The Road to San Donato


Book Description

The Road to San Donato is an adventurous travel memoir of an American father and son tracing their Italian heritage by bicycle. With only the bare essentials on their backs, author Robert Cocuzzo and his sixty-four-year-old father, Stephen, embark on a torturous 425-mile ride from Florence, Italy, to San Donato Val di Comino, an ancient village hidden in the Apennine mountains from which their family emigrated a hundred years earlier. After getting lost, beaten down, and very nearly stranded, when they finally reach the village the Cocuzzos discover so much more than their own family story. For many Jews in the 1940s, the road to San Donato was one of exile; during World War II, dozens were interned in the village. When the Nazis came to ship them off to death camps, however, many of the villagers went to heroic lengths to save their lives. Walking and pedaling through this history, Robert Cocuzzo is determined to learn the role his family played at the time. The Road to San Donato is a story of fathers and sons, discovering lost "cousins," valorous history, and the challenge and exhilaration of traveling by bicycle.




Miles from Nowhere


Book Description

This is the same amazing story as the current version, but with an updated cover and foreword. If you'd like to read Barbara Savage's two-year around the world bicycle trip now, you can order the current version here. Miles from Nowhere is the story of Barbara and Larry Savage’s sometimes dangerous, often zany, but ultimately rewarding 23,000-mile bicycle odyssey, which took them through 25 countries in two years. Along the way, these near-neophyte cyclists on their ten-speeds encountered warm-hearted strangers eager to share food and shelter, bicycle-hating drivers who ran them off the road, various wild animals (including an attack camel), rock-throwing Egyptians, overprotective Thai policeman, motherly New Zealanders, meteorological disasters, bodily indignities, and great personal joys. The stress of traveling together constantly tested yet strengthened the young couple's relationship and as their trip ends, you'll find yourself yearning for Barbara and Larry to jump back on their bikes and keep pedaling. Originally published in 1983, Miles from Nowhere has provided inspiration for legions of modern travel-adventurers and writers.




This Land of Snow


Book Description

A passionate skier since he was a child, Anders Morley dreamed of going on a significant adventure, something bold and of his own design. And so one year in his early thirties, he decided to strap on cross-country skis to travel across Canada in the winter alone. This Land of Snow is about that journey and a man who must come to terms with what he has left behind, as well as how he wants to continue living after his trip is over. It is an honest, thoughtful, and humorous reckoning of an adventure filled with adrenalin and exuberance, as well as mistakes and danger. Along the way readers gain insight, both charming and fascinating, into Northern outdoor culture and modern-day wilderness living, the history of northern exploration and Nordic skiing, the right to roam movement, winter ecology, and more. Throughout, Morley’s clear, subtle, and self-deprecating voice speaks to a backwoods-genteel aesthetic that explores the dichotomy between wildness and refinement, language and personal story, journey and home.




Tracking the Wild Coomba


Book Description

"Doug Coombs had a huge impact on my life; much of my overall approach to mountains comes from his example. I am so grateful that, thanks to author Rob Cocuzzo, I now have the complete story of what influenced one of my biggest heroes." – Jeremy Jones, snowboarding legend “In the 1980s, I was lucky enough to be part of the Bozeman gang of ex-ski racers in one of the crucibles of the American steep skiing scene. Robert Cocuzzo accurately captures the amazing Doug and Emily Coombs that I knew then and the myriad of Coombs ski stories.” – Bruce Tremper, avalanche expert and author of Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain "Doug Coombs was an inspiration to me and so many others on and off the mountain. Now, here is an insightful look at the life of a legend." Jimmy Chin, climber-photographer • A thrilling biography of renowned extreme skiing pioneer Doug Coombs Arguably the greatest extreme skier to ever live, Doug Coombs pioneered hundreds of first descents down the biggest, steepest, most dangerous mountains in the world—from the Grand Teton “Otter Body” in Jackson Hole, to Mount Vinson, the highest point in Antarctica, to far-flung drops such as Wyatt Peak in Kyrgyzstan. He graced magazine covers, wowed moviegoers, became the face of top ski companies, and ascended as the king of big mountain extreme skiing.




The Image of San Donato


Book Description




Ma Speaks Up


Book Description

The acclaimed actress and author of Jesse: A Mother’s Story tells the "entertaining and moving" story of her outspoken, frequently outrageous Italian immigrant mother (Tom Perrotta) Marianne Leone’s Ma is in many senses a larger-than-life character, one who might be capable, even from the afterlife, of shattering expectations. Born on a farm in Italy, Linda finds her way to the United States under dark circumstances, having escaped a forced marriage to a much older man, and marries a good Italian boy. She never has full command of English—especially when questioned by authorities—and when she is suddenly widowed with three young children, she has few options. To her daughter’s horror and misery, she becomes the school lunch lady. Ma Speaks Up is a record of growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, with the wrong family, in the wrong religion. Though Marianne’s girlhood is flooded with shame, it’s equally packed with adventure, love, great cooking, and, above all, humor. The extremely premature birth of Marianne’s beloved son, Jesse, bonds mother and daughter in ways she couldn’t have imagined. The stories she tells will speak to anyone who has struggled with outsider status in any form and, of course, to mothers and their blemished, cherished girls.