Why do we travel? Ostensibly an act of leisure, travel finds us thrusting ourselves into jets flying miles above the earth, only to endure dislocations of time and space, foods and languages foreign to our body and mind, and encounters with strangers on whom we must suddenly depend. Travel is not merely a break from routine; it is its antithesis, a voluntary trading in of the security one feels at home for unpredictability and confusion. In Bewildered Travel Frederick Ruf argues that this confusion, which we might think of simply as a necessary evil, is in fact the very thing we are seeking when we leave home. Ruf relates this quest for confusion to our religious behavior. Citing William James, who defined the religious as what enables us to "front life," Ruf contends that the search for bewilderment allows us to point our craft into the wind and sail headlong into the storm rather than flee from it. This view challenges the Eliadean tradition that stresses religious ritual as a shield against the world’s chaos. Ruf sees our departures from the familiar as a crucial component in a spiritual life, reminding us of the central role of pilgrimage in religion. In addition to his own revealing experiences as a traveler, Ruf presents the reader with the journeys of a large and diverse assortment of notable Americans, including Henry Miller, Paul Bowles, Mark Twain, Mary Oliver, and Walt Whitman. These accounts take us from the Middle East to the Philippines, India to Nicaragua, Mexico to Morocco--and, in one threatening instance, simply to the edge of the author’s own neighborhood. "What gives value to travel is fear," wrote Camus. This book illustrates the truth of that statement.

What would move you to ditch your life and take off into the wild for six months? For Melbourne woman Laura Waters, it took the implosion of a toxic relationship and a crippling bout of anxiety. Armed with a compass, a paper map and as much food as she could carry, she set out to walk the untamed landscapes of New Zealand’s Te Araroa track, 3000 kilometres of raw, wild, mountainous trail winding from the top of the North Island to the frosty tip of the South Island. But when her walking partner dropped out on the first day, she was faced with a choice: abandon the journey and retreat to the safety of home, or throw caution to the wind and continue on – alone. She chose to walk on. For six months, she battled not only treacherous mountain ridges and river crossings, but also the demons of self-doubt and anxiety, and the shadow of an emotionally abusive relationship. At the end of Te Araroa (‘the long pathway’, as it is translated from Maori) it was the hardearned insights into mental health, emotional wellbeing and fulfilling relationships – with others as well as with herself – that were Laura’s greatest accomplishments. She emerged ‘rewilded’, and it transformed her life.

AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB SELECTION An Instant New York Times Bestseller Shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction Longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory. The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain… With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son’s ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers’s most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?

'An utterly gorgeous novel. It will forever hold my heart in its pages' Pandora Sykes, co-host of The High-Low podcast Grace loves a woman. Annie loves a man. Violet isn't quite sure. But you'll love them all... Grace has what one might call a 'full and interesting life' which is code for not married and has no kids. Her life is the envy of her straight friends, but all this time she has been waiting in secret for love to hit her so hard that she runs out of breath, like the way a wave in a rough sea bowls you over, slams you into the sand, and nearly drowns you. When Grace meets a beautiful woman at a party, she falls suddenly and desperately in love. At the same party, lawyer Annie meets the man of her dreams - the only man she's ever met whose table manners are up to her mother's standards. And across the city, Violet, who is afraid of almost everything, is making another discovery of her own: that for the first time in her life she's falling in love with a woman. A Love Story for Bewildered Girls is a moving and exquisitely funny novel about love, sex and heartbreak. 'Exquisitely tender, beautifully written, funny and sad' Daisy Buchanan, author of How to Be a Grown-up 'Funny, honest, brilliant' Nina Stibbe, bestselling author of Love, Nina 'I absolutely loved this book by Emma Morgan which follows 3 women's very different love lives... I inhaled it' Emma Gannon, Sunday Times best-selling author and host of the podcast Ctrl-Alt-Delete 'Funny, touching, uplifting, thoroughly modern' Lauren Bravo, author of What Would the Spice Girls Do? 'I was transfixed by this funny and moving story of three women navigating their way through the complexities of love, life and the search for personal fulfilment' Sarah Haywood, author of The Cactus, a Richard & Judy Book Club Pick 'A charming modern romance' Glamour 'Beautifully written, Morgan's novel is a seriously impressive debut' Stylist 'Emma Morgan is an author to look out for' Julie Cohen, author of 'Louis & Louise' LONGLISTED FOR THE POLARI PRIZE 2020

Transgression means to 'cross over': borders, disciplines, practices, professions, and legislation. This book explores how the transgression of boundaries produces new forms of architecture, education, built environments, and praxis. Based on material from the 10th International Conference of the AHRA, this volume presents contributions from academics, practicing architects and artists/activists from around the world to provide perspectives on emerging and transgressive architecture. Divided into four key themes – boundaries, violations, place and art practice - it explores global processes, transformative praxis and emerging trends in architectural production, examining alternative and radical ways of practicing architecture and reimagining the profession. The wide range of international contributors are drawn from subject areas such as architecture, cultural geography, urban studies, sociology, fine art, film-making, photography, and environmentalism, and feature examples from regions such as the United States, Europe and Asia. At the forefront of exploring inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary research and practice, Transgression will be key reading for students, researchers and professionals with an interest in the changing nature of architectural and spatial disciplines.

This book explores the relationship between imperial formations and individual encounters at African tourist sites – spaces of leisure, healing and work. It examines how encounters between tourists and hosts tend to be constructed along colonial thought lines and considers how players in the hospitality industry do not interact as coeval participants, but are racialised, scripted and positioned according to colonially-established order. The authors focus on the language of these encounters, not only speech, performance and response, but also silence, resonance, emptiness, noise – objectified, materialised, evasive and confusing. Through its exploration of language in these encounters, the volume shows that ruination is the one feature that is omnipresent in the multiple and diverse tourist settings of the postcolonial world. This book is open access under a CC BY ND licence.

Pilgrimage has been a part of Christian experience since biblical times. Creating new stories, pilgrimage affords sacred travelers experiences that transcend nationalism, denominational identity, and cultural borders, melding their individual constructs of meaning with communal experiences to create new insights. On these pilgrimages, music has played a significant role in the development of community. While pilgrimage is an independent act, it is also a shared existence with other pilgrims, with music serving as a bridge between these two realities. With an estimated 100 million people undertaking pilgrimages at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the rediscovery of pilgrimage, and the music that accompanies it, has meaningful connections for the postmodern church struggling to find a new identity. The ecumenical communities at Iona and Taize provide particular case studies for the role of music in forming community among disparate travelers. The individual and communal nature of pilgrimage, the ability of pilgrimage to provide commonality in a diverse society, and the role of singing and traveling music calls for the reexamination of this ancient practice for the postmodern church.