Here are 81 books that Not That Anyone Asked fans have personally recommended if you like
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Ultimately, I’m someone who enjoys a good adventure. Prior to the age of twenty, I had never gone on a vacation or been camping, and the only place I saw Mickey Mouse was on television. Determined to experience a more fulfilling life, I set my sights on becoming a world traveler. I’ve done almost everything to transform the dream into a reality. I’ve studied abroad, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer, worked for an international NGO, served in the U.S. Navy, and done some off-the-grid exploring. After spending nine years abroad and visiting thirty countries, I’m finally a published author. Life Travel And The People In Betweenis my debut memoir.
For me, it’s the stories that make The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer one of the best travel books that I’ve had the pleasure of reading. Some are powerful and heartful while others are strange and hilarious. The stories take place in different parts of the world, and somehow Eric Hansen finds himself in the middle of all of them. From cooking lessons with an elderly Russian lady who lives in a dangerous Manhattan project to bird-watching field trips with strippers, Eric’s stories are adventurous, inspiring, and deeply human. This is a must-read for all those who love travel reads!
Eric Hansen survives a cyclone on a boat off the Australian coast, cradles a dying man in Calcutta, and drinks mind-altering kava in Vanuatu. He helps a widower search for his wife's wedding ring amid plane-crash wreckage in Borneo and accompanies topless dancers on a bird-watching expedition in California. From the Maldives to Sacramento, from Cannes to Washington Heights, Eric Hansen has a way of getting himself into the most sacred ceremonies and the most candid conversations.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Ultimately, I’m someone who enjoys a good adventure. Prior to the age of twenty, I had never gone on a vacation or been camping, and the only place I saw Mickey Mouse was on television. Determined to experience a more fulfilling life, I set my sights on becoming a world traveler. I’ve done almost everything to transform the dream into a reality. I’ve studied abroad, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer, worked for an international NGO, served in the U.S. Navy, and done some off-the-grid exploring. After spending nine years abroad and visiting thirty countries, I’m finally a published author. Life Travel And The People In Betweenis my debut memoir.
When faced with heartbreak, Ryan Crain questions his will to continue living. Feeling a tremendous amount of grief, Ryan quits his job and decides to circumvent the world in order to find his inner person. This book is more than just a travel story. Gravel Roads is about taking risks, challenging those who don’t understand our purpose, and choosing to live a life without any regrets. Despite the risks and costs, Ryan proves that pursuing the journey to find inner peace is worth everything!
By thirty years old, Ryan Crain had everything he thought he wanted—a steady career, a budding relationship, and a high-rise apartment in downtown Oklahoma City. Then, an unexpected phone call he received while backpacking through Europe uprooted it all—everything that had defined him. In a desperate attempt to save his life, Ryan made a bold promise—he would use adventure to climb out of the dark trenches of his grief.
In the most mysterious of ways, this one decision would lead him to set foot on every inhabited continent during a round-the-world journey of epic proportions. From windswept beaches in Portugal…
Ultimately, I’m someone who enjoys a good adventure. Prior to the age of twenty, I had never gone on a vacation or been camping, and the only place I saw Mickey Mouse was on television. Determined to experience a more fulfilling life, I set my sights on becoming a world traveler. I’ve done almost everything to transform the dream into a reality. I’ve studied abroad, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer, worked for an international NGO, served in the U.S. Navy, and done some off-the-grid exploring. After spending nine years abroad and visiting thirty countries, I’m finally a published author. Life Travel And The People In Betweenis my debut memoir.
I must admit that I didn’t know who Nicholas Sparks was prior to reading this book. Had he stuck to romance novels, I would’ve never discovered his amazing life story. Three Weeks with My Brother is so unique that it’s almost unfitting to call it a travel memoir. Instead, it’s a heartfelt international journey down memory lane as Nicholas and his brother Micah take the reader through the ups and downs of their lives. Readers not only get to experience an adventure around the world, but they also encounter a story filled with love, tragedy, success, and everything that makes a person who they are. In this case, that person is Nicholas Spark, a best-selling author, and screenwriter.
The story of two brothers deeply bound by love and tragedy and an extraordinary chronicle of a life-affirming trip
In January 2003 Nicholas Sparks and his brother Micah set off on a three-week trip around the world.
An adventure by any measure, this trip was especially meaningful as it marked another milestone in the life journey of two brothers who, by their early thirties, were the only surviving members of their family. As Nicholas and Micah travel the globe, from the Taj Mahal to Machu Picchu, the story of their family slowly unfolds.
