Book 1: Delve into the sensuality of “Venus in Furs” by Ritter von Leopold Sacher-Masoch, a captivating exploration of desire and submission. This provocative work sets the stage for a journey into the mysterious and alluring world where passion and adventure intertwine. Book 2: Complementing this is “The Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling,” a literary odyssey through the world of adventure and imagination. Kipling's vivid storytelling and exotic settings create an immersive experience, drawing readers into the heart of the jungle, where danger and excitement await at every turn. This combination promises a thrilling and sensuous expedition into the depths of literature.

Travels with Anne is a hilarious account of vacation misadventures. Join Stuart Anderson and his ever-faithful companion, Anne, as they try their luck in various unlikely vacation spots, including: southern Africa, where Anne and Stuart learn about the perils of traveling with a guide who knows absolutely nothing about the country; Central America, where the vacationers learn about humidity, jungle insects, and why it doesnt pay to drop your eyeglasses into the ocean; the Yukon Territory, where Anne and Stuart find that grizzly bears can be very annoying; the Canadian High Arctic, where it turns outif you can believe itthat the weather can be pretty darned bad; Trinidad and Tobago, where the most notable things about the weather are the rain and the fact that it never stops; Mexicos Copper Canyon, where Stuart and Anne are lucky enough to travel with the quintessential Texas windbag; and, finally, West Texass Chihuahan Desert, where the vacationers enjoy missing car keys, flat tires, and repeated encounters with seemingly insane bird watchers. Along with being endlessly funny, Travels with Anne is also a surefire cure for wanderlust. Read this book, and for heavens sake stay at home.

Explorers search for a lost Mayan city-and love-in this lush romantic adventure. Recently sprung from a Nazi concentration camp, Swiss photojournalist Erika Boeshure lands in southern Mexico to cover a wilderness expedition led by Claus Boehm, a charismatic but washed-up archaeologist hunting for the legendary Mayan capital of Menche. Claus may be an alcoholic has-been, but the smitten Erika senses a thriving rain forest in his soul and finances his shoestring project out of her advance. A grueling, vividly-described trek ensues, as Claus, Erika and their Mexican mule-drivers cope with incessant rains, stinging gnats, dwindling food and a giant boa who beds down with Erika, trailed all the while by Claus's nasty rival Barnes, who thinks the rain forest would make a fine cattle ranch. Things turn weird when Claus and Erika encounter the Lacandon Indians, an aboriginal forest tribe considered bloodthirsty savages by settled Mexicans. The Lacandons do try to sacrifice Erika, but once that misunderstanding is cleared up they prove a peaceable people with an entrancing culture that draws no distinction between dreaming and waking reality. Fueled by sacred balché liquor, their dreams offer insights both ineffable (macaws signify approaching death) and practical (opossums signify approaching diarrhea) and provide Claus with invaluable clues to Menches location. The jungle breeds melodrama as well as mysticism: The Lacandon chief's son is carrying on an incestuous affair with his half-sister, and the erotic attraction between Erika and Claus develops in prose as ripe as a mushy tropical fruit. ("The bulging head of the flesh-flower slid deeper into the cave of her passion.") Like the setting, Cantwell's writing is sometimes overheated and humid, but he packs the story with intriguing ethnographic lore and paints an evocative portrait, by turns oppressive and ravishing, of the rain forest and its denizens. A blend of Carlos Castaneda, Indiana Jones, Under the Volcano and soft-core schmaltz that makes for a diverting read.-Kirkus Discoveries

What began in the late 1980s as an underground community of science fantasy aficionados with a fetish for Victoriana now pervades almost every aspect of popular culture from music and movies to comics and computer games. Steampunk is much more than a retro-futuristic fashion statement or a subgenre of science fiction. On the surface its adherents profess a penchant for neo-Victorian fashion, fanciful clockwork accessories and have a desire to live in an alternative reality inhabited by airships and eccentric inventions. But the literature, art, music and movies of this burgeoning community offer a radical and irreverent re-imagining of society the way it might have evolved had history taken a sharp detour prior to the industrial revolution giving us a world without electricity, the infernal (sic) combustion engine and the technology that we take for granted today. The world of steampunk is the elegant gas lit world of Jules Verne and HG Wells, of Michael Moorcock and their literary antecedents for whom the digital age never dawned. Author and musician Paul Roland traces the history of Steampunk, covering every element of the genre, from fashion and jewelry to music and literature, drawing on exclusive quotes from leading writers, artists, musicians and filmmakers in the field.