Tourism History

Delhi exists in a kind of quantum state: In Delhi, all things are true at once. When the Big Apple no longer felt big enough, Dave and Jenny moved to a city of 16 million people and, seemingly, twice that many horns honking at once. Delirious Delhi depicts India's capital as the two experienced it, from office life in the rising tech hubs to the traffic jam philosophy that keeps people sane in the gridlock leading to them. With only their sense of humour as their guide, Dave and Jenny set out to explore a city in which ancient stone monuments compete with glass-clad shopping malls to define the landscape.

The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society finds Chris Stewart and his family still living on their farm, El Varo -- but life there never stands still. You will find yourself laughing out loud as Chris is instructed by his daughter on the way to treat dung beetles, bluffs his way as an art history guide to millionaire Bostonians, collects seeds in North Africa, and joins an Almond Blossom Appreciation Society. And you'll cringe as he tries his hand at office work in Granada.

The fate of the USS Flier is one of the most astonishing stories of the Second World War. On August 13, 1944, the submarine struck a mine and sank to the bottom of the Sulu Sea in less than one minute, leaving only 14 of its crew of 86 hands alive. After enduring 18 hours in the water, eight remaining survivors swam to a remote island controlled by the Japanese. Deep behind enemy lines and without food or drinking water, the crewmen realized that their struggle for survival had just begun.

For almost 500 years, human beings have been finding ways to circle the Earth - by sail, steam, or liquid fuel; by cycling, driving, flying, going into orbit, even by using their own bodily power. The story begins with the first centuries of circumnavigation, when few survived the attempt: In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan left Spain with five ships and 270 men, but only one ship and 35 men returned, not including Magellan, who died in the Philippines. Starting with these dangerous voyages, Joyce Chaplin takes us on a trip of our own as we travel with Francis Drake, William Dampier, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, and James Cook.

When Oxford archeologist Mensun Bound, dubbed the "Indiana Jones of the Deep" by the Discovery Channel, teamed up with a financier to salvage a sunken trove of 15th-century porcelain, it seemed a dream enterprise. The stakes were high: the Hoi An wreck lay hundreds of feet down in a typhoon-prone stretch of water off the coast of Vietnam known as the Dragon Sea.

Jeff Shaara, America's premier Civil War novelist, gives a remarkable guided tour of one of the Civil War battlefields every American should visit. He captures the true meaning and magnitude of the conflict.

An enthralling journey, showcasing Watson's trademark literary gift and sardonic wit, through the Australian landscape and character. While most Australians live in cities clinging to the coastal fringe, our sense of what an Australian is, or should be, is drawn from the vast and varied inland called the bush. But what do we mean by 'the bush', and how has it shaped us?

Robert Twigger, poet, artist and travel author, is a lover of uninhabited islands. A lifelong passion for the Lake District led him to embark on a mission to visit all 36 islands of the region—some little more than rocks, some home only to wildlife, some the perfect spot for a night of wild-camping. Armed only with an inflatable canoe, and inspired by Arthur Ransome, Wainwright, Wordsworth and other writers of the region, he journeys beyond the tourists and the busy roads.

One-third of the Earth's surface is classified as desert. Restless, unhappy in love, and intrigued by the Desert Fathers who forged Christian monasticism in the Egyptian desert, William Atkins decided to travel in eight of the world's driest, hottest places. Each of his travel narratives effortlessly weaves aspects of natural history, historical background, and present-day reportage into a compelling tapestry that reveals the human appeal of these often inhuman landscapes.

Lost in time for generations, the story of a 19th-century English gentleman in British India - a family mystery of love found and loyalties abandoned, finally brought to light. In 1841, 20-year-old Nigel Halleck set out for Calcutta as a clerk in the East India Company. He went on to serve in the colonial administration for eight years before abruptly leaving the company under a cloud and disappearing in the mountain kingdom of Nepal, never to be heard from again.

