit the Most Gifted in Travel list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Review & Description

No one knows the world like National Geographic—and in this lavish volume, we reveal our picks for the world's most fabulous journeys, along with helpful information for readers who want to try them out.

Compiled from the favorite trips of National Geographic's travel writers, Journeys of a Lifetime spans the globe to highlight the best of the world's most famous and lesser known sojourns. It presents an incredible diversity of possibilities, from ocean cruises around Antarctica to horse treks in the Andes. Every continent and every possible form of transport is covered.

A timely resource for the burgeoning ranks of active travelers who crave adventurous and far-flung trips, Journeys of a Lifetime provides scores of creative ideas: trekking the heights of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania... mountain biking in Transylvania... driving through the scenic highlands of Scotland... or rolling through the outback on Australia's famous Ghan train... and dozens of other intriguing options all over the world.

Journeys of a Lifetime also features 22 fun Top 10 lists in all sorts of categories. What are the world's top 10 elevator rides, bridges to walk across, trolley rides, ancient highways, or underground walking adventures? Readers will love evaluating and debating the selections.

Each chapter showcases stunning photography, full-color maps, evocative text, and expert advice—including how to get there, when to visit, and how to make the most of the journey—all packaged in a luxurious oversize volume to treasure for years to come. Read more


See all bestsellers Click Here

The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City

The Sweet Life in Paris
The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City
by David Lebovitz
4.6 out of 5 stars(104)

Buy new: $14.00 $10.99
57 used & new from $7.80

(Visit the Most Wished For in Travel list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Review & Description

Like so many others, David Lebovitz dreamed about living in Paris ever since he first visited the city in the 1980s. Finally, after a nearly two-decade career as a pastry chef and cookbook author, he moved to Paris to start a new life. Having crammed all his worldly belongings into three suitcases, he arrived, hopes high, at his new apartment in the lively Bastille neighborhood.

But he soon discovered it's a different world en France.

From learning the ironclad rules of social conduct to the mysteries of men's footwear, from shopkeepers who work so hard not to sell you anything to the etiquette of working the right way around the cheese plate, here is David's story of how he came to fall in love with—and even understand—this glorious, yet sometimes maddening, city.

When did he realize he had morphed into un vrai parisien? It might have been when he found himself considering a purchase of men's dress socks with cartoon characters on them. Or perhaps the time he went to a bank with 135 euros in hand to make a 134-euro payment, was told the bank had no change that day, and thought it was completely normal. Or when he found himself dressing up to take out the garbage because he had come to accept that in Paris appearances and image mean everything.

The more than fifty original recipes, for dishes both savory and sweet, such as Pork Loin with Brown Sugar–Bourbon Glaze, Braised Turkey in Beaujolais Nouveau with Prunes, Bacon and Bleu Cheese Cake, Chocolate-Coconut Marshmallows, Chocolate Spice Bread, Lemon-Glazed Madeleines, and Mocha–Crème Fraîche Cake, will have readers running to the kitchen once they stop laughing.

The Sweet Life in Paris is a deliciously funny, offbeat, and irreverent look at the city of lights, cheese, chocolate, and other confections. Read more


See all bestsellers Click Here

Sunday, September 25, 2011

The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean

The Wave
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean
by Susan Casey
3.8 out of 5 stars(188)

Buy new: $27.95 $17.72
159 used & new from $3.64

(Visit the Most Gifted in Travel list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Review & Description

From Susan Casey, bestselling author of The Devil’s Teeth, an astonishing book about colossal,  ship-swallowing rogue waves and the surfers who seek them out.

For centuries, mariners have spun tales of gargantuan waves, 100-feet high or taller. Until recently scientists dis­missed these stories—waves that high would seem to violate the laws of physics. But in the past few decades, as a startling number of ships vanished and new evidence has emerged, oceanographers realized something scary was brewing in the planet’s waters. They found their proof in February 2000, when a British research vessel was trapped in a vortex of impossibly mammoth waves in the North Sea—including several that approached 100 feet.

As scientists scramble to understand this phenomenon, others view the giant waves as the ultimate challenge. These are extreme surfers who fly around the world trying to ride the ocean’s most destructive monsters. The pioneer of extreme surfing is the legendary Laird Hamilton, who, with a group of friends in Hawaii, figured out how to board suicidally large waves of 70 and 80 feet. Casey follows this unique tribe of peo­ple as they seek to conquer the holy grail of their sport, a 100­-foot wave.

In this mesmerizing account, the exploits of Hamilton and his fellow surfers are juxtaposed against scientists’ urgent efforts to understand the destructive powers of waves—from the tsunami that wiped out 250,000 people in the Pacific in 2004 to the 1,740-foot-wave that recently leveled part of the Alaskan coast.

Like Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, The Wave brilliantly portrays human beings confronting nature at its most ferocious. Read more


See all bestsellers Click Here

Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time

Turn Right at Machu Picchu
Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time
by Mark Adams
4.6 out of 5 stars(29)

Buy new: $26.95 $16.84
65 used & new from $14.50

(Visit the Most Gifted in Travel list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Review & Description

What happens when an adventure travel expert-who's never actually done anything adventurous-tries to re-create the original expedition to Machu Picchu?

July 24, 1911, was a day for the history books. For on that rainy morning, the young Yale professor Hiram Bingham III climbed into the Andes Mountains of Peru and encountered an ancient city in the clouds: the now famous citadel of Machu Picchu. Nearly a century later, news reports have recast the hero explorer as a villain who smuggled out priceless artifacts and stole credit for finding one of the world's greatest archaeological sites.

Mark Adams has spent his career editing adventure and travel magazines, so his plan to investigate the allegations against Bingham by retracing the explorer's perilous path to Machu Picchu isn't completely far- fetched, even if it does require him to sleep in a tent for the first time. With a crusty, antisocial Australian survivalist and several Quechua-speaking, coca-chewing mule tenders as his guides, Adams takes readers through some of the most gorgeous and historic landscapes in Peru, from the ancient Inca capital of Cusco to the enigmatic ruins of Vitcos and Vilcabamba.

Along the way he finds a still-undiscovered country populated with brilliant and eccentric characters, as well as an answer to the question that has nagged scientists since Hiram Bingham's time: Just what was Machu Picchu? Read more


See all bestsellers Click Here

Peru (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE)

Peru EYEWITNESS
Peru (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE)
by Nigel Hicks, Linda Whitwam
4.0 out of 5 stars(2)

Buy new: $25.00 $16.74
51 used & new from $11.73

(Visit the Most Gifted in Travel list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Review & Description

Let this lavishly illustrated guide whet your appetite and show you where to start looking for the real Peru - with cutaways and floor plans of all the major sites, and special features on the ancient Caral and the Colonial splendor of the Spanish conquistadors.



Sample the flavor of the country region by region, with new full-color detailed maps of towns and regions and comprehensive listings of hotels and restaurants.



Find out all you need for sights, beaches, markets and festivals listed town by town, from a home stay in the floating village of Lake Titicaca to a morning flight over the magical Nazca Lines. And with the absorbing in-depth section on the Inca heartland and a step-by-step route of the Inca trail, this is a guide not to be missed. Read more


See all bestsellers Click Here