The Hangman’s Daughter and The Dark Monk
Reviewed by ExperiencePlus! traveler Jeff Berger The Hangman’s Daughter and the sequel The Dark Monk, originally published in German to wide acclaim, were written by Oliver Pötzsch, the descendent of a ...
Reviews
Explore the history and geography of Tuscany and the Greek Islands. Learn about the cuisines of Europe, the wealth of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and more. By visiting our Reading Room collection of books, films and essays, you can experience these places and historic stories anytime, on the road or at home. Our Reading Room says a lot about ExperiencePlus! – and our customers. The folks who ride with us customers include some of the most interesting people on the planet. They are inquisitive, intelligent, and love to travel. When they are not traveling they enjoy reading about traveling. Our book reviews include travel narratives, history, geography, food, and modern best sellers. As we say, the next best thing to traveling – is reading about travel! So, click away and send us any good books or films you may have read or seen recently. We always value your input.
The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
Edmund de Waal’s The Hare With Amber Eyes explores culture, history, geography, politics, war, art, relationships, and family. Universal themes made unique by the methods used to bind them allFull Story
(Irish) Snacks and a Movie
Looking for an opportunity to get some Irish culture, to savor the flavor and sound of traditional food and music of the Emerald Isle? Go ahead and rent a movie ...
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
In Wild, Cheryl Strayed recounts her solo 1995 1,100 mile journey along the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert in California to the Washington border. The story is made ...
Machiavelli By Ross King
Reviewed by ExperiencePlus! traveler Bill Giovinazzo. When our ExperiencePlus! bike tour passed through Florence I happened to notice the statue of Niccolo Machiavelli outside of the Uffizi Museum. He had the ...
Women of the Way: Embracing the Camino
by Jane V. Blanchard The Camino de Santiago has captured the imagination of many an author, from Paulo Coelho & James Michener to Shirley MaClaine. In 2011, Jane Blanchard, a technical ...
The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel
Ayla is Back! Jean M. Auel’s Earth’s Children series introduced us to one of the original beautiful, strong, and self-sufficient female protagonist back in 1980 and in this last installment ...
Books to Help Teach Children Bicycle Safety
Read Aloud Books Help Teach Bicycle Safety to Children I’ve been having a ton of fun teaching kids bicycle safety the last three years. In the local Safe Routes to School ...
The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior
by Paul Strathren. Reviewed by ExperiencePlus! traveler Bill Giovinazzo. When we rode across Italy we cycled over roads and through towns that were thousands of years old, areas that have seen ...
Congratulations, Shutterbugs!
Our photo contest may be over, but the memories from all your shared photos remain! Thanks to all who participated and submitted wonderful photos. It was difficult to narrow down, ...
The Tigress of Forlí
The Tigress of Forlì: Renaissance Italy’s most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de’ Medici By Elizabeth Lev, 2011 Review by Paola Malpezzi Price I grew up hearing the story of ...
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Cave of Forgotten Dreams offers you a front row seat to explore the otherwise inaccessible paintings of the Chauvet cave in southern France. Directed and narrated by Werner Herzog and ...
Movie Review: The Way
Movie Review: The Way Directed by Emilio Estevez Tom, a doctor from California, was living a comfortable life on his own until he received a phone call that would ...
Movie Review: Evita
Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s hit musical isn’t just on Broadway. This is no news flash, as Evita the film came out in 1996, but we’d like to remind you that if ...
Iberia by James Michener
Reviewed by ExperiencePlus! traveler Bill Giovinazzo During our last trip with ExperiencePlus, my son and I were having dinner when he ordered Coquilles St. Jacques. As we ate our dinner I ...
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
Reviewed by Monica Malpezzi Price. Anybody who was gripped by The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown will enjoy this well-researched, historical novel by British author Kate Mosse. While there are ...
