Central Skagit Library District

The first and greatest portrayal of time travel is printed with a newly established text, a full biographical essay on Wells, a list of further reading, and detailed notes.

"Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to discover and celebrate that green and pleasant land. The result was Notes from a Small Island, a true classic and one of the bestselling travel books ever written. Now he has traveled about Britain again, by bus and train and rental car and on foot, to see what has changed--and what hasn't. Following a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from Bognor Regis in the south to Cape Wrath in the...

The acclaimed author of Dark Star Safari journeys across western Africa in this “thoroughly engrossing [and] at times tragic” travelogue (Washington Post).

Paul Theroux’s best-selling Dark Star Safari chronicled his epic overland voyage from Cairo to Cape Town, providing an insider’s look at modern Africa. Now, with The Last Train to Zona Verde, he returns to discover how both he

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"There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans: too big to police, and with no clear international authority, the oceans have become the setting for rampant criminality--from human trafficking and slavery to environmental crimes and piracy. Now, in The Outlaw Ocean, Ian Urbina--prize-winning reporter for The New York Times--gives us a galvanizing account of the several years...

"America's northern border is the world's longest international boundary, yet it remains obscure even to Americans. The northern border was America's primary border for centuries--much of the early history of the United States took place there--and to the tens of millions who live and work near the line, the region even has its own name: the northland. Travel writer Porter Fox spent three years exploring 4,000 miles of the border between Maine and...

"In 1899, railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman organized a most unusual summer voyage to the wilds of Alaska: He converted a steamship into a luxury "floating university," populated by some of America's best and brightest scientists and writers, including the anti-capitalist eco-prophet John Muir. Those aboard encountered a land of immeasurable beauty and impending environmental calamity. More than a hundred years later, Alaska is still America's most...

Traces the author's explorations of U.S. territories including American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Northern Mariana Islands to juxtapose their blends of culture against the expansionist views of the Founding Fathers.

After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve "the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century": what happened to British explorer Percy Fawcett. In 1925 Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization. For centuries Europeans believed the world's largest jungle concealed the glittering El Dorado. Thousands had died looking for it, leaving many convinced that the Amazon was...

When he was just a fledgling birdwatcher, Jonathan C. Slaght had a chance encounter with one of the most mysterious birds on Earth. Bigger than any owl he knew, it looked like a small bear with decorative feathers. He snapped a quick photo and shared it with experts. Soon he was on a five-year journey, searching for this enormous, enigmatic creature in the lush, remote forests of eastern Russia. That first sighting set his calling as a scientist....

Pulled through a glass that brings him back in time, Septimus Heap becomes the apprentice of an alchemist.