Top Travel Narrative & Armchair Travel Books

2. Grand Tour: Travelling the World with an Architect's Eye
by Harry Seidler
Architect Harry Seidler has spent more than 50 years traveling the globe, extensively photographing the peak achievements in architecture from 3000 B.C. to the present day.

3. The Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal
by Peter Thomson
Following a difficult divorce, veteran environmental journalist Peter Thomson sets off from Boston with his younger brother for one of nature's most remarkable creations, in one of the farthest corners of the planet. Lake Baikal, a gargantuan crack in the Siberian plateau, is the world's largest body of fresh water, its deepest and oldest lake, and a cauldron of evolution, home to hundreds of unique creatures.

4. What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng: A Novel
by Dave Eggers
The horrors, injustices, and follies in this novel are based on the experiences of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan.

5. Blue List: The Best in Travel 2008
by Lonely Planet
This volume includes a page-by-page profile of every country in the world. For each country, we provide a totally unique gauge of what's in and out for each destination, why (or why not) to go there and where to go instead.

6. Chinglish: Found in Translation
by Oliver Lutz Radtke
Chinglish offers a humorous and insightful look at misuses of the English language in Chinese street signs, products, and advertising. A long-standing favorite of English speaking tourists and visitors, Chinglish is now quickly becoming a culture relic: in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the Chinese government is determined to wipe out incorrect English usage.

7. Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth
written by Mike DiCenzo, edited by Scott Dikkers
Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of The Planet Earth, 73rd Edition features incorrect statistics on all of the Earth's 168, 182, or 196 independent nations. It also features maps, including a fold-out world map at actual size. Readers will learn about every country from Afghanistan, "Allah's Cat Box," to the Ukraine, "The Bridebasket of Europe."

8. Signspotting II
by Doug Lansky
The world of gaffs and good ol' miscommunications is back: Signspotting II is a round-up of the world's most perplexing signs and garbled messages. Now, who's in the mood for a serve of 'fried pimple'?

9. My Life in France
written by Julia Child, with Alex Prud'homme
This delightful memoir of Julia's years in Paris, Marseille, and Provence opens with Paul and Julia--a tall, wide-eyed girl from Pasadena who can't cook and doesn't speak a word of French--disembarking in Le Havre, and ends with the launching of the two Mastering cookbooks and Julia winning the heart of America as "The French Chef."

10. Transit Maps of the World
written by Mark Ovenden, edited by Mike Ashworth
A comprehensive collection of historic and current maps of every rapid-transit system on earth.

12. The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
by William Easterly
A professor of economics pens an informed and excoriating attack on the tragic waste, futility, and hubris of the West's efforts to improve the lot of the so-called developing world, and provides constructive suggestions on how to move forward.

14. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time
by Greg Mortenson
The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban's backyard.

15. Oxford Atlas of the World
Filled with crisp cartography, spectacular satellite photographs, and a wealth of information on changing conditions around the planet, the Atlas of the World maps 69 cities and nearly 100 different regions at carefully selected scales to give a striking view of the Earth's surface.

16. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
by Elizabeth Gilbert
A celebrated writer’s irresistible, candid, and eloquent account of her pursuit of worldly pleasure, spiritual devotion, and what she really wanted out of life.

17. A Vineyard in Tuscany: A Wine Lover's Dream
by Ferenc Mate
In this intimate and uproarious story, two daring New Yorkers convert an ancient, abandoned farm into a world-renowned winery. Finding your dream house with a vineyard in Tuscany is like searching the woods for porcini mushrooms: a labor of love. Such feats require patience, discernment, resolve, and an indestructible sense of humor.

18. Heat
An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
by Bill Buford
When the opportunity arose to train in the kitchen of Mario Batali's three-star New York restaurant, Babbo, Buford grabbed it. Heat is the chronicle--sharp, funny, wonderfully exuberant--of his time spent as Batali's "slave" and of his far-flung apprenticeships with culinary masters in Italy.

19. The Iambics of Newfoundland: Notes from an Unknown Shore
by Robert Finch
Beloved Nature Writer Robert Finch spent the greater part of a decade traveling around the island of Newfoundland, at "the edge of North America." In these evocative sketches, stories, and essays, he explores the people, geography, and wildlife of a remote and lovely, but often dangerously inhospitable place.

21. The Best American Travel Writing 2007
edited by Susan Orlean
The twenty pieces in this year's collection showcase the best travel writing from 2006. George Saunders travels to India to witness firsthand a fifteen-year-old boy who has been meditating motionless under a tree for months without food or water, and who many followers believe is the reincarnation of the Buddha. Matthew Power reveals trickle-down economics at work in a Philippine garbage dump. Jason Anthony describes the challenges of everyday life in Vostok, the coldest place on earth, where temperatures dip as low as minus-129 degrees and where, in midsummer, minus-20 degrees is considered a heat wave.

24. Cooking With Shelburne Farms: Food and Stories from Vermont
by Rick Gencarelli & Melissa Pasanen
For the growing number of people who want to feel a stronger connection to their food, Shelburne Farms has become an inspiration. Each year, visitors flock to Shelburne Farms for its educational programs and delicious food made from sustainable ingredients as well as for its incredible landscape. Now, readers everywhere can experience the spirit, wonderful flavors, and authentic cooking inspired by this very special place. In addition to the 100 recipes that feature ten basic Vermont ingredients, this book brings to life the beauty of the farm.

25. Escape from the Antarctic
by Ernest Shackelton
From the Great Journeys series.This beautifully packaged volume captures, in the words of veteran explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, his excruciating and inspiring expedition to Antarctica aboard the "Endurance."