5 Books to Quench Your Thirst for Adventure

5 great books to read in August

1. Food for the Journey: A Life in Travel by Elizabeth J. Haynes

Need an injection of inspiration?? Food for the Journey offers reality bites from Bolivia’s Ibare River, Santiago de Cuba, Cebu, Armenia and the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Haynes, a retired speech pathologist, shares her best lost-in-translation moments, a taste of eggplant stuffed with walnuts and pomegranate and her most life-affirming trip (to the ER) with nerve and verve.

From riding in the back of a pickup up the mountainous switchbacks to Lares (Peru) with a load of potatoes and gunnysacks of squirming guinea pigs to a bout of toxic delirium, Haynes knows how to grab a reader’s hand and pull you in for the ride. Whether she’s navigating the whitecaps of an angry Sea of Cortez, making first tracks in Colorado’s champagne powder or grinding up Cuba’s Gran Piedra with her sister, Mel, Haynes is an astute observer of all: landscape, history, flavours and the human condition.

She travels with her sisters, sibling-like friends and even her hairdresser, in full acceptance of her companions’ idiosyncrasies. Even when they eat crumbling egg salad sandwiches in her passenger seat. When she reflexively gives her kid sister a loving tap on the head with her kayak paddle, the tone is set. Haynes’ adventures are motivated by people and making meaningful connections, despite language barriers. Camping with Papacho in eastern Bolivia (A Tale of Two Tents) is a read-out-loud riot. From a Brazilian restaurant featuring a live Bee Gees radio request show to the emotional weight of a simple ham and cheese sandwich with fire-red peaches made by her father, this memoir is full of memorable passport stamps.

2. The Newfoundland Lunch Party: A Sisters of the Soil Novel With Recipes by Sonia Day

The Newfoundland Lunch Party is a sequel to The Mexico Lunch Party, but I accidentally skipped the guacamole and chips for cod cheeks and moose stew. Luckily, there’s no need to read sequentially as Day explains the lively connection of the “Titans,” eight women who first met at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens to witness the bloom of the Amorphophallus titanum (corpse flower) in 2006.

Grab a quilt, steep some tea. If you’ve been to Newfoundland or long to go, Day’s novel captures the romance of buying a saltbox house by the sea with a cast of characters as vibrant and colourful as the flowers that unite them. “The Sisters of the Soil” are as thick as weeds and unified by the gardening columns and books they each write. Day is a former Toronto Star gardening columnist (and the author of nine books), so the horticultural bits are fascinating and factual. She even sneaks in the true story of Jeanne Baret, who discovered bougainvillea and disguised herself as a man to join her botanist lover on a French sailboat in the 1700s.

Day’s turns of phrase are a pure delight from Rhodo’s semi-aloof cat (“a mute football of orange fluff”) to “hoses neatly coiled like sleeping snakes” to a “face like a crumpled brown bag.” On this particular gals’ reunion, Hannah makes a discovery outside Rhodo’s saltbox that sends the women into a tailspin of intrigue, obsession, danger and free pours of wine. Throughout, Newfoundland’s Bay Roberts shines (well, when it’s not socked in by fog), as do the locals, their expressions and the curious menu with recipes for Newfoundland classics like toutons, figgy duff, blueberry pudding and yes, moose stew.

Rhodo, Sonia Day’s scrappy protagonist, knows how to host the best kind of sleepover. The kind with lots of heart-to-hearts, big laughs, bags of chips and fancy wine.

3. The Astronaut Children of Dunbar Street: A Memoir by Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho

The Mandarin word for both “home” and “family” is interchangeable, and the family’s coveted connection to each other is through the “holy” rice cooker. Home, togetherness and the nourishment within are tethered to the taste of what once was. A shared meal and household.

But how do you find your place in the world when your parents are on the opposite side of it in Taiwan? “Abandoned” in Vancouver at age 12, Wiley and her three sisters are left in the care of their oldest brother who assumes responsibility for raising his siblings, navigating a new country and following in the generational footsteps of his father and grandfather in becoming a doctor. The filial piety is all-consuming and for the precocious Wiley, it’s a seesaw between regret and remorse as she floats “between launchpad and orbit.”

