Journalist Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians for more than ten years, and he has grown increasingly frustrated with the rose-tinted view of this part of the world offered up by the Western media. In this timely book he leaves his adopted home of Denmark and embarks on a journey through all five of the Nordic countries to discover who these curious tribes are, the secrets of their success, and, most intriguing of all, what they think of one another. Why are the Danes so happy, despite having the highest taxes? Do the Finns really have the best education system? Are the Icelanders as feral as they sometimes appear? How are the Norwegians spending their fantastic oil wealth? And why do all of them hate the Swedes? In The Almost Nearly Perfect People Michael Booth explains who the Scandinavians are, how they differ and why, and what their quirks and foibles are, and he explores why these societies have become so successful and models for the world. Along the way a more nuanced, often darker picture emerges of a region plagued by taboos, characterized by suffocating parochialism, and populated by extremists of various shades. They may very well be almost nearly perfect, but it isn't easy being Scandinavian.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Impossible First, a compelling blend of riveting adventure stories and hard-won wisdom that teaches us how to overcome our limiting beliefs and embark on a transformative one-day journey that will unlock our best lives. Millions of people dream of living a more fulfilling life, yet many settle for a life of comfortable complacency, allowing excuses and negative thoughts to invade their minds. I don't have enough time ... I don't have enough money ... I'm afraid to fail ... I don't have what it takes--we allow these limiting beliefs to control us. Now comes The 12-Hour Walk, which provides the inspiration--and catalyst--for getting unstuck and realizing your full potential. Featuring life lessons from explorer, endurance athlete, and entrepreneur Colin O'Brady--whose adventures in such extreme places as Antarctica and the perilous Drake Passage and on the peaks of Mount Everest and K2 have seen him establish ten world records--this book's vivid narrative and powerful insight will show you how you can embark on your own life-changing journey. With Colin as your guide, The 12-Hour Walk asks you to invest one day in yourself. The goal? Conquering your mind and becoming your best self. By walking alone, unplugging, listening to the voice within, and rewriting the limiting beliefs etched into your psyche, you can break free of the patterns holding you back and learn how to cultivate a "Possible Mindset"--An empowered way of thinking that unlocks a life of limitless possibilities. The reward: being the hero of your own destiny.

"I remember them as though they had happened yesterday." So writes author-naturalist Charles Sauriol in reference to his many memorable experiences within Toronto’s Don River Valley. From Scout outings in 1920 to pioneer cottaging, train excursions, maple syrup making, beekeeping and countless other activities, the author’s long association with the Don makes for fascinating reading in this sequel to his earlier book, Remembering the Don. Tales of the Don provides for Toronto residents and visitors alike a picture window through which they may see the valley as it was years ago. A vital part of a great city’s heritage has been preserved thanks to Charles Sauriol’s foresight, tenacity and unshakeable love of subject. Once again "The King of the Don Valley," in his quaint and refreshing way, has written a book that will delight his sizeable following and undoubtedly gain for him many new readers.

Quintessential travel articles and thoughtful essays by the observant, witty and skeptical travel writer and novelist. Part One: 1964-1978 includes: Winter in Africa; Leper Colony; V.S. Naipaul; Memories of Old Afghanistan; The Night Ferry to Paris; and A Circuit of Corsica

What is the 'Toronto look'? Glass skyscrapers rise beside Victorian homes, and Brutalist apartment buildings often mark the edge of leafy ravines, creating a city of contrasts whose architectural look can only be defined by telling the story of how it came together and how it works, today, as an imperfect machine. Shawn Micallef has been examining Toronto’s streetscapes for a decade. His psychogeographic reportages, some of which have been featured in EYE WEEKLY and Spacing magazine, situate Toronto's buildings and streets in living, breathing detail, and tell us about the people who use them; the ways, intended or otherwise, that they are being used; and how they are evolving.Stroll celebrates Toronto's details – some subtle, others grand – at the speed of walking and, in so doing, helps us to better get to know its many neighbourhoods, taking us from well-known spots like the CN Tower and Pearson Airport to the overlooked corners of Scarborough and all the way to the end of the Leslie Street Spit in Lake Ontario. Stroll features thirty-two walks, a flâneur manifesto, a foreword by architecture critic John Bentley Mays and dozens of hand-drawn maps by Marlena Zuber.'Shawn Micallef looks at the city in a way we all should more often – he sees it as a living book that is alive with stories just waiting to be told to the attentive observer. In Stroll, he gives us an introduction to just how interesting and surprisingly dramatic those stories are, and how exciting our city is when we hear them.' – David Crombie, former mayor of Toronto'A smart and intimate guide to the city that makes you feel like an insider from start to finish.' – Douglas CouplandStroll is co-published with EYE WEEKLY.

