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A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveller
Frances Mayes · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorA Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure
Marlena de Blasi · 346 pages
American chef Marlena de Blasi and her Venetian husband, Fernando, married rather late in life. In search of the rhythms of country living, the couple moves to a barely renovated former stable in Tuscany with no phone, no central heating, and something resembling a playhouse kitchen. They dwell among two hundred villagers, ancient olive groves, and hot Etruscan springs. In this patch of earth wher
The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese
Michael Paterniti · 349 pages
In the picturesque village of Guzma n, Spain, in a cave on the edge of town, there is a cramped limestone chamber known as "the telling room." This is where villagers have gathered for centuries to share their stories and secrets--usually accompanied by copious amounts of wine. It was here, in the summer of 2000, that Michael Paterniti found himself listening to a Spanish cheesemaker as he spun an
French Milk
Lucy Knisley · 190 pages
Graphic memoir/travelogue of the author visiting Paris with her mother.
Almost French: A New Life In Paris
Sarah Turnbull · 320 pages
A delightful, fresh twist on the travel memoir, Almost French takes us on a tour that is fraught with culture clashes but rife with deadpan humor. Sarah Turnbull's stint in Paris was only supposed to last a week. Chance had brought Sarah and Frederic together in Bucharest, and on impulse she decides to take him up on his offer to visit him in the world's most romantic city. Sacrificing Vegemite f
Paris to the Moon
Adam Gopnik · 342 pages
Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafes, breathtaking facades around every corner--in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured the American imagination for as long as there have been Americans. In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York City for the urbane glamour of the City of Light.
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning
Laurie Lee · 192 pages
It was 1934 and a young man walked to London from the security of the Cotswolds to make his fortune. He was to live by playing the violin and by labouring on a London building site. Then, knowing one Spanish phrase, he decided to see Spain. For a year he tramped through a country in which the signs of impending civil war were clearly visible. Thirty years later Laurie Lee captured the atmosphere o
Extra Virgin: A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera, Where Every Month Is Enchanted
Annie Hawes · 345 pages
A small stone house deep among the olive groves of Liguria, going for the price of a dodgy second-hand car. Annie Hawes and her sister, on the spot by chance, have no plans whatsoever to move to the Italian Riviera but find naturally that it's an offer they can't refuse. The laugh is on the Foreign Females who discover that here amongst the hardcore olive farming folk their incompetence is positiv
An Embarrassment of Mangoes: A Caribbean Interlude
Ann Vanderhoof · 320 pages
Under the Tuscan Sun meets the wide-open sea . . . An Embarrassment of Mangoes is a delicious chronicle of leaving the type-A lifestyle behind -- and discovering the seductive secrets of life in the Caribbean.Who hasn't fantasized about chucking the job, saying goodbye to the rat race, and escaping to some exotic destination in search of sun, sand, and a different way of life? Canadians Ann Vander
The Road to Mecca
Muhammad Asad · 380 pages
This autobiographical work by one of Europe's best known convert to Islam gives us a rounded portrait of a man in search of adventure and truth. It is part spiritual autobiography, part summary of the author's intuitive insights into Islam and the Arabs, part an impressive travelogue. Punctuated with abundant adventure, moments of contemplation, colorful narrative, brilliant description and lively
Toujours Provence
Peter Mayle · 241 pages
Peter Mayle's love affair with the south of France continues and deepens. Now he's got most of the building work organized, he's had time for a few trips - to the Cannes Film Festival, the Menerbes dog show and the wine caves at Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
Driving Hungry: A Memoir
Layne Mosler · 313 pages
"A delicious memoir that takes us from Buenos Aires to New York to Berlin as the author, driven by wanderlust and an unrelenting appetite, finds purpose, passion, and unexpected flavor. Layne Mosler's search for her next meal based on a recommendation from a cab driver starts in Buenos Aires: After leaving a tango club following a terrible turn on the dance floor, she impulsively asks her taxista
Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes
Elizabeth Bard · 322 pages
"Tells the story of falling in love with a Frenchman and moving to the world's most romantic city. Elizabeth Bard finds that learning to cook and building a new life have a lot in common."--Publisher's description.
The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca
Tahir Shah · 362 pages
Istanbul: Memories and the City
Orhan Pamuk · 384 pages
A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share. With cinematic fluidit
The Temporary Bride: A Memoir of Love and Food in Iran
Jennifer Klinec · 230 pages
A relationship was a mathematical formula: the correct variables of age, beauty, morality and finances were entered and the output was a successful, peaceful marriage. It couldn't be, therefore, that their Iranian son could feel desire for someone six years his senior, someone who didn't come to him pure and untouched. I was an amusing visitor from another world and soon enough I should return to
My Life in France
Julia Child, Alex Prud'Homme · 344 pages
Julia Child singlehandedly created a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, but as she reveals in this bestselling memoir, she was not always a master chef. Indeed, when she first arrived in France in 1948 with her husband, Paul, who was to work for the USIS, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the coun
Mastering the Art of French Eating: Lessons in Food and Love from a Year in Paris
Ann Mah · 273 pages
When journalist Ann Mah’s diplomat husband is given a three-year assignment in Paris, Ann is overjoyed. A lifelong foodie and Francophile, she immediately begins plotting gastronomic adventures à deux. Then her husband is called away to Iraq on a year-long post—alone. Suddenly, Ann’s vision of a romantic sojourn in the City of Light is turned upside down. So, not unlike another diplomatic wife,
Eat, Pray, Love
Elizabeth Gilbert · 341 pages
This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern American success (marriage, house in the country, career) and find, instead, what she truly wanted from life. Setting out for a year to study three different aspects of her nature amid three different cult
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
John Steinbeck · 256 pages
A quest across America, from the northernmost tip of Maine to California's Monterey Peninsula To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the tress, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck's goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years. With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the
Scribbling the Cat
Alexandra Fuller · 271 pages
With the same disarmingly unguarded prose that won her critical acclaim for Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller tells of her unusual friendship with "K"—a white African and veteran of the brutal, racially divided Rhodesian War. An engrossing and haunting tale of love, godliness, hate, war, and survival, Scribbling the Cat recounts the journey she makes with K into the lands that h
Notes from a Small Island
Bill Bryson · 324 pages
After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson took the decision to move Mrs Bryson, little Jimmy et al. back to the States for a while. But before leaving his much-loved Yorkshire, Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around old Blighty, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had for so long been his home. The resulting book was a eulogy to the country that produced M
A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (The Western Frontier Library Series)
Isabella L. Bird, Daniel J. Boorstin · 276 pages
The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue Des Martyrs
Elaine Sciolino · 294 pages
"Part memoir, part travelogue, part love letter to the people who live and work on a magical street in Paris. Elaine Sciolino, the former Paris bureau chief for the New York Times, invites us on a tour of her favorite Parisian street, offering an homage to street life and the pleasures of Parisian living. 'I can never be sad on the rue des Martyrs,' Sciolino explains, as she celebrates the neighbo

