“101 Inspirations For Your Journey“, by Meredith Gaston.
It wasn’t hard to decide whether this would resonate with a Journeys To Come audience! I picked up this sweet hard-cover book a fortnight ago from a shop (The Epicurean) in Red Hill, on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula (which is, I believe, close to where its author now resides). In her book’s foreword, Meredith says, “Our richest moments are when we feel pure joy buzzing within ourselves and a sense of connection to other travellers and the world around us”. The messages inside are definitely inspirational, such as “Travel makes you modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world,” (Gustave Flaubert). I also enjoy her whimsical watercolours. I’ve invited Meredith to appear in our ‘Come Fly With Me’ section in the coming weeks. I think it will be an interesting read so please keep an eye out for her story, and her other books.
“Stone Circle“, by Kate Murdoch.
Kate is a friend and I had a pleasure of going to the launch of “Stone Circle” late in 2017 in Melbourne. Her book poses the question: Is the ability to read minds a blessing or a curse? It is written in the ‘historical fantasy’ genre and is set in Italy during the Renaissance, in the 16th Century. I’m in awe of Kate’s discipline and her talent and I love hearing her (of course, wonderfully put) stories about the journey of a writer navigating the Great Unknown in the publishing world, and the massive personal-growth trajectory that has come with the process of sending a book out into the world. We’ll hear more from Kate, about her USA travels, in this Saturday’s ‘Come Fly With Me’.
“Outliers“, by Malcolm Gladwell.
One of my favourite authors of non-fiction is Malcolm Gladwell, an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and speaker. He is a staff writer at “The New Yorker” and formerly a business and science reporter at the “Washington Post”. I’ve also enjoyed his other best-sellers,”The Tipping Point” and “Blink”, and I once had the good fortune of being in his audience in San Francisco when he held court. This book, “Outliers – The Story of Success”, seeks to explain why some people succeed far more than others. For answers, the author directs us to look around these ultra-high-achieving ‘outliers’ (think: Bill Gates & Microsoft) for clues as to the reasons for their meteoric rise. Reading a Malcolm Gladwell book always changes the way I look at the world. And if you’re interested in his writing, you may like to know that Gladwell says the book that “basically gave me my view of the world” was “The Person and the Situation”, by Richard Nisbett and Lee Ross.
