The Divide / Nathan Doneen

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Travel Memoir

Approximate word count: 85-90,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO Paper: NO

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Author:

“Nathan Doneen grew up on a wheat farm in the Palouse Region of Eastern Washington. After graduating from Eastern Washington University with degrees in Biology and Environmental Science, Nathan rediscovered his passion for adventure and for writing. He is currently pursuing both...”

For more, visit Doneen’s website.

Description:

“How far would you go to answer a simple question?

After his final year at university, Nathan Doneen wasn't satisfied with the direction his life was heading. He had doubts … he had questions. In June of 2013, Nathan set out on his mountain bike to search for answers along the Great Divide, a 2700-mile route that traces the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico… and he set out alone.

Thrown into the world of erratic weather, cramped bivy sacks, and overwhelming solitude, Nathan was continually forced from his comfort zone, putting his personal growth on steroids.

With both his future and past in mind, Nathan's revealing and honest account illustrates the challenges of the route—and life—and how it's possible to find the strength and courage to move past them.”

Appraisal:

The travel memoir or narrative has long been one of my favorite non-fiction genres. Part of that is the obvious. I love to travel and since being on the road all the time isn’t feasible, experiencing new places and things vicariously is an alternative. But it’s more than that. A good guidebook or the right internet site can take you to the same places. Besides that, the way you experience a place will be different than how anyone else does. (In fact, in some instances I’ll have been to some of the places myself and the vicarious experience is replaced by comparing notes, which was true for much of this book for me.)

Books like this, what I describe as a travel adventure or quest, with a specific, usually difficult goal involved (in this case, riding a bike on roads and trails that roughly follow the Continental Divide of North America from well into Canada to the Mexican border) are also entertaining and interesting to me for other reasons. Getting a feel for the logistics of such an undertaking satisfies the curiosity of my more analytical side as does the problem solving involved when unanticipated problems come up.

However, there is a third item that I find essential for a travel memoir if it is to hit the highest mark for me, putting the journey chronicled in the story into a bigger perspective. What did this experience teach the author about life, the world, and his or her place in it? It’s this area where The Divide excelled. In between the day to day adventure and problem solving, Doneen considers his life thus far and where he wants it to go from there, not unlike a coming-of-age adventure novel. But even better, it’s true.

FYI:

Adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Land's End to John O'Groats - Cycling the Google Route / Royston Wood

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Travel Memoir

Approximate word count: 50-55,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO Paper: YES

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Author:

The author of several children’s books, Wood also has a guide book to help cyclists interested in repeating his ride from the bottom of England to the top of Scotland. This book is a travel memoir, chronicling his adventure on that same ride.

Description:

“Smashed from his bicycle by an articulated truck Royston Wood found himself unable to complete a long planned for 875 mile cycling event. Battling the demons of failure he devised a plan to ride a similar distance across the UK from Land’s End to John O’Groats. With only a few days to plan the whole trip he delegated the routing to Google Maps. Cycle routing was brand new and in beta testing: what could go wrong…”

Appraisal:

I’ve always enjoyed reading travel memoirs like this, where the traveler has a goal. This makes the story more than just the author’s reaction to the world around them and how they fit in it, but also involves the logistics of meeting their goal and ideally some self evaluation as to why they are driven to do this. Wood has all of this with a touch of self-depreciating humor to spice things up. Here’s an example of what I mean:

After a final re-pack to find my wallet, which was on my desk, I wheeled my bike out to reception where a crowd of colleagues had gathered to wave me off. I thanked them both and pedalled away to the railway station wondering whether the other forty people in the building would even notice I wasn’t there over the next week.

Although not a guidebook for someone with a goal of making this same trip from the bottom of England to the top of Scotland (the author has one of those available, too), you’ll find a lot of details about the route Wood took on his ride. For some readers, possibly too much, although I found it helped reinforce the story of the logistics involved in planning and executing the ride. For those like me who enjoy this kind of true story (even though there is no way I’d ever try to duplicate it), this is a decent read.

FYI:

Uses UK spelling and slang.

Format/Typo Issues:

A small number of typos. There were also several words that were hyphenated for no apparent reason. (Presumably a remnant of formatting for a print version. These should not be in the Kindle version, but were.)

The book also had a lot of photos from Wood’s trip. (These were black and white on a Kindle. They might display as color on color capable readers and tablet computers.)  However, in one section of the copy I received, some of these pictures were missing, instead showing an icon that I interpreted as a missing picture or an issue in displaying it.

