If I were asked to describe the Dutch people who my wife and I worked with and lived among for more than two years, I would say that the Dutch I knew in business and as social friends are, without many exceptions: People who care more about benefits than earnings People who value the family more than ... more »

In the late 1830s Captain Marryat, already a famous literary figure in North America, visited the United States and Canada, writing his observations in two Series of volumes, each containing three books. These were published in Britain as the six books, but were published in America as two books with ... more »

In his Memoirs, Kropotkin states the singular fact that the natives of the Malayan Archipelago have an idea that something is extracted from them when their likenesses are taken by photography. Here is the motive for a fantastic short story, in which the hero - an author in vogue or a popular actor ... more »

Rosemary Mahoney was determined to take a solo trip down the Egyptian Nile in a small boat, even though civil unrest and vexing local traditions conspired to create obstacles every step of the way. Starting off in the south, she gained the unlikely sympathy and respect of a Muslim sailor, who provided ... more »

Tahir Shah's The Caliph's House, describing his first year in Casablanca, was hailed by critics and compared to such travel classics as A Year in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun. Now Shah takes us deeper into the heart of this exotic and magical land to uncover mysteries that have been hidden from ... more »

an excerpt from CHAPTER I: FAREWELL TO OLD ENGLAND. Masts, spires, and strand receding on the right, The glorious main expanding on the bow. At noon on July 1st, 1876, we said good-bye to the friends who had come to Chatham to see us off, and began the first stage of our voyage by steaming down to ... more »

Saturday was dawning warm, with only a gentle wind under a light blue sky as we got under way. . . . With the motor cut out, I could hear the whispered splash of the sea against the hull as we knifed through the Mediterranean. The calming noise, along with the gentle rocking, lulled me into a Zen calm ... more »

There are many aspects of Face: one can lose or gain Face personally, and you can cause others to gain or lose face too. One way to describe Face is to say that it is the prevention of embarrassment at all costs - but this begs the question that what is embarrassing for a westerner is generally quite ... more »

Two years out of college and with a degree from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, Victoria Riccardi left a boyfriend, a rent-controlled New York City apartment, and a plum job in advertising to move to Kyoto to study kaiseki, the exquisitely refined form of cooking that accompanies the formal Japanese tea ceremony ... more »

PerfectBound Special Feature! Read the author, Rob Mundle's summary of the coroner's report and the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia investigation into the tragedy. The Sydney to Hobart yacht race has become established as one of the world's major sporting events. The race in 1998 became one of the world ... more »

Anthony Doerr has received many awards -- from the New York Public Library, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the American Library Association. Then came the Rome Prize, one of the most prestigious awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and with it a stipend and a writing studio ... more »

from the PREFACE: The following pages represent some of the results of four journeys into the interior of Peru and also many explorations into the labyrinth of early writings which treat of the Incas and their Land. Although my travels covered only a part of southern Peru, they took me into every variety ... more »