A Suitcase Full of Boomerangs

A Suitcase Full of Boomerangs is essentially a romp around the Republic of Ireland. Tiny boomerangs are bequeathed to colourful characters encountered throughout the three-week round trip.

Narrated in the first person, the protagonist and two of her sisters manage to have a ball as they traverse the width and breadth of Ireland in a big black jeep filled with suitcases full of boomerangs. This book of travel laughs, mishaps and adventures is a light-hearted, feel-good read, intended to whisk the armchair traveller far away to another time and place – the magic that will always be Ireland.

A Suitcase Full of Koalas

A Suitcase Full of Koalas is a modern, edgy travel book set to test your wits and memory for detail. Gallivanting around London and somewhere distinctly south of the great capital in a sleepy seaside village, the author finds herself handing out tiny furry koalas to the English, to the Polish, to the Italians, in fact to anyone who cares to accept the little fellas as a gift from Australia. In her moochings over a month, she manages to meet a myriad of characters from all walks of life who practically jump off the pavements, à la Mary Poppins and Bert, and into the book.

This is a book about life and living – about the human condition and quest for feathering one’s own nest. As John Donne observed, ‘No man is an island’, but sometimes we yearn to embrace solitude and sit with ourselves and a good book. A Suitcase Full of Koalas will inevitably tickle your fancy and have you laughing on every other page. But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?

A Suitcase Full of Olive Branches

Would it really be out of the question for the coach to make a slight diversion? We heard that this tour was headed for the Northern Lights. That’s why we took it, but now we can’t seem to find those Northern Lights anywhere on the itinerary. Any idea why that would be the case? Now you are curious about this book, right? Let me enlighten you. This is a book about Italy and her beautiful northern lakes.

While travelling on a tour coach on a round trip from Milan, tiny olive branches are handed out to perfect strangers in an effort to let the Italians know that their country is not considered number one in the world in terms of World Heritage and Culture for nothing.

Above the Circle

What would you do if you knew that you had been given a second chance to sail away from life’s safe harbour? Each of us has dreams of doing something that takes us out of our comfort zone but few of us take the plunge and actually do it.

In this book Mervyn Smith describes a point in his life when he was facing the question of his own mortality as he recovered from a serious life-saving surgery. This is the story of how he responded to that challenge and followed a life-long dream to ride a motorcycle from his Shropshire home to a destination way above the Arctic Circle and who he did it for.

Read what brought him to that decision, what difficulties he overcame to pursue his dream and the adventures he had on the journey riding through the hottest European summer on record. This book will inspire you, challenge you and hopefully motivate you to realise that everyone has a skill set unique to them which, with faith, imagination, and creativity, can be released. And that age is never a barrier to doing something extra ordinary.

Algarve Travel Guide: 54 Cities/Towns/Villages

One of the largest tour guides for the Algarve (Southern Portugal) covering 54 Cities/Towns/Villages. Find hidden gems and beach hideaways you never knew existed. Money saving tips before booking your holiday. Festivals, fairs, events for the each month, market and flea market dates, golfing courses, camping sites, attractions, zoos and waterparks.
Packed full of useful and helpful advice on almost any subject, easy food translation guide including eating out and other useful phrases, conversion charts, driving information with distance chart to help plan your days out. Airport information as well as clock change times.
Interesting facts that will leave you amazed, a brief history of how the Algarve was formed. At last, a guide book you won't want to put down.

Angling Around Ireland

The fly line hisses as it shoots through the rings, the salt-laden north wind catching it as it touches the waves. The angler, hunched against the elements, pulls in the slack, and waits for the line and flies to sink before beginning a jerky retrieve. Halfway back the line stops, then goes slack again. A muffled curse is lost to the breeze. That’s the second one to come short today. Three casts later a sharp tug is accompanied by a swirl amid the white topped waves. That one is on!

Authentic Church

If you had a blank sheet of paper and were going to describe what church should look like, what would you include? Why has the make-up, of what we generally understand to be church, diverged so significantly from the kinds of people that Jesus hung out with? For very few of them would easily fit into most churches today. This book is an attempt to consider this and whether or not the Anglican parish system still has anything to offer by way of a way forwards as the numbers of those attending church in this country still continue to decline. This book attempts to describe our experience as members of St Paul’s Church here in Cambridge, as the theology that underlies it emerged in our midst on our journey together and as it is summarised so succinctly by Luke in Acts chapter 2 verse 42.

