WIN A BOOK: Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet by Gillian Kendall

Book Contest Update: WE HAVE A WINNER!!! Congratulations to Dan Moore (@NationalParkArt) for winning yesterday's FREE BOOK  - Bruar's Rest by Jess Smith.

WIN TODAY'S FEATURED BOOK: Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet: On a Slow Boat from Shanghai to Texas by Gillian Kendall

All you have to do to win is sign up to receive the FREE YourLifeisATrip.com newsletter, 'like' us on facebook, or become a new twitter follower, and you're automatically in the random drawing.

After accepting a job teaching English on a small engineering vessel traveling from Shanghai to Texas, Gillian Kendall embarks on a strange journey with no ports of call but exotic emotional landscapes. She is the only female aboard, surrounded by Chinese men. The cosmopolitan graduate student suddenly has to adjust to an alien world, thick with cigarette smoke, unusual sea creatures, and male sexuality. Kendall invites readers to travel with her across cultural divides as deep and mysterious as the Pacific while she explores her own culture, orientation, and heart.

Excerpt

Too shy to sit next to anyone, I sidled to the end of the nearest table, where Zhao, the chief engineer, and a few others were chewing heartily. A bowl of chicken feet graced the middle of the table, braced by several large bottles of beer and some jars of evil-looking pickles. I pointed to the central dish, saying "I would like to taste this."

Several plates and chopsticks were thrust in my face, the owners cheerfully offering me their uneaten food.

"That's okay." I bent over the communal bowl. The greasy steam made me gag. A dozen or so gray-yellow claws poked up at me. Each foot had four long, skinny toes, and each toe had a tiny, oval nail on the end. The joints, where the skin wrinkled, looked like human knuckles. I picked up the smallest foot, but it looked like the hand of a sick old lady. Shuddering, I dropped it.

–from Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet

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Gillian Kendall is a writer who divides her time between Australia and the USA. She is the editor of SOMETHING TO DECLARE: GOOD LESBIAN TRAVEL WRITING, and author of MR. DING'S CHICKEN FEET, a New York TIMES notable book of the year. Her website is www.gilliankendall.net

WIN A BOOK: Bruar's Rest by Jess Smith

Everyone loves to WIN, and YourLifeIsATrip.com wants to bring the WINNER'S smile to your face. From November 11-21, 2010, we're GIVING AWAY one of our author's books each day. All you have to do to win is sign up to receive the FREE YourLifeisATrip.com newsletter, 'like' us on facebook, or become a new twitter follower, and you're automatically in the random drawing.

Contest Update: WE HAVE A WINNER!!! Congratulations to Roger A. Ward for winning yesterday's FREE BOOK  - Tony Hillerman's Landscapes: On the Road with Chee and Leaphorn by Anne Hillerman and Don Strel.

WIN TODAY'S FEATURED BOOK: Bruar's Rest by Jess Smith

She was part of my upbringing; the Gypsy woman; a silent figure, clad in jet-black, forlorn, abandoned.

“What’s wrong with the old woman?” I asked my mother who closed her fingers tightly around my hand and answered, “Her husband never came back after the war.”

Gypsies move from common to seashore, from woodland to moors. The bearer of grievous tidings searching for the recipient with no address returned the telegram to a desk drawer and there it lay, gathering dust.  

I outgrew my childish fragility and wore another coat; a teenage garment with pocket thoughts, love buttons and soul stitching. It was then she crept into my mind.

I searched fruitlessly until a shopkeeper in a dilapidated curio shop said, “In an old people’s home,” then added, “north west coast, she’ll be long gone though.”

Perched on granite rock, jutting precariously into the Atlantic Ocean, ‘Paradise House’ dominated the skyline. She was still alive. A stiff- lipped matron instructed, “Upstairs Room 7, last door on right.”

I pulled a small stool beneath my legs and sat next to her bed. My presence startled her. “Have you seen my man? Is he home?”

With outstretched hand she felt for a dirty pink hairbrush and began brushing strands of silver hair. I touched her bony shoulder and deep inside I saw a vivacious young woman. I heard her crying in her sleep, I saw her hold an invisible lover and groan as she made love to a ghost.

