An entertaining, optimistic glimpse into the world of travel clubs and home exchanges.
A writer, entrepreneur, and motivational speaker documents her post-retirement travels.
After moving to Las Vegas, Woods (Climbing Out of the Rabbit Hole, 2005) learned she was allergic to the city’s summer heat. Given the choice of moving or taking medication, she decided instead to travel, beginning her peripatetic life. In order to cut costs for the sort of long-term lodging she required, she explored home exchanges and travel clubs for seniors. When friends expressed concerns about her journeying alone and staying in strangers’ homes, she allayed their concerns through emails. An experienced journalist, she parlayed these messages and diary entries into a series of essays, providing vignettes of her trips and the people she encountered. Part of the reason Woods’ globe-trotting method worked for her was she could see the good in people or places instead of just highlighting the negatives—such as enduring the stare of a taxidermic moose or sharing not just a room, but also a bed with a snorer. Although she headed primarily to Europe, with frequent visits to Italy, Woods’ explorations also took her around the United States, especially Texas and the Northwest. Her memoir does not spotlight the sites she visited so much as the people she met, depicted with subtle humor and—almost always—appreciation for their best qualities. In one of her few critical accounts, the author deftly describes dealing with the moose along with a bathroom with all three components—toilet, shower, and sink—in different areas of the house. The seventh stay “proved to be the makings of an uncomfortable, but now, funny story.” But Woods is not some Suzy Sunshine; she just chooses to find joy and comedy in most situations. Still, some readers may question her decision to continue traveling and rooming with Joan, the snorer. The author’s background as a journalist is obvious in her flawless, breezy writing style. The book concentrates almost exclusively on her captivating adventures, with only hints at her own life story, which sounds equally intriguing. The enjoyable work covers 15 years of her travels, from 2001 to 2016 (presumably only the highlights), occasionally mentioning concurrent world events.
An entertaining, optimistic glimpse into the world of travel clubs and home exchanges.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-983514-30-2
Page Count: 124
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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