The Leopard by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa
Reviewed by ExperiencePlus! Traveler and regular contributor to the Rambler Newsletter, Bill Giovinazzo. In May of 1860 one thousand “Garibaldini”, or Redshirts, sailed from Genoa to Marsala to free the idyllic ...
The Italians by Luigi Barzini
Reviewed by ExperiencePlus! Traveler Bill Giovinazzo. I know there is a God. I know that he/she is good, kind, and loving. There is no doubt in my mind about this fact. ...
Brunelleschi’s Dome by Ross King
Reviewed by ExperiencePlus! Customer Bill Giovanazzo. She lay there, basking in the sun of a Tuscan August. Her beauty is beyond any of her kind. She is the queen of the ...
A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
Reviewed by ExperiencePlus! Customer Bill Giovanazzo Italy, Italia, is unique in the world. From the voluptuous bosom of the Tuscan hills to the fishing towns on Apulia’s Adriatic coast, the culture ...
Che Guevara and the Mountain of Silver by Anne Mustoe
Che Guevara and the Mountain of Silver: By Bicycle and Train through South America by Anne Mustoe Reviewed by Monica Malpezzi Price While you don’t usually associate an English headmistresses with ...
Into Thick Air: Biking to the Bellybutton of Six Continents
by Jim Maluso – Reviewed by Monica Malpezzi Price In “Into Thick Air: Biking to the Bellybutton of Six Continents,” author Jim Maluso sets himself up as an anti-hero who, instead ...
The Lost Cyclist by David V. Herlihy
The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and His Mysterious Disappearance by David V. Herlihy It’s the late 1800s and the “safety bicycle” has just been introduced in the USA. The age ...
Would You Like a Western Movie with that Spaghetti?
What do Clint Eastwood, Andalucia in southern Spain, the Italian island of Sardinia and Italian composer Ennio Morricone have in common? Surely you’ve heard of “spaghetti westerns” – “A Fistful ...
Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac
Short, simple, amusing, wistful and at times leaving you with the urge to jump on your bike, the Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac is exactly what one might expect from a ...
Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from ...
Rick Price, ExperiencePlus! founder, reviews Richard Louv’s, Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder (first published in 2005, updated and expanded in 2008; Algonquin Books of ...
Pedaling Revolution Book Review
by Jeff Mapes Reviewed by Rick Price Ph.D. The author of Pedaling Revolution, Jeff Mapes, covers politics for the Portland Oregonian, is a blogger, a bicycle commuter, and by virtue of having ...
The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll
H. G. Wells, (First published 1896) The «golden age » of the bicycle spanned the decade of the 1890s, the capstone of the Victorian era and the decade that preceded the ...
Monte Cassino: The Story of the Hardest-Fought Battle of ...
Monte Cassino: The Story of the Hardest-fought Battle of World War Two by Matthew Parker Reviewed by ...
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 ...
Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant
The author of The Birth of Venus (see my review here) and In the Company of the Courtesan (see my review here), has set the story of her third novel ...
The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt Reviewed by ...
The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt, New York: Penguin, 2005 A Review by Paola Malpezzi Price “To be Venetian and to know how to live in Venice is an ...
The Essential Mediterranean
The Essential Mediterranean How Regional Cooks Transform Key Ingredients into the World’s Favorite Cuisines "Late in ...
War in Val d’Orcia by Iris Origo
War in Val d’Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944 by Iris Origo Reviewed by Rick Price, Ph.D. In southern Tuscany, just south of Siena, is the Valley of the Orcia River, the ...
On Italian Politics, Landscapes and Two Movies about the Po ...
On Italian Politics, Landscapes and Two Movies about the Po Valley The Tree of Wooden Clogs (L’Albero ...
Graham Greene’s “The Third Man” Movie ...
Movie Review The Third Man ...
The Venetian Empire – by Jan Morris
The Venetian Empire by Jan Morris Reviewed by Rick Price, Ph.D. Reading for your Greece, Bike, Walk, and Cruise Trip I enjoy popular history books by good travel writers and Jan Morris qualifies. ...
