Best selling Travel Books

Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2010: There is, as everyone knows, no place in the world changing as fast, and at such scale, as China. Accounts of the upheaval can be breathless and even alarming, but Peter Hessler is the calmest and most companionable of correspondents. In his reporting for the New Yorker and in his books River Town, Oracle Bones, and now the superb Country Driving, he's observed the past 15 years of change with the patience and perspective--and necessary good humor--of an outsider who expects to be there for a while. In Country Driving, Hessler takes to the roads, as so many Chinese are doing now for the first time, driving on dirt tracks to the desert edges of the ancient empire and on brand-new highways to the mushrooming factory towns of the globalized boom. He's modest but intrepid--having taken to heart the national philosophy that it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission--and an utterly enjoyable guide, with a humane and empathetic eye for the ambitions, the failures, and the comedy of a country in which everybody, it seems, is on the move, and no one is quite sure of the rules. --Tom Nissley

Test Your Disney Smarts! Amazon-exclusive quiz from author Bob Sehlinger 1. Which restaurant has the best view at Walt Disney World? A. LakeView Restaurant, B. The California Grill, C. Cindarella’s Royal Table 2. Afternoon milkshakes for two kids will cost you: A. $5.72, B. $8.38, C. $12.59 3. Disney Kids’ Meals are available for children of what ages? A. 3-9, B. 3-11, C. Under 18 4. When is the best time to take the kids on Dumbo the Flying Elephant? A. Before 10 a.m. or after 9 p.m., B. Immediately following lunch, C. At exactly 3:15 p.m. 5. Which Disney theme park is five times the size as the Magic Kingdom? A. Disney’s Hollywood Studios, B. Epcot Center, C. Animal Kingdom 6. The best time to visit Walt Disney World is: A. On your child’s birthday, B. The day of your child’s final exam in math class, C. During the period between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day Answers: 1)B, 2)B, 3)A, 4)A, 5)C, 6)A Five Unofficial Ways to Prepare For Your Trip to Walt Disney World Amazon-exclusive content from author Bob Sehlinger 1. Select the time of year for your visit: Walt Disney World is busiest Christmas Day through New Year’s Day. Thanksgiving weekend, the week of Washington’s birthday, the first full week of November, spring break for colleges, and the two weeks around Easter are also times when visitation can peak at 92,000 visitors in a single day. The park is far less crowded during the off season, but be advised that the parks often open late and close early during that time. You can find detailed charts and info on the best times to visit in The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World. 2. Shape up: Visiting Disney World requires levels of industry and stamina more often associated with running marathons. As you plan your time at Disney World, consider your physical limitations. It’s exhausting to rise at dawn and run around a theme park for 8 to 12 hours day after day. Every Disney World vacation itinerary should include days when you don’t go to a theme park and days when you sleep in and take the morning off. Plan these to follow unusually long and arduous days. 3. Formulate your park plan: First-time visitors should see Epcot first; you’ll be able to enjoy it without having been preconditioned to think of Disney entertainment as solely fantasy or adventure. See Animal Kingdom second. Like Epcot, it’s educational, but its live animals provide a change of pace. Next, see Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which helps transition from the educational Epcot and Animal Kingdom to the fanciful Magic Kingdom. Also, because DHS is smaller, you won’t walk as much or stay as long. Save the Magic Kingdom for last; it’s the park that epitomizes Disney World for most visitors. 4. Create your touring plan: Which rides and attractions appeal most to you? What are you willing to forgo? Planning your day in advance can save you up to four hours of waiting time in line. We have developed a hierarchy of categories that will help you evaluate each ride and plan the best way to enjoy them all. For example, SUPER-HEADLINERS are the best attractions the theme park has to offer â€" and they usually have the longest lines. MINOR ATTRACTIONS are midway-type rides, small “dark” rides (cars on a track, zigzagging through the dark) and walk-through attractionsâ€"which can be a lot of fun, without the long wait. Remember that bigger and more elaborate doesn’t always mean better. See examples of touring plans (and create your own) in The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World. 5. Getting hungry?: There are three lessons to learn before you dine in the parks. One: Theme-park restaurants rush their customers in order to make room for the next group of diners. If you want to linger over your expensive meal, don’t order your entire dinner at once. Order drinks. Study the menu while you sip, then order appetizers. Tell the waiter you need more time to decide among entrees. Order your main course only after appetizers have been served. Dawdle over dessert. Two: If you’re dining in a theme park and cost is an issue, make lunch your main meal. Entrees are similar to those on the dinner menu, but prices are significantly lower. Three: Disney adds a surcharge of $4 per adult and $2 per child to certain popular restaurants during weeks of peak attendance, including Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and in 2009 every day from Memorial Day through July 4.

Book Description

Join New York Times bestselling author and Food Network star Guy Fieri for a second helping of the best diners, drive-ins, and dives across America!

Guy Fieri strikes again with More Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, giving you a road map to road food that's earned its culinary citizenship in "Flavortown." Join Guy on a cross-country noshing parade, mapping out the best places you've never heard of—more than fifty establishments off the beaten path. Compete in a (no hands) apple-pie-eating contest at Bobo Drive-In in Topeka, Kansas, dip your taste buds in Sweet Spicy Love sauce at Uncle Lou's Fried Chicken in Memphis, Tennessee, and get a load of the killer four-cheese mac-and-cheese at Gorilla Barbeque in Pacifica, California. Filled with Guy's hilarious voice and rampant enthusiasm for these hidden culinary gems, More Diners, Drive-ins and Dives is the perfect book for lovers of the American food scene and fans of Triple D.

Pleasure Cruising Through More Diners, Drive-ins and Dives by Guy Fieri

Dear Amazon Customers,

My drop-top culinary cruise to America’s most fun and funkiest joints is the adventure we’re all looking for--and I’m having the time of my life. I’m glad to get out there because it reminds me of what a great country we have. I have five restaurants of my own (three Johnny Garlic’s and two Tex Wasabi’s), and as a chef and restaurant owner, let me tell you, it’s a tough business. You really have to love it to keep with it. I thought having my own restaurants in Northern California’s wine country couldn’t be beat, but sharing these mom and pop joints across the country and highlighting not just their food but their stories is probably the greatest experience I’ve ever had. And on top of it all, the show results in an increase in their business and ends up changing their lives. We get stories emailed to us all the time: I opened a second location, I bought the building, I bought my wife a new Mercedes.

One of these folks was Gorilla Rich, owner of Gorilla Barbeque in Pacifica, California. I met him while at a NASCAR race, and I knew this guy had to be on television. I didn’t even know he had a barbeque restaurant at the time, so I wasn’t even thinking of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. I even called my producer from the track and said, “I met this dude and we’ve got to get him on television.” Long story short, turns out he’s doing some slammin’ BBQ, we end up highlighting his restaurant on the show, and things are blown out! They’ve got a second smoker now and are looking into another location. Gorilla and I have become really good buddies, so when I’m home in California he’ll drive up to my house and we’ll hang out. Making these connections is one of the neatest things about doing the show. It can’t happen with all of them, of course, but at some of the locations--like Voula’s, Panini Pete’s, Grinders, Luigi’s Pizzeria, and Hodad’s--these people have become really close friends. And it’s not that we’re great friends because I came to shine a light on them and change opportunities for their business, it’s because they’re brothers from another mother. We’re all in this industry to make people happy, that’s what we love to do. So when you find these other brothers that are out there doing that same thing, it’s a culinary family reunion in flavortown.

In this sequel to her New York Times bestsellers Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany, the celebrated "bard of Tuscany" (New York Times) lyrically chronicles her continuing, two decades-long love affair with Tuscany's people, art, cuisine, and lifestyle.
 
