The Blind Masseuse: A Traveler's Memoir from Costa Rica to Cambodia
Alden Jones
(Author)
Description
Through personal journeys both interior and across the globe, Alden Jones investigates what motivates us to travel abroad in search of the unfamiliar. By way of explorations to Costa Rica, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Burma, Cambodia, Egypt, and around the world on a ship, Jones chronicles her experience as a young American traveler while pondering her role as an outsider in the cultures she temporarily inhabits. Her wanderlust fuels a strong, high-adventure story and, much in the vein of classic travel literature, Jones's picaresque tale of personal evolution informs her own transitions, rites of passage, and understandings of her place as a citizen of the world. With sharp insight and stylish prose, Jones asks: Is there a right or wrong way to travel? The Blind Masseuse concludes that there is, but that it's not always black and white.
Product Details
Price
$24.95
$23.20
Publisher
University of Wisconsin Press
Publish Date
November 15, 2013
Pages
192
Dimensions
5.86 X 8.49 X 0.69 inches | 0.75 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780299295707
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About the Author
Alden Jones has lived, worked, and traveled in over forty countries, including as a WorldTeach volunteer in Costa Rica, a program director in Cuba, and a professor on Semester at Sea. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Time Out New York, Post Road, The Barcelona Review, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, and The Best American Travel Writing. She lives in Boston.
Reviews
"Alden Jones is something of a 'Prodigal Daughter, ' and she has come home from her long travels to tell us the stories from her own life and education. We both delight and learn from her wisdom and her tales of nine places in the world."--Brian Bouldrey, author of Honorable Bandit: A Walk across Corsica
"Alden Jones's refreshing humor, young perspective, and informed cultural awareness make The Blind Masseuse stand out from other travel memoirs. This is a smart and entertaining read."--Lucy Bledsoe, author of The Big Bang Symphony
"Jones takes us straight to the heart and to the resonating pulse of exotic pin dots most of us never have the nerve to explore. In writing both lyric and colloquial, she captures the voices that emerge in each landscape and setting. Her journeys are examined with a growing self-knowledge and a delicious sense of humor. The Blind Masseuse is an expedition into the interior life of a smart, engaging American woman who makes us feel at home no matter how far from home she takes us."--Maria Flook, author of Invisible Eden
"Jones celebrates the impulse to wander and recognizes the value in savoring vagabondage for the gift it ultimately is. An engaging travel memoir. "--Kirkus Reviews
"Smart, witty, and well traveled, Alden Jones has given us a beautifully written book that honors the wandering spirit in all of us. Take this journey with her and return newly alive to the pleasure of moving through the world."--Ana Menéndez, author of Adios, Happy Homeland!
"Unlike most travel memoirs, The Blind Masseuse is thoughtful and literate, leaving you with much to think about."--A Traveler's Library
"A thoughtful meditation on the conflicting roles of a traveler."--Shelf Awareness
"It's smart and thoughtful, but also Jones is cackle-for-days hilarious and the book is a page-turner from second one, when she's out walking in the dark in her village and bumps into a cow. Please, everyone, read this book!"--Huffington Post
"Alden Jones's refreshing humor, young perspective, and informed cultural awareness make The Blind Masseuse stand out from other travel memoirs. This is a smart and entertaining read."--Lucy Bledsoe, author of The Big Bang Symphony
"Jones takes us straight to the heart and to the resonating pulse of exotic pin dots most of us never have the nerve to explore. In writing both lyric and colloquial, she captures the voices that emerge in each landscape and setting. Her journeys are examined with a growing self-knowledge and a delicious sense of humor. The Blind Masseuse is an expedition into the interior life of a smart, engaging American woman who makes us feel at home no matter how far from home she takes us."--Maria Flook, author of Invisible Eden
"Jones celebrates the impulse to wander and recognizes the value in savoring vagabondage for the gift it ultimately is. An engaging travel memoir. "--Kirkus Reviews
"Smart, witty, and well traveled, Alden Jones has given us a beautifully written book that honors the wandering spirit in all of us. Take this journey with her and return newly alive to the pleasure of moving through the world."--Ana Menéndez, author of Adios, Happy Homeland!
"Unlike most travel memoirs, The Blind Masseuse is thoughtful and literate, leaving you with much to think about."--A Traveler's Library
"A thoughtful meditation on the conflicting roles of a traveler."--Shelf Awareness
"It's smart and thoughtful, but also Jones is cackle-for-days hilarious and the book is a page-turner from second one, when she's out walking in the dark in her village and bumps into a cow. Please, everyone, read this book!"--Huffington Post