It was raining; a mist had enveloped my car. I turned to stare for a few minutes up to room 7’s tiny window and promised. “With my pen I shall bring him home!”

‘BRUAR’S REST’ is my gift to the Gypsy woman. I’d love to take you on her perilous journey.

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Author's Note: For centuries Scottish gypsies were known as tinkers or tinsmiths. It refers to a time when they were skilled in the art of blacksmithing or forging tin and made their living this way. They lived in tents, caves, moorlands and mountains were secretive and seldom mixed with the settled population. My lineage is rooted to this culture, which is the whole subject of my books. To learn more about me and what drives my pen, visit www.jesssmith.co.uk

WIN A BOOK: Tony Hillerman's Landscape by Anne Hillerman and Don Strel

Everyone loves to WIN, and YourLifeIsATrip.com wants to bring the WINNER'S smile to your face. From November 11-21, 2010, we're GIVING AWAY one of our author's books each day. All you have to do to win is sign up to receive the FREE YourLifeisATrip.com newsletter, 'like' us on facebook, or become a new twitter follower, and you're automatically in the random drawing.

Contest Update: WE HAVE A WINNER!!! Congratulations to Herajeng Gustiayu for winning yesterday's FREE BOOK  - Falconer on the Edge by Rachel Dickinson.

 

WIN TODAY'S FEATURED BOOK: TONY HILLERMAN'S LANDSCAPE: On the Road with Chee and Leaphorn BY ANNE HILLERMAN AND DON STREL

Before his death in 2007, Tony Hillerman, one of America's best loved mystery writers, produced 18 novels grounded in the Native American cultures of the desert Southwest. The honest, unvarnished landscape of the Four Corners region of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado was essential to the plots and atmosphere of Hillerman's books; he knew and loved it well, and helped plan this illustrated travelogue before his passing. (An introduction and quotes from his memoir, Seldom Disappointed, acknowledge and ameliorate Tony Hillerman's absence.)

Hillerman's daughter, Anne, and her husband, photographer Strel, document their journey using Hillerman's books (and memory) as a tour guide. Along with memories of family research trips in her childhood, Anne records her impressions of the vast Four Corners region, pairing a synopsis of each book with photos of landscapes, trading posts, archaeological sites, abandoned hogans (traditional Navajo houses), and people from the Navajo, Hopi and Zuni tribes. She also provides short discussions of historical events, ceremonies, mythology, and other topics germane to the novels. Though no photograph can fully capture the immensity of that Southwestern sky, many of Strel's come close.

For Hillerman fans, this volume is a must-have.

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Anne Hillerman shares stories of her Dad in Tony Hillerman’s Landscape: On the Road with Chee and Leaphorn (HarperCollins). She is a founder of the Tony Hillerman Writers Conference in Santa Fe, N.M. www.annehillerman.com and www.wordharvest.com

WIN A BOOK: Falconer on the Edge by Rachel Dickinson

Everyone loves to WIN, and YourLifeIsATrip.com wants to bring the WINNER'S smile to your face. From November 11-21, 2010, we'll be GIVING AWAY one of our author's books each day. All you have to do to win is sign up to receive the FREE YourLifeisATrip.com newsletter, 'like' us on facebook, or become a new twitter follower, and you're automatically in the random drawing.

Contest Update: WE HAVE A WINNER!!! Congratulations to Karen Jarldane for winning yesterday's FREE BOOK  - Lost Angel Walkabout: One Traveler's Tales by Linda Ballou.

WIN TODAY'S FEATURED BOOK: Falconer on the Edge by Rachel Dickinson 

In Falconer on the Edge, Rachel Dickinson follows a hardcore falconer through a hunting season in central Wyoming and quickly finds herself immersed in a quirky sub-culture where men devote significant portions of their emotional and  physical energies to the ancient sport of hunting with birds of prey. She also discovers that the landscape of central Wyoming is being altered by natural gas drilling and exploration and that this is setting off a chain of events in the animal world that will likely spell the end of hunting for sage grouse in this part of the country. Falconry is a sport that requires persistence, stoicism, and sacrifice; in this work of narrative nonfiction, Dickinson takes us into this world and deep into the psyche of one of its most hardcore personalities. 

