Category Archives: Reading

What to read instead of Eat, Pray, Love: travelogues by women

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If you are interested in reading about women traveling the world and living overseas, but want to skip the spiritual elements presented in Eat, Pray, Love (One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia), try these books. The archived blog posts give more information.

Reading Lolita in Tehran (A Memoir in Books) by Azar Nafisi

The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad

Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez (archived blog post)

A Year in the World (Journeys of a Passionate Traveler) by Francis Mayes (archived blog post)

Tales of a Female Nomad (Living at Large in the World) and Female Nomad and Friends (Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World) both by Rita Golden Gelman (archived blog post)

From this list, Tales of a Female Nomad is a favorite. If you want to read more about living in Indonesia, start with that title. A Year in the World did not hold my attention; I don’t think I finished it.

Do you like to read travelogues by women living overseas? What book would you add to this list?

What I’ve been doing

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Bible in 90 Days daily. I’m current with Day 35. That’s 1/3 of the Bible read since July 2.

Rescued several Juvenile/YA books from my parent’s attic and it’s been a hoot re-reading them. Titles like:  The Summer Riders by Patricia Leitch, Nobody’s Brother by Anne Snyder and Louis Pelletier, Hail, Hail Camp Timberwood by Ellen Conford, Summer Begins by Sandy Asher and a book that didn’t do me much good at the time, The Teen Girl’s Guide to Social Success by Marjabelle Young Stewart. I haven’t looked, but I’m sure these are all out of print; I read them so long ago.

I was surprised to find references to some pretty controversial stuff as I re-read. I have no memory of how I felt about those issues as a teen (bullying, teen s*x, first kiss, abortion, divorce and antisemitism) and what I thought of the characters’ decisions in the storyline. How I wish I had kept a reading journal back then! How fun and interesting it would be today to return to those teenage thoughts.

Reading these books must have been a positive experience, since I kept them safely tucked away for so long. I liked them, I probably loved them, and I imagine I wanted to give them to my daughters to read one day. I love books that are good conversation starters.

So that’s been my late July, August so far. Sorry I’ve been quiet here. I’m not sure how chatty I will be in these last few weeks of the summer. Time will tell, eh?