"The Lure of the North" by Harold Bindloss Harold Edward Bindloss was an English novelist who wrote many adventure novels set in western Canada and some in West Africa and England. In this book, readers are whisked away to Canada, a beautiful but harsh place that called to many young men and women who were on the hunt for adventure. Jim Thirlwell is an engineer at a struggling silver mine in northern Ontario. When one of his coworkers drowns in a canoe accident, Thirlwell begins a correspondence with the deceased's daughter Agatha who coaxes him into an adventure.

The 19th-century boom in mass tourism, fuelled by the introduction of the railways, brought with it the rise of travel writing. Guided excursions such as "Cook's Tours" (the first of which was led by Thomas Cook in 1841, and went from Leicester to Loughborough) were not for everyone. Many preferred to strike out alone into the depths of foreign lands. Of these foreign lands, Norway appealed to the more intrepid: the grand scenery, exotic peasantry and comparative cheapness of the Far North suited the enthusiasm of the young (or female) tourist. The books in "Found on the Shelves" have been chosen to give a fascinating insight into the treasures that can be found while browsing in The London Library. Now celebrating its 175th anniversary, with over seventeen miles of shelving and more than a million books, The London Library has become an unrivalled archive of the modes, manners and thoughts of each generation which has helped to form it. From essays on dieting in the 1860s to instructions for gentlewomen on trout-fishing, from advice on the ill health caused by the "modern" craze of bicycling to travelogues from Norway, they are as readable and relevant today as they were more than a century ago--even if it is no longer the Norwegian custom for tourists to be awoken by "the best-looking girl in the house"!

In the late nineteenth century, the North Woods offered people little in the way of a pleasant escape. Rather, it was a hub of production supplying industrial America with vast quantities of lumber and mineral ore. This book tells the story of how northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula became a tourist paradise, turning a scarred countryside into the playground we know today. Stripped of much of its timber and ore by the early 1900s, the North Woods experienced deindustrialization earlier than the Rust Belt cities that consumed its resources. In The Lure of the North Woods, Aaron Shapiro describes how residents and visitors reshaped the region from a landscape of exploitation to a vacationland. The rejuvenating North Woods profited in new ways by drawing on emerging connections between the urban and the rural, including improved transportation, promotion, recreational land use, and conservation initiatives. Shapiro demonstrates how this transformation helps explain the interwar origins of modern American environmentalism, when both the consumption of nature for pleasure and the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the North Woods and elsewhere led many Americans to cultivate a fresh perspective on the outdoors. At a time when travel and recreation are considered major economic forces, The Lure of the North Woods reveals how leisure—and tourism in particular—has shaped modern America.

This title explores the enduring myth of Dracula and vampires and just why it has remained so popular for so long.

Using the most up-to-date methods and theories about ancient economies, Archibald explores how the cultural and economic dynamics of the ancient kingdoms of Macedon and Thrace worked.

The incredible story of pirate Bartholomew Roberts, and how he transformed into the king of the pirates. From his idyllic boyhood to the high seas he ruled for four fiery years. Meticulously researched and grippingly told, this is the definitive account of Canada’s own pirate king.

The rapidity of the Mohammedan movement in its sweep westward is highly significant. A succession of conquerors came to the front-their names need not bother us-and by 668 what is now Tripoli was a Moslem state. Algeria went down with little resistance and the Arab hordes swept onward to the Pillars of Hercules. The story is told that Akba, who raided Morocco, rode his horse far out into the surf and cried, "Great God, if I were not stopped by this raging sea, I would go to the nations of the west, preaching the unity of they name and putting to the sword those who would not submit."-from Chapter II: "Strongholds of Mohammedanism"When missionary Cornelius Patton returned to Boston from an extended trip to Africa just before World War I, his friends and colleagues assumed he would write a book about his trip. "That," Patton assures us in the "Personal Word" that opens The Lure of Africa, "is exactly what I shall not do." Fortunately, Patton's friends and colleagues prevailed, and in 1917, he published this account of his journey, a lyrical and introspective work that hints at the conflicts this white man abroad on the Dark Continent may have felt. For 21st-century readers, it is a fascinating and unexpected look at a man who found Africa "horribly heathenish but mighty interesting" but nevertheless sought to mold this exotic land into something comfortable and familiar.OF INTEREST TO: students of the history of Christianity in Africa, armchair travelersAUTHOR BIO: American writer CORNELIUS HOWARD PATTON (1860-1939) is also the author of Business of Missions (1924), Eight O'Clock Chapel (1927), and God's Word (1931).