Reprise Review: One Sip at a Time by Keith Van Sickle

 

Genre: Travel Memoir

Description:

“Can a two-career couple really pick up stakes and move to Provence?

Keith and Val had a dream – to live in Provence, the land of brilliant sunlight, charming hilltop villages and the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean.

But there were two problems: they weren’t French speakers and they had full-time jobs. So they came up with a plan…”?

Author:

“Keith Van Sickle is a technology industry veteran and lifelong traveler who got his first taste of overseas life while studying in England during college. But it was the expat assignment to Switzerland that made him really fall in love with Europe. With his wife Val and their trusty dog, he now splits his time between Silicon Valley and Provence, delving ever deeper into what makes France so endlessly fascinating.”

Find out more about Keith on his website.

Appraisal:

At its heart One Sip at a Time is a travel memoir. And yet it is different than most travel memoirs I’ve read in ways both good and … not really bad, not really good, definitely different. I’ll try to explain.

There are two things I tend to look for and expect in a travel memoir. The two words in that phrase are a hint. For the travel part I’m hoping to get a sense of the place the person is traveling to or through. That might include something about the scenery, the culture, the people, or whatever it is that made this place special, different, or worth visiting to the author. The memoir part is the more personal. It’s what sets a travel memoir apart from a guidebook or brochure from the local tourism office. Ideally this part is not only how they react to the experience of traveling, but also how it changed them.

Typically, that last item comes from a narrative that is mostly chronological with (sometimes literally) one foot in front of the other, going from point A to point B. This book isn’t like that. Although it has two parts that are tied together chronologically, it’s more like a series of essays or true stories that related different experiences with no obvious order or transition from one to the other. What that meant was that rather than having a climax or realization of how the trip had changed the author near the end, it happened (or the reader noticed and realized it was happening) through a gradual process. If anything, that’s more realistic in how change really happens and it worked for me as a reader.

As for the travel part, I thought the author’s insights into the culture and people went much deeper than a typical travel memoir would, largely because his goal wasn’t to be a traveler, but to be an actual resident (even if short term) of the area of France he was visiting. That paid off, for him and for us.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Original review published June 23, 2017

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 20-25,000 words

Review: You Are Not Here by Eric Czuleger

 Genre: Travel Memoir/Non-Fiction/History/Politics

Description:

“American journalist Eric Czuleger dives into the twilight zone of statecraft by living in unrecognized nations in order to discover what a country really is. He begins his journey as a third-grade teacher in Iraqi Kurdistan at the height of the Kurdish independence movement. Banned by Turkey, he pivots to Kosovo where he reports during the nation's 10 year anniversary celebration. Moving on to The Black Hole of Europe, Transnistria, he arrives in time for the Russian election. Finally, Czuleger infiltrates the world's first crypto-anarchist nation, Liberland, where he parties with Bitcoin millionaires and falls into his most challenging position yet: Liberland Ambassador to Somaliland. There, in the never ending desert, he discovers the real cost of drawing a new line in the sand.

You Are Not Here: Travels Through Countries that Don't Exist is part history lesson, memoir, and adventure travelog in the tradition of Bill Bryson, Louis Theroux, and Anthony Bourdain.”

Author:

Eric Czuleger is a playwright with several plays to his credit that have been produced from coast to coast. A former Peace Corps volunteer and the son of a USA Today bestselling novelist, Czuleger has two novels he’s written that are available as well as his most recent release, a travel memoir.

Appraisal:

I’ve been a fan of travel memoirs for many decades. As an avid traveler I find myself comparing the travel memoir author’s experience with my own, if they visit a place I’ve been, and travel with them vicariously if it is a place I haven’t been. Some of the experiences I read about I’m unlikely to experience by myself. I guarantee I’m never going to hike the entire length of the Appalachian Trail, but have read multiple books to experience it vicariously. I feel extremely safe saying that those things Eric Czuleger experienced and the places he visited that are chronicled in this book are not things I will ever experience or places I’m likely to visit, but I can definitely learn from his experience. And I did.

