Journey to the Joie de Vivre: The Lessons to be Found on the road (If We Look for Them)

Sail away on another cargo ship adventure with Homer, this time to Europe - steaming in and out of exotic ports in Spain, Malta, Italy and France, with plenty of land-based excitement in between. Destination: the joie de vivre - from the heavenly taste of a seafood ravioli on the Ligurian coast to the silky perfection of Michelangelo sculptures; from a tiny Swiss Alpine village where nobody ever goes, to the heart-piercing strains of an 18th-century cello in Paris; from the barren, blood-soaked sands of Omaha Beach on D-Day to a house party in a Norman Ch teau. This is a travel memoir with a purpose and loaded with the surprise of the unexpected and the delight in the people and places met that make for a richly colorful armchair travel read.

Sandra Shaw Homer has lived in Costa Rica for 26 years where she has taught languages and worked as a translator and environmental activist. Her writing has appeared regularly in the English-language weekly The Tico Times and in several literary and travel journals, as well as on a few websites, notably Allyson Latta: Memories into Story and her own blog Writing from the Heart. Her previous travel memoir, Letters from the Pacific, won a very favorable Kirkus review.