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Why We Left An Anthology of American Women Expats by Janet Blaser
nonfiction
expats
non-fiction
memoir-biography
A Bear, a Dog and a Kangaroo: Three Comedy Memoirs... with Teeth and Claws! (Travel Memoirs Omnibus Book 1)
Tony James Slater - 2020
‘That Bear Ate My Pants!’, ‘Don’t Need The Whole Dog!’ and ‘Kamikaze Kangaroos!’ follow on from one another to form a hilarious and heart-warming adventure that spans the globe.Over a thousand pages in total, with more than 1,900 5-star reviews across Amazon, these three tales are guaranteed to keep you chuckling into the early hours.
*** Save 1/3 off the individual cover prices with this special box-set edition for a limited time only! ***
'That Bear Ate My Pants!'
The incredible TRUE story of one man's struggle to survive in an Ecuadorian animal refuge.There comes a time in every man’s life when he says to himself, "Holy crap! I’m about to be eaten by a bear!"Tony James Slater went to Ecuador, determined to become a man.It never occurred to him that 'or die trying' might be an option...The trouble with volunteering in a South American animal refuge is that everything wants a piece of you. And the trouble with being Tony, is that most of them got one.Just how do you 'look after' something that’s trying it’s damnedest to kill you and eat you?And how do you find love when you a) don’t speak the language, and b) are constantly covered in excrement and entrails?If only he’d had some relevant experience. Other than owning a pet rabbit when he was nine. And if only he’d bought some travel insurance...
'Don’t Need The Whole Dog!’
The bizarre-but-true story of one man's epic mission to escape the daily grind, and find his destiny in paradise.
In the summer of 2004, Tony James Slater went to Ecuador, looking to become a man.Not all of him returned.
But the bit that did was fuelled by a burning desire to do... something.Something that mattered.And, ideally, to get the hell out of England in the process.His dream was to blatantly steal his friend Toby's dream –of escaping to Thailand and becoming a professional diver.But when a man like this goes on a search for adventure, it's bound to end in tears.After all, this isn't just any old idiot.This is Tony James Slater – the man who was carrying that jaguar when it woke up.And to make things worse – he's not alone…So batten down the hatches! Lock up your power tools! Andfor gawd's sake turn the electricity off.Because that idiot from Ecuador is back.And this time, he's brought the whole family…
‘Kamikaze Kangaroos!’
Tony James Slater knew nothing about Australia.Except for the fact that he’d just arrived there.The stage is set for an outrageous adventure: three people, one van, on an epic, 20,000 mile road trip around Australia.What could possibly go wrong?Of course, the van – nicknamed ‘Rusty’ – is a crumbling wreck, held together by the world’s most garish paint job.
NZ Frenzy: New Zealand South Island
Scott Cook - 2010
This guidebook is not meant to replace a Lonely Planet/Frommers/Rough Guide, but rather to compliment them. In NZ Frenzy you'll find info about all the South's must-see spots, plus detailed info about the lesser-known and unheralded off-the-beaten-path wonder spots. This guidebook goes WAY beyond the vague outdoor info in the mainstream travel guidebooks. NZ Frenzy is about giving you the details you'll need to find the "real" NZ, the one without lines of tour buses, the one without brochures of pay-to-see commercialized natural "attractions". NZ Frenzy, unlike any of the other mainstream guidebooks, will deliver you to the New Zealand that you've been planning for and fantasizing about. I guarantee it. Please read the reviews of NZ Frenzy North Island to see what travelers think of my info. Are you going to NZ to be a tourist at touristy crowded places or do you want to find the "Real" New Zealand that you'll tell stories about?? When you have an NZ Frenzy in hand, you'll leave the other guidebooks in the glove box and you'll leave the tourists behind!! The South Island has natural wonders beyond compare, but the mainstream media only promotes the commercialized stuff. Don't waste your precious time while in NZ waiting in line at the tourist visitor centers...get NZ Frenzy and go experience the Real New Zealand, the Fabled New Zealand. You can have the trip of a lifetime, you will have the trip of a lifetime!!
Home is Forward: Hiking and Travel Adventures from Around the World
Gary Sizer - 2017
No matter how much time he spends outside, it's never enough. Whether being thrashed by drill instructors at Parris Island or drenched by a squall in some high tundra, the same calming thought always prevailed: It’s good to be outside."Home is Forward" is much more than a collection of travel stories. As a prequel to "Where's the Next Shelter?" it answers the question of how someone can go from having a (somewhat) normal life to casting it all aside and wanting to go live in the woods. Hilarious, poetic and often thoughtful, "Home is Forward" is also a story about people. From ancient ruins to frozen volcanos, lessons are learned, friendships are forged, and on top of it all, love blooms. So if you yearn to visit far off lands, or simply love a well spun tale, you’re in the right place.
