Best of 2009

FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Best of 2009 | READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE

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/LO21774. You may also call 800-342-2164 to order or request a catalog.

These 10 items are available for $268, including
U.S. shipping, a 20% discount (Item no. EXTVL6)

World Heritage Sites • UNESCO Publishing ARCHAEOLOGY • 2011 • PAPER • 856 PAGES • NEW From the Galapagos and Mesa Verde to China's Mount Sanqingshan National Park and Al-Hijar in Saudi Arabia, this beautifully illustrated compendium includes color photographs, a map and succinct description of each archaeological site, monument, city or park. Organized by date of inscription from 1978 to 2011, the book also includes regional locator maps and a country-by-country index. (CON53, $29.95)
La Bella Lingua • Dianne Hales TRAVEL NARRATIVE • 2010 • PAPER • 336 PAGES • NEW Hales, "a sensible woman of sturdy Polish stock," writes with verve and humor of her journey into the Italian of the piazze, literature, movies and streets in this charming memoir, travelogue and cultural primer. Brava, Signora! A Longitude Best of 2009. (ITA26, $15.00)
The Lost City of Z • David Grann BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR • 2010 • PAPER • 368 PAGES • NEW In this riveting, real-life adventure tale, New Yorker writer Grann deftly intercuts between a biography of Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett and his own quest to find out what happened to the great explorer, who disappeared in the Brazilian Amazon in 1925. He gets farther than anyone before in solving the mystery of the man -- and a lost civilization in the Amazon, thanks to his own dogged determination (and considerable research skills), never-before-examined Fawcett family papers, and the work of archaeologists like Anna Roosevelt and Michael J. Heckenberger. There may not have been an El Dorado but Fawcett, as it turns out, was right that great urban centers once flourished in the Amazon. Though you may disagree with his conclusions about the fabled lost city that seduced Fawcett, Grann is a great storyteller. Bradt Pitt bought the movie rights with the idea of starring as the colonel. (AMZ117, $15.95)
The Great Cities in History • John Julius Norwich HISTORY • 2009 • HARD COVER • 304 PAGES Timbuktu, Tikal, Damascus, Constantinople, London, Paris, Shanghai. This inspired book depicts the rise and fall of cities from earliest Mesopotamia through the great trading center of the first millennium to Medieval Europe and modern Megalopolis, each magnificently illustrated in color and with an essay by diverse dignitaries including Jan Morris (New York), Colin Thubron (Samarkand), Simon Schama (Amsterdam) and Michael Coe (Angkor). (WLD171, $45.00)
The Heart of the Great Alone: Scott, Shackleton, and Antarctic Photography • David Hempleman-Adams • Emma Stuart • Sophie Gordon EXPLORATION • 2009 • HARD COVER • 240 PAGES • NEW One hundred years ago, during the reign of King George V, Britain sent two great expeditions, that of Robert Falcon Scott in 1910, and four years later, that of Ernest Shackleton, into the great unknown. The rest is stuff of legend. Here in one handsome book are not only hundreds of haunting photographs by Herbert George Ponting and Frank Hurley, drawn from the albums presented to the king, but also lively essays, maps, paintings and other ephemera from the Royal Collection. Astute commentary by modern polar David Hempleman-Adams gives depth and context for each image, some published here for the first time. The accompanying exhibition is at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh until April 2010. (ANT298, $47.50)
A Comrade Lost and Found, A Beijing Story • Jan Wong TRAVEL NARRATIVE • 2010 • PAPER • 336 PAGES • NEW Hoping to make amends, Wong returns to Beijing to find the classmate she betrayed during the Cultural Revolution. As she traces her way from one former comrade to the next, Wong unearths not only the fate of the woman she is searching for but a web of fates that mirrors the dramatic journey of contemporary China. (CHN547, $14.95)
Galapagos, Preserving Darwin's Legacy • Tui De Roy NATURAL HISTORY • 2009 • HARD COVER • 240 PAGES • NEW Tui de Roy corralled dozens of researchers and friends for this magnificently illustrated, authoritative and up-to-date survey of the natural history, ecology and conservation of the Galapagos. With chapters by Jack Grove (fishes), Peter and Rosemary Grant (finches), Dennis Geist (geology) and many others. (GPS90, $49.95)
The Sibley Guide to Trees • David Allen Sibley NATURAL HISTORY • 2009 • FLEXI-BOUND • 426 PAGES • NEW Sibley turns his attention from birds to the trees where they live in this superb field guide to 668 species of native and commonly planted trees north of the Rio Grande. Bark, leaves, twigs, fruit, flowers and silhouettes are all meticulously illustrated and the accompanying succinct descriptions display Sibley's usual wit and precision. A Longitude Best of 2009. (NAT176, $39.95)
Empires of the Silk Road • Christopher I. Beckwith HISTORY • 2011 • PAPER • 504 PAGES • NEW Drawing on recent scholarships and new ideas, Beckwith shows social, political and cultural life in the heartland of Central Asia from the chariot warriors to the Scythians, Atilla the Hun, Turkish empire, Mongol conquest and Soviet incursions and now in this sweeping, scholarly history. We especially enjoyed the epilogue in which Beckwith demolishes Western stereotypes of "The Barbarians." (CAS171, $16.95)
Polar Obsession • Paul Nicklen NATURAL HISTORY • 2009 • HARD COVER • 240 PAGES • NEW Born and raised on Baffin Island (where Darrel met him in 1991), it's always been clear that Paul Nicklen has ice in his blood. Only with this extraordinary book can you appreciate the intensity and depth of the man's commitment to the polar regions. He captures, sometimes in alarming close-up, polar bears in the water and on the ice, dueling narwhals, humpbacks, walruses, penguins and all manner of marine life. The series of photographs of leopard seals, filmed almost entirely underwater and at very close range, are astounding. With chapters on Admiralty Inlet, Spitsbergen, the Antarctic Peninsula and South Georgia. (ANT305, $50.00)