It started with a boy, of course. Seeking solace from the pain of heartbreak and her father's illness, Laura Coffey embarks on what was meant to be a simple holiday. But her newfound fascination with ancient Greek myths transforms her trip into a six-month odyssey, around tiny archipelagos and mystical Mediterranean islands thought to be the setting of Odysseus's epic journey. As she chases one of the most conflicted, flawed and yet beloved heroes through his fantastical sea-kingdoms, looking for the places where geography and mythology collide, she discovers the wild beauty of the islands.

Beloved ABC broadcaster and best-selling author of Ghost Empire and Saga Land, Richard Fidler is back with a personally curated history of the magical city that is Prague. In 1989, Richard Fidler was living in London as part of the provocative Australian comedy trio The Doug Anthony All Stars when revolution broke out across Europe. Excited by this galvanising historic, human moment, he travelled to Prague, where a decrepit police state was being overthrown by crowds of ecstatic citizens. His experience of the Velvet Revolution never let go of him.

Called by Sam Houston at its founding "the most unfortunate site upon Earth for the seat of government", the infant community struggled for three decades against political enemies and competing towns before winning recognition as the permanent capital. The founding of the University of Texas turned the seat of politics into the seat of education, but Austin's 19th-century dreams of becoming a river port and a factory town came to naught.

Author and Researcher Mike Luoma shares the personal story of his first two years of exploration and discovery of possibly sacred stone sites throughout New England, experiencing potential Ceremonial Stone Landscapes and more. Mike relates his impressions from each visit, as well as research and knowledge gained in his efforts to understand the sites' meanings and histories.

Spend some time exploring Singapore and you are bound to stumble upon a tree shrine. They are not always the largest trees or the most exotic, but you know them when you see them. White Styrofoam packets surround their gnarly trunks, and you might notice the distinct odour of incense, rising from a red wooden altar. What are the origins of these tree shrines? Why do people worship these seemingly ordinary trees? What is its connection to 4-D?

Jeff Shaara, America's premier Civil War novelist, gives a remarkable guided tour of one of the Civil War battlefields every American should visit. He captures the true meaning and magnitude of the conflict.

Following the natural cycle of the year, The Land of Maybe captures the essence of 'slow life' on the 18 remote, mysterious islands which make up the Faroes in the North Atlantic. Closer to the UK than Denmark, this fast disappearing world is home to a close-knit society where just 50,000 people share Viking roots and a language that is unlike any other in Scandinavia. We follow the arrival of the migratory birds, the over-wintering of the sheep and the way food is gathered and eaten in tune with the seasons.

Journeying alongside scholars, spies and saints, from western Europe to the Far East and the Antipodes, this is no ordinary travel guide. From profane pilgrim badges and Venetian laxatives to encounters with bandits and trysts with mysterious medieval witches, this book mixes fact and folklore to offer an entertaining encyclopaedia of wondrous stories and peoples. Offering a vivid and unforgettable insight into how medieval people understood their world, A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages blurs the distinction between real and imagined places.

In 1921, Britain's most illustrious highway, the Great North Road, ceased to exist – on paper at least. Stretching from London to Edinburgh, the old road was largely replaced by the A1 as the era of the motor car took hold. A hundred years later, journalist and cyclist Steve Silk embraces the anniversary as the perfect excuse to set off on an adventure across 11 days and 400 miles. Travelling by bike at a stately 14 miles per hour, he heads north, searching out milestones and memories, coaching inns and coffee shops.

At the heart of this book is a highway. The A1; The Great North Road. A 400-mile multiplicity of ancient trackway, Roman road, pilgrim path, coach route and motorway that has run like a backbone through Britain for the last 2,000 years. In this genre-defying and profoundly personal book, Cowen follows this ghost road from beginning to end on a journey through history, place, people and time. Weaving his own histories and memories with the layered landscapes he moves through, this is the story of an age, of coming to terms with time past and time passing.