How to Be an Alien in England: A Guide to the English
Angela Kiss - 2016
If your train is late, it is typical. If there are no seats on the upper deck of a bus, it is typical. If it starts to rain at five o'clock just before you leave work, it is typical.''The English do not like to be wished "Have a nice day", because to them it sounds like a command. They think, Who the hell do you think you are to order me to have a nice day?' Ten years ago, Angela Kiss arrived in the UK without a word of English. All she brought with her was a small bag, a sense of adventure, a desire to work and a copy of George Mikes' classic 1940s' humour book about the peculiarities of the British, How to be an Alien.Through every dodgy flat share, low-paid waitressing job, awkward date and office mishap, Angela held tight to George's wit and wisdom. With his help she began to understand how to live amongst the English - with their eccentricity, spirit and singing train drivers - and fell in love with a land rich in green spaces, pubs and puddings. A wry, often affectionate view on the English, and how to navigate our national personality.
The Wrong Way: How Not to Walk the West Highland Way
Bart Stevens - 2014
But when one night over a beer his friend suggests they do just that, he surprisingly agrees. It may have been slightly more than just one beer. In his own hapless style, Stevens recalls their adventure; six days of getting lost, scared, wet, tired and more than occasionally drunk.
Mixed Emotions, Mountaineering Writings of Greg Child
Greg Child - 1993
Overwhelming are the loss of friends, the thrill of achievement, and the soul-shattering moments of risk and survival; but it is precisely these experiences that compel him to write and to continue climbing.In Mixed Emotions, Child remembers the mountains, the people, and the episodes that have made him feel his life acutely, including the 1986 K2 tragedy that killed 13 climbers; a near-fatal snakebite in his native Australia; and the loss of climbing partner Pete Thexton. He recalls his associations with world-renowned mountaineers Doug Scott, John Roskelley, Voytek Kurtyka, and Don Whillans. Child also narrates fascinating off-mountain journeys to a secluded Hindu shrine, and the remote, harsh landscape of the Baltoro Glacier, where progress has left its indelible mark.Finally, Child comments on some less tangible aspects of climbing, such as the ghostly presence that accompanies climbers under duress, and the meanings of and inevitable meetings with death.
Fierce: A Memoir
Barbara Robinette Moss - 2004
Barbara Robinette Moss grew up in the red clay hills of Alabama, the fourth of eight children, in a childhood defined by close sibling alliances, staggering poverty, and uncommon abuse at the hands of her wild-eyed, charismatic, alcoholic father. In Fierce, Moss looks at what happens when a child of such a family grows up. At once poetic and plainspoken, Moss, a "powerful writer" (Chicago Tribune), paints a vivid, moving portrait of her persistent quest to reinvent her life and rebel against the rural indigence, addiction, and broken dreams she inherited from her parents. With warmth, insight, and candor, Moss tells the poignant story of finally leaving everything she knew in Alabama to fulfill her ambition to become an artist. It is an odyssey filled with gritty improvisation (bringing her son, Jason, to her night job to sleep on the floor), bittersweet pragmatism (filling her purse on a dinner date with shrimp, rolls, and even a doily, to bring home to a waiting eight-year-old), and staunch conviction and pride (chasing a mail carrier down the street to defend her use of food stamps). As with many other children of alcoholics, the legacy of her father's alcoholism catches up with Moss, and an abusive relationship -- an inheritance and addiction of its own sort -- threatens to destroy all that she has accomplished. But as Moss learns to cope with her anger and pain, parenthood helps her discover true strength. Ultimately, Fierce is a warm, honest, and triumphant story, from a writer celebrated for her Southern lyricism, about a woman determined to make it on her own -- to shrug off the handicaps of her childhood and raise her son responsibly and well.
Camino Sunrise-Walking With My Shadows: One reluctant pilgrim packs a weighty load on a 500-mile path
Reginald Spittle - 2018
Walk? 500 miles? Across Spain? We can't do that!And so began the journey of a lifetime for Reg Spittle.An outwardly well-adjusted professional and family man, Reg was a master of disguising a lifetime of debilitating anxiety that undermined his self-confidence.Recently retired, he never dreamed he'd soon find himself chasing distant boundaries across a foreign land, sleeping in dorm bunks and sharing bathrooms as if he were a teenager experiencing his gap year.When tragedy strikes, Reg reluctantly accepts his wife's challenge to carry his red backpack on the historic Camino de Santiago, confronting past fears and humiliations, while packing weighty new worries.Self-reflection, humor, and a recurring cast of characters create the backdrop for a story of hope in Camino Sunrise: Walking With My Shadows.