The places Eric traveled to and chronicled in this book are places that see themselves as a country, just like the United States, Canada, or France is a country, but few, if any of the other countries in the world agree. Eric experiences the unique culture of these places, sometimes disconcerting and possibly a bit on the dangerous side. He observes the people and does what he can to get a feel for the impact of this country’s status with the rest of the world on its people. The theme running through the entire book is an attempt to decide exactly what it is that makes a country a country. Will he come up with the ultimate answer that we’ll all agree with? I’ll let you read and decide. Whatever the answer to that question, his exploration and consideration of this was an interesting exercise that got me thinking a lot about not only countries that might not be an actual country, but also about the differences, both good and not so good, to those places that clearly are countries.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

A small amount of adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

Review is based on a pre-release ARC (advance reader copy) and I can’t gauge the final product based on this version.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 90-95,000 words

Review: Sons of Isan by William Reyland

Genre: Travel Memoir

Description:

“What if someone born and raised in the American Midwest were suddenly immersed in the culture of a Buddhist monastery in rural Thailand? This is a true story told with unflinching introspection and honesty – along with generous helpings of humor and warmth. William Reyland’s vivid and detailed descriptions of people and places carry us instantly half way around the globe. An admittedly naïve aspiration leads, by a tortuous path, to deeper understanding—and along the way we are offered a glimpse behind the saffron robes into our common human predicament.”

Author:

“From a decade of living and studying abroad, part of which in Buddhist robes, William Reyland has contributed to religious studies research and published nonfiction and cultural reflections from across southeast and eastern Asia. His writing conveys a warmth and adoration for those other places and the beauty of living life fully. He currently lives in Kansas City, Missouri serving as an interfaith hospice chaplain.”

Appraisal:

Before reading I was told that this book was “tough to categorize” which is a fair statement. It’s definitely a memoir, in that it chronicles a period of the author’s life along with his reaction to what was going on with and around him. It gives a bit of a sense of what it is like living in a Buddhist Monastery in Thailand, complicated due to the immense cultural differences between the author’s American Midwest history and rural Thailand. You’ll also learn a bit about Buddhism in the process of reading.

In spite of the author spending the vast majority of the book sitting in one area, calling it a travel book doesn’t seem unreasonable. The author is far from home, experiencing a new area geographically and, as mentioned above, culturally. Those are the main things I’d expect from a travel book. That he didn’t spend a lot of time chronicling the trip from and back to the US is, I suspect, because it wouldn’t add anything to the story. One thing that I like to see in travel books is the adventures (often hassles) of dealing with various logistics of the trip. We do see a bit of that as the author has to leave the country and then return because he is initially there on a short-term visa which can be reset by leaving the country for just a short time and later what he does so that he doesn’t have to continue resetting his visa.

This was a unique, often enlightening, and fun book to read.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 40-45,000 words

Review: Whatever Comes My Way by Robert Geass

Genre: Travel Memoir

Description:

In the preface the author explains the book this way:

“I'd finally quit New York and now found myself in the Low Countries, unsure what to do with my life. I was a writer/photographer and liked to travel so, why not take a close look at the Netherlands, I thought, but do it with a difference — be my iconoclastic self. Beyond the stereotypes of windmills, tulips and wooden clogs ... not just Amsterdam ... get off the beaten track.I had long welcomed oddities, strangeness, eccentricities, the absurd; I was open to life's darker face. And appreciated the arts and historical context. I was beyond an observer when it came to drinking, which I considered inherent to my lifestyle. I wasn't hooked on accepted wisdom. My biases were real, though I tried to test them against common sense. I didn't like the bourgeois, common life, though its practitioners could interest, if not amuse me. I liked to laugh. Tossing all that into the mix, I set out, on a series of wanderings, open to whatever came my way.”

Author:

Born in Connecticut and a long-time resident of New York City, Roger Gaess is a longtime freelance journalist and photographer. Gaess currently lives in Brussels, Belgium. For more, check out his website.

Appraisal:

People travel for different reasons. Assuming personal (as opposed to business) travel, it might be to see something or someone specific (Disneyland or cousin Joe). It might be to get a change, even if just temporary, in climate like those snowbirds from the north hanging out, whether for a few days or a few months, in southern Arizona or on the Gulf Coast in winter. We might travel somewhere because it is scenic, ideal for an activity we like, or because something specific is going on that we want to attend or participate in. Nothing wrong with any of those reasons. Maybe you can come up with others.

