Traces the author's 2002 travels throughout twenty-two countries, a journey during which he engaged in such activities as a cow poaching, a celebrity impersonation, and a transvestite chase.

In October 2002, Elliott Hester sold his car, abandoned his apartment, and took off alone on a trip around the world, during which he drifted to over fifty destinations. Elliott's tales about his travels range from the bizarre to the hilarious to the flat-out shocking. Travel with him as he: · Chases off transvestites in the South Pacific · Gets drunk on Estonian moonshine at the maker's eightieth birthday party · Impersonates Samuel L. Jackson at the 38th International Film Festival in the Czech Republic · Ponders the Finnish tradition of sprinting from steamy sauna to plunge into the frigid Baltic Sea—naked! · And much more. Only an around-the-world excursion could produce such outlandish, hair-raising, hysterical adventures. And only Elliott Hester could make such vivid observations and write such vibrant insights about life---and people---on the road.

The pull of the land on the soul. The healing of the heart from the Source. For thousands of years, Red Rock Country has been a spiritual haven for the indigenous peoples of North America and settlers from across the world. Author Marianna Harris travels the Grand Circle of the Colorado Plateau to bring you the mysteries of the living landscape of the American desert southwest. Join a Continental Drifter on adventures filled with humor and insight in confronting the human condition as she uncovers the transformative, healing power of the spirit through nature. Feel the red earth, red rock monoliths, desert sun and summer rainstorms permeate your consciousness and soothe your mind and heart. Nature. Geology. Its not just science.

You're belted into a middle seat with burly businessmen on either side. It's 92 degrees in the cabin and someone forgot to use deodorant. A baby screams. A kid kicks the back of your seat. After two hours you haven't even left the taxiway. Welcome to modern airline travel! In Plane Insanity, Elliott Hester delivers stories that could only come from someone who "rides tin" for a living-a flight attendant. You'll hear about: * the passenger from hell * a smuggled python * prostitutes working the lavatories * a riot in coach-class * a heist * the anatomy of a carryon bag * a malodorous couple * the Mile-High Club * and more! Fasten your seatbelts. After Plane Insanity, you'll never think of air travel the same way again.

The tradition of the Grand Tour was started in 1608 by an intrepid but down-at-the-heels English courtier named Thomas Coryate, who walked across Europe, miraculously managed to return home in one piece, and wrote a book about his bawdy misadventures. With The Grand Tour, Tim Moore proves not only that he is Coryate's worthy successor but one of the finest and funniest travel writers working today. Armed with a well-thumbed reprint of Coryate's book, Moore donned a purple plush suit and set off in a second-hand and highly temperamental Rolls-Royce through France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Holland. Like Coryate, Moore possesses an astonishing ability to land himself in humiliating predicaments. His account of his hilariously memorable misadventures on Venice's canals on one fateful afternoon is by itself worth the price of admission. Moore brings new life to the Old World and in the process sends readers into paroxysms of laugher and delight.

In Jason Platt's debut graphic novel, Ferris Bueller meets Calvin and Hobbes in this hilarious and embarrassing middle school caper that asks the important questions--like how long can one kid vamp before he embarrasses himself in front of his whole school? Newell is always getting into trouble--whether it's showing up tardy for most of the year, or mocking his teachers while authoritarian Mr. Todd is standing right behind him. When disaster strikes and Newell finds himself on track to summer school, he's given one last minute option to get out of it--participating in the upcoming Talent Show. The only problem is that he doesn't technically have a talent to show. Yikes. In this fun and imaginative full-color graphic novel, Jason Platt sends a fast-talking, daydreaming, middle school kid on a desperate quest to pull off a great show and save his summer. This title will be simultaneously available in hardcover.

Snow Mountain Passage is a powerful retelling of the most dramatic of our pioneer stories—the ordeal of the Donner Party, with its cast of young and old risking all, its imprisoning snows, its rumors of cannibalism. James Houston takes us inside this central American myth in a compelling new way that only a novelist can achieve. The people whose dreams, courage, terror, ingenuity, and fate we share are James Frazier Reed, one of the leaders of the Donner Party, and his wife and four children—in particular his eight-year-old daughter, Patty. From the moment we meet Reed—proud, headstrong, yet a devoted husband and father—traveling with his family in the "Palace Car," a huge, specially built covered wagon transporting the Reeds in grand style, the stage is set for trouble. And as they journey across the country, thrilling to new sights and new friends, coping with outbursts of conflict and constant danger, trouble comes. It comes in the fateful choice of a wrong route, which causes the group to arrive at the foot of the Sierra Nevada too late to cross into the promised land before the snows block the way. It comes in the sudden fight between Reed and a drover—a fight that exiles Reed from the others, sending him solo over the mountains ahead of the storms. We follow Reed during the next five months as he travels around northern California, trying desperately to find means and men to rescue his family. And through the amazingly imagined "Trail Notes" of Patty Reed, who recollects late in life her experiences as a child, we also follow the main group, progressively stranded and starving on the Nevada side of the Sierras. Snow Mountain Passage is an extraordinary tale of pride and redemption. What happens—who dies, who survives, and why—is brilliantly, grippingly told.