Rating: **** Four Stars

The Wrong Shade of Yellow / Margaret Eleanor Leigh

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Travel Memoir

Approximate word count: 55-60,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: YES  Paper: YES

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Author:

Margaret Eleanor Leigh describes herself as a “writer without roots.” Born in South Africa, she’s lived in New Zealand, multiple parts of the United Kingdom, and Greece where she’s worked in a variety of jobs, from government bureaucrat to proofreader.

For more, visit her website.

Description:

Margaret Leigh needs a change and she loved Greece the time she visited years ago. So she decides to leave New Zealand, where she’s lived for several years, fly to Northern Europe, cycle across Europe to Greece. Once there she’ll find a place to live, get settled in, and send for her elderly mother. Is it any wonder she calls this her “big, fat, Greek midlife crisis”?

Appraisal:

Most travel memoirs have several common qualities. Some adventure. An educational aspect as the author discovers new things about the part of the world where they’re traveling. There are times when everything goes according to plan and those where nothing does. In retrospect, those challenging times turn out to be opportunities for growth, where the author learns something about the world and their place in it. Lessons we might be able to apply to our own lives.

The Wrong Shade of Yellow has most of the standard pieces. The exception seems to be the “everything goes according to plan” times, as the story felt like one growth opportunity after another. In spite of that, Leigh kept soldiering on. That she was able to do so must contain some lessons for the reader. One has to be that the ability to laugh at the ridiculous situations you can find yourself in is a great way to survive them.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues

Rating: **** Four stars

Raise Your Hand: Adventures of an American Springsteen Fan in Europe / Caryn Rose

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Travel Memoir

Approximate word count: 25-30,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: YES  Paper: YES

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Author:

“Caryn Rose is a Brooklyn-based writer and novelist who documents rock and roll, baseball and urban life. She has been writing about Bruce Springsteen for over 30 years, and has been a regular contributor to Backstreets Magazine since 2003”

Rose also has two novels available, B-sides and Broken Hearts and A Whole New Ballgame. For more, visit her website.

Description:

“18 days, five countries, and seven concerts: this was how long-time Springsteen chronicler and veteran Backstreets contributor Caryn Rose spent her summer vacation, running from Paris to Prague to Vienna to London to Dublin, following Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on tour. Were European Springsteen fans that different from their Stateside counterparts? Were the shows overseas truly better than the ones in the States? Part travelogue and part rock and roll love letter, Rose takes you with her every step of the way: queuing in the rain, sleeping on the sidewalk, and watching Paul McCartney from the front row in London.”

Appraisal:

Part of me wonders whether a non-Springsteen fan would enjoy Raise Your Hand. When the author mentions a specific song from The Boss’ oeuvre, being familiar with a fair share of his songs from the breadth of his career rather than just the hits is going to influence how well you “get” what is going on. When Rose says, “I never sing Born In The USA back home because I don’t want anyone to think I am one of those people who doesn’t understand what it’s really about, but it feels different doing it in Europe,” if Born In The USA is all you know and you’re “one of those people,” you won’t understand.

But my contrarian side argues that Raise Your Hand has the same qualities as all good travel memoirs. The author’s impressions of experiences in a place the reader might have never been. That the foreign experience is not only a different place, but also the world of music and that of a diehard Springsteen fan could as easily add to the reader’s experience.

And then you’ve got all the other qualities that make or break a travel memoir for me. Things like what the author learned about the world and themselves through the experience.  Sharing vicariously in the experience, both magical moments and logistical difficulties. For me, Raise Your Hand is also an inspiration to keep working toward actually doing a few music-themed travel adventures I’ve considered for myself.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

9000 Miles of Fatherhood / Kirk Millson

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Travel Memoir/Parenting

Approximate word count: 70-75,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES

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Author:

Reading the short bio on Kirk Millson’s website, I started comparing it to my own. He moved nine times (that he can remember) before he was 13. (Only 6 for me.) He graduated from the University of Utah. (I “moved on” well before graduation. If I’d stuck it out a few more quarters, we’d have been classmates.) And my longest road trip falls well shy of Millson’s 9,000 miles. I hope to beat that some day. But this isn’t supposed to be about me.

After 23 years as a newspaperman, Millson took a sales job and started writing what he wanted rather than the stories he was assigned. This book is the initial result. He has a novel nearing completion and is making plans for what comes next.

For more, visit Millson’s website.