Astronaut families are defined as those in which one or both parents return to their country of origin to work. The impact and isolation takes its toll on every family member. In South Korea, they are known as “geese families”; elsewhere, international students are dubbed “parachute kids.” As an untethered astronaut kid, rebellion is ripe and for Wiley, her only sense of control is found in eating (or not). She’s embarrassed by her mother’s gifts of “Polio” and “Channel” knock-offs from Taiwan. She struggles with being Asian but not Asian enough.

Despite the oceans of separation, there’s still a bedrock of love. In this geopolitical bildungsroman, Wiley revisits the undertow of her childhood, stereotypes, expectations, reverence and recoil. Stuck in generation 1.5, she grapples with family traditions that are both noble and stultifying and her emergence into adulthood is a powerful reminder of human resilience and the sacrifices families make for opportunity in Canada.

4. The Healing Plate: Ayurveda for Modern Living by Ananda in the Himalayas

Ananda in the Himalayas is an arresting holistic wellness retreat overlooking the Ganges River in the Himalayan foothills of India. The sanctuary offers specialized Women’s Health programs, personalized yoga and meditation intensives, sleep-focussed and nutritional wellness journeys. The Healing Plate allows you to bring the best of Ananda into your own home and kitchen. I felt healthier just leafing through the pages. It’s the equivalent of drinking eight glasses of water, a hot yoga session and nine hours of sleep!

Naturally, I was drawn to the feel-good recipes that radiate thoughtful and conscious eating (which can be difficult when traveling). Ananda shares Ayurvedic wisdom through easy-to-digest foundational concepts and pillars. The basic elements, bio-energy philosophies, body type definitions and seven guiding themes (from energy to immunity to sleep) are integrated into over 100 rejuvenating recipes and zero-waste cooking.

The protein-packed, plant-based recipes make for a tempting line-up that quickly reminds readers of how finding balance and restoration can be as simple as eating well. My shortlist of recipes to try includes the sunshine-bright saffron oatmeal, quinoa pancakes, cilantro pesto, jewel-like corn and pomegranate salsa; and the beetroot and goat cheese ravioli. But first, I think I’ll whip up a rose cardamom latte while I contemplate the watermelon rind curry! The ingredient lists are far from daunting and the photography is nearly edible. Treat yourself to The Healing Plate and learn more about a new satiating way of feeding your soul with an Ayurvedic mindset.

5. A Better World is Possible by Meera Subramanian with Danica Novgorodoff; illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff

This is the graphic novel my teenaged, tie-dye t-shirted, eco-rebel self would have loved. At age 51, it’s even more meaningful. The simplicity of the illustrations and graphic style shouldn’t be dismissed as a lightweight read. Environmental journalist Meera Subramanian wisely collaborated with illustrator Danica Novgorodoff to share the very true story of four youth activists who attend the Global Climate Strike in New York in September 2019. The actual event was the largest mass protest for climate action in history. The experience of participating in the momentum of the Youth for Climate Action march is told by four teen activists. A Colombian-Jewish “lesbian art nerd”, Bangladesh-born New Yorker, a Chilean-Mexican and politically-minded son of Indian immigrants find friendship and empowerment as they navigate the climate crisis together. It’s a hopeful, buoying rally cry and sneakingly educational.

Told through the teens’ research and musings, Subramanian and Novgorodoff emphasize how globally intertwined we are through our resources and consumption of them. The thoughtful and frank multicultural narration adds depth as discussions revolve around alternative energy, Indigenous teachings, religion, peaceful disobedience in a non-preachy, inspiring way. The illustrations provide a compendium of today’s trending topics: eco-grief, Indigenous cosmologies, wildfires, regenerative agriculture and the importance of community relations. The takeaway? A better world is possible and the world is better because of this book as it fearlessly addresses climate change with honesty and optimism.