Now in paperback, an "insightful" (San Francisco Bay Guardian) look at tourism and nostalgia from the bestselling author and art critic. In Lucy R. Lippard's On the Beaten Track, essays on cultural criticism, anthropology, and community activism are interwoven to examine how tourism sites are conceived and represented, and how they transform their surroundings. Called "stimulating" and "valuable" by Newsday, On the Beaten Track is now available in paperback for the first time. With her characteristic breadth of insight and critical eye, Lippard explores the act of being a tourist in one's own home, the role of advertising and photography in defining place, antique shops as populist museums, and the commodification of indigenous cultures. She discusses the political economies of leisure spaces; the tourist's fascination with tragic destinations such as the sites of massacres, nuclear weapons tests, and Holocaust memorials; and our willingness to let national parks and heritage sites define nature and history. Finally, the author that critic Andrew Ross calls "the most sure-footed tour guide you could hope for" surveys how artists are responding to the environmental, cultural, and political issues surrounding contemporary tourism.

A breathtaking mountain adventure, in which a boy finds his inner strength, from the author of the critically-acclaimed, award-winning novel The Heart Paul is ten years old and lives with his aunt and uncle. Bruce, an old family friend, suddenly reappears after three years of silence, eager to keep a promise he made to Paul to take him on a three-day mountain trek. Paul longs for Bruce’s friendship and wants badly to prove himself. But he is also timid and unsure, and Bruce—who is better at doing than explaining—doesn’t make it any easier. A dramatic event gives Paul the chance to find his inner strength, and to show himself and everyone else what he is capable of. This uniquely illustrated coming-of-age story for teens can help create thought-provoking discussion about: Finding independence, resiliency, and self-confidence The importance of guidance and mentorship from trusted adults An Aldana Libros Book, Greystone Kids

Publisher Description

"I'm an explorer, OK? I like to find out!" -- One of the towering figures of twentieth-century science, Richard Feynman possessed a curiosity that was the stuff of legend. Even before he won the Nobel Prize in 1965, his unorthodox and spellbinding lectures on physics secured his reputation amongst students and seekers around the world. It was his outsized love for life, however, that earned him the status of an American cultural icon-here was an extraordinary intellect devoted to the proposition that the thrill of discovery was matched only by the joy of communicating it to others. In this career-spanning collection of letters, many published here for the first time, we are able to see this side of Feynman like never before. Beginning with a short note home in his first days as a graduate student, and ending with a letter to a stranger seeking his advice decades later, Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track covers a dazzling array of topics and themes, scientific developments and personal histories. With missives to and from scientific luminaries, as well as letters to and from fans, family, students, crackpots, as well as everyday people eager for Feynman's wisdom and counsel, the result is a wonderful de facto guide to life, and eloquent testimony to the human quest for knowledge at all levels. Feynman once mused that "people are entertained' enormously by being allowed to understand a little bit of something they never understood before." As edited and annotated by his daughter, Michelle, these letters not only allow us to better grasp the how and why of Feynman's enduring appeal, but also to see the virtues of an inquiring eye in spectacular fashion. Whether discussing the Manhattan Project or developments in quantum physics, the Challenger investigation or grade-school textbooks, the love of his wife or the best way to approach a problem, his dedication to clarity, grace, humor, and optimism is everywhere evident..

Accompanies the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, from July 7 - October 31, 2004

James Buzard demonstrates the ways in which the distinction between tourist and traveller has developed and how the circulation of the two terms influenced how 19th and 20th century writers on Europe viewed themselves and presented themselves in writing.