Thirteen-year-old Christa's plans for her favorite holiday are derailed when her parents announce their divorce and Christa spends Christmas in Europe with her mom, but even though her dad remains in Chicago, he sends Christa on a scavenger hunt made up of dares that send her all over Florence, Paris, and London.

Trixie and her family set off on a fantastic trip to visit her grandparents in Holland! But it seems Knuffle Bunny has different plans. Join Trixie on this international adventure as she makes a very surprising and moving decision.

Still mourning the loss of her brother, Ellie encourages the carving talents of his friend, Lloyd, while working at a gift shop in town. But his father disapproves. Every week, Hannah brings home-churned butter to market, and Ezra purchases some. Is he in the market for love? Embarassed by shattering a jar of beets at the Combination Store of Bee County, Texas, Isabella doesn't expect the handsome manager's frosty reaction. And, working together at the Old Amish Mill, Stella and David must find out what's behind strange happenings there..

The inspiring story of an ordinary guy who achieved two great goals that others had told him were impossible - first by setting a record for the longest automobile journey ever made around the world -- in the course of which he blasted his way out of minefields, survived a breakdown atop the Peak of Death, and came within seconds of being lynched in Pakistan. After that - although it took him 47 more years - he set another record by going to every country on Earth. He achieved this by surviving riots, revolutions, voodoo priests, pickpockets, and Cape buffalo. He survived  every kind of earthquake, cyclone, tsunami, volcanic eruption, snowstorm, and sandstorm that Nature threw at him  - and overcame attacks by crocodiles, hippos, anacondas, giant leeches, and flying crabs.

Central Asia has long stood at the crossroads of history. It was the staging ground for the armies of the Mongol Empire, for the nineteenth-century struggle between the Russian and British empires, and for the NATO campaign in Afghanistan. Today, multinationals and nations compete for the oil and gas reserves of the Caspian Sea and for control of the pipelines. Yet 'Stanland' is still, to many, a terra incognita, a geographical blank.The author takes readers along with him on his encounters with the people, landscapes, and customs of the diverse countries--Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan--he has come to love. He talks with teachers, students, politicians, environmental activists, bloggers, cab drivers, merchants, Peace Corps volunteers, and more.

Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing, Blue Highways is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads. William Least-Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put home behind him and a sense of curiosity about "those little towns that get on the map--if they get on at all--only because some cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia; New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Arizona; Whynot Mississippi." His adventures, his discoveries, and his recollections of the extraordinary people he encountered along the way amount to a revelation of the true American experience.

A tour of key historic sites in America where incidents of political violence have occurred reveals lesser-known points of interest pertaining to each and shares information about how history has been shaped by popular culture and tourism.

Stories of dislocation and family fracture, of whimsical infidelities and sudden deaths with sinister causes, brilliantly unsettle the reader in that unmistakably Mantel way.

The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the Buendia family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America. Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility -- the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth -- these universal themes dominate the novel.