National Network for Equitable Library Service

Thirty-five concerts. 17,000 motorcycle miles. Three months. One lifetime. In May 2015, the veteran Canadian rock trio Rush embarked on their fortieth anniversary tour, R40. For the band and their fans, R40 was a celebration and, perhaps, a farewell. But for Neil Peart, each tour is more than just a string of concerts, it's an opportunity to explore backroads near and far on his BMW motorcycle. So if this was to be the last tour and the last great adventure, he decided it would have to be the best one, onstage and off.

Whether navigating the backroads of Louisiana or Thuringia, exploring the snowy Quebec woods, or performing onstage at Rush concerts, Neil Peart has stories to tell. His first volume in this series, Far and Away, combined words and images to form an intimate, insightful narrative that won many readers. Now Far and Near brings together reflections from another three years of an artist's life as he celebrates seasons, landscapes, and characters, travels roads and trails, receives honors, climbs mountains, composes and performs music.

First Gear: A Motorcycle Memoir is a compelling story of childhood physical, emotional and sexual abuse that unrolls as the author, at age 50 and living with Multiple Sclerosis, rides her 2009 Harley-Davidson -- named Thelma D. -- from Ottawa to Winnipeg and back with a stop off in northern Ontario and a detour into Quebec. During her ride through the stunning landscape of the Canadian Shield, she shares stories of her childhood growing up in the 1970s in the Ottawa Valley with her three brothers, a violent father and an alcoholic mother.

South Away is an adventure story of the author's bicycle trip with her sister from Terrace, BC along the West coast to (almost) the tip of the Baja Peninsula. Meaghan Marie Hackinen experiences apprehension and determination as she camps in the dense forests of northern Vancouver Island and in frigid Mexican deserts; encounters strange men, suicidal highways and monster trucks; strong winds and violent storms; flat ties and broken spokes. Her couch-surfacing adventures provide an insight into the "kindness of strangers" en route.

Tracks is a compilation of personal travel essays that range across three continents, from Italy, where Genni Gunn was born and spent her early years, to Canada and Mexico, and through Asia, where she has travelled many times, both reconnecting with her sister and witnessing the emergence of new political realities in Myanmar. While these are journeys into the new and unknown, they also trigger the inner journey to the realm of memory. These pieces dig deep into personal territory, exploring the family ties of an unusually peripatetic family.

Adventurer and TV presenter Alice Morrison takes the reader on three remarkable and inspirational journeys across Morocco, from the Sahara to the Atlas Mountains, to reveal the growing challenges faced by our planet. Accompanied only by three Amazigh Muslim men and their camels, Scottish explorer Alice Morrison set off to find a hidden world. During her journey along the Draa river, she encountered dinosaur footprints and discovered a lost city, as well as what looked like a map of an ancient spaceship, all the while trying to avoid landmines, quicksand and the deadly horned viper.

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 ...

Like the highest mountain peaks, deserts are environments that can be inhospitable even to the most seasoned explorers. Craig Childs, who has spent years in the deserts of the American West-as an adventurer, a river guide, and a field instructor in natural history-has developed a keen appreciate for these forbidding landscapes: their beauty, their wonder, and especially their paradoxes. His extraordinary treks through arid lands in search of water are an astonishing revelation of the natural world at its most extreme.

After Paul Stutzman lost his wife to breast cancer, he sensed a tug on his heart-the call to a challenge, the call to pursue a dream. With a mixture of dread and determination, Paul left his job, traveled to Georgia, and took his first steps on the Appalachian Trail. What he learned during the next four and a half months changed his life and can change yours as well. In Hiking Through, you'll join Paul on his remarkable 2,176-mile trip through fourteen states in search of peace and a renewed sense of purpose.

"This one brims with magic ... An absolute page-turner and joy to read!-- Jane Green, New York Times bestselling authorA surprising astrology reading sends Natasha Sizlo--divorced, broke, freshly heartbroken, and reeling from her father's death--on an unexpected but magical journey to France, in pursuit of a man born on a particular date in a particular place: November 2, 1968 in Paris. It's the cusp of Natasha Sizlo's forty-fourth birthday.