With a travel book in hand, you can experience a new culture or a new land while seeing it through the eyes of another. The only thing better would be to experience it for yourself. Until you can explore the vast corners of this world, here’s a list of 25 travel books, in no particular order, to take you there. With Amazon’s quick shipping options, you could have a few new stocking suffers in time for Christmas. Continue reading
50 items in one year! Yep, I’m pushing the limits with my 2013 Bucket List. Why not? Life 
is worth living, right? While some items are extreme like driving a NASCAR or hang gliding, others are more realistic like taking Athena to a zoo. What it all comes down to is that time is precious and life is worth living. It’s the daily moments as well as the over-the-top ones that come together to make each day a rewarding journey. As a previous English teacher, I love to read. Losing myself in a great book is equally as rewarding as losing myself in a new country, making number 38 on the list, find at least 5 new authors that I love, an enjoyable daily adventure. Mike Bond, and more specifically his new book Saving Paradise, makes the cut. Dan Brown meets Hawaii Five-0 in Bond’s thriller Saving Paradise leaving me wonder why it took me this long to find this author that I love.
There may be as many as 300,000 child soldiers, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-
47s, in more than fifty conflicts around the world. Ishmael Beah, author of A LONG WAY GONE, used to be one of them. As a member of the Human Rights Watch Children Advisory Committee, he spoke to teachers and students at Hampton High School in Hampton, New Brunswick. It was here that I first heard Beah speak about his horrific, terror-filled childhood. He lived with his family in Sierra Leone until 1991, when rebels attacked and violently destroyed his village. They raped women and girls in front of their husbands, fathers, and brothers, took young girls as sex slaves, and killed the rest of their families. When most 12-year-olds were enjoying the innocence of childhood, including me, Beah was struggling to stay alive. I thank Beah for pouring out his soul to the audience. It is proof of Beah’s theory that “…children have the resilience to outlive their sufferings, if given a chance”. Continue reading
Bucket List Publications 