Welcome!

Enrich Your Travels with Longitude

We've got the classic, new and hard-to-find books and maps to help you get the most out of your adventures.

SIGN UP FOR

Longitude News

Get our monthly e-mail update

GET A

Catalog

OUR FAVORITES

Live the Language

READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE

La Bella Lingua

La Bella Lingua

by Dianne Hales

  • TRAVEL NARRATIVE
  • 2010
  • PAPER
  • 336 PAGES
  • NEW

Inebriated with the sounds of Italian, lovesick for its phrases and enamored of its earthy idioms, Hales, "a sensible woman of sturdy Polish stock," dives into the Italian of the piazza, literature, movies and streets in this charming memoir. (ITA26, $15.00)

Dreaming in Hindi, Coming Awake in Another Language

Dreaming in Hindi, Coming Awake in Another Language

by Katherine Russell Rich

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 2010
  • PAPER
  • 384 PAGES
  • 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)

Dreaming in Chinese, Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Language

Dreaming in Chinese, Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Language

by Deborah Fallows

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 2011
  • PAPER
  • 208 PAGES

A linguist, living in Shanghai and Beijing with her journalist-husband James (Postcards from Tomorrow Square) the exuberant Deborah Fallows illuminates the Chinese worldview through language in playful, anecdotal essays, documenting her own missteps and growing understanding with self-deprecating humor. (CHN648, $14.00)

Grammar Lessons

Grammar Lessons

by Michele Morano

  • TRAVEL NARRATIVE
  • 2007
  • HARD COVER
  • 184 PAGES

Morano, who lived in Oviedo in the early 1990s, reflects on the humor and trials of living in a new language in these 13 essays on travel in Spain and search for self. (SPN345, $22.50)

Madre, Perilous Journeys With a Spanish Noun

Madre, Perilous Journeys With a Spanish Noun

by Liza Bakewell

  • HISTORY
  • 2012
  • PAPER
  • 224 PAGES

Armando, Pablo, Odette and other Mexican friends and colleagues are Brown University professor Liza Bakewell's informants in this lively cultural -- and linguistic -- history of the manifold meanings of madre (mother). An anthropologist with an interest in language and gender, Bakewell is also a marvelous writer, organizing her provocative musings into chapters with titles such as Wedding, Love, Lost in Los, Back to Church -- and Madre. (MEX285, $23.95)

 
Don't Get Me Wrong, The Global Gestures Guide

Don't Get Me Wrong, The Global Gestures Guide


by Judith Reker | Julia Grosse

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2010
  • PAPER

Watch what you do with your hands! These 80 photographs decode what means what around the world. (WLD214, $14.95)

Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands

Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands


by Terri Morrison | Wayne Conaway

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2006
  • PAPER
  • 593 PAGES

In today's global marketplace, business people must understand the distinctive customs of major nations. This guide, filled with important facts about business customs, behavior, social etiquette, gift giving and more, will do exactly that for 60 countries around the world. (GEN502, $24.95)

China in Ten Words

China in Ten Words


by Allen Barr

  • HISTORY
  • 2012
  • PAPER
  • 224 PAGES

"Like ten pairs of eyes -- to scrutinize the current China under ten different angles," Yu Hua traces the transformation of life in China since the Cultural Revolution though key words. (CHN680, $15.00)

Untangling My Chopsticks, A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto

Untangling My Chopsticks, A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto


by Victoria Abbott Riccardi

  • TRAVEL NARRATIVE
  • 2004
  • PAPER
  • 304 PAGES

In this beguiling memoir, Riccardi writes with verve of cultural encounters, bewilderment and discovery in Kyoto. If you've ever parted the drapes of a Japanese restaurant to face a room full of people and blank stares, you'll really appreciate the book. With 25 recipes for traditional and less traditional Japanese dishes. (JPN135, $19.00)

More Recommendations

Here are some other groups of books that might be of interest

Longitude provides recommended reading for travelers in partnership with the leading tour operators and travel programs for hundreds of destinations worldwide. We've got the classic, new and hard-to-find books and maps to help you get the most out of your adventures.