The author of this book had another reason. I’d call it for purposes of discovery. Near the end of the book he says “unfamiliarity is, for me, the facilitating crux of travel.” My interpretation of that is to discover what the place you’re traveling to is like for those who live there and compare that to your home or other places you’re familiar with. That doesn’t mean that you don’t visit the tourist traps that appeal to you, but that you don’t limit yourself to them. Sure, you might drop in to Disneyland or Sea World, but to really discover Southern California you should spend time walking the streets of San Diego, hit the mall in Anaheim, or hang out at a bar in Oceanside. This was the approach the author of this book took. Yes, he did research on each area and came up with things he wanted to be sure to do, but he also hung out with the locals and recognized that to some degree, the journey is the reward. Since I tend to approach travel the same way, I found reading about someone else doing the same entertaining.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

A small amount of adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 65-70,000 words

Review: A Squatter in London by Irene Pylypec

Genre: Travel Memoir

Description:

“Squatters. Dirty disheveled hippies lazing about smoking dope while occupying other people's properties? Maybe. Maybe not.

Told from a former squatter's perspective, this insightful, compelling narrative digs deeper into the squatting subculture of 1970s London by exposing the myths, while at the same time acknowledging the truth behind the stereotype.

When her traveling companion’s dad dies, the young woman from the Canadian prairie is thrust into traveling solo across the pond to England. She immediately falls in love with London but with only a three-week ticket and limited funds, she needs a strategic plan to extend her adventure. And she must do so in a turbulent environment of critical housing shortages, a tanking British economy, multiple social protests and unpredictable Irish Republican Army activities.

This is one woman’s story of how she handled these socioeconomic issues, all while combating culture shock, to achieve her goal.”

Author:

“Irene Pylypec, a sufferer of Peter Pan Syndrome, lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan aka ‘Paris of the Prairies’. A self-professed daydreamer and adventurer, she backpacked solo throughout England, Scotland and Ireland in the mid-seventies, where she caught the travel bug. Her passion for travel took her on numerous adventures to such diverse countries as Soviet Ukraine, England, Hong Kong and Mexico.”

Appraisal:

Memoirs appeal to me because they allow you to view the world and the situations another person experiences from a different point of view, helping you to understand what life is like for someone else in a better way. Travel memoirs allow you to vicariously experience someone else’s travels, getting an idea of what a place where you’ve never been is like or, if you’ve visited that place, comparing your experience to what the author of the travel memoir experienced and hopefully understand the place more thoroughly.

A Squatter in London goes the typical travel memoir one better. I’m tempted to call it a “Time Traveler Memoir” because it takes place in a distinct time (the 1970s) as well as a distinct place (London, England) and a specific subculture in that time and place. Something I wasn’t aware existed at the time or really until I read this book. I found it interesting, both understanding and following along as the author figured things out, but also contrasting her experiences to what I know (or think I know) of London and other comparable cities and subcultures. If this kind of thing appeals to you, I think you’ll find this an enjoyable and eye-opening read. I did.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Uses Canadian spelling conventions.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 60-65,000 words

Review: Are We French Yet? by Keith Van Sickle

Genre: Travel Memoir

Description:

“Can Two Americans Really Become French?

Val and Keith turned their lives upside down when they quit their jobs to begin a part-time life in Provence. But they wondered: Can we fit in? And maybe become French ourselves?

Follow their adventures as they slowly unlock the mysteries of France…

- Is it true that French people are like coconuts?

- Can you learn to argue like a French person?

- What books have changed French lives?

- Most important of all, how do you keep your soup from exploding?”

Author:

“Keith Van Sickle is a technology industry veteran and lifelong traveler who got his first taste of overseas life while studying in England during college. But it was the expat assignment to Switzerland that made him really fall in love with Europe. With his wife Val and their trusty dog, he now splits his time between Silicon Valley and Provence, delving ever deeper into what makes France so endlessly fascinating.”

Find out more about Keith on his website.