A poet and journalist looks back on a remarkable journey from Turkey to Nepal in 1978, when the region was on the brink of massive transformation. In the spring of 1978, at age twenty-two, Mark Abley put aside his studies at Oxford and set off with a friend on a three-month trek across the celebrated Hippie Trail -- a sprawling route between Europe and South Asia, peppered with Western bohemians and vagabonds. It was a time when the Shah of Iran still reigned supreme, Afghanistan lay at peace, and city streets from Turkey to India teemed with unrest. Within a year, many of the places he visited would become inaccessible to foreign travellers. Drawing from the tattered notebooks he filled as a youthful wanderer, Abley brings his kaleidoscope of experiences back to life with vivid detail: dancing in a Turkish disco, clambering across a glacier in Kashmir, travelling by train among Baluchi tribesmen who smuggled kitchen appliances over international borders. He also reflects on the impact of the Hippie Trail and the illusions of those who journeyed along it. The lively immediacy of Abley's journals combined with the measured wisdom of his mature, contemporary voice provides rich insight, bringing vibrant witness and historical perspective to this beautifully written portrait of a region during a time of irrevocable change.

A Bill-Brysonesque romp through this often-overlooked travellers’ gem of East Asia. For seventeen years, journalist, teacher, and coach Mark Dake has called South Korea home. Now, with his longtime Korean friend Heju, he sets out on a four-month, ten-thousand-kilometre road trip, determined to uncover the real country. From the electric street life of Seoul to the tense northern border, where deadly skirmishes still erupt, the pair’s shoestring, wing-and-a-prayer trek takes them well off the beaten trail and across the complicated nation. Along the way are prisons, dinosaurs, anthropology, history, marine life, art, and abundant nature. There are Buddhist temples, fairgrounds, palaces, national parks, bridges, historical sites, forts, churches, and cemeteries. Whether standing amidst ancient stone tombs and religious architecture unrivalled in Asia, or at military briefings under the steely eyes of North Korean sentries, Mark and Heju are tireless explorers in search of the culture, geography, and beauty of this enigmatic peninsula.

The bastard step-child of Milton Friedman and Anthony Bourdain, Socialism Sucks is a bar-crawl through former, current, and wannabe socialist countries around the world. Free-market economists Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell travel to countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, and Sweden to investigate the dangers and idiocies of socialism - while drinking a lot of beer.

This memoir takes readers around the world, from New York to Nigeria, exploring a life illuminated by novels. As a child in music class, Kathleen Hill comes upon Willa Cather's Lucy Gayheart, and the novel prepares her for a drowning death that soon occurs in her own life. Later, recently married and working as a teacher in a newly independent Nigeria, Hill assigns Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart to her students, which leads to learning from them about the violent legacy of colonialism, and visiting an old slave port whose disturbing relics make her aware of her benighted American innocence. Also in Nigeria, she is given Henry James's A Portrait of a Lady and deeply ponders her new marriage through the lens of Isabel Archer, remembering her adolescent fear that reading might be a way of avoiding experience. But is it possible that the act of reading itself may be a form of ardent, transforming experience' In this memoir, Hill reflects on her literary lifetime, reminiscing about her year in northern France, where she resolutely put Flaubert's Madame Bovary aside to discover, in Bernanos's Diary of a Country Priest, a detailed guide to the town where she was living, a more acute perspective on the poverty and suffering hidden within its walls. She also shares a tender account of her friendship with writer Diana Trilling, whose failing sight inspired a plan to read aloud Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, an undertaking that required six years to complete. From an author whose novel Still Waters in Niger was named a New York Times Notable Book and a best book of the year by the Los Angeles Times, She Read to Us in the Late Afternoons is both a wide-ranging autobiographical journey and a deeply felt appreciation of literature and its power to reflect our immediate reality and open windows onto vast new worlds.