Tips & Reviews
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Around Africa On My Bicycle by Riaan Manser
Monica Malpezzi Price Reviews Although there are many of us who are passionate about bicycling and bicycle touring, I don’t know of anyone that considers bicycle touring a life or death situation….. but Riaan Manser has! When this South African… Read full article
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Schwinn Bicycles, by Jay Pridmore and Jim Hurd
John Wayne, Harley Davidson, Peanuts, McDonald’s, Route 66, James Dean, Babe Ruth, Ford, and many, many more, including, last but not least, “Schwinn Built” bicycles make up a list of indisputable cultural icons that help to define this country. But… Read full article
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Pelle the Conqueror/ Smilla’s Sense of Snow/ Babette’s Feast
Pelle the Conqueror/ Smilla’s Sense of Snow/Babette’s Feast Pelle the Conqueror by Martin Anderson Nexö (Fjord Press, first printed 1906) Smilla’s Sense of Snowby Peter Hoeg (Delta; Reprint edition) Babette’s Feast by Baronness Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen… Read full article
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The Delights of Delicate Eating by Elizabeth Robins Pennell
The Delights of Delicate Eating by Elizabeth Robins Pennell It’s not likely that you’ve heard of Elizabeth Robins Pennell or that you associate her with Julia Child, M.F.K. Fisher or Elizabeth David. But just as these three women – two… Read full article
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Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry’s Extraordinary Ride
Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry’s Extraordinary Ride, by Peter Zheutlin Peter Zheutlin, Annie Londonderry’s great-great nephew, has written a masterful homage to his great-great aunt, while recounting the extraordinary “ride” of a remarkable woman. Annie Cohen was… Read full article
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Race Book Reviews
Race Book Reviews We hope you’ll be able to join us in France next summer for the 101st anniversary of The Race. If you are able to come, then the selection of readings in my review this month will help… Read full article
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In the Wake of the Plague by Norman F. Cantor
In the Wake of the Plague by Norman F. Cantor In the Wake of the Plague by Norman F. Cantor, 2001, pp. 232. Did you know that the children’s rhyme ‘Ring Around the Rosies’ was first sung in sixteenth-century England… Read full article
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“Travels with Charley” by John Steinbeck
Travels with Charley In 1960, John Steinbeck set out to “find America” in a small, custom-made camper-truck that contained nearly all the comforts of home, including his faithful full-sized poodle, Charley. He meandered along nearly the entire perimeter of the… Read full article
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Moderata Fonte: Women and Life in Sixteenth-Century …
Moderata Fonte: Women and Life in Sixteenth-Century Venice Many of you have heard about my research project about a Venetian writer of the Renaissance and life in Venice at that time. Many of you very kindly wanted to know about… Read full article
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In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant
In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant New York: Random House, 2006, pp. 371. Since I greatly enjoyed Sarah Dunant’s The Birth of Venus , I read her most… Read full article
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The Motorcycle Diaries
The Motorcycle Diaries A Photo Essay & Movie Review I’ve taken only three trips to South America: once to Peru, once to Chile, and once to Argentina and Chile to do our ExpeditionPlus! bicycle tour across the continent. As I… Read full article
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Galileo’s Daughter: A Drama of Science, Faith and Love by Dava Sobel
Galileo’s Daughter: A Drama of Science, Faith and Love by Dava Sobel I read this fascinating book during the last two weeks I spent at my families’ farm in Italy this summer, and I must agree with the editor’s assessment… Read full article
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My Life on Two Wheels
My Life on Two Wheels My Life on Two Wheels By Clifford L. Graves (Manivelle Press, La Jolla, CA; 1985) The history of Americans touring Europe by bicycle is yet to be written. When it is, it will likely begin… Read full article
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Ballad of the Whiskey Robber
Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts By Julian Rubinstein You won’t believe it’s true. With a title like that, who wouldn’t be skeptical? Open the… Read full article
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Spoke Songs/Metal Cowboy
cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”0″ width=”100%” summary=”” border=”0″> Spoke Songs/Metal Cowboy Spokesongs (Bicycle Adventures on Three Continents) by Willie Weir Metal Cowboy (Tales from the Road Less Pedaled) by Joe Kurmaskie Bicycling is very much a solitary sport: first,… Read full article
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The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005) When I began graduate school in geography at the University of Oregon in the early 1970s some of the… Read full article
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Paris, by Émile Zola (1898)
Paris, by Émile Zola (1898) Émile Zola was one of France’s most astute social critics at the end of the nineteenth century. A prolific writer, he embarked on a 20-volume series of novels in the 1870s about corruption in French… Read full article
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The Words of Bernfrieda, A Chronicle of Hauteville by Gabriella Brooke
The Words of Bernfrieda, A Chronicle of Hauteville by Gabriella Brooke NOTE: For those of you traveling with us to Southern Italy, or simply interested in finding out more about this region, we’ve included an annotated reading list at the… Read full article