Travels with a Writing Brush: Classical Japanese Travel Writing from the Manyoshu to Basho

Meredith McKinney

Discover a realm of travel writing undreamed of in the West - a richly literary tradition extending through a thousand years and more, whose individual works together weave a dense and beautiful brocade of repeated patterns and motifs, tones and textures. Here are asobi, the wandering performers who pre...

How the World Really Works: A Scientist's Guide to Our Past, Present, and Future

Vaclav Smil

Delightfully contrarian, this is the one book you need to read to understand our modern world.  We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperi...