Rich Smith

Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die.

In The Elephant in the Universe, Govert Schilling explores the fascinating history of the search for dark matter. Evidence for its existence comes from a wealth of astronomical observations. Theories and computer simulations of the evolution of the universe are also suggestive: they can be reconciled with astronomical measurements only if dark matter is a dominant component of nature.

In the summer of 1913, the wooden-hulled brigantine Karluk departed Canada for the Arctic Ocean. At the helm was Captain Bob Bartlett, considered the world’s greatest living ice navigator. The expedition’s visionary leader was a flamboyant impresario named Vilhjalmur Stefansson hungry for fame. Just six weeks after the Karluk departed, giant ice floes closed in around her. As the ship became icebound, Stefansson disembarked with five companions and struck out on what he claimed was a 10-day caribou hunting trip. Most on board would never see him again.

Rex Walker always wanted to be like his father: a daring, adventurous man, traveling the world in pursuit of mysterious relics. While teaching anthropology at a Boston college, Rex attempts to bury the past, until he discovers a hidden clue he can’t ignore. With the help of a former student, he teams up with an alien-obsessed billionaire, and they search for the fabled Bridge. As an unidentified object nears Pluto, speculation surges. Some hail it as the homecoming of a distant alien race, and this cult is unwavering in their efforts to usher our world into a new era.

One small handwritten letter, sent from a dark, remote corner of the planet and lost in the system for 60 years, is about to change the entire human race. Outside Denver, Colorado, Joe Rickards stands over a small aircraft wreckage, studying burnt remains still smoldering in a field of freshly fallen snow. He's an investigator for the NTSB, working to carefully roll back the last several hours and identify the cause of the accident. But this time, he can't.

At 22, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State - and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.

Traveling along the Yukon as the salmon migrate, a four-month journey through untrammeled landscape, Adam Weymouth traces the fundamental interconnectedness of people and fish through searing and unforgettable portraits of the individuals he encounters. He offers a powerful, nuanced glimpse into indigenous cultures and into our ever-complicated relationship with the natural world.

Here, There, Elsewhere draws together for the first time William Least Heat-Moon's greatest short-form travel writing. Taking us from Japan, England, Italy, and Mexico to Long Island, Oregon, Arizona, and more, , Here, There, Elsewhere is a sharply observed, funny, and touching series of uncommon adventures narrated by America's keenest writer of place, people, and sublime connection. For decades, William Least Heat-Moon's readers have been clamoring for him to gather his shorter pieces; now, that wait is over.

Legendary account of the author's voyage around Cape Horn in a 32-foot sailboat, sailing east to west (thus the Horn is to starboard, or on the right). This is a notoriously difficult and dangerous passage, especially in a boat this size.

Ever since I cycled down the west coast of Canada and the United States as a means of saving the bus fare on a round-the-world trip, I dreamed of cycling the whole length of that landmass, from the southern tip of South America all the way up to the Arctic Ocean. Returning home to a job I didn’t enjoy, that dream burned at my mind until, as a mature student in 1999, I was given the opportunity to take a year out and decided now was my time.