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This open-access book investigates Francophone Caribbean literature by exploring and analyzing French seventeenth-century travel writings. The book argues for a literary re-examination of the representation of the early colonial Caribbean by proposing theoretical linkages to contemporary Caribbean theories of creolization and archipelagic thinking. Using Édouard Glissant’s notion of points of entanglement, Christina Kullberg claims that the historical, social, and political messiness of the Caribbean seventeenth century make for complex representations and expressions, generating textual instability despite the travelers’ apparent desires to domesticate the islands. Taking a synoptic approach to travel narratives in French from 1620 up to the publication of Labat’s Nouveau voyage aux Isles de l’Amérique in 1722, Kullberg examines textual instances where the islands and the peoples of this period disrupt and unsettle dominant French narratives and enter productively into the construction of knowledge and the representations of the region. Kullberg’s contribution is to read French early modern travels in situ as shaped by the archipelagic geography, its history and social formations in order to interrogate both the construction and the limitations of discourses of power.

The bestselling author of Dispatches from Pluto and The Deepest South of All turns his sharp wit and observational powers on the epicenter of America's most divisive issues: Arizona.When Richard Grant and his wife moved with their four-year-old daughter back to Tucson, Arizona, where the couple first met, he expected to easily rekindle his love of the region. Instead, he found a housing market gone haywire, rampant election conspiracies, and right-wing political violence alarmingly close to his home and family. Undocumented immigration was surging, and the state was also on the front lines of climate change, breaking heat and drought records, and running out of long-term water supplies. Under these circumstances, Grant wondered how he might raise a happy, well-adjusted child who believes in the future. Yet these concerns weren't keeping people away: Arizona was simultaneously experiencing some of the nation's highest population growth. In A Race to the Bottom of Crazy, Grant mixes memoir, research, and reporting in a quest to understand what makes Arizona such a confounding and irresistible place. He visits the world's largest machine-gun shoot; takes a sunset boat cruise with a US Congressman and a group of far-right patriots; rides through the desert with a Border Patrol agent; and goes camping with his family in breathtaking mountain ranges that rise out of the desert like islands in the sky. Interspersed with these adventures are recollections of his previous stint in the state, including his friendship with cult writer Charles Bowden and years living off the grid with smugglers, dope farmers, and outlaws on the Mexican border. Ultimately, Grant arrives at the conclusion that Arizona has always been a scattershot improvisation, with bizarre and extreme behavior in its DNA. This book is an entertaining, illuminating, and essential guide to understanding modern America at its most overheated.

Award-winning journalist and CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir draws on his years of immersive travel and reporting to share the best ideas and stories of hope and positivity from the people and communities around the world who are thriving in the wake of climate change, and what we can learn from them to build a more promising future.While reporting from every state and every continent, and filming his acclaimed CNN Original Series The Wonder List, Bill Weir has spent decades telling the stories of unique people, places, cultures, and creatures on the brink of change. As the first Chief Climate Correspondent in network news, he's immersed in the latest science and breakthroughs on the topic, while often on the frontlines of disasters, natural and manmade.In 2020, Bill began distilling these experiences into a series of Earth Day letters for his then-newborn son to read in 2050, to help him better understand the world he will have grown up in and be better prepared to embrace the future. Bill's work and his letters were the inspiration for Life As We Know It (Can Be), which confronts the worry and wonder of climate change with messages and examples of hope for all of us on how a better future can still be written.Highlighting groundbreaking innovation in fields of clean energy, food and water sources, housing and building materials, and more, and touching on how happiness, resilience, and health and wellness factor into the topic of climate change, Bill's stories take readers on a global journey, from one community in Florida that took on a hurricane and never lost power, to the Antarctic Peninsula where one species of penguin is showing us the key to survival, to the nuclear fusion labs where scientists are trying to build a star in a box. In these pages, we join a search for ancient wisdom and new ideas.Life As We Know It (Can Be) is a celebration of the wonders of our planet, a meditation on the human wants and needs that drive it out of balance, and an inspiration for communities to galvanize around nature and each other as the very best way to best prepare and plan for what's next.

A LibraryReads pick for Notable NonfictionOne of Book Riot's 10 Best New Nonfiction Books for AdultsBestselling author Jen Ruiz takes readers on a trip around the globe in 12 Trips in 12 Months, defying societal expectations of what a woman is supposed to be—and empowering others to do the same.The year before her thirtieth birthday, Jen Ruiz decided to change everything. Despite being professionally accomplished and contributing to the world as an attorney at a nonprofit, she had yet to achieve the most important goal, according to society: becoming a wife and mother. So, after more ghostings than a graveyard, tired of dating apps and sitting in a windowless office, Jen embarked on an epic challenge to send her twenties out in style.Twelve months, twelve trips, no excuses.She started booking flights instead of swiping right, teaching English online to cover costs. Over the course of the year, Jen descended into a volcano in Iceland, volunteered at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand, called in sick to fly in a hot air balloon, and went scuba diving at an underwater museum in Mexico.She ended up taking twenty trips, almost double her original goal.In a moving and inspiring story, Jen invites readers along through the year wherein she decided to stop waiting for others and start living for herself, discovered the power of solo travel magic, challenged herself physically and emotionally, made meaningful connections … and learned that she could feel fulfilled and happy on her own.

