Here's a page from Longitude, the specialty bookseller for travelers. To order online, and to see the latest, most comprehensive selection of books and maps, go to http://reading.longitudebooks.com/AY10004. You may also call 800-342-2164 to order or request a catalog.

The Towers of Trebizond  •  Rose MacAulay  •  Jan Morris LITERATURE •  2004 •  PAPER  • 277 PAGES • COMING IN OCTOBER First published in 1956, this is the impossibly witty account of an eccentric party of Brits who set off for Turkey to establish a mission. Known for her sparkling humor, Macaulay has written a minor masterpiece that makes great fun of the church and eccentric Englishmen in exotic lands. It also includes much information on the region and its ancient history. (TKY15, $16.00)
Libby  •  Libby Beaman  •  Betty John BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •  1998 •  PAPER  • 206 PAGES • HARD TO FIND ELSEWHERE Peppered with period drawings and photographs, Libby Beaman's plainly told, wonderfully evocative account of a year-long sojourn with her husband on St. Paul, a Longitude favorite, captures the drama of pioneer life in Alaska's Pribilof Islands. (ARC07, $16.95)
Dersu the Trapper  •  V.K. Arseniev  •  Malcolm Burr TRAVEL NARRATIVE •  1996 •  PAPER  • 358 PAGES • FAVORITE A mesmerizing account of adventure, exploration and friendship in the Russian Far East. A Russian captain who explored much of the region north of Vladivostok at the turn of the 20th century, Arseniev forged a friendship with the taciturn Dersu, a nomadic Goldi hunter. The book was the source for Kurosowa's magnificent 1976 film, Dersu Uzala. (SIB24, $16.00)
Ecuador, A Travel Journal  •  Henri Michaux  •  Robin Magowan TRAVEL NARRATIVE •  2001 •  PAPER  • 144 PAGES • FAVORITE A brief, querulous and entirely wonderful account of travels in Ecuador with the poet Gangotena, strong on color and personality and thin on travel practicalities. First published in 1929, the unlikely modernist Belgian-French painter and poet in Quito includes an unbeatable description of the accursed weather among his many impressions. The translator, who also provides an introduction, called "Ecuador" the first modern travel book and its sketches, prose poems, diary fragments and ruminations are certainly closer to the surrealists than the Victorians. (EDR16, $17.95)
The Steel Bonnets  •  George MacDonald Fraser HISTORY •  2008 •  PAPER  • 416 PAGES A masterful history of the 16th-century borderland between England and Scotland, capturing all the celebrated mayhem, blood and glory of the time in rich detail. It is the definitive history of the period, deftly written and well researched, by the prolific screenwriter of the "Three Musketeers" and author of the "Flashman" series. (SCT04, $14.95)
Tent Life in Siberia  •  George Kennan  •  Larry McMurtry EXPLORATION •  2011 •  PAPER  • 425 PAGES Kennan's spirited account of the people, cultures and harsh terrain of Kamchatka and the Russian Far East, originally published in 1871, is also a suspenseful tale of a doomed attempt to link Asia and America by telegraph through Siberia. (RUS142, $17.95)
Mornings in Mexico  •  D.H. Lawrence TRAVEL NARRATIVE •  2009 •  PAPER  • 96 PAGES Lawrence's magnificent collection of luminous short essays on the allure of Mexico and the American Southwest, originally published in 1927. The first first four essays explore Oaxaca, where Lawrence and Frieda rented a house, and the second four, Taos, where they lived in 1924. (MEX166, $16.00)
Independent People, An Epic  •  Halldor Laxness LITERATURE •  1997 •  PAPER  • 480 PAGES • FAVORITE A masterwork redolent of rural Icelandic life in the early days of the 20th century. This great mock-epic features Bjartur of Summerhouses -- a hard-headed, independent-minded sheep farmer whose voice dominates the story. Whatever its ethnographic interest, this is a tremendously good book, rich in local detail. The author won the Nobel Prize in 1955. (ICL01, $16.95)
The Egg and I  •  Betty MacDonald BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •  2008 •  PAPER  • 287 PAGES A classic account of raising chickens and children in the 1940s on a dilapidated 40-acre farm on the rainy, remote Olympic Peninsula. (PNW51, $13.99)
Winter Wheat  •  Mildred Walker LITERATURE •  1992 •  PAPER  • 386 PAGES A classic novel of family life and love on a 1940s-era Montana farm by Mildred Walker. The University of Nebraska press has returned Walker's many much-loved books to print, most originally published in the 1950s and 1960s. Winter Wheat, Walker's best known tale, is memorably set against the backdrop of the landscape, vagaries of weather and routines of life on a farm in central Montana. It's the story of 18-year-old Ellen Webb, her family, friends, and loves. (RKY75, $15.95)
Farthest North  •  Fridtjof Nansen EXPLORATION •  2008 •  PAPER  • 678 PAGES The great Norwegian explorer Fridjof Nansen recounts his adventures in the Arctic in this classic memoir, originally published in 1897. He describes the design and building of his ingenious ship, the "Fram" (which is still on display in Oslo), his drift across the icy wasteland, his six-month-long sledge journey with Johansen (where they reached farthest north before turning back), and his final dash across the ice floes to Franz Joseph Land, where they overwintered before being picked up by a passing British expedition. It's quite a tale, illustrated with maps and photographs. (ARC60, $17.95)

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