Book picks similar to
Tokyo, Kyoto and Ancient Nara by Richard Lloyd Parry


nf-non-fiction
reading-room
travel
travel-and-adventure

We Will Be Free: Overlanding In Africa and Around South America


Graeme Robert Bell - 2015
    Written with passion and from the heart, We Will Be Free is more than just another travel book, it is a modern manifesto, a declaration of independence and self sufficiency. “From the title to the very last page of the book, I was intrigued and entertained! It is full of unabashedly honest and hilarious metaphors describing life on the road and what it's like to be a part of the "overlanding tribe."Graeme makes you feel like you are a part of the travel adventure as he divulges his raw, poetic and amusing consciousness.This book is both a salty and a tender work of art about a beautiful family. The Bell family, on paper and in real life, will inspire you to live life fully and in your own way.Overland The Americas”.

Bag of Meat on Ball of Dirt (Kindle Single)


Mara Altman - 2016
    That quixotic quest for understanding has drawn much of the world’s population eastward ever since Buddha first assumed the lotus position, and writer Mara Altman needed to know why. So she flew around the world in search of an answer not only to that mystery, but also to the deeper questions that plague all who yearn to define the meaning of life. What Altman found in her wild, comic 18-day reporting trek across India – a journey that took her on a laborious, 37-hour cross-country train trip, onto a mystical flat rock by the ocean in Pondicherry, and eventually into the emergency room of a cut-rate Bangalore hospital – will make you laugh, learn and ponder. By the end of her epic odyssey, it will also take you unexpectedly and thrillingly close to the pulsing heart of human existence. After graduating from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Mara Altman worked as a staff writer for The Village Voice. In 2009, HarperCollins published Altman's first book, Thanks For Coming: A Young Woman's Quest for an Orgasm, which was optioned as a comedy series by HBO. She has published seven bestselling Kindle Singles, including the #1 bestseller Bearded Lady, and has also written for New York Magazine and The New York Times. Cover design by Adil Dara

Anywhere but Bordeaux!: Adventures of an American Teacher in France


Jacqueline Donnelly - 2019
    Hoping to escape her predictable American life in the States, she runs away in search of adventure and self-discovery.The story reveals daily life in France, and the encounters with wonderful and not so wonderful characters along the way.It is perfect reading for anyone tempted to run away and ideal for a book club.

Chasing the Horizon


Cap'n Fatty Goodlander - 1991
    It is an outrageously funny, often touching, and continuously shocking tale of a modern sea gypsy. Cap'n Fatty's story is too bizarre to be fiction. Father wears floral skirts; mother is a tad vague. Sister Carole isn't interested in her millionaire suitor; she's too busy smooching with the kid in the cesspool truck. Their strange live-aboard boat caravan includes Mort the Mortician, Backwards Bernie, Ruby Red the Conman, Barefoot Benny, Geeper Creeper, Para the Paranoid, Lusty Laura, Xlax, Shark Boy, the Pawtucket Pirate, Bait Broad, Colonel Crispy, Scupper Lips, Bob the Broker, the Pirate Queen, Otto the Owner, the Twin Slaves of Green Slime-and even a terribly long-winded fellow named (Hurricane) Hugo. All seem hell-bent on avoiding the cops, the creeps, each other, and especially the Dreaded Dream Crushers. Dive in!

Japan Travel Guide: Things I Wish I Knew Before Going To Japan


Ken Fukuyama - 2019
    After having their first child in 1986, they have decided to pursue their long-hidden dream of exploring the world. Inspired by their life-changing adventure throughout the world, they have decided to serve as a tour guide. This happy couple has been serving as a Japan local tour guide for more than 30 years now. In their effort to show the world what Japan truly is, they have decided to write a book about it. Download your copy today! Take action and experience Japan at its fullest potential now! Get this book for FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

Reflections of Sunflowers (The Sunflowers Trilogy Series)


Ruth Silvestre - 2004
    In 1976 their dream of owning a peaceful summer retreat came true when they stumbled across this derelict farmhouse surrounded by fields and orchards, and saw what it could become. Over the years there has been the inevitable sadness, but also the joys of new grandchildren, anniversaries, village fetes, and splendid meals taken with their neighbours. And whilst the family has seen many changes in its time, the warm and welcoming atmosphere they first fell in love with has remained the same. Now they face their own personal tragedy, but through all their sorrows Bel-Air continues to be a place of hope and happiness, as well as extraordinary beauty.

French Dreams, Dogs and a Dodgy Motor: Discovering our little home in Haute Provence and all that came next.


Jane Smyth - 2020
    Hard work, study and a determination to fulfil a long-held dream eventually became a reality when a computer search led to the discovery and purchase of their much loved mountain property. Follow Jane and Rob on their journey through a mosaic of early memories, anecdotes, observations and funny stories. As they travelled back and forth from their home in the UK to the Alpes de Haute Provence, their journeys over the years have provided a rich source of material, from a weird encounter with strangers on a ferry to the trouble dogs can get you into. Jane brings to life these and other experiences, introduces residents and neighbours and peppers her tale with facts and vivid descriptions of the area, making you want to pack your bags and see it for yourself!

