Adventure Week: Not Your Usual Types of Adventure, But...

The Great Typo Hunt
The world needed a hero, but how would an editor with no off-switch answer the call? For Jeff Deck, the writing was literally on the wall: “NO TRESSPASSING.” In that moment, his greater purpose became clear. Dark hordes of typos had descended upon civilization… and only he could wield the marker to defeat them.

Recruiting his friend Benjamin and other valiant companions, he created the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL). Armed with markers, chalk, and correction fluid, they circumnavigated America, righting the glaring errors displayed in grocery stores, museums, malls, restaurants, mini-golf courses, beaches, and even a national park. Jeff and Benjamin championed the cause of clear communication, blogging about their adventures transforming horor into horror, it’s into its, and coconunut into coconut.

But at the Grand Canyon, they took one correction too far: fixing the bad grammar in a fake Native American watchtower. The government charged them with defacing federal property and summoned them to court—with a typo-ridden complaint that claimed that they had violated “criminal statues.” Now the press turned these paragons of punctuation into “grammar vigilantes,” airing errors about their errant errand..

The radiant dream of TEAL would not fade, though. Beneath all those misspelled words and mislaid apostrophes, Jeff and Benjamin unearthed deeper dilemmas about education, race, history, and how we communicate. Ultimately their typo-hunting journey tells a larger story not just of proper punctuation but of the power of language and literacy—and the importance of always taking a second look.

Assassination Vacation
Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other -- a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.

From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue -- it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and -- the author's favorite -- historical tourism. Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are all kinds of lighter diversions along the way into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.

Turn Left at the Trojan Horse
“Go away. Figure it out,” she was saying. “Don’t come back until you do.” She looked at the calendar. “You have thirty-one days.”

With these words, like Helen of Troy launching a thousand ships across the Aegean, Brad Herzog’s wife launched a single Winnebago Aspect onto the open road. A modern-day Odysseus in Kerouac clothing, Brad Herzog plunges into a solo cross-country adventure in search of insight. With middle age bearing down on him and another college reunion fast approaching, he takes stock: How has he measured up to his own youthful aspirations? In contemporary America, what is a life well lived? What is a heroic life?

From the foothills of Washington’s Mount Olympus, through the forgotten corners of America, and finally to his alma mater in Ithaca (New York), Brad shares this personal odyssey of a lifetime. Stopping in classically named towns, he delves into the lives of everyday heroes, including a teacher in a one-room rural schoolhouse in Troy (Oregon), a bomb-diffusing soldier in Sparta (Wisconsin), and a woman in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania who survived childhood trauma but maintains a hold on more than a dozen distinct personalities.

These encounters and Brad’s effortlessly infused musings on Homer, Joseph Campbell, and Lewis and Clark create the perfect balance of past lessons and present epiphanies. Like Odysseus, Brad returns to the arms of his loved ones with many hard-earned answers. TURN LEFT AT THE TROJAN HORSE: A Would-be Hero’s American Odyssey is a historical, philosophical and conversational trek across America and through the universal truths of mythography. However, in the end it is simply the story of one man trying to find his way.

My Life as an Experiment
One man. Ten extraordinary quests.

Bestselling author and human guinea pig A. J. Jacobs puts his life to the test and reports on the surprising and entertaining results. He goes undercover as a woman, lives by George Washington’s moral code, and impersonates a movie star. He practices "radical honesty," brushes his teeth with the world’s most rational toothpaste, and outsources every part of his life to India—including reading bedtime stories to his kids.

And in a new adventure, Jacobs undergoes scientific testing to determine how he can put his wife through these and other life-altering experiments—one of which involves public nudity.

Filled with humor and wisdom, My Life as an Experiment will immerse you in eye-opening situations and change the way you think about the big issues of our time—from love and work to national politics and breakfast cereal.