Far From Worries

A couple of years ago, the author moved next door to the King of Thailand working as an editor of an online magazine published in Hua Hin, a seaside town. At the time, the king lived there permanently in his summer palace known in Thai as the Klang Kangnon palace, which delightfully translates as ‘Far from Worries’. The book is a chronicle of the author’s year there, but in a larger sense, it is a portrait of contemporary Thailand; part memoir, part history and part travel book.

From London To LA

There are road trips and then there are road trips.

Nearly 2,500 miles east to west across one of the biggest countries in the world along one of the most famous roads in the world firmly puts Route 66 in the ‘you really need to do this’ category.

From London To LA is much more than just a travelogue. Not just a commentary of the journey itself, it also explores the history of places visited along the way as two blokes from London discover the big cities, the small towns, the real wild west and some really quite bizarre curios that couldn’t belong anywhere else other than along Route 66.

Full of information, observations and British humour, From London To LA is a must-read for anyone who is interested in travel, history, geography, Americana and, of course, the Mother Road herself.

Or if you just want a jolly good read…

From Navy Blue Knickers to the Driving Test

This book required a lifetime of experience and sixteen years to write. Mind you, there was an eight-year gap in the middle when the author had to return to full-time, salaried employment. The chapters are presented alphabetically, so in theory it is possible to take any chapter, and read it in its own right. Once a reader has read all twenty-six chapters, he or she will have a sum of all the parts: a completed ‘jigsaw’ of Hal T. Strapel’s story. Truth or fiction? Let the reader decide.

Jane C.:

“In ‘Turning Thai’, I think a very vivid picture of Thailand is presented — it all sounded very exotic to me sitting in dull old middle England. Lots of well-described local colour and all fluently articulated. The author met up with some colourful characters and gives an honest appraisal of how they affected him as a traveller in uncharted territory. There is definitely an eye for detail and the sights, sounds and smells leap off the page. I had a good laugh at the cockroach episode, which sounds very callous of me, but it resonated with me as I had a similar sort of experience in Sicily with a very large spider.”

John H.:

“I found ‘Bilious Belligerent Bowels’ highly entertaining, particularly when Hal was describing the attentions of the nurse and her colleagues.

Charlie H.:

“I found ‘Queenish Quirks’ an intriguing and easy read that connects cultures in a relatable way.”

Lee F.:

“I enjoyed reading ‘Lust for Lingerie’. It sounds voyeuristic in itself! As a man who spent his working life in ladies knickers I can see the author is knowledgeable!”

Johnny B.:

Greetings from Morocco

The collection of short stories gives the reader an insight into the Arab world with all its peculiarities and attractions. The author found the themes of the stories on her journeys in Morocco in the period from 2013 to 2018. In her book, she managed to perfectly capture the atmosphere of the various places she visited, as well as the types of people she met. Thus, the reader can get to know the crowd in a big city with its hidden places, as well as the endless and powerful Sahara desert and its inhabitants. Witty stories that are easy to read encourage the reader to think about the differences between the two cultures, about modern way of life in the Western world and his comparison with Arabic world.

Pavla Gambiraza

This is a story of life reflected in an amazing mosaic of colourful experiences. It is hard to say anything about what these pages hold without the risk of revealing too much and ruining the surprise. This book is not only about that surreal African country. It is about the warmth of human nature, leaps and depths of faith, ethereal strings that connect us all, bringing us to the same primordial truth whoever we may be, and from wherever we may come. This is a book you will never forget. So, sit back and enjoy, and welcome to Morocco!

Snježana Djordjić, Profis d.d.o

How The Ship Changed My Life

Due to the difficulty to find a job in his city, Goran chooses the type of career that changed his life. He started to work on a cruise ship in the hospitality industry in 2013. He has three contracts in three different cruise ships. He considers this experience the most difficult but also the most valuable that life has taught him.

Working on a vessel requires huge sacrifices like being miles away for more than half a year from family and friends, working with different nationalities and cultures, brutally heavy pace of minimal ten working hours every day and often even more without normal sleeping hours but on the other hand a piece of relaxation that makes it very special such as traveling to various attractive world tourist destinations and creating unforgettable friendships and adventures.

Because of his soccer dream, he left the cruiser in 2016 together with Elizabeth from Peru (back then his girlfriend, today his wife) and since 2017 they live in Munich, Germany. From the first day spent on the ship, during all the rich experiences and adventures until the last disembarkation, through magical Peru and a special proposal on the beautiful Machu Picchu to the current life in Germany, he continues to explore new places and shares his soccer passion.

Ship life inspired him to write this book and motivate people in achieving their biggest goals because he strongly believes that everything is possible if the person really wants it.