Also Recommended

Off the Tourist Trail • Eyewitness Guides • GUIDEBOOK • NEW • This inspiring roundup of favorite places by the experts at Eyewitness Travel zeroes in on lesser-known, little-visited alternatives, including ancient and historic cities, festivals, national parks and other marvels around the world. (TVL472, $40.00)
Shangri-la: A Practical Guide to the Himalayan Dream • Michael Buckley • GUIDEBOOK • NEW • With marvelous chapters on James Hilton's book and the many meanings and myths surrounding Shangri-La, Buckley's practical guide covers the contenders for this mythical Himalayan paradise in Southwest China, Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan. With many maps and color photographs. (HML84, $25.99)
Bhutan, The Land of Serenity • Matthieu Ricard • CULTURAL PORTRAIT • COMING IN • A Buddhist monk, photographer, and French interpreter for the Dalai Lama, Ricard, draws on his time in Bhutan over the last 25 years for this intimate portrait. With illuminating chapters on the remarkable Khyentse Rinpoche, sacred art, architecture, dancing monks and ceremonies. (BHU34, $45.00)
Darwin in Galapagos, Footsteps to a New World • Greg Estes • Thalia Grant • HISTORY • NEW • The duo retrace the five-week visit by Darwin to the Galapagos, both reaching new conclusions about where he went and what he did and tracking other changes in the archipelago over the last 175 years. Greg has been a guide since the 1980s and Thalia is the daughter of finch researcher Peter Grant. (GPS92, $35.00)
Historical Atlas of the American West • Derek Hayes • HISTORY • NEW • This spectacular atlas presents a sweeping history of the American West through 600 color maps, posters and other striking archival material, expertly annotated and beautifully presented by geographer and historian Hayes. (USW606, $39.95)
Murderers in Mausoleums • Jeffrey Tayler • CULTURAL PORTRAIT • NEW • Tayler's riveting account of a three-month, 7,000-mile odyssey from Moscow to Beijing, through mighty Kazakhstan, across the Silk Road to Kashgar, Urumqi and onto Beijing, illuminates the red-hot geopolitics of Central Asia. (CAS168, $24.00)
Slow, Life in a Tuscan Town • Dougla Gayeton • CULTURAL PORTRAIT • NEW • A marvelous example of the art of the book and a terrific portrait of place. Gayeton introduces the butchers, bakers, farmers and ordinary folk of Pistoia, a village outside Florence, in this collection of engaging tales and artfully annotated duotone portraits (some presented with the artist's handwritten flourishes inscribed on an overlaying acetate sheet). (ITA108, $50.00)
The Imperial Cruise, A Secret History of Empire and War • James Bradley • HISTORY • Bradley follows in the wake of the epic 1905 voyage aboard the Manchuria, headlined by first daughter, Alice Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft, Roosevelt's secretary of war, in this bold account of Teddy Roosevelt and the far-reaching legacy of his foreign policy in Korea, Hawaii, China and the Philippines. (PAC226, $16.99)
The Thing Itself, On the Search for Authenticity • Richard Todd • CULTURAL PORTRAIT • NEW • A marvelous writer, Richard Todd ponders the absurd, valuable and ineffable allure of the real, the centerpiece of this collection six charmingly off kilter essays on travel. Thoroughly enjoyable and surprising, the well-crafted essays are deceptively provocative and wise. (TVL470, $16.00)
The Fires of Vesuvius, Pompeii Lost and Found • Mary Beard • ARCHAEOLOGY • With the panache of a gifted classicist, Mary Beard (Wonders of the World) conjures daily life in celebrated Pompeii, not only demolishing with particular relish the many myths that have grown up around the place but also emphasizing the limits of our knowledge. Some things we simply shall never know for certain. (ITA46, $17.95)
Travels to the Edge • Art Wolfe • ART & ARCHITECTURE • NEW • Journey with photographer Wolfe on this globe-trotting visual odyssey from the tip of South America to Antarctica, Madagascar, Bhutan, Mongolia, New Zealand and back to Baja California, the American Southwest and Katmai National Park in 130 photographs. (PHT29, $24.95)
A Course Called Ireland • Tom Coyne • TRAVEL NARRATIVE • NEW • Not just a quest to play every seaside course in the Emerald Isle (60 by the time he got to Ulster), Tom Coyne's entertaining portrait of Ireland, its people, pubs and quirks illuminates "Uncommon Acts of Irish Hospitality." (IRE251, $16.00)
