Books By Theme: Quit Your Job! Travel Instead!

The Lost Girls
by Jennifer Baggett, Holly Corbett, and Amanda Pressner
Harper Perennial (2011)

If you're a 20-something working and living in New York City, you're living the dream -- right? Not if you're Jennifer Baggett, Holly Corbett, or Amanda Pressner. The trio of friends -- wondering if the paths they were on were the right ones -- left their apartments, jobs, and boyfriends to embark on a year-long adventure around the world, visiting more than ten countries on four continents, including Peru, Vietnam, India, and Australia. Though there are difficulties (could you hang out with your two besties for a year without getting on each other's nerves?), there are also a lot of amazing experiences, such as traveling down the Amazon and volunteering at a girls' orphanage in Kenya.


Until I Say Goodbye
by Susan Spencer-Wendel with Bret Witter
Harper (2014)

This isn't your typical travelogue. Until I Say Good-Bye unsentimentally chronicles the final year of a 45-year-old journalist and mother with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, an irreversible condition that progressively destroys nerves that control muscles. Once she was diagnosed, it wasn't long before Spencer-Wendel decided to quit her job (though she loved it) and use some of her remaining days traveling to such places as the Yukon, Hungary, the Bahamas, and Cyprus with friends and family, including individual trips with each of her three children. Readers joining her on her poignant, powerful journey will be inspired to find joy in their own situations.

Educating Alice
by Alice Steinbach
Random House (2005)

In Without Reservations, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alice Steinbach chronicled taking a leave of absence from the Baltimore Sun to travel and learn about herself. Several years later, she completely quit her job and set off again. In Educating Alice, she enrolls in a French cooking class in Paris, attends border collie training in Scotland, learns traditional Japanese arts in Kyoto, studies art and architecture in Havana, and more, while meeting a wide range of interesting people along the way. With vividly depicted settings and keen observations and insights, this memoir is a charming delight.



 

Books by Theme: Traveling With Friends

Friendship with oneself is all-important because without it
one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

 ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

The Lost Girls: Three Friends, Four Continents, One Unconventional Detour Around the World 

by Jennifer Baggett, Holly C. Corbett, and Amanda Pressner

If you're a 20-something working and living in New York City, you're living the dream -- right? Not if you're Jennifer Baggett, Holly C. Corbett, or Amanda Pressner. The trio of friends -- wondering if the paths they were on were the right ones -- left their apartments, jobs, and boyfriends behind to embark on a year-long adventure around the world, visiting four continents and more than ten countries, including Peru, Kenya, Vietnam, India, and Australia. Though there are difficulties (could you hang out with your two besties for a year without getting on each other's nerves a bit?), there are also a lot of amazing experiences, such as traveling down the Amazon and volunteering at a girls' orphanage in Kenya.

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail 

by Bill Bryson

Bestselling American travel writer Bill Bryson thought hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT) with his friend and former college roommate would be a great idea. After all, he'd been living in England for 20 years, so it'd be nice to reconnect with his native land and an old buddy...but he had no idea what he was getting himself into. The two out-of-shape 40-somethings set off from Georgia in March with plans to walk the entire 2,100 miles to Maine before winter -- but they only made it to Tennessee before they realized that their original plan might be too ambitious. Combined with the pair's amusing adventures and encounters with other hikers are descriptions of nature and a history of the storied AT. 

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven 

by Susan Jane Gilman

Some ideas that seem great at 4 a.m. in a pancake house after a night of drinking turn into a nightmare once implemented. For example, in 1986, two soon-to-be Brown University grads who hadn't traveled very much decided to explore the world...starting in newly opened communist China! Just a few months later, Susan Jane Gilman and Claire Van Houten (a pseudonym) were in Mao country armed with the collected works of Nietzsche, an astrology book, and their wits. Before long, they're losing their wits and facing culture shock, illness, military police, and a severe strain on their friendship.

Friends Like These: My Worldwide Quest to Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock on Their Doors, and Ask Them to Come Out and Play 

by Danny Wallace

British humorist and TV host Danny Wallace had a bit of a crisis as his 30th birthday approached. He realized that he'd become something of an adult (i.e. he ate healthily and had throw pillows on his couch) -- and was shocked by the idea. At the same time, Danny's parents sent him a box of his childhood things, including an old address book. The aging Danny then had a brilliantly quirky idea: he'd track down long-ago childhood friends, no matter where on earth they were, and hang out with them. Though this isn't your traditional travelogue, armchair travelers -- especially those approaching a milestone birthday, such as 30 or 40 -- will enjoy this trip around the world and into the 1980s (like, totally!).

Books By Theme: Going On A Quest

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware."