Description:

“Forced out of his high-ranking editorial position at the local newspaper, Kirk Millson couldn’t bear the thought of starting all over and crawling back to the copy desk. So when his new boss offers him a leave of absence, Kirk jumps at the chance to realize his dream of driving the more than 4,000 miles from Salt Lake City to Panama’s Darien Gap. His wife readily consents, with one minor catch: He has to take his son Peter along for the ride.

Follow Kirk and his emotionally estranged 13-year-old son on a four-month long journey in this true, no-frills travelogue. In spite of robbers, corrupt law enforcement, and their sub-par Spanish, Kirk and his son Peter undergo astonishing transformations. 9,000 Miles of Fatherhood is the hilarious yet hair-raising memoir that follows a timid boy’s rise from D-student to straight-A academic juggernaut and his father’s rediscovery of a purpose far greater than the job he left behind.”

Appraisal:

Only a geography or travel geek knows about the Darien Gap, a relatively small, roadless section of Panama that makes it impossible to drive a normal vehicle farther south. It is the definitive “end of the road.” 9,000 Miles of Fatherhood chronicles the author’s story of taking his ultimate road trip, from his home in Salt Lake City to the end of the road. (I confess, I’m a geek who had learned about this from Tim Cahill’s Road Fever, another travel memoir where the Darien Gap figured prominently.)

A good travel memoir isn’t about the places visited and the things that were done (that’s what guidebooks or, in today’s world, their webpage replacements are for). It’s about the experience, that we get vicariously, and the lessons learned, about people, life, the world, ourselves, or maybe even parenting, families and work life balance. Those last three were among the biggies for Kirk Millson with plenty of the others as well. 9,000 Miles of Fatherhood is a grand adventure and a feel-good story, too.

Format/Typo Issues:

A small number of typos and other proofreading and copy editing misses.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Traveling the Cambodian Genocide / Noah Lederman

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Travel Narrative

Approximate word count: 8-9,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: NO

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Author:

“Noah Lederman writes the travel blog Somewhere Or Bust. His travel writing has appeared in the Boston Globe, the Economist, the Chicago Sun-Times, Islands Magazine, Draft Magazine, and elsewhere, including numerous blogs and in-flight publications. He is completing a novel about an infant survivor of the Cambodian Genocide and a memoir about his grandparents' lives in the concentration camps and his journey to uncover those stories.”

Description:

“Traveling the Cambodian Genocide is a collection of poignant travel essays and striking photographs from travel writer Noah Lederman. Lederman takes readers to the unexplored sites that the Khmer Rouge had once used to commit acts of genocide in the 1970s. But these essays go beyond revealing a sense place; they are moving profiles of survivors and the younger generation of Cambodians, who, decades later, are still impacted by the atrocities. While these essays deftly portray a people's search for justice, answers, normalcy, and opportunity in a country still rife with corruption and covered with land mines, the author reveals heartfelt moments of beautiful innocence and relentless optimism, allowing readers to laugh and believe in the nation's hopeful future. One third of all profits from this book are being donated to a charity that helps Cambodian children and families.”

Appraisal:

For such a small book, the length of a long short story, there are a lot of subjects kicking around my head that I might discuss.

One is the nature of travel and travel memoirs. I think when most of us think of travel it’s the family summer vacation. (Yes, some of us travel for business, but that’s an entirely different animal most of the time.) Personal travel is going to have a goal, whether we’ve actually thought about it or not, of seeing new things, visiting friends and relatives, or “getting away” from our normal routines. A change of pace. For some, this list includes learning about something, possibly art, history, or just what it’s like in another country or a different area of our own. The travel narrative or memoir is a way to vicariously experience travel we’d like to do some day or wouldn’t do on our own due to financial or logistical reasons, or because doing so would take us too far out of our comfort zone. Cambodia has never been on my list of must visit places for all of those reasons, but I’m glad to have had a small glimpse of what visiting there would be like by reading Traveling the Cambodian Genocide.

The other things I keep thinking about are much more specific to this book. Many people of a certain age are at least vaguely aware that during the 70s when the US was involved in a war in Vietnam, the bordering countries of Laos and Cambodia were also at war. In these instances they were civil wars with the fighting between two groups within the country. We might also be aware of the issue of unexploded mines scattering the countryside in the aftermath and the dangers that implies.

Through this book, Lederman explores the ongoing effects of that civil war in Cambodia with a close-up look at the human costs, prompting and answering a couple questions in the process. What is life like for Cambodians today? What might the world do to help?