Appraisal:

I’m tempted to point to my review of Keith Van Sickle’s previous travel memoir, One Sip at a Time, which I also thoroughly enjoyed, and say that Are We French Yet? is “more of the same.” That would be fair, to a point. Both books chronicle the adventures Van Sickle and his wife have had living in France part time for the last several years, giving a look at France that is deeper than the normal tourist might see or experience. The format of this book is the same with short vignettes or essays on different subjects or experiences, ignoring chronology, but with some of the same themes coming into play in different ways, the same friends showing up in different situations, so it feels like the book holds together as a whole rather than being a bunch of disjointed tales.

If there is anything that is different between the two, it is that the author recognizes that while he’s dove into French culture deeper than a typical tourist, that he’ll never be able to fully assimilate. For example, while his French might be fluent, there are subtle rules of etiquette that he realizes he’s unlikely to ever get right. Which as long as people realize he’s not French, he’s not expected to. A recognition of just how “French” it is practical to become, no matter how much time he and his wife live in France, is one theme that came through in this installment more than the first. I also found the discussions of how life in the US and France differed to be especially interesting. If you’re into travel, interested in France specifically, or just curious about how people in other countries live, you’ll find something appealing here.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

While this might be considered a sequel to One Sip at a Time, Van Sickle’s first book about his adventures in France, and there may be an argument to be made that reading that book first would make sense, I believe a reader should be able to follow and enjoy the books reading them in any order.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 40-45,000 words

Review: Climb Beyond the Crest by Don Defreeze

Genre: Personal Growth/Travel Memoir

Description:

“Separate yourself from the world’s hectic whirlwind and become part of an Appalachian Trail hike into enchanting wilderness. Buy into Don Defreeze’s personal narrative and be ticketed on a journey to supreme acuity. The thread is the hike while various trail segments jog thoughts ranging from philosophical to the practical, almost a discussion of reality’s nature. These ideas collectively create a frame of reference which walks the reader into symbiotic solitude and a personal challenge.”

Author:

Don Defreeze is a wilderness guide and owner of a guide service called Exchiking in Roanoke, Virginia.

Appraisal:

It’s tough to figure out how many of my complaints and issues with this book are valid complaints by any reasonable criteria and how much is “just me” based on taste, misplaced expectations, or something else. I’ll talk about them all and you can decide which might matter to you.

The first issue is the less than adequate copyediting and proofing job this book received. It was clearly lacking in this regard with missing or wrong words, homonym errors, and misspelled names, among other issues.

I also found the author’s writing style to be pretentious. It felt like rather than attempting to communicate his thoughts as clearly as possible that he instead wanted to impress someone by stringing together several obscure, seldom used words in a row. To be clear, there was nothing wrong with any of the words, but rather than using the perfect word to illuminate a thought more clearly the overuse of these words obfuscated the message instead. Here’s an example:

I can’t help or hold back a teary-eyed reaction to the emotional euphoria the John Denver song generates. While viewing the amazing scenery, my uplifted spirits share a remorse for the irreparable failure of mine to journey out into this realm during the lost, destitute years I spent filling the days subsisting within the Human Tree. Even the thrust of late to catch up with the wilderness experience has been besieged by economic objectives perceived to be more important, and I hang the loss of adventure on being hood-winked into chasing unessential goods.

Nothing wrong with any of those words, nor are any of them out of most of our vocabulary, yet the way they’re strung together feels like a whole lot of work to extract the meaning, at least to me. As a side-note, the long chapters (at least they felt long) with very few breaks within the chapters to create natural stopping points, gave me what I’ll call reader fatigue, trying to get to a good stopping point.

Last, after reading the book, I’m still left uncertain what the author’s message was intended to be. I’ve read literally hundreds of books based on a travel experience, probably forty or fifty of them based on a hike of some kind. These usually have two levels, the adventure of the experience and the lessons the author learned from the experience. It was apparent from the way this book is presented in its description that the author intended to focus more on the latter than is typical for these books, and that’s okay. At times I felt like I was being told what the lesson I should take away from the story was, rather than the story leading me to figure it out on my own. At other times I felt like I was completely missing the point. On this point, possibly other readers would react much differently. I just know it didn’t work for me.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

Lots of copyediting and proofing issues that snuck through to the published version. These include missing or wrong words, homonym errors, misspelling of names (both people and song titles), and other sundry problems.

