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Also: Nature, Oceans

The 10 Best of Everything: An Ultimate Guide for Travelers
by National Geographic, $15.96 (20% off $19.95)
Compiled by veteran travelers Nathaniel and Andrew Lande, the second edition of this entertaining volume collects superlatives galore: top sporting events and tropical island hideaways, glorious gardens and magnificent museums, stylish ski runs, superb cigars, and even the Ten Best Things to Do on a Sunday Afternoon in more than a dozen of the world's greatest cities.

Tales from the Torrid Zone
by Alexander Frater, $11.96 (20% off $14.95)
From Tahiti to Thailand, Mexico to Mozambique, Frater gives us a richly described, endlessly surprising picture of this diverse, feverish, languorously beautiful world.

The World Without Us
by Alan Weisman, $19.96 (20% off $24.95)
In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us. In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; what of our everyday stuff may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the universe.

All Things Reconsidered: My Birding Adventures
written by Roger Tory Peterson, edited by Bill Thompson, $11.96 (20% off $14.95)
Roger Tory Peterson's unique perspective on birding comes to life in this collection of columns. In these highly personal narratives, he recounts his adventures during a lifetime of birding and traveling the world to observe and record nature.

Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth
written by Mike DiCenzo, edited by Scott Dikkers, $22.39 (20% off $27.99)
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."

The Reluctant Mr Darwin
An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution
by David Quammen, $11.96 (20% off $14.95)
The Reluctant Mr. Darwin is a book for everyone who has ever wondered about who this man was and what he said. Drawing from Darwin's secret "transmutation" notebooks and his personal letters, David Quammen has sketched a vivid life portrait of the man whose work never ceases to be controversial.

Blue List: The Best in Travel 2008
by Lonely Planet, $15.99 (20% off $19.99)
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.

Maps: Finding our Place in the World
edited by James Akerman & Robert W. Karrow, $44.00 (20% off $55.00)
Maps are universal forms of communication, easily understood and appreciated regardless of culture or language. This truly magisterial book introduces readers to the widest range of maps ever considered in one volume: maps from different time periods and a variety of cultures; maps made for divergent purposes and depicting a range of environments; and maps that embody the famous, the important, the beautiful, the groundbreaking, or the amusing.

The Times Atlas of the World
$200.00 (20% off $250.00)
Unsurpassed in detail and authority, The Times Atlas has been thoroughly updated to reflect the extraordinary changes in the world. The 11th edition is based upon digital mapping technology, and has full-color maps & illustrations throughout. With the largest gazetteer in the English language, The Times Atlas remains one of the most comprehensive and beautiful atlases ever produced.

Travelers' Tales the Best Women's Travel Writing
edited by Lucy McCauley, $13.56 (20% off $16.95)
From the Travelers' Tales series.
These inspiring, uplifting tales are told by women who traveled to the ends of the earth to discover new places, people, and, ultimately, facets of themselves.

In the Country Of Men
by Hisham Matar, $9.60 (15% off $12.00)
The boy narrator of this novel, set in Libya in 1979, learns about the convoluted roots of betrayal in a totalitarian society.

Knots
by Nuruddin Farah, $12.00 (15% off $15.00)
After 20 years, a Somali woman returns home to Mogadishu from Canada, intent on reclaiming a family house from a warlord.

Unbowed: A Memoir
by Wangari Maathai, $11.96 (20% off $14.95)
Hugely charismatic, humble, and possessed of preternatural luminosity of spirit, Wangari Maathai, the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and a single mother of three, recounts her extraordinary life as a political activist, feminist, and environmentalist in Kenya.

Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff
by Rosemary Mahoney, $20.39 (20% off $23.99)
Rosemary Mahoney was determined to take a solo trip down the Egyptian Nile in a small boat, even though civil unrest and vexing local traditions conspired to create obstacles every step of the way. Starting off in the south, she gained the unlikely sympathy and respect of a Muslim sailor, who provided her with both a seven-foot skiff and a window into the culturally and materially impoverished lives of rural Egyptians.

You Must Set Forth at Dawn: A Memoir
by Wole Soyinka, $13.56 (20% off $16.95)
The first African to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, as well as a political activist of prodigious energies, Soyinka now follows his modern classic Ake: The Years of Childhood with an equally important chronicle of his turbulent life as an adult in (and in exile from) his beloved, beleaguered Nigeria.

Africa: Continent of Contrasts
by Phillip Briggs, photos by Martin Harvey and Ariadne Van Zandbergen, $32.00 (20% off $40.00)
Africa: Continent of Contrasts describes and depicts the natural, cultural, architectural and historical wealth of the African continent, in particular the varied wildlife, geographical landmarks, scenery, indigenous people and many noteworthy aspects of local culture and ceremonies. The book is divided into four main regions: North, West, East and Southern Africa, offering detailed information and rich visual impressions of each.

Walking the Gobi: 16,000 Mile-Trek Across a Desert of Hope and Despair
by Helen Thayer, $19.16 (20% off $23.95)
At the age of 63, Helen Thayer fulfilled her lifelong dream of crossing Mongolia's Gobi Desert. Accompanied by her 74-year-old husband Bill and two camels, Tom and Jerry, Thayer walked 1600 miles in 126-degree temperatures, battling fierce sandstorms, dehydration, dangerous drug smugglers, and ubiquitous scorpions. For more than 60 days Helen struggled to keep moving through this inhospitable terrain despite a severe leg injury. Without sponsors, a support team, or radio contact, hers is a journey of pure discovery and adventure.