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Rachel Dickinson lives in Upstate New York where she writes for a variety of publications including the Atlantic, Audubon, The Christian Science Monitor, National Geographic Traveler, and Executive Traveler.  

WIN A BOOK: Lost Angel Walkabout by Linda Ballou

Everyone loves to WIN, and YourLifeIsATrip.com wants to bring the WINNER'S smile to your face. From November 11-21, 2010, we'll be GIVING AWAY one of our author's books each day. All you have to do to win is sign up to receive the FREE YourLifeisATrip.com newsletter, 'like' us on facebook, or become a new twitter follower, and you're automatically in the random drawing.

Contest Update: WE HAVE A WINNER!!! Congratulations to Elaine Ouston for winning yesterday's FREE BOOK  - The Mystery of Journeys Crowne: - An Adventure Drawing Game by K. Michael Crawford.

WIN TODAY'S FEATURED BOOK: LOST ANGEL WALKABOUT: ONE TRAVELER'S TALES BY LINDA BALLOU 

 

Lost Angel Walkabout is a spirited collection of travel narratives recounting the haps, mishaps, and serendipitous adventures that give, travel writer Linda Ballou, a sense of wonder and delight. Some of the stories like “Falling in the Footsteps of John Muir” and “Look Both Ways on Small Islands” are reflections that might make you glad you stayed home, while “River Wise” could inspire you to toss the TV clicker out the window and to explore our beautiful planet. 

All of these tales take you to special places where you share the sensual experience of being there without straining one muscle, getting altitude sickness, or tipping your canoe. This is an eclectic mix of tales filled with chills, spills, giggles and squeaks!

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Author Linda Ballou is an adventure travel-writer, based in Los Angeles. Learn more at www.LindaBallouAuthor.com

WIN A FREE BOOK: Life Is A Trip by Judith Fein

Everyone loves to WIN, and YourLifeIsATrip.com wants to bring the WINNER'S smile to your face. From November 11-21, 2010, we'll be GIVING AWAY one of our author's books each day. All you have to do to win is sign up to receive the FREE YourLifeisATrip.com newsletter, 'like' us on facebook, or become a new twitter follower, and you're automatically in the random drawing.

Contest Update: WE HAVE A WINNER!!! Congratulations to @williwyss for winning yesterday's FREE BOOK  - Morning Light by Nancy King.

WIN TODAY'S FEATURED BOOK: LIFE IS A TRIP: The transformative magic of travel by Judith Fein

Travel with author Judith Fein to l4 exotic destinations where she learned something new and surprising from other cultures. In Vietnam, she experienced forgiveness in a stark and startling way. On the island of Mog Mog in Micronesia, at a funeral, she saw how differently death can be approached and emotions can be expressed. In Turkey, it was all about service. In Guatemala, from a Maya weaver, she was humbled by a lesson in ambition. A Maori elder had a unique way of ending family discord. In Nova Scotia, it was all about life after death. The book is surprising, funny, soulful, unusual and never didactic. If you only read one travel book this year, make it LIFE IS A TRIP.

The book has been endorsed by the editor of National Geographic Traveler, the travel editor of the L.A. Times, Leon Seltzer for Psychology Today, the president of the Adventure Travel Trade Association, the screenwriter of Groundhog Day and many others. To read reviews or order the book,  go to www.JudithFein.com.  

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Judith Fein (YourLifeIsATrip.com co-founder and editor) is an award-winning travel journalist who lives to leave. In LIFE IS A TRIP, you can go with her without leaving home.  

LIFE IS A TRIP is available or can be ordered anywhere good books are sold, including the YourLifeIsATrip.com TRIP SHOP, powered by Amazon. $14.95, Spirituality and Health books. 

TOMORROW'S FREE BOOK: Digital Storytelling (Second Edition): A Creator’s Guide To Interactive Entertainment by Carolyn Handler Miller