Jeremy Kroeker is a Mennonite with a motorcycle. He doesn’t have a funny beard and he’s never even driven a buggy, but his family hails from the same Mennonite community that Miriam Toews fictionalized in A Complicated Kindness. From childhood through college, Kroeker attended Christian schools where he learned to think critically back to predetermined conclusions.Years later, when his faith begins to unravel, Kroeker stops short of tossing it all aside, choosing instead to leave every unanswered question hanging there on the edge of his mind. He might have gotten away with it, too, except for a drunken resolution that forces the issue of God back into his life. In the fall of 2007, Kroeker decides to ride his motorcycle across Europe and into the theocratic nation of Iran... a nation ruled by God. In the end, Kroeker finds himself on a forbidden visit to the holiest Muslim shrine in all of Iran. Once inside, invisible hands reach into Kroeker’s chest and rip from his heart a sincere prayer, his first in many years. And God hears that prayer. For before Kroeker can escape Mashhad, God steals into his hotel room one night to threaten him with death. At least, that’s one way to look at it. Throughout the narrative, Kroeker swings from dogmatic belief in God to overwhelming doubt before finally deciding that the key to approaching God is humility. He understands that uncertainty is not only an acceptable state of mind when considering the Divine, but it is necessary. He will always fear God. But who knows? Perhaps if he keeps riding, one of these days God will speak clearly. And that frightens him, too.

Few men have been as set on isolated adventures and as passionate about the wild landscape of Canada as R.M. Patterson. He spent over 30 years in exploration, from northern rivers such as the Nahanni and the Liard, to the foothills of the Rockies, and he recorded his discoveries in vivid words and breathtaking photographs along the way. His memorable articles are presented as a collection by TouchWood Editions.

When she was suddenly given the opportunity of a new life in rural Jutland, journalist and archetypal Londoner Helen Russell discovered a startling statistic: the happiest place on earth isn't Disneyland, but Denmark, a land often thought of by foreigners as consisting entirely of long dark winters, cured herring, Lego, and pastries. What is the secret to their success? Are happy Danes born, or made? Helen decides there is only one way to find out: she will give herself a year, trying to uncover the formula for Danish happiness. From childcare, education, food, and interior design to SAD, taxes, sexism and an unfortunate predilection for burning witches, The Year of Living Danishly is a record of a journey that shows us where the Danes get it right, where they get it wrong, and how we might just benefit from living a little more Danishly ourselves.

Travel has become the world’s favourite pastime, and this collection of stories and essays is sure to fuel your wanderlust. Let renowned Canadian writers including Susan Musgrave, Stephen Henighan, and Pauline Holdstock transport you to the relaxing beaches of the Caribbean islands, the lush forests of South America, the busy streets of Asia, and the edgy clubs of Eastern Europe. With poignant descriptions of faraway places and thoughtful examinations of cultural difference, these writers present fresh realizations about the complexities of foreign culture in tales of unexpected adventure and self-discovery. Enjoy this collection while commuting, drinking your morning coffee, or even while travelling, and indulge your need to get away from it all!

India's future will be determined not only by economic development, but also by a dynamic traditional culture that continues to develop along its own lines sometimes in concert, and sometimes in conflict with material enrichment. India develops not, as one writer has suggested, in spite of the gods. Rather, the seed for the creation and the fuel for the sustenance of India's economic boom lay in its traditions, and, I will argue, the animating spirit of its future lies there as well. I have neither the expertise nor the access to operate as a political correspondent, nor the desire to posture as a political pundit. During 18 years of research, however, I have seen what I perceived as a pervasive misrepresentation of recent developments in Indian politics. More specifically, a number of recent books consistently paint the Hindu right wing in India as essentially fascist or theocratic. My observations show that these claims are untenable and misrepresent a positive development in the history of Indian democracy. To think clearly about the changes in today's India we require a new model: the bi-directional banyan tree, a symbol borrowed, ironically, from ancient Sanskrit verses. Pindar claimed, Custom is King of all, and this serves as a succinct expression of the central thesis of this book.

Setting out to visit his friends in Woodstock, New Brunswick, and with all intentions to return to the United States to attend Columbia University in the fall, Tappan Adney, at the age of 18, embarked on a trip that would ultimately set the course of his life. Tappan Adney's writings, illustrations, and photographs were published in Harper's Magazine. This follow-up journal to 2010's first volume, takes us back to a time when wildness was still something easily accessible and wildlife abundant. These experiences, seen through the eyes of a young man from the city and illustrated with his own sketches and remarkably accurate maps, bring readers into this world, allowing them to walk and canoe the roads and rivers with him. The first volume showed us a remarkable young man who fell under the spell of the 19th century New Brunswick wilderness and the Maliseet people. Now, in this second volume of Adney's journals, we meet a man still passionate but wiser, transformed from enthusiastic hunter to reflective woodsman and decades ahead of his time in foreseeing the need for environmental protection. Recounted in the dialect of the day with the added flair of Adney's inimitable humour, and augmented by maps, sketches, and photographs, these journals provide an authentic glimpse into the world before the turn of the 20th century.

A hundred-year mystery lured veteran climber Mark Synnott into an unlikely expedition up Mount Everest during the spring 2019 season that came to be known as “the Year Everest Broke”. What he found was a gripping human story of impassioned characters from around the globe and a mountain that will consume your soul - and your life - if you let it. The mystery? On June 8, 1924, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine set out to stand on the roof of the world, where no one had stood before. They were last seen 800 feet shy of Everest’s summit still “going strong” for the top. Could they have succeeded decades before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay? Irvine is believed to have carried a Kodak camera with him to record their attempt, but it, along with his body, had never been found. Did the frozen film in that camera have a photograph of Mallory and Irvine on the summit before they disappeared into the clouds, never to be seen again? Kodak says the film might still be viable... Mark Synnott made his own ascent up the infamous North Face along with his friend Renan Ozturk, a filmmaker using drones higher than any had previously flown. Listeners witness first-hand how Synnott’s quest led him from oxygen-deprivation training to archives and museums in England, to Kathmandu, the Tibetan high plateau, and up the North Face into a massive storm. The infamous traffic jams of climbers at the very summit immediately resulted in tragic deaths. Sherpas revolted. Chinese officials turned on Synnott’s team. An Indian woman miraculously crawled her way to frostbitten survival. Synnott himself went off the safety rope - one slip and no one would have been able to save him - committed to solving the mystery. Eleven climbers died on Everest that season, all of them mesmerized by an irresistible magic. The Third Pole is a rapidly accelerating ride to the limitless joy and horror of human obsession.

An American pastry chef living in Paris shares his deliciously funny, offbeat, and irreverent look at the city of lights.

Robert Byron (1905-1941) was a famous British travel writer. Byron died at the young age of 35 when the ship he was travelling on was torpedoed by a German U-Boat. This edition of Byron's The Station: Travels to the Holy Mountain of Greece includes a table of contents.