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someone’s lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier self—and so…
Ultimately, I’m someone who enjoys a good adventure. Prior to the age of twenty, I had never gone on a vacation or been camping, and the only place I saw Mickey Mouse was on television. Determined to experience a more fulfilling life, I set my sights on becoming a world traveler. I’ve done almost everything to transform the dream into a reality. I’ve studied abroad, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer, worked for an international NGO, served in the U.S. Navy, and done some off-the-grid exploring. After spending nine years abroad and visiting thirty countries, I’m finally a published author. Life Travel And The People In Betweenis my debut memoir.
From Excuses to Excursions is the story of social media influencer, Gloria Atanmo. Trust me, it’s not just a highlight reel turned into a couple of hundred pages. What I enjoy most about this book is the way that it’s written. It makes you feel like you’re listening to a best friend telling you about her interesting life which includes some fascinating travel experiences. I fell in love with Gloria’s wit and sense of humor, and I was inspired by her courage to travel. While this is not the kind of book that may earn a Pulitzer Prize, it’ll definitely win your attention and keep you engaged from beginning to end!
From Excuses to Excursions: How I Started Traveling the World chronicles the life of a girl who grew up with a colorful imagination but not nearly enough funds to support it. The book is broken up into four parts: The Dream, The Journey, The Adventure, and The Destination. Each details the struggles, victories, and natural consequences of life when you put yourself out there and find the universe will often reciprocate your boldness. This book will take you on a vicarious adventure and have you rethinking the life you thought you wanted and replacing it with one that's much more…
In 1990, I introduced the idea of emotional intelligence with my colleague Peter Salovey. This was followed, in 2008, with the introduction of the theory of personal intelligence. Emotional, personal, and social intelligence form a group I labeled the “people-centered intelligences,” which are partly distinct from intelligences focused on things such as objects in space and mathematical symbols.
One quality the diverse books I recommend here share in common is that they help us reason about who we are—a key element of personal intelligence.
Is it American History? Counterculture? Something else? To be sure what it is is a very engaging, detailed chronicle of the California Institute at Big Sur and its residents and visitors.
The book provides coverage of a profound and influential interlude of American culture in which drugs, folk-rock, psychology, transhumanism, and other philosophies intermixed with one another.
As a psychologist, I was interested in hearing about Aldous Huxley and Abraham Maslow’s visits; more generally, who knew that Joan Baez and Hunter S. Thompson both lived on the property before the institute was established!
Jeffrey J. Kripal here recounts the spectacular history of Esalen, the institute that has long been a world leader in alternative and experiential education and stands today at the center of the human potential movement. Forged in the literary and mythical leanings of the Beat Generation, inspired in the lecture halls of Stanford by radical scholars of comparative religion, the institute was the remarkable brainchild of Michael Murphy and Richard Price.Set against the heady backdrop of California during the revolutionary 1960s, "Esalen" recounts in fascinating detail how these two maverick thinkers sought to fuse the spiritual revelations of the East…
My name is Tim O’Leary and two of my books, Dick Cheney Shot Me in the Face–And Other Tales of Men in Pain and Men Behaving Badly, emanate from the minds of protagonists trying to do the right thing the wrong way or evil characters doing the wrong thing they believe to be right. I’m particularly drawn to those wonderful literary psychopaths that draw you in with compelling personalities, while reviling the reader with their heinous actions.
I found this book in college, and at the time, I thought it was the most unique book I had ever read.
Thompson’s “Gonzo Journalism” was fresh, funny, and thought-provoking, with a subtext of modern poetry, political activism, and a sense of humor I have never seen replicated.
'We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like, "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive ..."'
Hunter S. Thompson is roaring down the desert highway to Las Vegas with his attorney, the Samoan, to find the dark side of the American Dream. Armed with a drug arsenal of stupendous proportions, the duo engage in a surreal succession of chemically enhanced confrontations with casino operators, police officers and assorted Middle Americans.
This stylish reissue of Hunter S. Thompson's iconic masterpiece, a controversial bestseller when…
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
Jonathan Alter is an award-winning author, political analyst, documentary filmmaker, columnist, television producer and radio host. He has interviewed eight of the last nine American presidents and lectures widely about the presidency and public affairs.
After Carter left office, it was hard to remember what made him so exciting when he first became a national figure in 1976. In his patented “gonzo” style, Thompson’s flattering and entertaining articles on Carter in this collection shed light on what made Carter compelling and cool. Thompson's stature among young journalists was so great at the time that his coverage of Carter helped make him president.