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four stars

The Return of the Mullet Hunter / Simon Varwell

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Travel Narrative

Approximate word count: 65-70,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: NO

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Author:

“Simon Varwell is a compulsive traveller, a keen amateur photographer, and spends too much time having what if moments. Up the Creek Without a Mullet tells the story of one such moment, and is his first book. Simon was born in 1978 and grew up in Benbecula in the Western Isles. He is married and lives in Inverness.”

For more, visit the author’s website.

Description:

“Simon Varwell is a man on a mission. Albeit a ridiculous one: to visit various places in the world with the word ‘mullet’ in their name. The Return of the Mullet Hunter charts his continuing global mission, and includes his travels in England, Canada, New Zealand and the USA as he hunts down obscure backwaters linked together only by their names.”

Appraisal:

I admit it. I’m a sucker for “travel quest” books. Some quests seem to have a certain logic to them (a trip around the world or to all 50 US states, for example). This one, not so much. Yet, because of the ridiculousness of the quest, to visit every place in the world with the word mullet in the name, the story that results is full of the kinds of things that appeal to me. Getting off the beaten path to obscure parts of the world is one. To me this is the point of this kind of quest, the serendipity of discovering places you’d never visit or a reader would never hear about otherwise. The other appeal is the human element, “meeting” a variety of people from these sometimes obscure places. Varwell’s frequent use of “couch surfing” (overnighting on someone’s couch or using their extra bedroom) and staying in hostels sets up more of these situations than normal.

FYI:

Uses UK spelling conventions and slang.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four stars

Every Inch of the Way; My Bike Ride Around the World / Tom Bruce

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Travel Narrative

Approximate word count: 100-105,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: YES  Paper: YES

Illustrated Version

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: NO

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Author:

A native of England, Bruce traveled around the world on his bike. Besides the obvious (adventure, challenge, etc) he was also raising money for a charity, the SOS Children’s Villages, which is the largest organization of its kind in the world, providing homes for more than 78,000 orphaned and abandoned children in more than 124 countries.

You can find out more about Tom and find a link to the site for his charity on his website.

Description:

Tom Bruce set off on his bicycle from his home in March of 2011 with a goal to cycle around the world. This is the story of his adventure.

Appraisal:

The title, Every Inch of the Way, comes from Tom Bruce’s self imposed rule for his trip. He had to ride every inch of land from sea to sea across each land mass. (Obviously oceans and seas required assistance.) There are several things I hope to get from a book of this type; the sense of adventure, a feel for the logistics of such a trip, and both the highs and lows, for a start. What the different places and the people who live there were like (both the similarities and differences from the author’s previous experience and personal norms) are also on my list.

Much of what I was looking for was there, to a point. But sometimes it fell short. Midway through I made a note that every new place couldn’t possibly be “the most beautiful” he’d ever seen. It felt like he was using this in an attempt to get across that a place was incredibly beautiful. Different words to say so might have accomplished that better. The same thing goes for describing his condition after a long, hard day. The word of choice was shattered, which was a different usage of that word for me, although easy enough to understand and certainly correct. However, throwing in an exhausted, burnt-out, stonkered, half dead, or any other reasonable word meaning about the same thing some of the time would have been good.

I would have expected the kind of things mentioned in the last paragraph to have been eradicated as part of the editing and proofing process. I also found a lot of typos and other errors that should have been fixed later on in that process. Another issue was inconsistency in describing things that are measured numerically, specifically money, distances, and weights. The rule here, at least in my opinion, should be to pick one as the standard and stick with it. Telling us the price of something in the local currency is okay, as long as we’re also told the rough equivalent in whatever the standard measurement is. Instead we’ve got pounds and pence in one place, dollars in another. Kilos and pounds for weight. Kilometers and miles swapping back and forth. The worst instance of this is illustrated by this example, where we get both:

Due to this, I was struggling to reach my 100 kilometre daily target. My old 85 mile target was now a bit ambitious so I’d lowered it to the minimum distance that would get me to Trabzon on time.

If he used either consistently the reader would adapt, regardless of what measurement they use day to day. But randomly switching back and forth is a problem. Here, no matter which distance measurement a reader normally uses, getting a sense of how much less his revised goal is than his old one is going to throw them out of the story. (If you’re wondering, 100 KM is about 62 miles, or 85 miles is around 137 KM.)

In the end, I’m torn. This is one of my favorite kinds of books to read and Bruce’s trip was unique, traveling through places and having experiences that were different from what I’ve read before. But unless you’re looking for a steady diet of this type of travel-adventure book or have a high tolerance for less than stellar editing, you might want to look elsewhere.

