An Extraordinary Tale Of Travel

With one hundred dollars in his pocket, his thumb out, and a backpack on his back, the author embarks upon a hitchhiking journey across America, taking him deep within the distinctive American landscape of the early 1970s and an aimless adventure unfolds into an unforeseen spiritual awakening. Returning home, but now driven by the fiery blaze of an unquenchable wanderlust, the author begins a tireless journey across the planet, on a bare bones budget, backpacking throughout Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, and deep into the heart of the Islamic world, following the legendary overland trail to India. An extraordinary tale of travel is a multi-layered, raw and detailed account of one solitary traveler and a six year odyssey taking him to the outermost edges of the road, written from a perspective seldom found in traveler’s tales.

With one hundred dollars in his pocket, his thumb out, and a backpack on his back, the author embarks upon a hitchhiking journey across America, taking him deep within the distinctive American landscape of the early 1970s and an aimless adventure unfolds into an unforeseen spiritual awakening. Returning home, but now driven by the fiery blaze of an unquenchable wanderlust, the author begins a tireless journey across the planet, on a bare bones budget, backpacking throughout Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, and deep into the heart of the Islamic world, following the legendary overland trail to India. An extraordinary tale of travel is a multi-layered, raw and detailed account of one solitary traveler and a six year odyssey taking him to the outermost edges of the road, written from a perspective seldom found in traveler's tales.

An Ordinary Guy spirits us along his journey from the post World War Two neighborhoods of the Bronx through his days as a cadet at the New York State University Maritime College to his thirty years at sea sailing as mate on oil tankers and captain of harbor and sea-going towing vessels. He allows us a peek into the the world of boats and the crews that worked them. Along the way we are skillfully transported through the rich tapestry of history that saw the Vietnam Era, the struggle for civil rights, a resignation of a president, the horror of 9/11 and the response to international terrorism. The Ordinary Guy shares with us his interpretation of these events, all the while entertaining us with tales that range from the informative to the outrageous. We are his passengers as he takes us along on his joyous and sometimes angry romp through seventy years of the extraordinary life and times of this ordinary guy.

Extraordinary Tales: Book I: Kinship By: Aaron Kiepper Sergit has lived his life in the service of Baron, the cruel dictator of Hecha, as his chosen warrior in the bloody and brutal coliseum battles. With each bit of coin he wins, he saves a little for his father to aid in paying off his father Mezraen’s s debt to Baron. When Sergit’s father devises a plan to escape Hecha, Lyla, Baron’s right-hand, warns Sergit and Mezraen of Baron’s wrath should they leave his domain. Without adhering to her warnings, they leave Hecha for good, taking Lyla with them. Extraordinary Tales is a wild and wonderful adventure through imaginative lands filled with predators of all shapes and sizes, and as the three adventurers travel north, adding an array of dissimilar people to their caravan, they grapple with conflicts and grudges while taking steps toward becoming a true family of misfits.

Sam Hill always saw the world through different eyes. Born with red pupils, he was called "Devil Boy" or Sam "Hell" by his classmates; "God's will" is what his mother called his ocular albinism. Her words were of little comfort, but Sam persevered, buoyed by his mother's devout faith, his father's practical wisdom, and his two other misfit friends.

An ultimate collection of novels, short stories and essays, by the visionary author, the "father of science fiction" - H. G. Wells: The Time Machine The Undying Fire The War in the Air The War of the Worlds The World Set Free A Modern Utopia When the Sleeper Wakes Ann Veronica Bealby In the Days of the Comet The Chronic Argonauts The First Men in the Moon The Invisible Man The Island of Dr Moreau The New Machiavelli The Passionate Friends The Prophetic Trilogy The Research Magnificent The Sea Lady The Secret Places of the Heart The Soul of a Bishop Tono-bungay Collections of Short Stories Short Stories: A Catastrophe A Deal in Ostriches A Dream of Armageddon A Slip Under the Microscope A Story of the Days to Come A Story of the Stone Age A Tale of the Twentieth Century A Talk with Gryllotalpa How Gabriel Became Thompson How Pingwill Was Routed In the Abyss Le Mari Terrible Miss Winchelsea's Heart Mr. Brisher's Treasure Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation Mr. Marshall's Doppelganger Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland My First Aeroplane Our Little Neighbour Perfect Gentleman on Wheels Pollock and the Porroh Man The Empire of the Ants The Flying Man The Grisly Folk The Inexperienced Ghost The Land Ironclads The Lord of the Dynamos The Loyalty of Esau Common The Magic Shop The Man Who Could Work Miracles The Man with a Nose The Moth The New Accelerator The New Faust The Obliterated Man The Pearl of Love The Presence by the Fire The Purple Pileus The Rajah's Treasure The Reconciliation The Red Room The Sea Raiders The Star The Stolen Body The Story of the Last Trump The Story of the Stone Age The Temptation of Harringay The Thing in No. 7 The Thumbmark The Treasure in the Forest The Wild Asses of the Devil Through a Window Under the Knife Walcote Wayde's Essence Essays and Articles: A Short History of the World Floor Games Little Wars New Worlds for Old Russia in the Shadows The Misery of Boots The Outline of History Zoological Retrogression What Is Coming...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE RBC TAYLOR PRIZE WINNER OF THE EDNA STAEBLER AWARD FOR CREATIVE NON-FICTION "Every day on a bike trip is like the one before--but it is also completely different, or perhaps you are different, woken up in new ways by the mile." As a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she most craved--that of a generalist explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and philosopher--had gone extinct. From her small-town home in Ontario, it seemed as if Marco Polo, Magellan and their like had long ago mapped the whole earth. So she vowed to become a scientist and go to Mars. To pass the time before she could launch into outer space, Kate set off by bicycle down a short section of the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend Mel Yule, then settled down to study at Oxford and MIT. Eventually the truth dawned on her: an explorer, in any day and age, is by definition the kind of person who refuses to live between the lines. And Harris had soared most fully out of bounds right here on Earth, travelling a bygone trading route on her bicycle. So she quit the laboratory and hit the Silk Road again with Mel, this time determined to bike it from the beginning to end. Like Rebecca Solnit and Pico Iyer before her, Kate Harris offers a travel narrative at once exuberant and meditative, wry and rapturous. Weaving adventure and deep reflection with the history of science and exploration, Lands of Lost Borders explores the nature of limits and the wildness of a world that, like the self and like the stars, can never be fully mapped.

The Travel Tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens is the first collection of Jorkens tales and contains thirteen stories. The Jorkens stories are set in the London gentleman's or adventurer's club of which the title character is a member. They usually open with another member mentioning an interesting experience he has had; this rouses Jorkens, who in return for a whisky-and-soda (merely to "moisten his throat," you understand!) goes the other member one better with an extraordinary tall tale, supposedly from his own past. His stories often tip well over the boundaries of the plausible, into the realms of fantasy, horror, or even science fiction, and his auditors can never be quite sure what proportion of what he relates was truly experienced and to what degree he might have embellished.