Hopefully you’ve checked out this month’s issue of Perceptive Travel, where we have a fun excerpt from the latest book by Rory MacLean. Mr. MacLean’s books have always been easier to find in England than here, but that is all being remedied now with some U.S. releases of his back catalog.

To celebrate this development, we’re giving away two of his new U.S. reissues on Taurus Park Paperbacks:

Stalin’s Nose: Across the Face of Europe - This was his debut, a tale of moving across the land between Berlin and Moscow only weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Oatmeal Ark: From the Scottish Isles to a Promised Land - A fictionalized account of following in a family’s footsteps from Scotland through the watery routes across Canada. Perhaps it’s too early to call it a classic, but the rave reviews and a preface from Jan Morris tell you this one’s a keeper.

If you live in the U.S. or Canada, you can win these for yourself. Just put a comment below answering these two questions. 1) Where are you traveling to next? 2) Why there?

Put in your correct e-mail address in the right box when commenting (nobody will see it but us) so we can notify you if you’re a winner and get your mailing address. Good luck!

There’s a great round-up of travel stories plus book and music reviews in the latest edition of Perceptive Travel Magazine.

Rory MacLean writes about Sun–bathing with Ghosts in Cassadaga. Cassadaga is located in central Florida and while it doesn’t really sound like my kinda place, it’s fun reading about anyway.

Dave Lowe is one a different spiritual trail in Death’s Prediction and Disaster, By Way of Dharmsala.

On a lighter note, Tim Leffel wanders Western Canada Through the Eyes of a Child,  David Lee Drotar checks out Dial–a–Bird, and Bruce Northam explores the Boomerang Hieroglyphics on the Nile.

Plus a great collection of travel book and music reviews…

And don’t forget to enter the newest giveaway as well. This time you have the chance to win one of TEN Perceptive Travel Coolmax moisture wicking t-shirts courtesy of the fine folks at CoolClothingUSA.com. Five will be given away to newsletter subscribers and five to people who are just joining us. If you’re in the latter camp, send the e-mail confirmation of your sign-up (as in a fake address will do you no good) and your mailing address to remarkable [at] perceptivetravel.com. See the box at the top right of this page to sign up. We’ll pick five at random by the end of July.

Happy reading this Independence Day weekend…

One of the things I always do when traveling is check out the local bookstores. Not just the local Borders or Barnes and Noble but also whatever independent bookstores might be around. Last year I discovered the Fieria de Libros - Madrid’s Open Air Book Market and New York City’s Strand Bookstore.

This year I’m looking to discover more bookstores around the world. But because I’m not traveling at the moment, it will have to be via the internet. And so far, I’ve discovered some new and interesting places to add to my ‘bookstore’ list.

The Guardian’s Sean Dobson list of 10 bookshops from around the world has introduced me to Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicanen in Maastricht, a 800-year-old church converted into a bookstore and El Ateneo in Buenos Aires, another convert, this time from movie theater to bookstore.

The Boston Traveler’s Ten Great Places to Browse Books in Boston includes Brattle Book Shop, a antiquarian bookstore that’s been around since 1825.

Rolf Potts put together a Very Subjective Guide to Bookstores praising Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon and Shakespeare & Company in Paris, France.

The Bookstore Guide, an amateur guide to book shopping throughout Europe, lists Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal and The Bookàbar Bookshop in Rome as top impressive appearance bookstores.

USAToday’s Nine destination bookstores worth putting on a tourist’s itinerary highlights the Elliott Bay Book Co in Seattle, Washington and the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver, Colorado.

With recommendations like these, my bookstore list is growing.

Want to add to it?

What’s your favorite non-chain bookstore?

If you’ve got a bit of time on your hands,  grab a coffee and click on the latest Perceptive Travel zine.

This month’s lineup includes…

Features:

Laurie Gough puts on her hiking books while trying to separate the divine from the delusional in “Sedona: Is the Whole Town Built on a Hoax?”

Edward Readicker–Henderson, on a whirlwind journey through Africa, looks at “How the Last White Rhino in Zambia Wins at Strip Passport”

Amy Rosen takes a trip to Wales and forages for food in “Don’t Eat Low–lying Berries, and Other Lessons Learned in the Wales Countryside”

Rob Sangster recounts his experiences of traveling to the remote Indian town of Leh in “Members of the Tribe”

Michael Buckley addressed the current Olympic torch controversy in “Olympic Fire and Brimstone”

Music and Book Reviews:

Tim Leffel has put to together a great selection of music and book reviews for you listening and reading plesure.

Do you have a flair for taking unusual and striking travel photos? Do the too-perfect fashion, food, and hotel lobby shots in the typical glossy travel mag make you yawn?

Then head over to the just-announced Remarkable Photo Contest at Perceptive Travel. We are going to be giving away a bunch of prizes, including the LowePro CompuDaypack bag pictured here–a $70 value. Also up for grabs are a $50 gift certificate, your choice of a Perceptive Travel shirt, and (ahem) my new book co-authored with Rob Sangster called Traveler’s Tool Kit: Mexico and Central America.

Last year’s contest garnered around 50 entries. Follow this link for the great photos that won. We will probably get more this time since our audience is now bigger and that contest was only focused on Asia. Still, we don’t exactly have National Geographic’s readership, so your odds are pretty good.

What are we and the judges looking for? Not the same ole same old, that’s for sure. Wow us, surprise us, give us an image that will sear itself into our brains and still be there two years from now. Send something that will make us stop multi-tasking and actually focus on the screen for more than two seconds. In short, a digital photograph that is…remarkable.

A max of two entries per person. See the announcement for the short and sweet rules.