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 ...
Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry’s ...
Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry’s Extraordinary Ride, by Peter Zheutlin Peter Zheutlin, Annie Londonderry’s great-great ...
“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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Paris, by Émile Zola (1898)
Paris, by Émile Zola (1898) Émile Zola was one of France’s most astute social critics at the ...
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Book Reviews: Who Killed the Electric Car? "Who Killed the Electric Car?" is a documentary on the bizarre tale of electric vehicles in the last decade that had me squirming ...
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky Before refrigeration, before Louis Pasteur’s work gave us reliable techniques ...
Guidebooks to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”0″ width=”100%” summary=”" border=”0″> Bradt Guidebooks or The Lonely Planet Guide to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania? I’ve ...
Around the World in 80 Days
A Review of Jules Verne’s book, Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), and a brief mention of Michael Todd’s film of the same title (1956, Michael Anderson, Director) It took ...
Imagining History: Imagining Argentina & Chile
Imagining History: Imagining Argentina & Chile This list of three movies and one just-published novel that are about as ...
An Evening with Al Gore and Ed Abbey in Moab, Utah
An Evening with Al Gore and Ed Abbey in Moab, Utah by Rick Price “Just because it never happened doesn’t ...
Book Review: The Places in Between by Rory Stewart
Book Review: The Places in Between by Rory Stewart Originally published in London by Picador, 2004 US Paperback edition Harcourt, ...
Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth: The ...
Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth: The Environmental Ethic versus the Big Business Ethic A documentary film with Al Gore, ...
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey "A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourist can in ...
The Delights of Delicate Eating by Elizabeth Robins ...
The Delights of Delicate Eating by Elizabeth Robins Pennell It’s not likely that you’ve heard of Elizabeth Robins Pennell ...
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. ...
The Aran Islands by John M. Synge
The Aran Islands by John M. Synge The Aran Islands by John Millington Synge At the very end of the ...
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 ...
My Life on Two Wheels
My Life on Two Wheels My Life on Two Wheels By Clifford L. Graves ...
Tour Leader Christina Taioli publishes her second book ...
Tour Leader Christina Taioli publishes her second book – Rio ExperiencePlus! Tour leader Cristina Taioli has just published her ...
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First ...
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ...
Three Italian Flicks to Warm Your Heart
Italy: Three Italian Movies to Warm Your Heart We spent at least a part of our winter catching up on or viewing again after twenty five years, ...
The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton It is true confession time: I don’t really like most travel ...
A Passion for Piedmont: Italy’s Most Glorious ...
A Passion for Piedmont: Italy’s Most Glorious Regional Table by Matt Kramer (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1997) ...
Peter Pezzelli, Home to Italy (New York: Kensington ...
Peter Pezzelli, Home to Italy (New York: Kensington Books, 2004) Peter Pezzelli’s first novel is a delightful tale of ...
Al Young, Shifting Gears, My Global Bike Odyssey ...
Al Young, Shifting Gears, My Global Bike Odyssey (including an interview with the author) Shifting Gears: My Global Bike Odyssey by Al Young Trafford Publishing, Victoria, 2005 (See the end of the review ...
Read Any Good Books Lately?
Read Any Good Books Lately? We usually try to make sure our book reviews have at least something to do with cycling, or hiking, or the places we visit and ...
Heft on Wheels: A Field Guide to Doing a 180 by ...
Heft on Wheels: A Field Guide to Doing a 180 by Mike Magnuson Heft on Wheels makes no secret ...
Bicycle: the History by David V. Herlihy
Bicycle: the History by David V. Herlihy (Yale University Press, 2004) David Herlihy and Yale University Press have produced an elegant and striking book on the history of the bicycle. Almost ...
Grow with the Flow: Powerful New Paths to Effective ...
Grow with the Flow: Powerful New Paths to Effective Intelligence for Your Child by David Cantrell, Ph.D. Dave Cantrell ...
