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10 Most Influential Spiritual Books Of The Past 50 Years

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10 Most Influential Spiritual Books Of The Past 50 Years

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We usually talk about our physical journeys, but there are plenty of spiritual adventures worth taking as well.

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My own spiritual journey began when I picked up a copy of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. It wasn’t the first “New Age” book I had read, but for the first time, I felt open to receiving the guidance within those pages.

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Book Review: The Geography Of Bliss

Book Review: The Geography Of Bliss

First things first. I didn??™t actually read The Geography of Bliss.

I wanted to, and I wanted to like it; I really did. The simplicity and crisp color of the cover drew me in when I first saw it in the bookstore, as did the author??™s premise.

He would spend a year traveling to ten countries in search of something that was, for him, as elusive as the Fountain of Youth: happiness.

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Book Review: Smiling At The World

Book Review:  Smiling At The World

Joyce Majors has accomplished one of the things I??™ve been dreaming about my whole life (well, two if you count the whole writing a book thing).

This intrepid woman rented her house, quit her job and took off for a year of volunteer tourism around the world.

Majors’ travels provided a much-needed break from the rigors of ???real life??? and eventually provided fodder for her book Smiling at the World, which chronicles her year abroad and the experiences she encountered in her search for adventure and love.

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The 50 Greatest Travel Books Of All Time

The 50 Greatest Travel Books Of All Time

With a book in hand, travel becomes a two-fold adventure. Not only are you personally experiencing a new culture - you are simultaneously seeing it through the eyes of another, during a different period in time.

Reading is a great form of entertainment and inspiration. However, for aspiring travel writers, it also serves as a necessary tool to learning the craft of writing. Books become your teachers, and who better to learn from than the legends of literature?

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Book Review: Smile When You?re Lying

Book Review: Smile When You?re Lying

Note: Read to the end for your chance at a fabulous prize!

Maybe it??™s because I??™m female. Or maybe it??™s because I??™m a prude, or, who knows what it is, but I always find it troubling when sex tourism gets treated more with irony than outrage.

Gonzo travel guys seem to visit these places and merely raise an ironic eyebrow over their tourist priced beer while not being particularly bothered one way or the other about the fate of underaged prostitutes or women who make money by writing banners with markers stuffed in ??¦ oh, you get it.

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Book Review: Three Cups of Tea

Book Review: Three Cups of Tea

The return home rarely transports the traveler back to the place where his journey first began. To travel full-circle would entail the total absence of a journey. It would be the result of never venturing anywhere new.

The essence of a journey is this strange process of return??”where one travels beyond the expected destination and learns to embrace change; its strange faces and cultures and unspoken encounters with fate.

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9 Things I Learned About Travel Writing At Book Passage

9 Things I Learned About Travel Writing At Book Passage

In August 2007, travel journalist Eva Holland attended the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference in Corte Madera, CA. In this article, Eva shares practical tips dished out by the professional Book Passage faculty of travel writers and editors.

Book Passage was a blast.

After four full days of workshops and discussion panels, and four late nights of informal schmoozing, I came away with some great advice, some new friends, and a serious cumulative hangover.

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