'Well . . .yes, and here we go again' Dr Hunter S. Thompson
Indeed we do. Here, in one chunky volume, is the best of gonzo. From Private Thompson in trouble with the air force, to the devastating portrait of the ageing Muhammad Ali. Taking in the Kentucky Derby, Freak Power in the Rockies, Nixon in '68, McGovern in '72, Fear and Loathing at the Watergate, Jimmy Carter and the Great Leap of Faith - and much more. An indispensable compendium of decadence, depravity and horse-sense.
'Hunter Thompson elicits the same kind of admiration one would feel for a streaker…
It was during the 1960 presidential campaign, between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, that I first became enthralled with politics and history. I was only thirteen, so it never occurred to me at the time that I would end up abandoning my childhood dream of becoming a medical doctor and instead devote most of my adult life to teaching and writing political history. Because of what happened to me, I’m recommending five classic presidential campaign accounts. Because they were written by firsthand observers, they convey a vivid sense of how events, with all of their uncertainties appeared at the time before they became fixed in history.
The 1972 campaign was one of the most lopsided in history, but it produced not one but two classic accounts. The first was Timothy Crouse’s Boys on the Bus. The second was Hunter S. Thompson’s uproarious, passionate, frankly partisan but insightful account. During my forty years of teaching modern US history, this was a class favorite.
The 50th anniversary edition of “the best account yet published of what it feels like to be out there in the middle of the American political process” (The New York Times Book Review) featuring a new foreword from Johnny Knoxville.
A half-century after its original publication, Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 remains a cornerstone of American political journalism and one of the bestselling campaign books of all time. Thompson’s searing account of the battle for the 1972 presidency—from the Democratic primaries to the eventual showdown between George McGovern and Richard Nixon—is infused with the…
As a journalist and author of history books who's lived in Texas for most of my adult life, I've found myself unavoidably steeped in Texas Ranger lore. I didn't understand how such a small force could enter unfamiliar areas of Texas and get any results as law enforcement officers. This central question led to me the operations of Company F during 1886-1888. I found the showdowns were just one part of the story. Researching these topics meant learning about the Rangers' outlaw targets - following another journalistic impulse to give both sides of this story an equal hearing. What resulted is a nuanced, complex tale that hopefully will open eyes instead of pointing fingers.
Nothing beats an author willing to immerse himself into an outlaw world to get their perspective – until that world starts to literally beat the writer. Hunter Thompson’s first book is more of a journalistic work, examining the infamous biker gang from the inside than what would follow (Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas and so on.) He is very much part of the action at riotous parties, on bar stools, and alongside at motorcycle runs, but his first-person narration is an effective tool for revealing the Hell's Angels as independent people and as a fraternal organization. The writer and his subjects willingly project their images of unrepentant criminals. But when Thompson is on the receiving end of a gang beatdown, it’s a reminder that the line between outlaw and citizen can be hazy, and you might not know you’ve crossed it until blood’s being spilled.
From the father of 'gonzo journalism', Hunter S. Thompson's research for Hell's Angels involved more than a year of close association with the outlaws who burned a path through 1960s America, resulting in a masterpiece of underground reportage published in Penguin Modern Classics.
'A phalanx of motorcycles cam roaring over the hill from the west ... the noise was like a landslide, or a wing of bombers passing over. Even knowing the Angels I couldn't quite handle what I was seeing.'
Huge bikes, filthy denim and an aura of barely contained violence; the Hell's Angels could paralyse whole towns with…
Music has obsessed me since I got my first record player, around age five, and learned how to play the stack of used Beatles records that seeded my collection. I could probably pick a favorite music book from every decade of my life, and this list isn’t far off.
Lester Bangs ranks as one of the great music writers and as a high priest of gonzo, the new-journalism approach that posited the writer as the dominant character in rambling, straight-from-the-typewriter pop-cultural manifestos published in Rolling Stoneand Creem and their ilk. I think Lester rivals Hunter Thompson and Joan Didion as the most potent and enduring voice of that era. He’s one of my favorite writers. I don’t think he wrote anything but record reviews.
Until his death aged thirty-three in 1982, Lester Bangs wrote wired, rock 'n' roll pieces on Iggy Pop, The Clash, John Lennon, Kraftwerk, Lou Reed. As a rock critic, he had an eagle-eye for distinguishing the pre-packaged imitation from the real thing; written in a conversational, wisecracking, erotically charged style, his hallucinatory hagiographies and excoriating take-downs reveal an iconoclast unafraid to tell it like it is. To his journalism he brought the talent of a great a renegade Beat poet, and his essays, reviews and scattered notes convey the electric thrill of a music junky indulging the habit of a…
