Word Book Day 2021
Happy Friday!
I hope you are having a great week so far. I actually had a whole other post planned for today and it went live this morning, but when I realised it was World Book Day I took it down to write this post instead!
Last year I spent a lot of time on my post for World Book Day 2020, taking you on a trip around the world in books. When I travel, I love to read books set in the country where I am going so I offered a few of my favourite reads from around the world (although there are still many places I have yet to actually visit - but don’t worry, they are on my list haha).
Another year and the pandemic is still ongoing. We are all still in some sort of lockdown or living with some sort of restrictions. We are lucky in Melbourne, things are pretty open and we don’t even have to wear masks anymore. However, the international borders are still shut and even travelling between states is risky because whenever a few COVID cases pop up somewhere, all the other states shut their borders with little warning.
So travelling ‘like normal’ still seems so far away. And I can’t even imagine what travel will look like in a post-pandemic world.
In the meantime, we will have to settle for daydreaming about exploring far-off places and exotic lands.
So this year, for world book day, I want to share a few memoirs about travel and wanderlust more generally. Maybe reading about other people’s travels will inspire us all to start planning our next trips for ‘someday’.
The Lost Girls by Jennifer Baggett, Holly C. Corbett, Amanda Pressner
Three friends, each on the brink of a quarter-life crisis, make a pact to quit their high pressure New York City media jobs and leave behind their friends, boyfriends, and everything familiar to embark on a year-long backpacking adventure around the world in The Lost Girls.
With their thirtieth birthdays looming, Jen, Holly, and Amanda are feeling the pressure to hit certain milestones—score the big promotion, find a soul mate, have 2.2 kids. Instead, they make a pact to quit their jobs and set out on a journey in search of inspiration and direction.
Traveling 60,000 miles across four continents, Jen, Holly, and Amanda push themselves far outside their comfort zones to embrace every adventure. Ultimately, theirs is a story of true friendship—a bond forged by sharing beds and backpacks, enduring exotic illnesses, trekking across mountains, and standing by one another through heartaches, whirlwind romances, and everything in the world in between.
The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost by Rachel Friedman
Rachel Friedman has always been the consummate good girl who does well in school and plays it safe, so the college grad surprises no one more than herself when, on a whim (and in an effort to escape impending life decisions), she buys a ticket to Ireland, a place she has never visited. There she forms an unlikely bond with a free-spirited Australian girl, a born adventurer who spurs Rachel on to a yearlong odyssey that takes her to three continents, fills her life with newfound friends, and gives birth to a previously unrealized passion for adventure.
As her journey takes her to Australia and South America, Rachel discovers and embraces her love of travel and unlocks more truths about herself than she ever realized she was seeking. Along the way, the erstwhile good girl finally learns to do something she’s never done before: simply live for the moment.
At Home in the World by Tsh Oxenreider
The wide world is calling.
Americans Tsh and Kyle met and married in Kosovo. They lived as expats for most of a decade. They’ve been back in the States—now with three kids under ten—for four years, and while home is nice, they are filled with wanderlust and long to answer the call.
Why not? The kids are all old enough to carry their own backpacks but still young enough to be uprooted, so a trip—a nine-months-long trip—is planned.
At Home in the World follows their journey from China to New Zealand, Ethiopia to England, and more. They traverse bumpy roads, stand in awe before a waterfall that feels like the edge of the earth, and chase each other through three-foot-wide passageways in Venice. And all the while Tsh grapples with the concept of home, as she learns what it means to be lost—yet at home—in the world.
What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding by Kristin Newman
Kristin Newman spent much of her twenties and thirties buying dresses to wear to her friends' weddings and baby showers. Not ready to settle down and in need of an escape from her fast-paced job as a sitcom writer, Kristin instead traveled the world, often alone, for several weeks each year. In addition to falling madly in love with the planet, Kristin fell for many attractive locals, men who could provide the emotional connection she wanted without costing her the freedom she desperately needed.
Kristin introduces readers to the Israeli bartenders, Finnish poker players, sexy Bedouins, and Argentinean priests who helped her transform into "Kristin-Adjacent" on the road–a slower, softer, and, yes, sluttier version of herself at home. Equal parts laugh-out-loud storytelling, candid reflection, and wanderlust-inspiring travel tales, What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding is a compelling debut that will have readers rushing to renew their passports.
Have a great weekend.
