Review: The Demon Cat Of Calle Del Rio by Art Lester ★★★★★
Art Lester’s travelogue is a fascinating and funny account of the author’s time in a tiny Spanish village in the mountains by the fictional name of Cantilla.
Books on Spain are always fascinating to other Europeans, and Lester’s book is no exception. I am a Brit, and an ex-pat in Spain, and I was keen to find out if all the foibles I had found further south of Andalusia in the province of Malaga held true for Lester in Granada, albeit some years back before flights to Spain were as common as ten a day per airline from the UK.[…]
Beauty and Chaos: Essays on Tokyo Life (also subtitled as Slices and Morsels of Tokyo Life; full title 僕、トーキョーの味方です in Japanese) is a collection of writings by Michael Pronko on his experiences of the past 15 years living and working in Tokyo, originally published in Newsweek Japan, collected together here.
Mongolia Monologues is Joanne Nussbaum’s travelogue memoir about her time as a Peace Corp volunteer in Mongolia at the age of 53, following the death of her daughter. She wanted to work in sub-Saharan Africa, but instead was sent to Mongolia to work in youth community development. The book is a comprehensive overview of the whole trip – from applying as a volunteer, to the ins and outs of Mongolian culture, to the Peace Corps process, and the wisdom learned along the way. The memoir is told with good humor and optimism, even when things get tough.
Imagine if Da Vinci were alive today – would he tweet his ideas and discoveries? Writer and veteran geologist Ann C. Pizzorusso explores Italy with Da Vinci, an accomplished geologist and polymath as her guide, as if he were here today as a Bill Gates/Stephen Hawking figure, using all current technology, including Twitter, to share his mind with the world.
Peter Dunkley was going to become a lawyer when he fell in love and gave it all up – and then gave all that up – for a life of travel and adventure, starting in Bombay in the 1950s.