~ Martin Buber (1878−1965), Austrian-born Jewish philosopher

The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time
by Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson

Calling all grammar geeks--The Great Typo Hunt is the travel book for you! Having just attended his 5th college reunion, editor Jeff Deck felt like his classmates were making the world a better place, while he wasn't. What could he do? Why, correct grammar across America, of course! And so, accompanied by friends, Deck traveled cross-country, correcting spelling and punctuation errors on public signs along the way. This "illuminating hybrid of travelogue, English usage textbook and sociological experiment" (Washington Post) will please anyone who likes road-trip books or despises missing apostrophes.

The Curse of the Labrador Duck: My Obsessive Quest to the Edge of Extinction
by Glen Chilton

The Labrador Duck has been extinct for over 100 years--less than a dozen old eggs and 50 or so stuffed birds are all that remains. In this fast-paced, amusing account, ornithologist and leading expert on the species Glen Chilton explains how he became obsessed with the bird and traveled over 82,000 miles to visit places with ties to the long-gone avian. From Paris to Prague, London to Long Island, Chilton examines taxidermied ducks and has amazing adventures, such as wading unclothed in a glacier-fed stream. If you enjoy this "entertaining and educational travelogue" (Publishers Weekly) and would enjoy reading about birders traveling the U.S., try Luke Dempsey's A Supremely Bad Idea.

Friends Like These: My Worldwide Quest to Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock on Their Doors, and Ask Them to Come Out and Play
by Danny Wallace

British humorist and TV host Danny Wallace had a bit of a crisis as his 30th birthday approached. He realized that he'd become something of an adult (i.e. he ate healthy and had throw pillows on his couch)--and was shocked by the idea. At the same time, Danny's parents sent him a box of his childhood things, including an old address book. The aging Danny then had a brilliantly quirky idea: he'd track down long-ago childhood friends, no matter where on earth they were, and hang out with them. Though this isn't your traditional travelogue, armchair travelers--especially those approaching a milestone birthday, such as 30 or 40--will enjoy this trip around the world and into the 1980s (like, totally!).

Books by Theme: Armchair Travel to Italy

Italy, my Italy!
Queen Mary's saying serves for me
(When fortune’s malice
Lost her Calais):
"Open my heart, and you will see
Graved inside of it 'Italy.'"

~ Robert Browning (1812–1889), English poet

The City of Falling Angels 
by John Berendt

John Berendt, bestselling author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, leaves steamy Savannah, Georgia, and her eccentrics, secrets, scandals, and famous murder behind, and travels to watery Venice, Italy...land of eccentrics, secrets, scandals, and a possible arson! The Fenice Opera House burned just days before the author's arrival, and he examines the possibility that the fire was intentional--but this book is less an investigation and more "an intimate portrait of a city" (Library Journal). Readers with a love for Venice will be drawn to the intriguing mix of fascinating people, politics, and city lore found in this engaging book.

The Lady in the Palazzo: At Home in Umbria 
by Marlena de Blasi

Transplanted American chef and writer Marlena de Blasi and her Italian husband move from their home in Tuscany to Orvieto, the largest city in Umbria. There they find the perfect home, which turns out to be part of a 15th-century palazzo in dire need of restoration. While the workmen repair their new place, the couple hang out with the locals and eat magnificent meals. Fans of food memoirs will savor this one--recipes are included and Kirkus Reviews calls the book "delicious." If you want to know more about de Blasi's Italian adventures, pick up her earlier books, A Thousand Days in Venice and A Thousand Days in Tuscany.

Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World 
by Anthony Doerr

Imagine moving to a foreign country for a year...with 6-month-old twin boys in tow. That's just what novelist Anthony Doerr and his wife did after Doerr won the Rome award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In Four Seasons in Rome, first-time parent Doerr writes eloquently of life with small children, sleepless nights, meeting Romans, the death of John Paul II, and the multitude of things to see and do in the Eternal City. In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews says this memoir is "delightful, funny and full of memorable scenes." If you're a new parent, you will find it especially entertaining (if you have time to read, that is!).

Extra Virgin: A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera, Where Every Month is Enchanted 
by Annie Hawes

In 1983, two British sisters obtained temporary positions grafting roses in the sun-drenched Italian village of Diano San Pietro to get away from the cold London winter. Diano San Pietro, full of olive trees and olive growers, sits just two miles away from the Italian Rivera but is a world apart--and it's a place that the British women soon adore. The traditional town charms them with its delicious food and old-fashioned locals, and they buy an old farmhouse, fix it up, practice their Italian--and, years later, the author still lives there. Have a napkin handy when you pick this one up--Publishers Weekly says "this blithe account will have gastronomes and travelers drooling."

~All summaries from NextReads~

~ For more themed book lists, check out Listless by One Librarian's Book Reviews and Listed by Once Upon a Bookshelf ~