Dreams and Shadows
by Robin Wright, $21.56 (20% off $26.95)
A magnificent reckoning with the extraordinary changes engulfing the Middle East, by one of our greatest reporters on the region.

Arabian Sands
by Wilfred Thesiger, $12.00 (20% off $15.00)
This now-classic account is invaluable to understanding the modern Middle East.

Persian Girls: A Memoir
by Nahid Rachlin, $11.96 (20% off $14.95)
Praised by V. S. Naipaul, Anne Tyler, and other writers, Nahid Rachlin has spent her career writing novels about hidden Iran-the combustible political passions underlying everyday life and the family dramas of ordinary Iranians. With her long-awaited memoir, Persian Girls, she turns her sharp novelist's eye on her own remarkable life.

Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean
by Ana Sortun, $27.96 (20% off $34.95)
Organized by spice, this book details the way certain spices complement one another and how they flavor other foods. Includes more than one hundred tantalizing spice categories and recipes.

Eating India: An Odyssey Into the Food and Culture of the Land of Spices
by Chitrita Banerji, $19.96 (20% off $24.95)
In Eating India, award-winning food writer and Bengali food expert Chitrita Banerji takes readers on a marvelous odyssey through a national cuisine formed by generations of arrivals, assimilations, and conquests.

The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857
by William Dalrymple, $13.56 (20% off $16.95)
The Last Mughal is a revelatory work--the first to present the Indian perspective on the fall of Delhi--and has as its heart both the dazzling capital personified by Zafar and the stories of the individuals tragically caught up in one of the bloodiest upheavals in history.

Planet India: How the Fastest Growing Democracy Is Transforming America and the World
by Mira Kamdar, $20.80 (20% off $26.00)
From the award-winning author of Motiba's Tattoos comes a lively exploration of America's stake in India's gambit to transform itself from a developing country to a global powerhouse in record time.

Italy, the Romagnoli Way: A Culinary Journey
by G. Franco Romagnoli, $19.96 (20% off $24.95)
Sharing the geography, history, and art of each region as well as the character of its people, the Romagnolis bring little-known Italy to life--and to our tables--with full-color photographs to please travelers, food lovers and armchair dreamers.

Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean
by John Julius Norwich, $16.00 (20% off $20.00)
This lively, beautifully illustrated history of the civilizations that rose and fell on the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea represents the culmination of a great historian's unparalleled art, eye, and scholarship.

La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind
by Beppe Severgnini, $10.36 (20% off $12.95)
You won't need luggage for this hypothetical and hilarious trip into the hearts and minds of Beppe Severgnini's fellow Italians. In fact, Beppe would prefer if you left behind the baggage his crafty and elegant countrymen have smuggled into your subconscious. To get to his Italia, you'll need to forget about your idealized notions of Italy.

My Life in France
written by Julia Child, with Alex Prud'homme, $11.96 (20% off $14.95)
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."

Out Stealing Horses
by Per Petterson, $11.20(20% off $14.00)
Due 4/29/2008
An early morning adventure out stealing horses leads to the tragic death of one boy and a resulting lifetime of guilt and isolation for his friend, in this moving tale about the painful loss of innocence and of traditional ways of life that are gone forever. One of the "10 Best Books of 2007" (New York Times Book Review).

God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215
by David Levering Lewis, $23.96 (20% off $29.95)
In this panoramic history of Islamic culture in early Europe, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian reexamines the fall of the Persian and Roman empires, followed by the rise of the prophet Muhammad and the creation of Muslim Spain.

House of Meetings
by Martin Amis, $11.20 (20% off $14.00)
An extraordinary novel that ratifies Martin Amis's standing as "a force unto himself," as The Washington Post has attested: "There is, quite simply, no one else like him."

Crescent City Cooking: Unforgettable Recipes from Susan Spicer's New Orleans
by Susan Spicer, $28.00 (20% off $35.00)
One of New Orleans's brightest culinary stars, Susan Spicer has been indulging Crescent City diners at her highly acclaimed restaurants, Bayona and Herbsaint, for years. Now, in her long-awaited cookbook, Spicer--an expert at knocking cuisine off its pedestal with a healthy dash of hot sauce, and at elevating comfort food to the level of the sublime--brings her signature dishes to the home cook's table.

The Best American Travel Writing 2007
edited by Susan Orlean, $11.20 (20% off $14.00)
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.

Cooking With Shelburne Farms: Food and Stories from Vermont
by Rick Gencarelli & Melissa Pasanen, $27.96 (20% off $34.95)
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.

The Iambics of Newfoundland: Notes from an Unknown Shore
by Robert Finch, $12.76 (20% off $15.95)
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.

Heat
An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
by Bill Buford, $11.96 (20% off $14.95)
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.

Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York
by Adam Gopnik, $11.96 (20% off $14.95)
Written with Gopnik's signature mix of mind and heart, elegant and exultantly alert to the minute miracles that bring a place to life, Through the Children's Gate is a chronicle, by turns tender and hilarious, of a family taking root in the unlikeliest patch of earth.

AIA Guide to Boston
by Michael Southworth & Susan Southworth, $23.96 (20% off $29.95)
The most comprehensive guide to Boston architecture ever published, "AIA Guide to Boston Architecture" documents the dramatic reorganization of the city by the Big Dig and other recent projects. Lucid descriptions of more than 600 sites are enlivened with history, culture, humor, and sharp opinion and are accompanied by professional b/w photography.

Vanishing World: The Endangered Arctic
by Mireilla de la Lez, $32.00 (20% off $40.00)
A celebration of the wildlife that inhabits this harsh and unforgiving climate and a cautionary tale of global warming