Cincinnati: W.M.B.C. Press, 1887. Hardcover first edition - Although this is presented in 'chapter form' this interesting look at Los Angeles area, consists primarily of the author's letters which were written to several Eastern newspapers describing her travels in Southern California during 1884 and in the autumn of 1886. Also included are chapters describing her travels in Arizona and New Mexico. From the author's preface: "From its nature, the book is in but slight sense a guide to persons visiting Southern California, although its pages embrace much reliable information about the country and its people.... The writer has aimed to build, out of the many sketches and facts given, a pleasant and readable book" - a modest aim, in which she has succeeded admirably, making this book enjoyable even now, well over 100 years later. Among the topics covered are a visit with historian Hubert Bancroft, the California missions, life in a canyon outside Los Angeles, the port of San Pedro, the growing of raisins, rural Riverside, the schools in Los Angeles - and a chapter on women as cultivators of the soil, which comments on how women have become land owners, involved in real estate, and in such agricultural pursuits as managing a raisin vineyard. 288 pp.

New York: Lyons and Burford, Publishers, (1995) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - A book which describes, with humor and sometimes dismay, Alexander's visits to six rain forests in different areas of the world, including Malaysia, Alaska, Guatemala, and the Amazon region. As the Booklist review noted his "childhood images of the fantasy jungles of Tarzan and Jungle Jim vanish when he journeys to several rain forests and encounters such realities as Brazilian troops stationed in the Amazon to prevent First World internationalization of the rain forest; fundamentalists in a rain forest village in Malaysia seeking the resettlement and religious conversion of animistic Aboriginal natives; luxury hotel chains, Reeboks, and racism on Dominica, home to one of the last oceanic rain forests; and the vague menace of guerrilla insurgents in Guatemala. Added to the political, religious, and racial tensions are the immutable, almost tangible heat, deadly snakes, life-threatening reactions to insect bites, shockingly polluted water sources, cholera, dengue fever, and all but nonexistent medical facilities." SIGNED on the title page with the words "Best wishes." Illustrated with full color photographs. 201 pp. ISBN: 1-558213996.

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990. dj. Hardcover first edition - First book by this Florida born author, one in which she tells of her journey into Gabon in West Africa, almost a century after Mary Kingsley, then 30, who ventured into this area in 1893 - "a region notorious for its deadly climate and diseases, its alarming wildlife, and its cannibals" - a trip which led to her classic book 'Travels in West Africa.'. . "Armed with Kingsley's book and maps, her own background research, and a store of determination, the author trekked through bamboo forests and villages of mud huts, . . Juxtaposing the colorful details of her days with the writings of a vast cast of explorers from a century before, she weaves a verbal tapestry that tells of her deepening affection for the Gabonese and growing admiration for the exploits of her 19th-century forebear." (Publishers' Weekly) Map frontispiece, bibliography. 290 pp.. ISBN: 0-394574559.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1938. dj. Hardcover first edition - During the Depression of the 1930s in the United States, the Works Progress Administration developed the Federal Writers Project to support writers and artists while making a national effort to document the country's shared history and culture. The American Guide series consists of individual guides to each of the states; the project employed over 6,000 writers, editors, historians, and researchers (many well known, others amateurs) to document the history and features of each state. This volume includes the general history of New Hampshire, its landscape, detailed descriptions of the towns, driving tours by "high roads and low roads", information on the White Mountains, Lake Winnipesaukee, and the coast near Portsmouth. Illustrated with photogravures and maps. Chronology, index. 539 pp. Large folding map in the rear pocket, dated 1937, with the full state on the front in color and ski trails and transportation map on the verso in black and white. Laid in is a postcard and advertising for Captain John's Lake Sunapee tours, circa 1950s.

New York: Rand McNally & Co, (1969.) dj. Hardcover first edition - From the front flap: "Ballantine, his wife and three of their teen-aged children traveled throughout eight Rocky Mountain states: Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. [This book] is an offbeat and highly personal (and a bit impertinent) look at the vacation places and tourist centers within these states, both well known and obscure, and at Americans at large, both tourist and native." Starting at Frontier Days in Cheyenne to the Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, from mining towns like Cripple Creek and Leadville in Colorado to visiting artist Georgia O'Keefe in New Mexico, this is a combination of interviews, and reporting on the West, illustrated with photographs (including one of O'Keefe) by the author. Note at the beginning of the book states that the trip was made in a 'Goldline pickup camper, Model 220, manufactured by Travel Industries, Inc, Oswego, Kansas and mounted on a Ford Motor Co. camper special.' 303 pp.

New York: Viking, (2011) dj. Hardcover first edition - Biography of a man who was "brilliant, audacious, volatile, paranoid, narcissistic, ruthless and (in the end) deeply unhappy. Born in Genoa, bred to the sea, Columbus won Spanish royal support for an exploratory voyage in hopes of finding a western passage to Asia. On Oct. 12, 1492, he landed on the Bahamian island of San Salvador, and then took his three ships south to trace the northern coasts of Cuba and Hispaniola. Persuaded that he had found outlying territories of East Asia, Columbus returned in triumph to Spain, where the sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella named him Admiral of the Ocean Sea and granted him sweeping powers over the territories he had claimed. Columbus led three more voyages across the Atlantic, in 1493-96, 1498-1500 and 1502-4. Along the way, he alternately befriended and did battle with the native peoples he called Indians, was twice shipwrecked and contended with a rogues gallery of Spanish rebels and mutineers." Illustrations, extensive notes, selected bibliography, index. xvii, 423 pp. ISBN: 978-0670023011.

New York: Arno Press, 1974. Hardcover - A favorable account of his travels in the United States - he began by travelling to New York City, describing the public buildings, churches of various religions, politics and elections, libraries, auctions and more. His wanderings included Niagara, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Boston, Montreal and Quebec, and the subjects of his comments are equally varied - from Indians to Negroes, to boarding house life, burial practices, the zeal of the firemen in the cities, the new prison at Charleston just outside Boston, etc. Originally published anonymously in 1833 as "By a Citizen of the World" this has been attributed to Liverpool merchant James Boardman. A title in the Foreign Travelers in America 1810-1935 series. xi, 430 pp plus 2 pp list of the series. ISBN: 0-405-054432.

New York: Bloomsbury, (2001) dj. Hardcover first edition - Book which is the basis for his series on the Food Network. "The only thing Anthony Bourdain loves as much as cooking is traveling. . Inspired by the question, 'What would be the perfect meal?', Anthony sets out on a quest for his culinary holy grail." After eating traditional Fugu in Japan, a poisonous blowfish which can be prepared only by specially licensed chefs, and live Cobra heart in Saigon and a 6 hour, 20 course tasting menu at Keller's legendary French Laundry in Yountville, he kicks both on a West Indian island with his wife, with a meal of cold local beer, ribs in adobo sauce and his wife's burger cooked well-done with a slice of Kraft cheese - and just maybe that was the perfect meal. 274 pp. ISBN: 1-582341400.