Dreaming in Hindi, Coming Awake in Another Language • Katherine Russell Rich • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR • NEW • Rich skewers the hilarity and challenges of taking on not just a new language but also a new culture in this spirited tale of life in Udaipur. (IDA565, $14.95)
How I Learned Geography • Uri Shulevitz • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR • YOUNG READERS (Age 4-8) • NEW • A 2009 Caldecott Honor Book (his fourth), Uri Shulevitz's wise, beautifully drawn tale is also his most personal. "We traveled far, far east," he writes, "to another country, where summers were hot and winters cold, to a city of houses made of clay, straw, and camel dung, surrounded by dusty steppes, burned by the sun. In this story, drawing on his childhood memories of World War II, Shulevitz shows how a map, and imagination, took a little boy far away from the hungry and misery of exile in Kazakhstan. Dedicated to the memory of his father (who brought back the map one day from the market, rather than a crust of bread). (GEN506, $16.95)
How to Cook a Tapir • Joan Fry • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR • NEW • A young newlywed in Belize in the 1960s, Fry weaves heartfelt stories of her time in the jungle with affectionate portraits of the people, her own coming of age -- and, yes, recipes (rice and beans, pumpkin soup, gumbo and, as promised, tapir) in this earthy memoir. (BLZ22, $24.95)
Street Without a Name, Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria • Kapka Kassabova • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR • Born in 1973, Kassabova traces her coming-of-age in Communist Sofia and bittersweet return to a land transformed over the last 30 years in this captivating, candid memoir and travelogue. (BLG38, $24.95)
The Book of Fathers • Miklos Vamos • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR • Vamos turns this giddy memoir, following 10 generations of the men in his family, into a chronicle of the culture and politics of Hungary. (HGR66, $15.95)
The Snow Tourist, A Search for the World's Purest, Deepest Snowfall • Charlie English • TRAVEL NARRATIVE • NEW • Combining on-the-slopes experience with off-trail research, English follows in the footsteps of the Romantic poets across the Alps, learns how to build igloos with the Inuit on Baffin Island, examines snow-patches in the Cairngorms to detect signs of global warming, and tests his mettle on some of the most perilous peaks on Earth. (CON54, $15.95)
Twenty West: The Great Road Across America • Mac Nelson • TRAVEL NARRATIVE • NEW • Neslon traces the route, history, and geography of Route 20, reflecting on the diverse history, landscape, geography, politics, culture, and other idiosyncratic people and places that he encountered during his journeys along Americaa's longest road, 3,300 miles from Boston, Massachusetts, to Newport, Oregon. (USA360, $25.00)
Wildwood • Roger Deakin • TRAVEL NARRATIVE • NEW • A traveler's tale and a splendid work of natural history, Roger Deakin's glorious meditation on wood takes in his forest ramblings not just all over Great Britain but also to Central European beech woods, walnut groves in Languedoc, the wild fruit forests of Kazakhstan and Australia's river red gum forest wetlands. (NAT192, $26.95)
Been Here a Thousand Years • Mariolina Venezia • Marina Harss • LITERATURE • NEW • Venezia deftly weaves the creation of modern Italy, Garibaldi, Mussolini and the tumultuous recent history of the nation into this compact novel of five generations of the Falcone women -- and the rhythm of daily life in an ancient Basilicata hill town near the coastline of Puglia. (ITA24, $15.00)
Bright Wings, An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds • Billy Collins • ANTHOLOGY • Owls are well represented, crows, bluebirds, sandpipers and phoebe's too, in poems by Marianne Moore, Gary Snyder, Robert Penn Warren and Henry David Thoreau. But it isn't just the artful poems (selected by Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate) but the combination with David Sibley's exquisite paintings of the birds in actions that make this anthology such a winner. (BRD78, $22.95)
