Book Reviews

Heather Poole: Come Fly with Her

Book Reviews
Thumbnail image for Heather Poole: Come Fly with Her

On my wife’s birthday, I took flight attendant Heather Poole with me to Las Vegas. Five days later, I brought her home for a brief stay. And my wife didn’t mind at all. But Heather and I are finished.  You can have her.  And odds are, soon or later, you’ll find her at the newsstand [...]

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Finding a “Lost Angel”

Book Reviews

Adventure travel writer Linda Ballou knows how to bring home a great story when she goes on a trip:  Get into trouble.  For her, the deeper the water, the fouler the weather, the more hazards underfoot and overhead, the better the story will be to tell. Think about the alternative.  You come back from your [...]

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Living Abroad In Costa Rica

App Reviews

By Dick Jordan Some days, particularly when the mainstream media is flooded with reports on the machinations and misstatements of potential U.S. Presidential candidates, I feel impelled to leave the country permanently (or at least for a long vacation).  Fortunately, there’s an app for that:  Costa Rica Trip Ideas (iTunes App Store, $1.99, for iPhone [...]

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Sleeping soundly in the Range of Light

Armchair Travel

Award-winning travel writer David T. Page lives on the side of a volcano.  But that doesn’t mean that he spends all his nights sleeping in a lava bed.  And you won’t either if you use the second edition of his An Explorers Guide: Yosemite & the Southern Sierra Nevada to plan your next trip to the [...]

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The Best That Women Can Write

Armchair Travel

(On Saturday, June 25, 2011, at the Book Passage Corte Madera store, the editor and contributors to The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2011 will read from their wonderful book.  Here are my excerpts from this year’s annual anthology published by Traveler’s Tales; read them and you won’t be able to resist buying a copy for [...]

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A San Francisco Author’s Success Story

Armchair Travel

I met Canyon Sam at a  “Blogging For Authors” class in the summer of 2009 at the Book Passage bookstore in Corte Madera, California.  She took the class to learn how to promote her first book, Sky Train: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History, which was due out in the fall, the culmination of [...]

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It’s Time to Drink Wine (in Livermore Valley)!

Book Reviews

Along with my wife and friends, I’ve made many “Economic Stimulus Trips” (that means eating fine food and drinking fine wine) to California’s famous wine-making valleys:  Alexander, Napa, Russian River, and Sonoma.  I’ve traveled to some of Europe’s top wine regions like the Alsace, Burgundy, and Tuscany. And in October I had a grand time [...]

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Think Globally, Give Locally Authored Books

Armchair Travel

As the shopping days left until Christmas dwindle like leaves on storm-blown trees and rain pelting down in the Bay Area dissuades you from going on a wet and wild shopping expedition, don’t despair!  Just finish checking off names on your Christmas gift list while sitting in the comfort of your home and giving the [...]

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Armchair Travel: Driving China

Armchair Travel

Peter Hessler’s River Town:  Two Years On The Yangtze chronicled his stint teaching English to Chinese students in Fuling when he was a Peace Corp volunteer.  With Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present he took a long, hard look at China’s move from its ancient past to its modern, frenetic, Almost-A-Capitalist-Country status.  [...]

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Armchair Travel: The Anti-Bucket List

Armchair Travel

What do “The Testicle Festival”, “Your Boss’ Bedroom”, “The Wiener’s Circle”, and “Groper’s Night on the Tokyo Subway” all have in common?  They are chapters in Catherine Price’s new book, 101 Places Not To See Before You Die. Seven years ago Patricia Schultz gave us the ultimate travel “bucket list” with 1,000 Places To See [...]

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Armchair Travel: City Of Thieves

Armchair Travel

David Benioff’s novel City of Thieves has it all:  The frozen winter landscape of Russia, death, betrayal, friendship, thievery, destruction, evil, and lust.  Lust for women, lust for men, lust for survival, and lust for food. Set during the siege of Leningrad in World Word II, it is the story of two incongruous companions: Young [...]

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Armchair Travel: Could You Survive Paradise?

Armchair Travel

Forget it. You aren’t going to this place in the sun: Ujae, Republic of the Marshall Islands. Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Dick Jordan

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Hitting The Books Again

Armchair Travel

Normally, I’m a fairly voracious reader, but this year, I went on an planned “book diet”.  It took me four months to read a single novel.  In the meantime, my waistline expanded and my brain shrank. I didn’t pick up another book for another four months, but I finished that one (Marco Polo Didn’t Go [...]

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