A Woman's Passion for Travel: More Stories from a Woman's World (Travelers' Tales) [Paperback]

Marybeth Bond (Editor), Pamela Michael (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Travelers' Tales | Publication Date: September 1999

From the editor of Woman's World, a new collection of women's stories about traveling. The stories gathered here present a varied portrait of women on the road, light-hearted or dispirited, entertaining or educational.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For those who've journeyed through the archives of travel writing, one fact quickly emerges: historically, the writings of women travelers were rarely published, whether due to the relative rarity of women adventurers or the unwillingness of publishers to put out their tales. Times have changed, and this book, the second Travelers' Tales collection of stories by women voyagers, is a bold and wonderful statement that women not only are heading out into foreign cultures, often alone, but also that their evocative stories can easily compete with, and frequently outrun, those of men.

It's hard to chose a favorite in this collection of 43 pieces written by some well-knowns, such as Frances Mayes, Mary Morris, and Pam Houston, and dozens of promising unknowns: would it be the one about what happens when a letter is delivered to a Venetian stranger, or the simple peace found in a tiny Spanish church, or the adventures of a scorpion collector in Tunisia, or perhaps the wisdom proffered by a boatman in Laos? Is it the encouraging words of older travelers such as the 70-year-old who plunges into Latin America by herself, or the lesson learned of mothers traveling with daughters? Most moving is a haunting tale of an umbrella-bearing stranger in Paris; most disturbing is the story of a health problem brought back from Belize. This is an enchanting collection that leaves one longing for more and will no doubt induce thousands of women to hop up from their chairs and run to the airport. --Melissa Rossi

From Kirkus Reviews

An exemplary collection of essays, in which women deftly testify to their acts of travel. There is a wide marshaling of sensitivities, concerns, and expectations in these pages, of what foreign travel (which can mean a Californian driving through Alabama) demands of women and what women garner in return. Incidents of sloppy writing (``my reinforced concrete bravery thinly veiling my secret yellow streak'') and fatuous comments (that travel is ``the best revenge against aging since collagen'') are rare, as are the times when money is no object and far-flung wanderings considered an entitlement. The travel is mostly hard won, and the whole processfrom planning to execution to decompressionis conducted with attentiveness; where, if only for the duration, you live at that special pitch that encourages heedfulness and charges everything with meaning and significance, from sea kayaking and mushing in the Brooks Range with your teenage daughter, to bad fevers and overcoming bathing suit anxiety (a small gem, from Marilyn Lutzker, that wrings serenity from dread). A perfect example is Pier Roberts, in whose piece an Umbrian stone farmhouse, red wine, her group of women friends, a deadly viper, the poems of Mary Oliver, and ``a field of wildflowers, like candy, like colored marbles, like a playground for the angels'' meld and catch fire, annealing the travelers to one another and to the landscape and its graces. Keeping things from shining too bright, there are also episodes of fear and menace so terrifying (in one, a lunatic is trying to run the writer's car off a deserted road, all the while screaming hes going to kill her), you can only read them out of the corner of your eye with the book held at arm's length. Traveling, like seeing, is an exigent thing. These women figured that out before they left and conducted themselves accordingly, which is why they have stories worthy of the telling. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Travelers' Tales Guides (September 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885211368
• ISBN-13: 978-1885211361
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,779,832 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Candace Dempsey is an award-winning Italian-American journalist, true crime blogger and travel writer based in Seattle. Her seattlepi.com Amanda Knox blog has been featured on CNN Anderson Cooper 360, Newsweek.com and is read around the world. She's discussed the Amanda Knox case on CNN Headline News, Q13 FOX NEWS, KOMO-TV, KING TV, KIRO FM Radio, Italian TV and other media outlets. She has a master's degree in journalism and decades of writing experience in newspapers, magazines, and on the Web. Her staff positions include: magazine editor, newspaper editor, staff writer, and a producer, editor and writer for MSN. Her travel tales have been published in numerous Travelers' Tales and Seal Press anthologies.

Candace's MURDER IN ITALY, is the true story of Amanda Knox, the American honor student convicted of killing her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, in a seemingly idyllic Italian college town on November 1, 2007. Best True Crime Book Editor's and Reader's Choice awards, a Library Journal Bestseller, Top Ten Amazon True Crime.

Drawing upon candid interviews with the key players, case files, police reports, court documents, eyewitness accounts, crime scene videos, prison diaries, and DNA evidence, award-winning journalist Candace Dempsey reveals the real story behind the media frenzy surrounding suspects: American honor student Amanda Knox; Raffaele Sollecito, her Italian ex-boyfriend; and drifter Rudy Guede, an Italian immigrant form the Ivory Coast.

Giving readers a front-row seat at the trial, Dempsey unravels the evidence and the allegations to look at what really happened to Meredith Kercher, Knox's British roommate, when she was stabbed to death that dark Italian night.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reading this book is like eating a box of chocolate candy..., November 10, 1999

By 

Elyse Shafarman ([e-mail]) (San Francisco, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Woman's Passion for Travel: More Stories from a Woman's World (Travelers' Tales) (Paperback)

Reading, A Woman's Passion for Travel, a compendium of first person narratives of travelers' tales, is like getting a big box of chocolate candy. Each story is so rich and pithy you hardly know whether to gobble it all down in one sitting, or spread out the reading, savoring each story's flavor, one by one. Most trips, upon the retelling, are organized around one peak moment, or one adventure. These instances, whether funny (Kathleen Meyers', "Toiletopia"), brilliantly descriptive (Co-editor Pamela Michael's, "The Boatman's Gift") or dangerous (Pam Houston's, "On the Rocks") seem to be given to us only when we travel, when we open our senses completely to absorb every detail of a new environment, and when we go through the sometimes uncomfortable process of shedding old beliefs. One of the benefits of a collection of first person narratives, is that each short story becomes a portal, allowing the reader to gaze out through the author's eyes at a risky new world, all from the comfort of one's own bedroom. Start saving your dimes for your own trip, but in the interim, sate your travel itch and read this book!

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bond's Newest May Be Her Best Yet, February 13, 2000

By 

Marcia Schnedler - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Woman's Passion for Travel: More Stories from a Woman's World (Travelers' Tales) (Paperback)

As a syndicated travel columnist as well as a travel addict, I find Marybeth Bond's latest collection of stories and experiences of women on the road even more exciting than in her past books--and just as readable. Any woman of any age hesitant to travel needs to read this book. It's bound to pique your wanderlust and provide the inspiration and confidence to go.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For Anyone That Has A Passion For Travel This Is A Must Read, January 14, 2001

By 

Gina Hinds - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Woman's Passion for Travel: More Stories from a Woman's World (Travelers' Tales) (Paperback)

This is a great book to read when you are not able to take the trip that you would like to be on currently.

It is very well written with people telling about their stories of their trips all over the world, with very specific details that makes it feel like you are there experiencing their trip.

I found that I could not put down the book, as I truly love to travel but I am not able to just drop everything right now to take such a trip, so I could be there in my mind.