My life was altered forever when my family moved from California to Suffolk, England. I attended an English school and was exposed to English literature, music, and history. I visited Poet’s Corner in Winchester Cathedral in London, Shakespeare’s home and grave in Stratford-Upon-Avon, and numerous English villages and gardens. Through these experiences, I fell in love with words and rhythm and how they can be used to tell stories. In college, I took a trip across Europe that further transformed my life as I encountered the art and history of Italy and France and the fascinating tableau of cultures across the continent, a trip that further expanded my appreciation of art, architecture, and creativity.
This story has remained one of my most favorite of all time.
While teaching English at a community college, I assigned this book to my students. Its tale, about a young Andalusian, Santiago, who leaves home to seek his destiny, changed my students’ lives and mine.
Together, we grew to appreciate that the best teacher is personal experience. We identified how travel teaches lessons, such as using caution judiciously and the necessity to work hard to achieve goals.
We also discussed how travel provides opportunities to develop skills like learning new languages and raises awareness about other people’s customs and perspectives.
A global phenomenon, The Alchemist has been read and loved by over 62 million readers, topping bestseller lists in 74 countries worldwide. Now this magical fable is beautifully repackaged in an edition that lovers of Paulo Coelho will want to treasure forever.
Every few decades a book is published that changes the lives of its readers forever. This is such a book - a beautiful parable about learning to listen to your heart, read the omens strewn along life's path and, above all, follow your dreams.
Santiago, a young shepherd living in the hills of Andalucia, feels that there is…
The story, about a middle-aged professor named Klara, who travels to Poland to find out information about her disappeared father, intrigued me since I have Polish heritage, and I was making plans to travel there. I was fascinated by the cemeteries Klara visits and their history.
But I also appreciated Klara’s personal story—a desperate need to heal from an abusive childhood involving an emotionally distant mother who lies to her about her father and refuses to protect her from a sexually abusive family friend.
I was captivated by how Klara learns to confide in her newfound relatives, opens her heart to her love interest, Filip, and engages in therapy to alleviate her decades of suffering.
It is May 2014, and Dr. Klara Lieberman—forty-nine, single, professor of archaeology at a small liberal arts college in Maine, a contained person living a contained life—has just received a letter from her estranged mother, Bessie, that will dramatically change her life. Her father, she learns—the man who has been absent from her life for the last forty-three years, and about whom she has long been desperate for information—is dead. Has been for many years, in fact, which Bessie clearly knew. But now the Polish government is giving financial reparations for land it stole from its Jewish citizens during WWII,…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
This story, about a woman sending her daughter away to college and dealing with her husband’s infidelity at the same time—two wildly different kinds of heartbreak—kept me turning the pages.
As Annie says goodbye to her daughter, visions of my daughter’s college days came flooding back to me. When Annie escapes to her childhood home, Mystic, an old Pacific Northwest logging town, its scenery brought back memories of my childhood when my family drove the Redwood Highway and camped in the woods next to rivers and the ocean.
But the most remarkable part of the book is the twist in the plot at the end of the story. A satisfying read indeed.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A poignant and tender story of love, loss, passion, and the fragile threads that bind families together from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale
Annie Colwater's only child has just left home for school abroad. On that same day, her husband of twenty years confesses that he's in love with a younger woman. Alone in the house that is no longer a home, Annie comes to the painful realization that for years she has been slowly disappearing. Lonely and afraid, she retreats to Mystic, the small…
The protagonist, Irene, experiences a tragedy at the beginning of this story, almost too painful for me to bear.
Yet, I was relieved when her experience leads her to travel to Central America, where she manages to find a reason to continue living.
While I was reading this story, I was writing my own novel set in South America, and so reveled in the mystical influences and whimsy of Irene’s new adventures in a village of colorful culture and characters.
Enter the magical world of La Llorona withNew York Timesbestselling author Joyce Maynard.
After a childhood filled with heartbreak, Irene, a talented artist,finds herself in a small Central American village where she checks into a beautiful but decaying lakefront hotel called La Llorona at the base of a volcano.
The Bird Hoteltells the story of this young American who, after suffering tragedy, restores and runsLa Llorona. Along the way we meet a rich assortment of characters who live in the village or come to stay at the hotel. With a mystery at its center and filled with warmth, drama, romance,…
Upon the Corner of the Moon begins the story of real people who’ve been rewritten into emblems of evil. Macbeth is raised in the royal court, immersed in Christian teachings and guided toward leadership alongside his foster-brother and rival, Duncan. Gruach is raised in the traditions of a Goddess religion…
An engaging story of how a person can transform her life through travel and formal education.
While teaching English at a community college, I assigned this memoir to my students. Many of my students came from disadvantaged backgrounds and could identify with the childhood hardships and abuse experienced by Tara Westover.
I was delighted to share a story that resonates with my own life and demonstrates how a young person, even against overwhelming obstacles, can overcome insecurities, transform personal views, and navigate beyond the limitations imposed by one’s childhood.
Since I spent part of my childhood living within an hour of Cambridge University, I also enjoyed the part of the story that transpired in the halls and turrets of an old English institution.
Selected as a book of the year by AMAZON, THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, NEW YORK TIMES, ECONOMIST, NEW STATESMAN, VOGUE, IRISH TIMES, IRISH EXAMINER and RED MAGAZINE
'One of the best books I have ever read . . . unbelievably moving' Elizabeth Day 'An extraordinary story, beautifully told' Louise O'Neill 'A memoir to stand alongside the classics . . . compelling and joyous' Sunday Times
Tara Westover grew up preparing for the end of the world. She was never put in school, never taken to the doctor. She did not even have a birth certificate…
While grieving her mother’s death from breast cancer, Leonie flees to Buenos Aires, attempting to escape her sorrow. She travels across Argentina, Chile, and Peru; makes friends; and falls in love. She discovers her vulnerability and strength while working at a winery in Mendoza, riding over the treacherous Andes Mountains, exploring the ancient city of Cuzco, and hiking the ancient pilgrimage to Machu Picchu—and, in doing so, slowly begins to heal.
Vividly rendered and full of heart, Learning to Whistle will resonate with every person who has ever ventured into the world when they didn’t feel ready for it, yet managed to endure and grow in surprising ways.
Homeless following the death of his adoptive parents in a car crash and the subsequent loss of their farm tenancy, Seb decides to enrol as a residential student at the Asklepios Foundation, a College of Natural Medicine, boasting a sanctuary modelled on an ancient Greek healing temple. Spending a night…
During the 1970s and 80s, the Soviet Union penetrated the corporate economy and financial systems of the United States to engage in industrial espionage.
Cold Warrior is the story of Kasia Kerenski, a street mime who is “discovered” to work as a Hollywood actress. Coerced into becoming a double agent…
