Book picks similar to
In Search of Nice Americans by Geoff Steward
non-fiction
travel
nonfiction
places-travel
How NOT to RV; The Rvers Guide to RVing in the Absurd (The How NOT To Guides)
Jennifer Flower - 2011
Here's what some have said:- "I had a great time reading (and laughing out loud)"- "hard to put down, easy to pick up"- "funniest bumpy ride ever ... stand-up comics take note"- "Hilarious mishaps and thought-provoking reflections"- "I was fascinated from beginning to end" RVs, RVing, and how (NOT) to RV by a recovering New York psychoanalyst on a trip to nowhere in particular. Whether you're a woman traveling alone, a family looking for budget travel, or a retiree seeking adventure in retirement, here you'll find travel tips, camping advice, trip planning, how to buy an RV, and how to screw up on all of it, still have a great time, and maybe even change your life. These are the bloopers that most RVers won't tell you. If you're planning a road trip in a motor home, a travel trailer, or modified hearse these cautionary but inspirational tales will help you avoid the most common RVing mistakes. So you've waited until now to hit the road. That's OK, because here, finally, are the missing, very specific instructions on how NOT to do it but how to get out there anyway, how to have a great adventure, conquering fear one failure at a time.
Very British Problems: The Most Awkward One Yet
Rob Temple - 2019
Young Donald
Michael Bennett - 2020
Now, limbs terminally akimbo, Teddy’s body lies in a pool of blood in Jessup Quadrangle. And at the center of the investigation at the prestigious New Jersey Military Academy is young Donald.Surely blame for Teddy’s accidental death should not rest with him, Donald reasons. But how? Can people be convinced that Teddy took his own life? Can suspicion be cast on Stanley Wong, the Academy’s only Asian cadet? And with Teddy gone, who can Donald enlist to help him avoid blame?From New York real-estate moguls to Hong Kong triad bosses, Donald’s web of lies soon spins further than he could have ever imagined.
Four Seconds: A Memoir
Laura Andrade - 2019
“You’ll like it,” she argued. “I know I’ll like it,” I said. “That’s why I’m not going to try it.” “Try it just this once and I’ll never ask you to do it again.” That was a deal. I slipped back into the driver’s seat while Pat corn-rowed two neat lines of the silky white powder on the back of a plastic cassette tape cover. Fifteen hundred dollars every month, an abusive boyfriend, a molested child, a lost family, hotels for houses, a ruined leg, a gun to my head, a knife to my butt, a jail cell all my own. Black eyes, bruised days, broken hours. Looking back, it seems strange what I gave up to get my roommate off my back. It only took four seconds. *** In her debut memoir, Andrade tells of her years with cocaine and crystal methamphetamines—using, then selling—until all she had left of the life she wanted was a chalk outline and a pack of cigarettes. This is the story of her use and recovery, of the people who frustrated and inspired her, of her decision to leave the drug world. It is the story of her slow, often unsteady walk home.
Walking in Circles: Finding Happiness in Lost Japan (Round Earth Book 1)
Todd Wassel - 2020
A 750-mile walk through Japan. A life that will never be the same.Todd Wassel fled a normal life just after graduation. Over half a decade later he’s lost in Japan, unable go home but unwilling to give up. Convinced there was more to life, he risks everything to return to the one place he found answers years before: the ancient Shikoku Henro pilgrimage. Walking the 750-mile henro path, sleeping outside each night, Todd is armed with only a Japanese map. Between the 88 Buddhist temples he finds help from a wandering ascetic hiding from the Freemasons; naked Yakuza trying to shake him down; a scam artist pilgrim; and a vengeful monk. Can he find what he’s looking for before the path, or his new friends, break him? Walking in Circles is an addictive, fun, inspirational travel memoir set in a Japan few outsiders ever get to see. Award-winning writer Todd Wassel draws on over twenty years in Japan to retell his epic journey through the contradictions of contemporary Japan while overcoming the forces that keep us from living a truly happy life. Buy the book today to join Todd Wassel on his unforgettable Japanese adventure!
The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the English
Sarah Lyall - 2008
She’s since returned to the United States, but this distillation of incisive—and irreverent—insights, now updated with a new preface, is just as illuminating today. And perhaps even more so, in the wake of Brexit and the attendant national identity crisis.While there may be no easy answer to the question of how, exactly, to understand the English, The Anglo Files—part anthropological field study, part memoir—helps point the way.
My Family and Other Disasters
Lucy Mangan - 2009
This wonderful collection of pieces from her popular column is a wry look at family life and relationships.