Frances Mayes offers her readers a deeply personal memoir of her present-day life in Tuscany, encompassing both the changes she has experienced since Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany appeared, and sensuous, evocative reflections on the timeless beauty and vivid pleasures of Italian life. Among the themes Mayes explores are how her experience of Tuscany dramatically expanded when she renovated and became a part-time resident of a 13th century house with a stone roof in the mountains above Cortona, how life in the mountains introduced her to a "wilder" side of Tuscany--and with it a lively  engagement with Tuscany's mountain people. Throughout, she reveals the concrete joys of life in her adopted hill town, with particular attention to life in the piazza, the art of Luca Signorelli (Renaissance painter from Cortona), and the pastoral pleasures of feasting from her garden.  Moving always toward a deeper engagement, Mayes writes of Tuscan icons that have become for her storehouses of memory, of crucible moments from which bigger ideas emerged, and of the writing life she has enjoyed in the room where Under the Tuscan Sun began.
 
With more on the pleasures of life at Bramasole, the delights and challenges of living in Italy day-to-day and favorite recipes, Every Day in Tuscany is a passionate and inviting account of the richness and complexity of Italian life.

You can count on Rick Steves to tell you what you really need to know when traveling in the City of Lightâ€"Paris.

With the self-guided tours in this book, you’ll explore the grand Champs-Elysées, the eye-popping Eiffel Tower, and the radiant cathedral of Notre-Dame. Learn how to save money and avoid the lines at the Louvre and Orsay Museums. Enjoy the ambience of Parisian neighborhoods, and take a day trip to the glittering palace of Versailles, or to the Champagne-soaked city of Reims. Then grab a café crème at a sidewalk café and listen to the hum of the city. You’ll see why Paris remains at the heart of global culture.

Rick’s candid, humorous advice will guide you to good-value hotels and restaurants in delightful neighborhoods. You’ll learn how to navigate the Paris Métro, and which sights are worth your time and money. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves guidebook is a tour guide in your pocket.

From the beaches to the Alps, from fine art to fine pasta, Italy has it all. With this book, you’ll trace Italian culture from Rome’s Colosseum to Michelangelo’s David to the bustling elegance of Milan. Experience the art-drenched cities of Venice and Florence, explore the ancient ruins of the Roman Forum, and learn how to avoid the lines at the most popular museums. Discover the villages of Tuscany and Umbria and the lazy rhythms of the Cinque Terre. Shop at local market stalls, sip a cappuccino at an outdoor café, and pick up a picknic lunch at an allimentari. Relax and enjoy the life of Bella Italia!

In Paris for a weekend visit, Elizabeth Bard sat down to lunch with a handsome Frenchman--and never went home again.

Was it love at first sight? Or was it the way her knife slid effortlessly through her pavé au poivre, the steak'spink juices puddling into the buttery pepper sauce? LUNCH IN PARIS is a memoir about a young American woman caught up in two passionate love affairs--one with her new beau, Gwendal, the other with French cuisine. Packing her bags for a new life in the world's most romantic city, Elizabeth is plunged into a world of bustling open-air markets, hipster bistros, and size 2 femmes fatales. She learns to gut her first fish (with a little help from Jane Austen), soothe pangs of homesickness (with the rise of a chocolate soufflé) and develops a crush on her local butcher (who bears a striking resemblance to Matt Dillon). Elizabeth finds that the deeper she immerses herself in the world of French cuisine, the more Paris itself begins to translate. French culture, she discovers, is not unlike a well-ripened cheese-there may be a crusty exterior, until you cut through to the melting, piquant heart.

Peppered with mouth-watering recipes for summer ratatouille, swordfish tartare and molten chocolate cakes, Lunch in Paris is a story of falling in love, redefining success and discovering what it truly means to be at home. In the delicious tradition of memoirs like A Year in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun, this book is the perfect treat for anyone who has dreamed that lunch in Paris could change their life.