Travel Writing and Cultural Transfer addresses the multifaceted concept of cultural transfer through travel writing, with the aim of expanding our knowledge of modes of travel in the past and present and how they developed, as did the way in which travel was reported.Travel as both factual and fictional— with authors and narratives moving between different worlds— is one of the many devices that demonstrate the fluidity of the genre. This fluidity accounts for the manifold and powerful influence of travel writing on processes of cultural transfer. This volume also illustrates that cultural transfer is frequently linked to issues of power, colonialism and politics. The various chapters investigate the transmission of other cultures, ideas and ideologies to the writer's own cultural sphere and consider how the processes of cultural transfer interact with the forms and functions of travel writing.

In Travel Narratives, Travel Fictions, Daniel Cooper Alarcón argues that travel literature performs important social and cultural criticism often overlooked in studies of the genre. By examining non-fiction and fiction novels and short stories that purposefully examine different types of travel in relationship to each other, Cooper Alarcón documents and highlights the sophisticated ways that both types of writing have anticipated and contributed ideas central to critical studies of travel, tourism, and migration. The author uses the term travel fictions to illustrate the ways in which travel narratives (supposed factual accounts of travel) often misrepresent, distort, and fabricate notions about the people and places they purport to describe, creating useful mythologies and hinting at the ways in which the acts of reading and writing have become an integral part of traveling–shaping not just itineraries, but perceptions and beliefs about places travelers visit. Both types of travel writing are influential in this regard and they frequently borrow from one another, mutually reinforcing ideas, tropes, and modes of representation, often in problematic ways.

Join Cecilia Blomdahl in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, the world's northernmost town.Located in the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole, Svalbard is a unique archipelago that boasts stunning wintry landscapes, endangered Arctic animals, and awe-inspiring natural phenomena. Since 2015, Cecilia has called this beautiful and remote location home. Along with her partner, Christoffer, and her dog, Grim, she has adjusted to life at the top of the world—where polar bears roam free and northern lights shine bright.With evocative text and spectacular photography, Cecilia shares the joys and challenges of adapting to an inhospitable climate. Her story begins in the darkness of polar night, and the allure of her remote location is revealed gradually as sunlight returns months later. Through personal stories and firsthand advice, Cecilia offers insight for anyone seeking to thrive in unusual living conditions.Whatever your location, Life on Svalbard will give you a deeper understanding of why people choose to live in extreme environments and perhaps help you find the hidden magic of where you live too.

This book stems from the question that we as co-authors grappled with for the past 3-plus years while in our own periods of stasis during the pandemic: What place does the travel writing genre hold in a post-COVID world? With the massive interruptions to travel and travel writing across 2020-2023 as the pandemic forced us indoors and into isolation, it also raised many other pertinent questions about the practice of and future of travel writing. Part of the prompt for this book comes from the post-pandemic assumption that in an ecologically fraught, less mobile, and more uncertain world, there may not be a place for travel writing as we know it to exist in any meaningful way. We examine the problems and solutions apparent for travel writing as it engages with a period of re-thinking, prompted by the pandemic, though necessary for a plethora of other reasons as well. As academics and travel writing practitioners, with decades of experience in the field, we offer a unique perspectiveon this topic – as we have the in-the-field experience of professional travel writers, and we have the academic grounding to better understand the history, theoretical concerns and contradictions of the genre to provide a more in-depth perspective to our travel writing colleagues. This grounding allows us to access a unique and valuable perspective for Re-thinking Travel Writing: The Journey of a Genre for academics, aspiring travel writers and contemporary colleagues in the field.

In this refreshingly honest take on navigating a new life abroad. Social media star Kacie Rose offers a funny, joyful, and searingly honest account of the highs and lows of living abroad and traveling the world.Kacie decided to leave her life as a pro dancer in New York City and move to Italy in 2021, covering everything from travel fails and homesickness to the joy of culture shocks. In this travel book, you will find:-Personal essays that tell Kacie's story that will empower you to challenge yourself-A candid outlook on life as an expat, discussing important concepts like homesickness, embracing new cultures and cultural stereotypes-A helpful and funny guide that will encourage you to travel abroad and remind you that you are stronger and more capable than you think. Kacie reflects on the pure terror of driving on Italian roads, the trials of speaking a new language, and the genuine beauty of a slower pace of life, all with humor and heart. By sharing her personal stories of life under the Tuscan sun, Kacie explains how travel is a privilege, why cultural differences are the coolest things in the world, and how there's a positive you can take away from literally any situation. Travel meets narrative in this book about Kacie Rose's experiences living in a new country.