Latest Posts
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Reading Travel Books by Women
Welcome to this site! Many of the travel books featured in book reviews in the mainstream media tend to be by men, although that is slowly changing. On this site, I will be highlighting travel books written by women (and… Continue reading
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A Year in Japan: Kate T. Williamson
Published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2006, 190 pages This is a sumptuous book. Kate T. Williamson spent a year in Japan, mostly in Kyoto, and this book is the result. Through beautiful illustrations and a minimal amount of text, Williamson… Continue reading
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Around the World in 80 Trains—A 45,000 Mile Adventure: Monisha Rajesh
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019, 336 pages “Trains are rolling libraries of information, and all it takes is to reach out to passengers to bind together their tales.” Monisha Rajesh loves trains (in fact she wrote a similar book about riding… Continue reading
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Flâneuse—Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London: Lauren Elkin
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017, 336 pages Flâneur is a French word that means “one who wanders aimlessly”. It always refers to a man with time and money, who walks the streets of a city. Elkin appropriates the concept… Continue reading
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The Shooting Star—A Girl, Her Backpack and the World: Shivya Nath
Published by Penguin, 2018, 201 pages The Shooting Star starts with Shivya Nath deep in the Amazon rainforest (around the border between Ecuador and Peru), taking part in a shamanic cleansing ritual that involves drinking ayahuasca, an Amazonian plant that is… Continue reading
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Explore Europe on Foot—Your Complete Guide to Planning a Cultural Hiking Adventure: Cassandra Overby
Published by Mountaineers Books, 2018, 352 pages This book is another in a series on slow travel, an alternative to rushing around with crowds of people, trying to see everything as quickly as possible before moving on. This is all… Continue reading
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Her Fork in the Road—Women Celebrate Food and Travel: Edited by Lisa Bach
Published by Traveler’s Tales, 2001, 248 pages Food and travel—what more could you want? Her Fork in the Road is a collection of pieces by women writers including MFK Fisher, Isabel Allende, Francis Mayes, and Dervla Murphy. I love the… Continue reading
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Around the Bloc—My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana: Stephanie Elizondo Griest
Published by Random House, 2004, 416 pages Growing up in Texas, Stephanie Elizondo Griest dreams of becoming a foreign correspondent and roaming the world. The advice of a journalist to learn Russian opens the door to what turns into a… Continue reading
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Alone Time—Four Cities, Four Seasons and the Pleasures of Solitude: Stephanie Rosenbloom
Published by Viking, 2018, 288 pages Slow down and take the time to look around you: that is the message of this book, an antidote to our busy and always-on culture. It is, as its title suggests, a paean to… Continue reading
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Travels with My Radio: Fi Glover
Published by Random House UK, 2002, 352 pages Fi Glover starts each day by tuning into the local radio station; it gives her a sense of being a part of the daily routine, no matter where she is. The idea of… Continue reading
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Destination Heartland—A Guide to Discovering the Midwest’s Remarkable Past: Cynthia Clampitt
Published by 3 Fields Books, 2022, 272 pages “Why Midwestern history? Because I love American history, and the history of the Midwest is, to a greater extent than most people realize, a key element of that history. … [P]eople need… Continue reading











