About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherRandom House of Canada

ISBN-100679312153

ISBN-139780679312154

eBay Product ID (ePID)2424247

Product Key Features

Book TitleAwol : Tales for Travel-Inspired Minds

Number of Pages288 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicGeneral, Essays & Travelogues

Publication Year2003

IllustratorYes

GenreTravel

AuthorJennifer Barclay, Amy Logan

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.8 in

Item Weight15.3 Oz

Item Length8 in

Item Width6.9 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN2003-430415

Dewey Edition0

Dewey Decimal910.4

Table Of ContentIntroduction Laurie Gough -- Monks on Mopeds Peter Unwin -- Incident at Rankin Inlet Simona Chiose -- Chickens, Girls and Ruins Charles Wilkins -- Two Days in Dallas Camilla Gibb -- Her Eyes Follow Michael Redhill -- On the Road to San Rocco a Pilli Myrna Kostash -- Looking for Demetrius Rick Maddocks -- Bus Ride to Big Jesus Grant Buday -- Exit Permit Mark Anthony Jarman -- Penetrating Europe-Land Steven Heighton -- The Drunken Boat Gillian Meiklem -- A Lesson in Dance Brad Smith -- Local Rules Andrew Pyper -- A Brazilian Notebook David Manicom -- Up the Holy Mountain (and Down by Cable Car) Warren Dunford -- Off-Season in Puerto Vallarta Deirdre Kelly -- Close Encounters of the Euro-Trash Kind Nick Massey-Garrison -- We Turned Some Sharp Corners: A Marriage Proposal in Durango Karen Connelly -- Broken Heaven, Broken Earth Tony Burgess -- With My Little Eye James Grainger -- The Last Hippie Arjun Basu -- How I Learned to Love Scotch Rabindranath Maharaj -- The Tea House on the Mountain Scott Gardiner -- My First Brothel Nikki Barrett -- The Growing Season Patrick Woodcock -- The Ballet of Patrick Blue-Ass Jill Lawless -- Aftershock Michael Winter -- Two Drawings Jonathan Bennett -- Headlands Alison Wearing -- The Motherhood Roadshow Sandra Shields -- Station Road Katherine Govier -- Where the Birds Are Rui Umezawa -- Photographs Jamie Zeppa -- Coming Home Acknowledgements

SynopsisAWOL:absent without leave; absent from one's post or duty without official permission but without intending to desert.Originally a military term, it gradually entered the vernacular for when someone goes missing unexpectedly. Jennifer Barclay and Amy Logan thought it fit well with the kind of travel pieces they wanted to publish -- irreverent but thoughtful, emotionally honest and opinionated, bold and provocative.AWOL: Tales for Travel-Inspired Mindswould be dedicated to the perspectives we gain when away from our regular circumstances. They were tired of opening newspaper travel sections to accounts of five-star hotels or hip restaurants, package holidays and cruises, or extreme, death-defying feats. The tales that excited them were more personal. They wanted to bring back a sense of wonder about the world out there. "Rejecting the consumerist attitude of always wanting something better, which seems to go hand in hand with the concept of extreme travel, we wanted to show that there are different kinds of adventures -- the ones that are more by-the-seat-of-your-pants and that all of us can afford. It's about slowing down the way we travel, learning to observe and to relish all the moments." Inviting authors to contribute, they stressed they weren't looking for detached reportage, but unpublished true tales of pleasure or pain or hilarity that would move and inspire. "Travel has become an important aspect of our lives, and we felt it was important to explore what we get out of it: Whether it makes us better citizens of the planet or enriches our lives. How discovering the world can be about discovering yourself, or help you see life afresh." They wanted writing that was exciting and creative, that fired the imagination, dazzled with language, captured something emblematic or unique. The stories are full of telling details and do not shirk from emotion. The trips range from a short break close to home, to years living on the other side of the world. When Rick Maddocks leaves for Mexico, his father says "I hope you find what you're searching for." But you don't always find what you expect. "What was I expectingâ€¦?" asks Andrew Pyper on arriving in Brazil. Karen Connelly tries to switch off the chattering of her brain in Burma, so she can just "shut up and see." After a year in China, Rui Umezawa is utterly disoriented: "The world as I'd known it no longer existed. Neither did the man I believed myself to be." However far or near you travel, anAWOLdestination is a place where, says Brad Smith, "the usual rules don't apply." Myrna Kostash muses, roaming through Greece, "I cannot be further away from the rest of my life." But when Camilla Gibb comes home from Ethiopia, her own culture seems bleak, "devoid of all colour, all meaning." The authors inAWOLhave collectively won or been nominated for practically every literary prize in Canada, making it an extraordinary collection of original writing. The editors also decided to add another dimension to the book, a sense of fun and accessibility, by pasting in trip memorabilia -- tickets, snaps, sketches and odd mementoes -- to divide up the text and draw the reader into the stories. They wantedAWOLto feel a bit like a magazine: a reader-friendly paperback with big pages and great design, something to read on the bus for inspiration and escape, or to amble through at the cottage. TheToronto StarcalledAWOLa "decidedly quirky collection that follows no obvious theme or point of departure -- except the delicious need to go away." If travel is about broadening the mind and hav, From Brazilian jungles to Asian back roads to African cities (and a little closer to home as well), the authors in this remarkable collection of original non-fiction go AWOL -- absent without leave -- from their ordinary circumstances and bring home stories that nourish the soul. Insights, humour and wonder are shared, myths are debunked, and a delight that only free-spirited travel can bring emerges. Enlightening, entertaining, enriching and edifying, AWOL is a book for those who are happy to live with no fixed address, and those of us who are inspired by sitting back and reading about it. Book jacket.

LC Classification NumberG465.A975 2003