Book List
I find it pretty ironic that throughout high school and college, I feared reading assignments, but upon graduating from university, I packed a bag full of books for my Big Journey and haven't stopped reading since.
After starting my Master's degree in the winter of 2016, I started using Good Reads as a way to record what I've read and enjoyed. It's a very useful tool if you forget a book entirely once you move on to the next one.
Find me on Good Reads and share some of your favorite books with me! Hopefully you discover some meaningful texts from my exhaustive lists below!
My Virtual Bookshelf
This is my favorite book, the one that connects with me on the deepest level. It involves history, art, poetry, historic travelogues, and modern day experiences all woven together to explain concepts of travel not often covered by the tr...
With my job at THINK Global School, these kinds of books are really helpful for combining narrative with historical information. It's not always the best tactic to assimilate by reading the perspectives of other expats or Americans in yo...
My review with images: http://www.nomadderwhere.com/2012/03/reviewing-bill-brysons-a-walk-in-the-woods
It's been sitting on my bookshelf for years, a novel by a favorite travel writer and a recommended read from everyone, including my h...
An intense but enlightening study of American culture and why it's going to (gulp) doody. Reliant on our surreal entertainment and sensationalist media, we have lost the capacity for complexity and replaced it with an inclination for sel...
My review with images here: http://www.nomadderwhere.com/2010/10/reviewing-bill-brysons-the-lost-continent
Since my month of relative seclusion in northern Indiana this July, I've been intrigued by literature on the fly-over areas, the ...
My review with images: http://www.nomadderwhere.com/2010/06/reviewing-david-lidas-first-stop-in-the-new-world/
I'm a lover of travel narratives, which is why my first impression of this book, come three or four chapters deep, wasn't yet...
My review with images: http://www.nomadderwhere.com/2010/04/reviewing-j-maarten-troosts-getting-stoned-with-savages
These days I have an unwavering compulsion to read every strong travel narrative under the sun about the destination I'm...
I'm increasingly developing a taste for travel essays, snippets of time encountering other cultures and experiencing adventures without being ultimately tied to a narrative thread. Dean tackles this type of writing well, hopping from Afr...
My review with images: http://www.nomadderwhere.com/2009/10/reviewing-lonely-planets-travel-writing-book
I chat regularly with guys and gals around the world pursuing the same interests as my own, and what klobbers us all with confusion...
My review with images: http://www.nomadderwhere.com/2009/10/reviewing-jon-krakauers-into-the-wild
Jon Krakauer is the reason I traveled to India in 2008 to see the Himalayan mountains. Into Thin Air was a personal account of a terrible ...
My review with images: http://www.nomadderwhere.com/2010/03/reviewing-the-best-womens-travel-writing-2009
I don't normally buy these sort of books, and thanks to a friendly backpacker in Fiji, I didn't have to. Why don't I buy comprehen...
This book is a hybrid self-help, business, and travel guide to lifestyle design that focuses on automated income. Timothy truly offers a lot of great ideas that go against the conventions of today's older business mentality and makes it ...
Never have I been more frightened to step onto a continent as I was when I got to Australia, thanks to the first chapter in this hilarious narrative. The book turned out to be a lovely telling of every nook of Oz. Bill Bryson is a travel...
Paul Farmer doesn't seem like the guy you'd like to have a casual chat with on a plane, but that's because he can think of nothing else but his passion for helping those who cannot afford or reach adequate medical advice get the best tre...
This book is going to be a blockbuster movie starring Johnny Depp in the coming years. It is the most outstanding tale of India's underbelly and her ever-present beauty, told by the man whose life the novel details. I don't want to ruin ...
At first you think you know what this novel is about, and then it gets good. A really great story about a guy who cares about good education for people who do not have it readily available...say in the Karakorum Mountains of Pakistan. I ...
I read this book while sprawled in a $2 hotel room in Varanasi, crippled by a stomach bug soon to be diagnosed as giardia, so thinking back to my memories of this book is a little unsavory. However, this book reveals the conceptual found...
A personal account of the Andes plane crash and the struggles the Uruguayan rugby team endured to get rescued. A fast and emotional read.
I'm tired of the travel narratives about divorcees finding themselves, but this is a book that could give you a better feel for all three destinations she visits: Italy, India, and Indonesia. Her spiritual quest in India was thought-prov...
This is another divorcee-finding-her-way book, but I actually really enjoyed it. I admire the way she travels and actually thought about becoming a children's book writer just because it seems to pay the nomad's bills nicely! I especiall...
From the writer of Under the Tuscan Sun, this book talks a lot about...flowers. I read this while at a Tuscan villa, and I don't know if I would have enjoyed it if this wasn't where I was. I hate putting books down without finishing them...
I may have missed the point on this one, but I did not enjoy this classic travel account by Che Guevara. It took me weeks to finish this tiny book because the interest didn't seem to be there. If it didn't have such a reputation, I don't...
Journeys of a Lifetime: 500 of the World's Greatest Trips is a thick and visual one from National Geographic Traveler that enables dreamers to dream. With brief descriptions of destinations and experiences, coupled with their ever-fantas...
Edward worked for airtreks.com for 15 years, booking round-the-world airplane travel and learning how to best travel the globe. This was my first and only real book that helped me figure out my RTW solo journey, and it cleared up so many...
Andrew Pham takes his bike across Vietnam to experience his birth country after living in America for 20 years. He's got the kind of travel experiences and back story that would make any travel writer envious. Wonderful if you're interes...
This book is a collection of nine essays that span continents and subjects. In one story, Eric Hansen tells the story of how he wanted to try a mind-altering drink called kava in Vanuatu and succeeds; a crazy explanation follows. Another...
A biographical novel about Michelangelo and the rise of his genius with a chisel, paint brush, you name it. If you're interested in Rome, the papacy, art, Florence, or Michelangelo, you will find it an awesome read. This is a thick one t...
Wow is it a good read! The story of survival at sea with a (potentially) very, VERY hostile companion.
This is word-jazz, a book that makes the classics list and calls for a straight-through reading session. This novel was more favorable to me when I read more pages in one sitting. His Mexican adventures got me going with great imagery an...