Rating: ** Two Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words

Review: Take Risks: One Couple’s Journey to Quit Their Jobs and Hit the Open Road by Joe Russo

Genre: Travel Memoir/Motivational/Self-Help

Description:

“What if you could walk away from the pressures and stresses of corporate life, and live outside of the routines and restrictions? What if you could choose where you live on a daily basis, have a beach view on Monday and a view of the mountains on Friday? What if, instead of trading your days and weeks and years for a life deferred, you just went and lived that life right now?

These were the questions Joe and Kait Russo asked themselves as they faced endless corporate meetings, inconvenient business trips, and the crushing stress of ‘making it.’ It all changed when Kait asked Joe, ‘What if we sold our house and got an RV?’”

Author:

“In 2015 Joe Russo and his wife Kait quit their jobs, got rid of most of their possessions to live their dream – travel and work for themselves.”

“Joe Russo grew up in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. He's had an eclectic career starting in video game design, TV production and finally a 10 year career in Product Development before he decided to quit it all.”

For more from Joe and his wife Kait, visit their website or check outtheir Youtube channel.

Appraisal:

I’d heard of the Russos, Joe and Kait, a year or two ago. I had liked their Facebook page and then forgot about them. Then a few weeks ago I noticed a Facebook post which led to binge watching a bunch of their videos on YouTube, some of which mentioned the book Joe had written that had just been released. Getting a copy of the book was the obvious next step. I’m glad I did.

As you’ll read in the book (or even reading the full book description on retail sites), the title of the book comes from advice Joe’s father gave him on his deathbed, to “take risks, and have lots of children.” The point Joe’s father was making, at least as I see it, is that the best things in life come from taking an intelligent risk. Investigate, prepare as best as you can, and then jump. The Russos did exactly that and this book takes us from their initial idea of selling their house, buying an RV, and hitting the road, up to taking the jump which I’ll define as pulling out on the highway in their new home on wheels. The book chronicles this process well.

I can see this appealing to three distinct groups, from least to most important. The first, readers of travel memoirs. While not much travel happens in this book, this is billed as book one in a series and logically the future volumes are going to chronicle the traveling The Russos have done since hitting the road. Travel book readers should start with this first volume as the foundation of understanding the history for future installments. The second group are those who have dreamed of doing exactly what The Russos have done. While everyone’s situation is different and therefore their decision making process would be different, the specifics of the research, thinking process, and decisions The Russos made would be good as a blueprint and to trigger ideas. But the most important is as inspiration. If you’re considering taking a risk, making that jump, the story of others who did that with good results may be just the inspiration you need. It was for me.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

A small number of minor proofing issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 70-75,000 words

Reprise Review: The Divide by Nathan Doneen

Genre: Travel Memoir

Description:

“How far would you go to answer a simple question?

After his final year at university, Nathan Doneen wasn't satisfied with the direction his life was heading. He had doubts … he had questions. In June of 2013, Nathan set out on his mountain bike to search for answers along the Great Divide, a 2700-mile route that traces the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico… and he set out alone.

Thrown into the world of erratic weather, cramped bivy sacks, and overwhelming solitude, Nathan was continually forced from his comfort zone, putting his personal growth on steroids.

With both his future and past in mind, Nathan's revealing and honest account illustrates the challenges of the route—and life—and how it's possible to find the strength and courage to move past them.”

Author:

“Nathan Doneen grew up on a wheat farm in the Palouse Region of Eastern Washington. After graduating from Eastern Washington University with degrees in Biology and Environmental Science, Nathan rediscovered his passion for adventure and for writing. He is currently pursuing both...”

For more, visit Doneen’s website.

Appraisal:

The travel memoir or narrative has long been one of my favorite non-fiction genres. Part of that is the obvious. I love to travel and since being on the road all the time isn’t feasible, experiencing new places and things vicariously is an alternative. But it’s more than that. A good guidebook or the right internet site can take you to the same places. Besides that, the way you experience a place will be different than how anyone else does. (In fact, in some instances I’ll have been to some of the places myself and the vicarious experience is replaced by comparing notes, which was true for much of this book for me.)

Books like this, what I describe as a travel adventure or quest, with a specific, usually difficult goal involved (in this case, riding a bike on roads and trails that roughly follow the Continental Divide of North America from well into Canada to the Mexican border) are also entertaining and interesting to me for other reasons. Getting a feel for the logistics of such an undertaking satisfies the curiosity of my more analytical side as does the problem solving involved when unanticipated problems come up.

