Marybeth Press
There are times in our lives when we all feel alone; I was at one of those place in my life when I read A Woman's World. What wonderful therapy! I came away from the book still feeling alone, but feeling my strength in being a woman alone--and loving it. And yet I also came away form the book feeling a special connection to the rest of my gender. These stories were or experiences I've had, feelings I've known but not quite known how to express, smiles I've shared, tears I've cried. sometimes in my frenetic pace of my everyday (male-dominated) world, I lose that part of me that is so uniquely "woman", A Woman's World reawakened that wonderful place inside of me--and reminded me that I share it with every other woman out there. A Woman's World made me feel good about being a woman. The stories made me yearn for those days back in the 1980's in India when we were so free in spirit...we would go anywhere, do anything, and learn about the world and ourselves every single day. Travelers Tales: A Woman's World is a treasure--a collection of tables on why women have taken off, where they've gone, and what, along the way, most surprising, they've learned about themselves. With the convincing research about the plummeting self-esteem of young women, I felt desperate to find literature that shows women as independent and adventurous. A Woman's World has become a prominent part of my 'Reviving Ophelia' unit in my high school English classes--that is, if I can get it away from my own daughter first. The tales provide crisp, emotive experiences to be used as inspiring models of good literature and writing. Most importantly, the students in my classroom love these stories! Travelers Tales: A Woman's World has really stayed with me. I've thought of it often, given it to several of my friends and traveled to Africa with the book by my side in the nine months since I first read it. "This was more than a book about travel for me. It was book about living, about feeling, about learning, about loving." Students from my writing classes--in autobiography, journalism and composition--rank Travelers Tales: A Woman's World high on our reading list. The marvelous selections from Pam Houston, Ann Jones, and others exemplify the journey into oneself that travel to foreign places requires. I read your story, "The End of the Road" in A Woman's World, and it had me mentally preparing what I would be packing into a bag for such a trip, I loved it so much! Then I flipped back to the start and read the first few stories, getting more and more 'addicted' with the book. It's wonderful to be able to relate with the women in the stories, yourself included. Not just from having traveled alone, etc., but in the way that they think, how things effect them...It's almost like I can see myself in them, and I find myself thinking, "Hey, if I'm so similar to them, and they've done so well, then I DO have something great worth knowing about myself"
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A Woman's World: Reviews