FYI:

UK spelling conventions, word usage, and slang.

Format/Typo Issues:

A large number of proofing and copy editing issues.

Rating: *** Three stars

Goodwill Tour / Keith Maginn

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Travel Memoir

Approximate word count: 20-25,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES

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Author:

“Keith Maginn was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, the youngest of four kids. He attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, as an Evans Scholar. After earning a Bachelor's degree in Sociology, Keith relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee, to work for AmeriCorps (a service organization like the Peace Corps, but within the United States) and for Knoxville Habitat for Humanity.

Keith recently moved back to Cincinnati after living nearly ten years in Tennessee. He likes to be around family and friends and has eight nieces and nephews that he adores. He loves playing and watching many sports and also enjoys live music, writing, meditation, yoga and reading.”

Description:

“In mid-July of 2011, Keith Maginn, and his friend, Emily, set off from Cincinnati, Ohio, on a 3,000-mile road-trip through several southeastern states. The pair stopped in Memphis, New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, Asheville and smaller towns in between. Goodwill Tour: Paying It Forward is a travelogue detailing a philanthropic experiment in this incredible country the two call home.

What makes their trip unique—and Maginn’s book fresh—is that sightseeing wasn’t their sole purpose. Emily and Keith were determined to spread kindness as they worked to make a difference in the lives of others along the way. They gave their own money to hand-picked strangers, who then had to pay the money forward to someone else.”

Appraisal:

The idea of what I call a “travel quest,” travel with a measurable goal of some kind, is one I understand. It may be something many have done, for example visit all fifty of the United States, or much less common (one book I read recently involved riding a bicycle around the world). Goodwill Tour involves what at first blush seems a relatively simple quest, to visit a list of cities and give money to strangers with the proviso that these people would pass the money on to someone in need, paying it forward.

Of course, even the simplest trips can have complications (just working out the logistics and specifics of this trip from a high level idea and in a short time, was impressive). Following the author, Keith, and his friend, Emily, on the trip was fun and inspiring. I enjoyed hearing about their experiences doing some of the typical touristy things in each city, but obviously what is unique about this book is their struggle to find the right recipient for their money. It turns out to be more difficult than you’d think since they attempted to vet the person chosen. In several cities we also get a glimpse at the characteristics of the city off the typical tourist trail as Keith and Emily interact with residents and charitable organizations.

While I enjoyed reading Goodwill Tour, I have one quibble that, depending on the reader, might cut the other way. This was several sections that quoted other travel books (most of which I’ve read and are good) to illustrate something. They served their purpose, but there were times when I wished the author had told us in his own words rather than relying on others so much.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues with typos.

A small number of hyphens in the middle of words where not needed. (For an example, you can see this using the look inside function on Amazon where ‘involve’ shows as ‘in-volve.’ However, this issue, while happening more than a handful of times, it isn’t many more than that.)

Rating: **** Four stars

Folds in the Map / Jeff Bauer

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Memoir/Travel Narrative

Approximate word count: 30-35,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

“Jeff Bauer is a community organizer, public policy advocate, and writer based in Saint Paul, MN. His blog, onlybiggerthinking.com, has been read by nearly 10,000 people in over 50 countries. Folds in the Map is his first book. In addition to his work as a writer, Jeff recently lead a successful advocacy effort, in his role as Director of Public Policy at The Family Partnership, to pass a nation-leading Safe Harbor law in Minnesota to protect children from sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. He lives in a tiny house on St. Paul's West Side with his wife, Diane.”

Description:

Jeff Bauer “embarks on an earnest, touching journey to discover the places where we feel most connected as human beings – to each other, to nature, and to the world around us. From the bottom of a bomb crater in Laos, to a refugee camp on the Sudanese border, to the side of a Panamanian volcano, and back home again to the frozen January streets of Minnesota.”

Appraisal:

Amazon currently has this book categorized a couple different ways, as “self-help/personal transformation” and in a category with “spirituality/personal growth and inspiration” at the detail end of the category string. I’ve chosen to call it a memoir or travel narrative. All of these attempts to put a label on Folds in the Map are accurate, yet misleading.

These are a collection of essays that, while inspirational, don’t really fit what I picture when I think of a book with the labels used on Amazon. And while most take place in a specific place with the nature of the culture and events that happen playing a large role, both of my picks are also misleading.