Bruno, Chief of Police • Martin Walker • MYSTERY • Convincingly set in rural France, Martin Walker's gripping whodunit, Perigord style, has a charming detective, irresistible female police officer, a complex and timely crime, and a marvelous sense of the cafes, markets, bakeries and people of the Dordogne. (FRN811, $14.95)
Let the Great World Spin • Colum McCann • LITERATURE • Dublin-born New Yorker Colum McCann took home the 2011 International Impac Dublin literary award for his stunningly realized portrait of New York City. Set in 1974, he traces the interlocking lives of diverse characters as as Philippe Petit tightrope walks between the newly built Twin Towers. Let the Great World Spin won the National Book Award in 2009. (NYC214, $15.00)
Murder in the Latin Quarter • Cara Black • MYSTERY • The ninth installment in Black's series featuring "adorably punkish" detective Aimee Leduc, who gets around on a pink Vespa. This time, Aimee's investigations lead her through the old university district of Paris -- its colorful streets, schools, museums, cafes and bookstores providing a vivid backdrop to the suspense. (FRN772, $14.00)
The Greek Poets, Homer to the Present • Peter Constantine • ANTHOLOGY • NEW • From the epics of Homer to beloved Cavafy, from the romances, hymns and bawdy rhymes of Byzantium to the innovative voices of a resurgent 20th century, this anthology brings together the diverse strands of the Greek poetic tradition in one handsome volume. (GRE393, $39.95)
The Merry Misogynist • Colin Cotterill • MYSTERY • Dr. Siri investigates a loathsome serial killer wooing and wedding country girls in this sixth book in the mordant series. (LAO23, $14.00)
The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet • Reif Larsen • LITERATURE • NEW • This brilliant, boundary-leaping debut novel by Reif Larson turns 12-year-old genius map-maker T.S. Spivet's attempts to understand the ways of the world into a road novel l like no other. Festooned with diagrams, maps, drawings and rather remarkable marginalia, the book traces the journey of Spivet from his home on a Montana ranch to the halls of the Smithsonian Institution (he won an award). We found it helpful to note that Larsen thanks Lois Hetland, "my seventh grade teacher, for teaching me (almost) everything I know." His novel captures the exhilaration of adolescence. (USA374, $16.00)
Typhoon • Charles Cumming • LITERATURE • Cummings conjures a whole world in this spy thriller set in contemporary Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing. Just as the British are about to return Hong Kong to Chinese rule, Joe Lennox, a young operative for SIS, loses both his girlfriend and his first high-profile asset -- a prominent defector who disappears from a safe house. (CHN607, $14.99)
Galapagos, Both Sides of the Coin • Pete Oxford • Graham Watkins • NATURAL HISTORY • NEW • Heads or tales, this ingenious book is a winner. Galapagos naturalist and colleague Pete Oxford collaborated with Graham Watkins, director of the Charles Darwin Research Station, for this tribute to the Galapagos and its wildlife. On one side, it features a parade of Galapagos birds, mammals, reptiles and landscapes in full color and, on the other, an illustrated, no-hold-barred human history of the islands and up-to-date survey of conservation. (GPS93, $35.00)
Galapagos, Exploring Darwin's Tapestry • John Hess • NATURAL HISTORY • NEW • Professor Hess pulls off the rare trick of being both scientifically accurate and inviting in this illustrated coffee-table primer on Galapagos, its geology, evolution and magnificent wildlife. (GPS91, $49.95)
Field Guide to the Songbirds of South America, The Passerines • Robert Ridgely • Guy Tudor • FIELD GUIDE • NEW • Drawn from The Birds of South America, this field guide features Tudor's magnificent color plates, illustrating 1,500 species of songbirds, new color range maps and a succinct overview of habitat, distribution and abundance. (SAM140, $49.95)
New Zealand Wildlife • Julian Fitter • FIELD GUIDE • NEW • Julian Fitter's splendid introduction to the nature and wildlife of New Zealand features succinct chapters on geography and geology, history, habitats and wildlife, along with hundreds of color photographs. (NZL97, $25.99)

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