However, there is a third item that I find essential for a travel memoir if it is to hit the highest mark for me, putting the journey chronicled in the story into a bigger perspective. What did this experience teach the author about life, the world, and his or her place in it? It’s this area where The Divide excelled. In between the day to day adventure and problem solving, Doneen considers his life thus far and where he wants it to go from there, not unlike a coming-of-age adventure novel. But even better, it’s true.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Adult language.

Added for Reprise Review: The Divide was a nominee in the Non-Fiction category for B&P 2015 Readers' Choice Awards. Original review ran December 28, 2014

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 85-90,000 words

Review: One Sip at a Time by Keith Van Sickle

Genre: Travel Memoir

Description:

“Can a two-career couple really pick up stakes and move to Provence?

Keith and Val had a dream – to live in Provence, the land of brilliant sunlight, charming hilltop villages and the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean.

But there were two problems: they weren’t French speakers and they had full-time jobs. So they came up with a plan…”

Author:

“Keith Van Sickle is a technology industry veteran and lifelong traveler who got his first taste of overseas life while studying in England during college. But it was the expat assignment to Switzerland that made him really fall in love with Europe. With his wife Val and their trusty dog, he now splits his time between Silicon Valley and Provence, delving ever deeper into what makes France so endlessly fascinating.”

Find out more about Keith on his website.

Appraisal:

At its heart One Sip at a Time is a travel memoir. And yet it is different than most travel memoirs I’ve read in ways both good and … not really bad, not really good, definitely different. I’ll try to explain.

There are two things I tend to look for and expect in a travel memoir. The two words in that phrase are a hint. For the travel part I’m hoping to get a sense of the place the person is traveling to or through. That might include something about the scenery, the culture, the people, or whatever it is that made this place special, different, or worth visiting to the author. The memoir part is the more personal. It’s what sets a travel memoir apart from a guidebook or brochure from the local tourism office. Ideally this part is not only how they react to the experience of traveling, but also how it changed them.

Typically, that last item comes from a narrative that is mostly chronological with (sometimes literally) one foot in front of the other, going from point A to point B. This book isn’t like that. Although it has two parts that are tied together chronologically, it’s more like a series of essays or true stories that related different experiences with no obvious order or transition from one to the other. What that meant was that rather than having a climax or realization of how the trip had changed the author near the end, it happened (or the reader noticed and realized it was happening) through a gradual process. If anything, that’s more realistic in how change really happens and it worked for me as a reader.

As for the travel part, I thought the author’s insights into the culture and people went much deeper than a typical travel memoir would, largely because his goal wasn’t to be a traveler, but to be an actual resident (even if short term) of the area of France he was visiting. That paid off, for him and for us.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 20-25,000 words

Review: One Year In A Hagwon: Teaching English in Korea by DJ Baird

Genre: Travel Memoir

Description:

“For many young people, the idea of teaching English abroad is an appealing one. In this book you will find out what it's really like to teach for a year in a Korean private school. There will be good times and bad times. But will it be worthwhile?”

Author:

A UK native, DJ (Dan) Baird has lived in 6 different countries since leaving university. One of those was obviously Korea. (Canada and the US are two others.) Find out more at his blog.

Appraisal:

For those who don't know (I sure didn't) a “hagwon” is a private school in Korea. The one where Dan Baird taught for a year and chronicles his experiences in this book was for young (some very young, nursery or pre-school age) students.

I've read several books like this one where someone is plopped down in a foreign place and expected to teach the locals. They all have some similar qualities. Issues of language, culture, and food are three areas that always come up. Despite this, the specifics are always different. Different places, different people with different personalities and different reactions to the situations they find themselves in. Those differences keep the stories fresh for me.

I enjoy hearing about the different cultures and the logistics of figuring out how things work in a foreign place. One Year in a Hagwon was an interesting and enjoyable read. It's a short, quick read. Yet I didn't feel like there were things that needed to be expanded, so the length seems appropriate for the story the author wanted to tell.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Uses UK spelling conventions.

A small amount of adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

A small number of typos and other proofing misses.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count:20-25,000 words