However, many of the reasons you might read a book in any of the possible categories we might try pigeon holing Folds in the Map into, fit it well. For example, to gain a better understanding of the human condition, both how we are different and how we are the same. Possibly understanding the connectedness of the world and where we fit in it (or how the author answers that for himself). I could pick a few very minor nits (for example the use of the phrase “dear reader” in a few spots, which has been a cliché forever), but on balance, I found this to be an enjoyable read for what it is, even if that isn’t easy to categorize.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four stars

Nowhere Like Home / Jamie Alexander

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Travel Memoir

Approximate word count: 105-110,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES

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Author:

“Jamie Alexander is a writer and photographer based in Oxfordshire, England, with a keen interest in current affairs and travel. He's seen his fair share of adventures, from being mobbed by villagers in the high Himalaya and hunting wild boar in the world's most remote rain forests, to meeting Papuan rebels in the highlands of New Guinea. When he isn't off doing ridiculous things in faraway places, he likes bouldering, eating cheese, and reading about people doing ridiculous things in faraway places.”

Description:

“What kind of student would go halfway around the world to stir up an independence movement on his summer break?

At nineteen, Jamie was nicely on track to becoming one of the most boring people in England, but an impulse trip to the jungles of Kalimantan changed all that. Spurred on by what he encountered among the tribespeople of the Krayan, he made a decision to discover the truth of the world around him, however uncomfortable that truth would turn out to be.”

Appraisal:

Travel narratives or travel memoirs are an interesting breed. Done well, the “where” isn’t all that important. Sure, you’ll get unique insights into the destination or destinations covered, but for details on that there are better sources. Instead, the genre unfailingly has a (hopefully) unique twist on one or both of two standard lessons. Either the author through their experience learns to understand himself or herself better in some way or they’re shown the truth of the cliché “people everywhere are the same.”

Nowhere Like Home has the normal lessons. However, it has another that is clearly the biggest lesson. While “people everywhere are the same” is a lesson that no matter how different we may be, people everywhere have the same basic hopes and dreams,  the other lesson here is about the differences. How people in dissimilar areas and other cultures can have values and outlooks on the world and life that are also valid. That by understanding them better we can break down our own prejudices and often incorrect preconceptions, leading to a better understanding of the world and our place in it which, when I stop to think about it, takes us back to standard lesson #1.

Format/Typo Issues:

A small number of typos and other proofing and copyediting misses.

Rating: ***** Five stars

Trucking in English / Carolyn Steele

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Travel Memoir

Approximate word count: 105-110,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: YES  Paper: YES

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Author:

“Carolyn has been a psychologist, a paramedic, a proof reader and several other things, not all of them beginning with P. A trucker, for example. She began writing the day she decided to try and see the world...doing both just to find out if she could. It made a change from teaching CPR to nightclub bouncers and designing wedding cakes. When excerpts from her first travelogue were published by the Rough Guides, she decided to keep on doing both. Carolyn maintains that she is either multi-faceted or easily bored, depending on who is enquiring. Born and bred in London, England, Carolyn and her son Ben are now Canadian citizens and live permanently in Kitchener, Ontario.”

For more, visit Steele’s website.

Description:

“This is the tale of what happens when a middle-aged mum from England decides to actually drive 18-wheelers across North America instead of just dreaming about it. From early training (when it becomes apparent that negotiating 18 wheels and 13 gears involves slightly more than just learning how to climb in) this rookie overcomes self-doubt, infuriating companions and inconsiderate weather to become a real trucker. She learns how to hit a moose correctly and how to be hijacked. She is almost arrested in Baltimore Docks and survives a terrifying winter tour of The Rockies. Nothing goes well, but that's why there's a book.”

Appraisal:

What a great job, right? Cruising the open road, traveling all over North America, and getting paid for it. There have been times when I’ve thought this would be the perfect job for me. A few stints driving the biggest truck Uhaul rents, which are half the size of a typical 18-wheeler, and a few horror stories from a former brother-in-law who is a trucker, hinted that this profession might not be as easy as it looks. Carolyn Steele completed the task of convincing me this might not be the job for me.

This humorous account of Steele’s time as a trucker, from truck driving school and on into her time as a long-haul trucker, is an adventure I enjoyed experiencing the easy way, vicariously. It gave me a new level of respect for those who practice this profession, and you can be sure I’ll be giving those 18-wheelers a wide berth when I’m on the road. Not only a fun read but, for anyone considering a career as a trucker, a must read.

FYI:

Uses UK spelling conventions. (Possibly Canadian, which is a hybrid of UK and US conventions.)

Format/Typo Issues:

A small number of minor typos.

Rating: **** Four stars