Walking To The End Of The World

'Walking to the End of the World' keeps us turning its pages--an elegant story woven in the seasoned voice of writer Beth Jusino, who shares great insight into her own strengths and weaknesses, relationships of all sorts, and a world view we'd all do well to consider. -Steven Watkins, author of Pilgrim Strong: Rewriting My Story on the Way of St. James

In April 2015, Beth and Eric Jusino, laden with backpacks and nerves, walked out of a cathedral in the historic village of Le Puy, France, down a cobblestone street, and turned west. Seventy-nine days, a thousand miles, two countries, two mountain ranges, and three pairs of shoes later, they reached the Atlantic Ocean. More than two million pilgrims have walked the Way of Saint James, a long-distance hiking trail familiar to most Americans by its Spanish name, the Camino de Santiago. Each pilgrim has their own reason for undertaking the journey. For the Jusinos, it was about taking a break from the relentless pace of modern life and getting away from all their electronic devices. And how hard could it be, Beth reasoned, to walk twelve to fifteen miles a day, especially with the promise of real beds and local wine every night? Simple. It turned out to be harder than she thought. Beth is not an athlete, not into extreme adventures, and, she insists, not a risk-taker. She didn't speak a word of French when she set out, and her Spanish was atrocious. But she can tell a story. In Walking to the End of the World, she shares, with wry humor and infectious enthusiasm, the joys and travails of undertaking such a journey. She evocatively describes the terrain and the route’s history, her fellow pilgrims, and the villages passed, and the unexpected challenges and charms of the experience. Beth’s story is also about the assurance that an outdoor-based, boundary-stretching adventure is accessible to even the most unlikely of us. In her story, readers will feel that they, too, can get off their comfortable couches and do something unexpected and even spectacular. Walking to the End of the World is a warm-hearted and engaging story about an average couple going on an adventure together, tracing ancient paths first created in the tenth and eleventh centuries, paths that continue to inspire and reveal surprises to us today in the twenty-first.

For five years Julie Welch, a sports writer and marathon runner, edited the magazine of the Long Distance Walkers Association -a remarkably large group of people who meet up most weekends to undertake arduous walking challenges 20, 40 or 60 miles long. The highlight, (though others might well say nadir!) of the Walkers’ calendar has long since been the annual ‘Hundred’. First held in 1973, and every year since, its eclectic (but uniformly addicted) participants will walk a hundred miles, non-stop, within 48 hours – watching the sun set and rise again... twice. The annual Hundreds both beguiled and allured Julie until the sports journalist felt herself powerless to resist; she decided she had to have a go herself. Out On Your Feet is the story of what happened: of the 50-mile walks she took part in to build up to the big day; the singular, admirable, often eccentric and above all tough-as-old-boots members of the long-distance fraternity; and finally the full wonder, pain, horror, exhilaration, even hallucination of walking a Hundred. (With fatigue as a constant travel companion, the mind will play tricks...) This highly entertaining book delves into a fascinating sub-culture that will undoubtedly baffle and inspire in equal measure.

What If It's Us meets Life as We Knew It in this postapocalyptic, queer YA adventure romance from debut author Erik J. Brown. Perfect for fans of Adam Silvera and Alex London. When Andrew stumbles upon Jamie’s house, he’s injured, starved, and has nothing left to lose. A deadly pathogen has killed off most of the world’s population, including everyone both boys have ever loved. And if this new world has taught them anything, it’s to be scared of what other desperate people will do . . . so why does it seem so easy for them to trust each other? After danger breaches their shelter, they flee south in search of civilization. But something isn’t adding up about Andrew’s story, and it could cost them everything. And Jamie has a secret, too. He’s starting to feel something more than friendship for Andrew, adding another layer of fear and confusion to an already tumultuous journey. The road ahead of them is long, and to survive, they’ll have to shed their secrets, face the consequences of their actions, and find the courage to fight for the future they desire, together. Only one thing feels certain: all that’s left in their world is the undeniable pull they have toward each other.

“If one keeps on walking, everything will be alright.” So said Danish writer Søren Kierkegaard, and so thought philosophy buff Gary Hayden as he set off on Britain’s most challenging trek: to walk from John O’Groats to Land’s End. But it wasn’t all quaint country lanes, picture-postcard villages and cosy bed and breakfasts. In this humorous, inspiring and delightfully British tale, Gary finds solitude and weary limbs bring him closer to the wisdom of the world’s greatest thinkers. Recalling Rousseau’s reverie, Bertrand Russell’s misery, Plato’s love of beauty and Epicurus’ joy in simplicity, Walking with Plato offers a breath of fresh, country air and clarity for anyone craving an escape from the humdrum of everyday life.

"This rich, endlessly engaging novel is, one hopes, the first in a long career for an author who has the talent and imagination to write whatever she wants." --The New York Times In the tradition of Station Eleven, Severance and The Dog Stars, a beautifully written and emotionally stirring dystopian novel about how our dreams of the future may shift as our environment changes rapidly, even as the earth continues to spin. The year is 1873, and a bison hunter named Samson travels the Kansas plains, full of hope for his new country. The year is 1975, and an adolescent girl named Bea walks those very same plains; pregnant, mute, and raised in extreme seclusion, she lands in an institution, where a well-meaning psychiatrist struggles to decipher the pictures she draws of her past. The year is 2027 and, after a series of devastating storms, a tenacious engineer named Paul has left behind his banal suburban existence to build a floating city above the drowned streets that were once New Orleans. There with his poet daughter he rules over a society of dreamers and vagabonds who salvage vintage dresses, ferment rotgut wine out of fruit, paint murals on the ceiling of the Superdome, and try to write the story of their existence. The year is 2073, and Moon has heard only stories of the blue planet—Earth, as they once called it, now succumbed entirely to water. Now that Moon has come of age, she could become a mother if she wanted to–if only she understood what a mother is. Alone on Mars with her two alien uncles, she must decide whether to continue her family line and repopulate humanity on a new planet. A sweeping family epic, told over seven generations, as America changes and so does its dream, Walk the Vanished Earth explores ancestry, legacy, motherhood, the trauma we inherit, and the power of connection in the face of our planet’s imminent collapse. This is a story about the end of the world—but it is also about the beginning of something entirely new. Thoughtful, warm, and wildly prescient, this work of bright imagination promises that, no matter what the future looks like, there is always room for hope.