Three Men in a Van: Guildford to Gibraltar by the Back Roads


Jeremy Hastings - 2017
     When the fifty-something friends from Lancashire decide to take some time out together, little do they know that they will end up traversing Spain from north to south in an old and somewhat unsightly mini-campervan. Garrulous Geoff, hefty Harry and the relatively rational Jeremy, unused to spending longer than an evening in each other’s company, are thrust together for a month of travel and cohabitation which the latter relates to us with candour, pulling no punches when it comes to describing their more embarrassing escapades.

Cookham To Cannes: The South of France - Lobsters & Lunatics


Brent Tyler
    Deciding that taking a leap into the unknown was better than making no decision at all, they borrowed a little money from some good friends, packed up their belongings and headed to a mobile home site just outside Cannes. Whilst there, they would look for work with the hope of settling in the region. What no one bothered to tell France’s newest arrivals was that the people they were about to be interviewed by and eventually work for were all blisteringly, yet deliciously mad. Whilst minding his own business in the garden belonging to one of these certifiable lunatics, Brent gets adopted by a dog with his own obsession, maintaining the author's theory that sanity is an extremely rare commodity in the south of France.

Shadow of the Burj


J. Jackson Bentley - 2012
    Their small task force is assigned to work for Sheikh Mahmoud, who is distressed to discover that men whose true loyalty is to the radical preacher, British-born Mullah Khaweini, have infiltrated his own security forces. Whilst the trio try to unravel two complex frauds that are funding Middle Eastern terrorism, they uncover a plot that nobody anticipated - a monstrous plan to bring Dubai to its knees. The three agents have very little time to stop Khaweini, but all they know is that somehow the infamous bomb-maker, The Shadow, and the radical Mullah are in this together.This fast paced thriller from the writer of the City of London thrillers is based in Dubai and reeks of the authenticity that J Jackson Bentley brings to all of his books. The story is told in just over 105,000 words and approximately 270 paperback pages.

Happier Than A Billionaire: An Acre in Paradise


Nadine Hays Pisani - 2017
     A celebration of one couple's decision to dig deeper roots in one of the happiest places on earth. In her best work to date, Nadine Hays Pisani shares what it's like to follow her dream of starting a new business on a strict budget in Costa Rica. Along the way, she shares the ups and downs of renting, buying, and building her new home in this country known for red tape, taking its time, and the Pura Vida lifestyle. She struggles to live alongside construction crews, invading critters, and a delusional husband who insists everything will work out fine. Nadine introduces a variety of zany characters, makes new friends, and wrestles with unending challenges all while celebrating this beautiful country. This is a stand-alone story, so if you are new to the Happier Than A Billionaire series, it's fine to start right here. But be warned, your friends will wonder why you are wearing a silly grin for the weeks that follow.

Señor Lard Arse & Fat Man: A journey around the Iberian coast line of Spain & Portugal


Martin Barber - 2019
    They have lifelong endearing names for each other – Lard Arse and Fat Man. Whilst on a fishing trip in Spain, they hatch a plan to travel around the Iberian Peninsula on motorbikes. No problem for Dave as a proficient biker of many years, but Martin is a complete beginner to riding motorcycles. He doesn’t even have a motorcycle licence. Follow Martin through the trials of taking his bike test, juggling a busy life and planning the journey with Dave while they live in different countries. Nothing can be taken for granted when these two plan anything. When everything is in place their journey through Spain and Portugal begins, starting in Marbella, then riding west along the Spanish coast and up through Portugal, through the northern coast of Spain and over the Pyrenees, finishing with the east coast of Spain and heading back into Marbella. Expect to laugh in places at their simple boyish behavior, as they act like two teenage, middle-aged men with mental age of young men going through puberty. They experience many comical events, as well as close calls for Martin the novice on his first-ever ride out. This book is a light-hearted but a true travel journal of two good friends enjoying their journey on the road in the sun.

Roppongi


Nick Vasey - 2012
    The novel follows the (mis)adventures of its travel-addicted protagonist Zack, and in that respect is similar thematically to Alex Garland's 'The Beach' or Gregory David Roberts' 'Shantaram.' Accordingly, the reader is viscerally transported into the surreal realms of Roppongi, as Zack attempts to come to terms with a series of life-changing events unfolding at rapid pace. In the process, the novel punches through the impossibly glamorous surface of Roppongi and plunges the reader deep into its seedy underbelly ... showing a disturbing side of Japan not often written about in the English language.

Dream Cottage: Four Seasons in Devon by the Sea on the Southwest Coast of England: Part One – Christmas


Karen Wheeler - 2018
    But the author takes on more than she bargained for when she buys a dream cottage near Budleigh Salterton on East Devon's Jurassic Coast. The problems begin before she has even moved in. Wheeler is left reeling when Plum Tree Cottage reveals a very unwelcome surprise. She then receives the shocking news that her mother – from whom she has been estranged for most of her life – has been sectioned. Against her will she returns to her hometown in ‘The North’ and is drawn back into a malfunctioning mother-daughter relationship. Living the dream by the seaside rapidly descends into a living hell as each day brings a new onslaught of domestic and mother-related disasters, in this powerful, tragicomic tale of relocation – and a maternal relationship – gone wrong.

Up Sticks: Book One:France


Tim Thomas - 2014
    Having spontaneously sold their house along with everything they owned they embarked on the road trip of a lifetime around Western Europe. Living in a camper van on a shoestring budget and accompanied by their two dogs, we follow them on the first leg of their epic journey through the beautiful French countryside on a simple quest for some warm Mediterranean sunshine. This is a light hearted and easy to read account of their often hilarious adventures.