Introducing Salt and Garlic
Introducing Salt and Garlic Introducing Salt & Garlic I just had to comment on the role of salt and garlic in Mediterranean cuisine when Rich asked to review Mark Kurlansky’s book Salt, ...
2004 Race DVD’s
2004 Race DVD’s Everyone who’s ever spent time riding the rollers or a stationary trainer knows that the scenery indoors gets pretty boring. So a good DVD collection is the indoor ...
Giving Good Weight: Unmasking Food Writer John ...
Giving Good Weight: Unmasking Food Writer John McPhee My all time favorite food essayist is John McPhee. This may come as a surprise, mainly because McPhee writes about ...
2005 Race Companion by Bob Roll and Dan Koeppel
2005 Race Companion by Bob Roll and Dan Koeppel A year ago, we reviewed the first edition of this ...
Pride of Carthage, A Novel of Hannibal by David ...
Pride of Carthage, A Novel of Hannibal by David Anthony Durham Public policy generally changes slowly and reluctantly. Major ...
Tour Leader Cristina Taioli publishes her travel essay: ...
Tour Leader Cristina Taioli publishes her travel essay: "Una Romagnola sul Kilimangiaro" Most ExperiencePlus! tour leaders work only part ...
Toucan Guides Waterproof Map of Costa Rica
Toucan Guides Waterproof Map of Costa Rica Ray Krueger-Koplin just published the 2005 version of his Toucan Guides Map ...
The Race – by Dave Shields
The Race – by Dave Shields Just as a great racer excels in some aspects of our sport while falling short in others, Dave Shields displays both strengths and weaknesses in ...
The Broker by John Grisham
The Broker by John Grisham In the author’s notes in The Broker John Grisham admits he has a high-tech ...
Landscapes of Cycling by Graham Watson
Landscapes of Cycling by Graham Watson If you go to see The Race in person, you will see Graham ...
Food and Culture in Europe – Part II
Food and Culture in Europe – Part II The Culture of the Fork – A brief history of food ...
Food and Culture in Europe, Part I
Food and Culture in Europe, Part I My first meal with Paola’s family in Italy was memorable. When Paola ...
Too Much Tuscan Sun (Confessions of a Chianti Tour ...
Too Much Tuscan Sun (Confessions of a Chianti Tour Guide) by Dario Castagno Anyone with a foot in ...
Paris-Roubaix 2001 DVD (World Cycling Productions, 2001)
Paris-Roubaix 2001 DVD (World Cycling Productions, 2001) Whether you’re a novice or experienced bicycle racing fan, and whether ...
The Maigret Detective Series: Novels and Murder ...
The Maigret Detective Series: Novels and Murder Mysteries by Simenon Alas, I hadn’t looked at Simenon in almost thirty years until I picked him up again last month (in English this ...
Beyond Lance
Beyond Lance Though I may not be Lance Armstrong’s number one fan, I’m up there. I’ve followed his career ...
The Giro d’Italia (Coppi Versus Bartali at the …
The Giro d’Italia (Coppi Versus Bartali at the 1949 Tour of Italy) by Dino Buzzati When I ...
The Road Within, edited by Sean O’Reilly, ...
The Road Within, edited by Sean O’Reilly, James O’Reilly, and Tim O’Reilly ...
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley First published in 1818, the story of how Frankenstein came to be written is as ...
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant I will start with a confession: I did not read The Da ...
The Tour de France Companion by Bob Roll
The Tour de France Companion by Bob Roll Bob Roll’s Nuts, Bolts and Spokes on the famous Tour This is ...
A Guide’s Guide to the Best Travel Guide Books
A Guide’s Guide to the Best Travel Guide Books As I write this in April 2004, I’ve just returned ...
The DaVinci Code/ Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
The DaVinci Code/ Angels and Demons by Dan Brown How could I resist all the hype of a New ...
