false 56931 0 0 127634 0865477124 9780865477124 12 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171940397m/127634.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171940397s/127634.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127634.The_Accidental_Connoisseur_An_Irreverent_Journey_Through_the_Wine_World 3.59 78 The Accidental Connoisseur, journalist Lawrence Osborne takes off on a personal voyage through a little-known world in pursuit of some answers. Weaving together a fantastic cast of eccentrics and obsessives, industry magnates and small farmers, the author explores the way technological change, opinionated critics, consumer trends, wheelers and dealers, trade wars, and mass market tastes have made the elixir we drink today entirely different from the wine drunk by our grandparents.

In his search for wine that is a true expression of the place that produced it, Osborne takes the reader from the high-tech present to the primitive past. From a lavish lunch with wine tsar Robert Mondavi to the cellars of Marquis Piero Antinori in Florence, from the tasting rooms of Chateau Lafite to the humble vineyards of northern Lazio, Osborne winds his way through Renaissance palaces, $27 million wineries, tin shacks and garages, opulent restaurants, world-famous chais and vineyards, renowned villages and obscure landscapes, as well as the great cities which are the temples of wine consumption: New York, San Francisco, Paris, Florence, and Rome. On the way, we will be shown the vast tapestry of this much-desired, little-understood drink: who produces it and why, who consumes it, who critiques it? Enchanting, delightful, entertaining, and, above all, down to earth, this is a wine book like no other.
</div>]]> 56931 3.43 149 35 2004 213869 0865477094 9780865477094 14 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172764117m/213869.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172764117s/213869.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213869.The_Naked_Tourist_In_Search_of_Adventure_and_Beauty_in_the_Age_of_the_Airport_Mall 3.23 31 From the theme resorts of Dubai to the jungles of Papua New Guinea, a disturbing but hilarious tour of the exotic east—and of the tour itself</div><div> </div><div>Sick of producing the bromides of the professional travel writer, Lawrence Osborne decided to explore the psychological underpinnings of tourism itself. He took a six-month journey across the so-called Asian Highway—a swathe of Southeast Asia that, since the Victorian era, has seduced generations of tourists with its manufactured dreams of the exotic Orient. And like many a lost soul on this same route, he ended up in the harrowing forests of Papua, searching for a people who have never seen a tourist. </div><div> </div><div>What, Osborne asks, are millions of affluent itinerants looking for in these endless resorts, hotels, cosmetic-surgery packages, spas, spiritual retreats, sex clubs, and “back to nature” trips? What does tourism, the world’s single largest business, have to sell? A travelogue into that heart of darkness known as the Western
mind, The Naked Tourist is the most mordant and ambitious work to date from the author of The Accidental Connoisseu r, praised by The New York Times Book Review as “smart, generous, perceptive, funny, sensible.”</div></div>]]> 56931 3.43 149 35 2006 6515119 0865477329 9780865477322 6 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6515119-bangkok-days 3.11 18
<DIV>Tourists come to Bangkok for many reasons—a sex change operation, a night with two prostitutes dressed as nuns, a stay in a luxury hotel. Lawrence Osborne comes for the cheap dentistry. Broke (but no longer in pain), he finds that he can live in Bangkok on a few dollars a day. And so the restless exile stays.

Osborne’s is a visceral experience of Bangkok, whether he’s wandering the canals that fill the old city; dining at the No Hands Restaurant, where his waitress feeds him like a baby; or launching his own notably unsuccessful career as a gigolo. A guide without inhibitions, Osborne takes us to a feverish place where a strange blend of ancient Buddhist practice and new sexual mores has created a version of modernity only superficially indebted to the West. Bangkok Days is a love letter to the city that revived Osborne’s faith in adventure and the world.

</DIV>]]> 56931 3.43 149 35 2009 98895 0679754148 9780679754145 0 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171428804m/98895.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171428804s/98895.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/98895.Poisoned_Embrace_A_Brief_History_of_Sexual_Pessimism 3.75 4 56931 3.43 149 35 1993 213874 0679737758 9780679737759 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213874.Paris_Dreambook_An_Unconventional_Guide_to_the_Splendor_and_Squalor_of_the_City 3.67 3 56931 3.43 149 35 1991 222522 0387953078 9780387953076 1 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172848925m/222522.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172848925s/222522.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222522.American_Normal 2.00 4 56931 3.43 149 35 2002 6991094 0641938802 9780641938801 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6991094-the-naked-tourist 0.0 0 56931 3.43 149 35 2006 3216561 0747503559 9780747503552 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3216561.Paris_Dreambook 0.0 0 56931 3.43 149 35 1990 213873 014011310X 9780140113105 0 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1195246389m/213873.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1195246389s/213873.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213873.Ania_Malina 0.0 0 56931 3.43 149 35 1986 213872 1903933595 9781903933596 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213872.Corks_and_Screws 0.0 0 56931 3.43 149 35 2007