Falling Cars and Junkyard Dogs
Jay Farrar - 2013
Recollections of Farrar's father are prominent throughout the stories. Ultimately, it is music and musicians that are given the most space and the final word since music has been the creative impetus and driving force for the past 35 years of his life.In writing these stories, he found a natural inclination to focus on very specific experiences; a method analogous to the songwriting process. The highlights and pivotal experiences from that musical journey are all represented as the binding thread in these stories, illustrated throughout with photography from his life. If life is a movie, then these stories are the still frames.
Marching Bands Are Just Homeless Orchestras
Tim Siedell - 2010
The bookstore or library is half full of that kind of crap. What you're holding here is a collection of quips and observations with a refreshingly gloomy, sometimes twisted, always funny take on life. Or lack thereof.With illustrations by renowned artist Brian Andreas, this book is a glimpse inside the humorously askew mind of a writer whose witticisms have been featured on NPR, printed onto t-shirts, performed on stage in Germany, and posted online at the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times. He's been named one of the top funniest people on Twitter by the likes of Maxim, MSNBC and Mashable.
The Grumpy Old Git's Guide to Life
Geoff Tibballs - 2011
We all know one! They like to groan and grumble, offering their own commentary on the shortcomings of modern life. Whether it is queues at the supermarket, the state of the health system, the price of a pint these days, the hairstyles of teenagers, or the number of Maltesers you actually get in a bag, there is always something that will get their goat. 'The Grumpy Old Git's Guide to Life' is a hilarious celebration of all these grumps, how to identify one, what exactly they find so irritating and why we find their rants quite so amusing.
Conversations With a Killer (Singles Classic)
Alec Wilkinson - 2016
The murders took place between 1972 and 1978, when he was caught and arrested. No one else in America has ever been convicted of killing so many people. Twenty-seven of the bodies were buried in a crawl space beneath the house where Gacy lived, in a neighborhood out by O’Hare Airport. About many of the murders there was a suggestion of sexual torture. Twenty-one of the murders were committed before Illinois had enacted a death penalty, and for those Gacy was sentenced to twenty-one terms of life in prison. For the others, he was sentenced to death. He is to be killed on the tenth of May.Published just a month before Gacy’s execution, Alec Wilkinson’s Conversations With a Killer presents a chilling portrait of one of America’s most heinous killers as he sits on death row and maintains his innocence. At once too close for comfort and impossible to put down, Conversations With a Killer is a must-read for true crime fans. Conversations with a Killer was originally published in The New Yorker, April 18, 1994.Cover design by Adil Dara.
Rose Hall's White Witch: The Legend of Annie Palmer
Mike Henry - 2005
The themes of betrayal, romance, love and mystery underpin this epic drama - the bewitching plantation owner, Annie Palmer, the beautiful and determined slave girl, Millie, the handsome and sophisticated John Rutherford caught in the middle - a torrid love story set in the steamy climate of the tropics.
How to Move to Canada: A Discontented American's Guide to Canadian Relocation
André Du Broc - 2016
If you or someone you know is discontented, distressed, or downright disturbed, maybe the Great White North is right for you, eh. But how much do you really know about Canada? Can you do a job that Canada needs (do you play hockey, drill for oil, or make poutine?)? Can you identify the best Canadian province for your lifestyle (lots of tundra or just some tundra?)? Can you master the proper pronunciation of "sorry"? What strange wizardry is the Canadian government? Is maple syrup acceptable substitution for currency? At long last, How to Move to Canada can help make your vague threat into a cold Canadian reality. This book is also full of activities such as: Color the flag of your new homeland Match the strange Canuck dialect with their local definitions And more! PLEASE NOTE: This is a humor book. It won't really help you emigrate. Rather, it's a subversive mix of real information on the Great White North plus a hilarious look at all the reasons why you won't like it there any better — and why they probably won't have you anyway.
From Here to Anywhere: 16 Days, 16 Countries, 16 Budget Flights: The Story of One Cheapskate and Zero Frills
Jason Smart - 2016
The only proviso is that each new destination must be to a different country. From Here to Anywhere takes him on a madcap adventure through 16 European nations in just sixteen days. Along the way, he visits a place called Moss in Norway and sees the 'most depressing street in Europe' in Belgium. He wanders through a Syrian refugee camp in Belgrade, crosses a UN-protected border in Cyprus, smashes a bottle of beer in a Hungarian church and drinks some Guinness in Dublin, all the while battling airport queues, cheap coffee and his fellow passengers. Jason Smart is the published author of nine other travel books: The Red Quest Flashpacking through Africa The Balkan Odyssey Temples, Tuk-tuks and Fried Fish Lips Panama City to Rio de Janeiro Bite Size Travel in North America Crowds, Chaos, ColourRapid Fire Europe Meeting the Middle East