Best American Travel Writing, 2003
Best American Travel Writing, 2003 My favorite collection of travel essays is now available in the 2003 edition. The ...
Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong
Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong Five-time Race winner Lance Armstong’s first book, It’s Not About the Bike bore ...
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee (Atheneum, 1969) Moment of War: A Memoir of the Spanish Civil War ...
Pelle the Conqueror/ Smilla’s Sense of Snow/ ...
Pelle the Conqueror/ Smilla’s Sense of Snow/Babette’s Feast Pelle the Conqueror by Martin Anderson Nexö (Fjord Press, first printed 1906) ...
Race Book Reviews
Race Book Reviews We hope you’ll be able to join us in France next summer for the 101st anniversary ...
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 ...
A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica/Naturalists Guide to ...
A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica/Naturalists Guide to Costa Rica A Guide to the Birds of Costa ...
Galileo’s Daughter: A Drama of Science, Faith and ...
Galileo’s Daughter: A Drama of Science, Faith and Love by Dava Sobel I read this fascinating book during the ...
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 ...
Travel Photography: A Selection of Books & Resources
Travel Photography: A Selection of Books & Resources Winter comes to the Colorado Front Range sometime in November. For ...
The Words of Bernfrieda, A Chronicle of Hauteville ...
The Words of Bernfrieda, A Chronicle of Hauteville by Gabriella Brooke NOTE: For those of you traveling with us ...
House of Niccolo; by Dorothy Dunnet
House of Niccoló by Dorothy Dunnet I have a friend who was so taken with Dorothy Dunnett’s eight volume ...
It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to ...
It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong Anyone who makes the long and difficult journey to the winner’s podium at The Race has a story ...
Famine by Liam O’Flaherty
Famine by Liam O’Flaherty Liam O’Flaherty was born on Inishmoor, largest of the Aran Islands off the coast ...
Cycling Past 50 by Joe Friel
Read more about Joe Friel and his personal training business at Ultrafit.com. (Note: Have a look at this review and buy this book for yourself or your cycling companions; it would ...
Clear Waters Rising, A Mountain Walk Across Europe ...
Clear Waters Rising, A Mountain Walk Across Europe by Nicholas Crane "The Bear Went Over The Mountain " (tune: For ...
The Best American Travel Writing, 2000, 2001, 2002
The Best American Travel Writing, 2000, 2001, 2002 Each year a "guest" editor reviews and selects the "best" travel ...
Granite Island: A Portrait of Corsica by Dorothy ...
Granite Island: A Portrait of Corsica by Dorothy Carrington Carrington’s work is only a generation old, but much of ...
Attila: King of the Huns – the Man and the ...
Attila: King of the Huns – the Man and the Myth – by Patrick Howarth If you have the ...
Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnick
Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnick New York Times Notable Book of 2000 & New York Public Library Selection ...
Love and War in the Apennines by Eric Newby
Love and War in the Apennines by Eric Newby There is no scarcity of personal memoirs of World War ...
Provence by Lawrence Durrell
Provence by Lawrence Durrell Lawrence Durrell belongs to a group of travel writers who go back to the British ...
Songbirds, Truffles, and Wolves (An American Naturalist ...
Songbirds, Truffles, and Wolves (An American Naturalist in Italy) by Gary Paul Nabhan Colin Fletcher, one of the great ...
To the Ends of the Earth by Paul Theroux
To the Ends of the Earth by Paul Theroux One of my favorite things about airports is visiting their ...
Timeline by Michael Crichton
Timeline by Michael Crichton I first visited Costa Rica in March of 1993 and I did so by bicycle. ...
Off the Road: A Modern Day Walk Down the Pilgrim’s ...
Off the Road: A Modern Day Walk Down the Pilgrim’s Route into Spain by Jack Hitt Off the Road ...
The Race
by David Shields – reviewed by Rick Price I think I reached chapter seven before I realized that I was reading a novel, and not a biography of a Tour de ...
