Esprit de Battuta: Alone Across
Africa on a Bicycle
by Pamela Watson
Australian Pamela Watson traveled alone by bicycle
from Dakar, Senegal to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania through seventeen countries, over eighteen months and covering over 9,000 miles. This gripping book documents her eye-opening experiences with the people of west, central and east Africa along with the economic, political and social realities of the continent.
The Sex Lives
of Cannibals:
Adrift in the
Equatorial Pacific
by J. Maarten Troost
Troost followed his wife, Sylvia, to
Kiribati, a tiny island nation in the South Pacific. The plan: while Sylvia was working for an international nonprofit, Maarten intended to soak up the local color and write a literary masterpiece. Paradise right? Days end with magnificent sunsets and airplanes can't land because pigs occupy the island's sole runway. But Kiribati wasn't paradise. It was polluted, overpopulated and scorchingly hot. Yet after two years, Troost and his wife were reluctant to return home. It's a revealing look at culture shock and culture clash, and about learning to adapt and enjoy.