The Risks of Sunbathing Topless: And Other Funny Stories from the Road
Kate Chynoweth - 2005
If they had, we wouldn't hear the delicious details of how horribly wrong it all went. Like Marrit Ingman's disastrous honeymoon in Maui—and the repercussions of societal pressure for the perfect love escape in paradise. Or of how the entire kitchen of C. Lill Ahrens's new Seoul apartment is literally lost in translation. Or why Ayun Halliday would attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, when her training consisted of drinking beer and rolling her own cigarettes, and her gear cost $14.99 at Sportmart. From Kandahar to Baja to Moscow, these wry, amusing stories capture the comic essence of bad travel, and of the female experience on the road.Roughly translated / C. Lill Ahrens --Kilimanjaro / Ayun Halliday --Hamil's house of fun / Kay Sexton --I could do this in my sleep / Karin Palmquist --Adventure Pete / L.A. Miller --Constipated in Palinuro / Judith Levin --The trail / Erica J. Green --How to travel with a man / Kate Chynoweth --A useful and comprehensive travel dictionary for girls / Buzzy Jackson --Tri training in Russia / Mara Vorhees --Worry warts / Lisa Taggart --In search of Sami / Ann Lombardi --Bigger than France / Spike Gillespie --Souvenirs from Ecuador / Bethany Gumper --Heading South / Samantha Schoech --Knocked off my high horse in New Zealand / Catherine Giayvia --The lion sleeps tonight / Sarah Franklin --No strings attached / Paige Porter --Y2K in Kandahar / Hannah Bloch --Prada on the Plaka / Michele Peterson --Honeymoon in Hell / Marrit Ingman --The occidental tourist / Judy Wolf
I'd Sooner Starve!
Mark Sinclair - 2011
ever wanted to quit your job...?‘I’d Sooner Starve’ is the amazing true story of one man's quest to escape his monotonous nine-to-five existence and open a charming delicatessen and restaurant in a delightful market town.With honesty, humour and breathtaking naïveté, it records his steep learning curve, radical lifestyle change and the immediate revelation that the customer is not always right!Amidst tales of bulimia, public menstruation, endless abuse and hilarious customer encounters, this eye-opening story unveils what happens after you walk into the boss and say: “I quit!”‘I’d Sooner Starve’ is a shockingly comical tale of culinary highs, customer lows and one woman's unhealthy fixation with thigh-warmed Stilton…‘An absolute hoot!’ ~ Anonymous celebrity chef‘This hits the nail on the head so much I can't believe it! So much so, I can't possibly put my name to it!’~ UK chef‘I am delighted that Mark has written this book. Maybe now people will believe me when I tell them the stories!’ ~ Matt, co-ownerI'd Sooner Starve - the book the celebrity chefs were too afraid to endorse!
There Are No Grown-ups: A Midlife Coming-of-Age Story
Pamela Druckerman - 2018
And after a lifetime of being clueless, Druckerman can finally grasp the subtext of conversations, maintain (somewhat) healthy relationships and spot narcissists before they ruin her life.What are the modern forties, and what do we know once we reach them? What makes someone a "grown-up" anyway? And why didn't anyone warn us that we'd get cellulite on our arms? Part frank memoir, part hilarious investigation of daily life, There Are No Grown-Ups diagnoses the in-between decade when...- Everyone you meet looks a little bit familiar. - You're matter-of-fact about chin hair. - You can no longer wear anything ironically.- There's at least one sport your doctor forbids you to play. - You become impatient while scrolling down to your year of birth. - Your parents have stopped trying to change you.- You don't want to be with the cool people anymore; you want to be with your people. - You realize that everyone is winging it, some just do it more confidently. - You know that it's ok if you don't like jazz.Internationally best-selling author and New York Times contributor Pamela Druckerman leads us on a quest for wisdom, self-knowledge and the right pair of pants. A witty dispatch from the front lines of the forties, There Are No Grown-ups is a (midlife) coming-of-age story, and a book for anyone trying to find their place in the world.
The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked
David Benjamin - 2002
Whether he’s stalking frogs through the bogs of Tomah, Wisconsin, playing four-kid baseball with his bothersome little brother and two favorite cousins, or sneaking into the theater to watch Saturday-afternoon Westerns, Benjamin is the kind of little kid who would have fallen in eagerly with the redoubtable Tom Sawyer.Traversing the nooks and crannies of kidhood, from ballfields to swimming holes, The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked captures a time and a place in twentieth-century American life and celebrates the adventures and wanderlust that once made childhood such an exhilarating enterprise.
Whatever Happened to Margo?
Margaret Durrell - 1995
But any hopes of a conventional clientele were dashed as the establishment was colonized by a host of eccentrics, comprising, among others, a painter of nudes, a battered wife, a chauvinist bricklayer, and a Maltese transsexual. With brother Gerald descending from time to time upon this extraordinary household, accompanied as ever by his travelling menagerie, the scene was set for a multitude of hilarious adventures. In such company, and with such tenants, the landlady herself could not long stand aloof, and indeed was shortly drawn into a surreptitious love affair with a trombonist.
The Little Book of Icelandic: On the idiosyncrasies, delights and sheer tyranny of the Icelandic language
Alda Sigmundsdóttir - 2016
In this book, Alda Sigmundsdóttir looks at the Icelandic language with wit and humour, and how it reflects the heart and soul of the Icelandic people and their culture. Many of the Icelanders' idioms and proverbs, their meaning and origins, are discussed, as is the Icelanders' love for their language and their attempts to keep it pure through the ongoing construction of new words and terminology. There is a section on Icelandic curse words as well as Icelandic slang, which is mostly derived from English. Throughout, this book deconstructs Icelandic vocabulary, and the often-hilarious, almost naive, ways in which words are made. This is a must-read book for anyone interested in the Icelandic people, their culture - and of course their language.