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Armchair Travel August 2017
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| Ruthless River: Love and Survival by Raft on the Amazon's Relentless Madre de Dios by Holly FitzGeraldAn extended honeymoon traveling around the world is a dream that turns into a nightmare for Holly FitzGerald and her new husband when their plane crashes in a South American jungle in 1973. They survive, but are stuck in a remote town near a penal colony with no way out for months. Told they can easily float down the Madre de Dios river to civilization, they retrofit a raft and set out. All goes well...until a storm puts them off course, stalling the couple in swampy, piranha-infested waters. Peppered with hard-won insights about life and love, this harrowing survival tale is unputdownable. |
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Sugar Ride : Cycling from Hanoi to Kuala Lampur
by Yvonne Blomer
Canadian. Blomer takes you into Southeast Asia by bicycle with her husband Rupert, their two companion-like bikes and her experiences cycling over 4000km through 4 countries over three months with the little devil she takes everywhere, her type 1 diabetes. A travel memoir, Sugar Ride explores the love of cycling and the roads it can pull you up, down and along while detailing the experience of having type 1 diabetes and the literal ride of sugar that daily injections of insulin, food and exercise create. Part loves story, part true cycling adventure and part dance with the body's strengths and weaknesses, Sugar Ride is an exploration of past adventures and how to feel about those experiences in the present.
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| Love, Africa: A Memoir of Romance, Love, and Survival by Jeffrey GettlemanBefore he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Jeffrey Gettleman was a 19-year-old who fell in love with Africa. In his adventure-laden (hanging out in war zones, being kidnapped, etc.) memoir, he explores his undying affection for this complex continent, documents his career (including local reporting in Florida and war reporting in various countries), and traces his relationship with a fellow student who becomes his coworker and wife (though there were most definitely bumps along the way). If you want to understand either Africa or journalism better, this engrossing book is a must-read. |
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Original Highways : Travelling the Great Rivers of Canada
by Roy MacGregor
Canadian. No country is more blessed with fresh water than Canada. From the mouth of the Fraser River in BC, to the Bow in Alberta, the Red in Manitoba, the Gatineau, the Saint John and the most historic of all Canada's rivers, the St. Lawrence, our beloved chronicler of Canadian life, Roy MacGregor, has paddled, sailed and traversed their lengths, learned their stories and secrets, and the tales of centuries lived on their rapids and riverbanks. He raises lost tales, like that of the Great Tax Revolt of the Gatineau River, and reconsiders histories like that of the Irish would-be settlers who died on Grosse Ile and the incredible resilience of settlers in the Red River Valley. Along the Grand, the Ottawa and others, he meets the successful conservationists behind the resuscitation of polluted wetlands, including even Toronto's Don, the most abused river in Canada (where he witnesses families of mink, returned to play on its banks). Long before our national railroad was built, our rivers held Canada together.
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| Shark Drunk: The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean by Morten Strøksnes; translated by Tina NunnallyTopically wide-ranging, Shark Drunk documents the quest of award-winning journalist Morten Strøksnes and artist Hugo Aasjord to catch a massive Greenland Shark in the frigid waters near Norway's Lofoten islands. In a rubber dinghy over the course of four seasons, the two friends baited hooks in order to entice the massive shark while they sat, occasionally got wet, reeled in cod, ruminated, and talked. Covering ocean life, poetry, mythology, science, history, and more, this lyrical book reads like a novel and will hook fans of philosophical stories. |
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Living in Another Language
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| Home is a Roof Over a Pig: An American Family's Journey in China by Aminta ArringtonAminta Arrington married an Army linguist and lived all over the world. Eventually, she, her retired husband, and their three children under the age of five (including an adopted Chinese daughter) moved to China...and experienced culture shock when they arrived. Recounting their experiences in a small university town, Arrington explains how they dealt with day-to-day activities, how the children adapted to school, and how she fell in love with their new language. Readers who want another travelogue focused on the Mandarin language should try Deborah Fallow's Dreaming in Chinese. |
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| When in French: Love in a Second Language by Lauren CollinsAn American in London fell in love with a Frenchman and moved to Geneva, Switzerland. Once there, she decided to learn French; not only did she want to be able to buy things on her own, but she wanted to become closer to her new husband and, when the time came, not be "a Borat of a mother." Chronicling her amusing adventures overseas and her attempts to communicate in a new tongue, talented New Yorker writer Lauren Collins serves up a funny, romantic, intelligent memoir, which provides "a thoughtful, beautifully written meditation on the art of language and intimacy" (The New York Times). |
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| La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair With Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language by Dianne HalesAfter traveling in Italy, journalist Dianne Hales became "madly, gladly, giddily besotted" with the Italian language and used all sorts of language-learning methods, including visiting Italy for large chunks of time, to master la bella lingua. Visiting various places and interviewing locals and language experts, Hales learned as much as she could about the language (including some profanity!) and the culture that gave rise to it. For a more introspective, literary take on this topic, pick up Pulitzer Prize-winning Jhumpa Lahiri's concise In Other Words, which offers a look at her own love affair with Italian and includes a short story she first wrote in that language. |
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| All Strangers Are Kin: Adventures in Arabic and the Arab World by Zora O'NeillHaving studied Arabic as a college student, personable travel and food writer Zora O'Neill decided at age 39 to revisit the language, but this time, to focus on the colloquial instead of the formal version. Visiting Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, and Morocco, she studied and tested out her skills, but was hindered by different areas having different dialects. Nevertheless, she engaged with people she met -- eating, visiting, and sometimes staying with them -- as she pondered the complex language and the relationship between culture and communication. |
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