About Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Seal Press (June 7, 2011)
Spanning 15 years of travel, beginning when she is a sophomore in college, Wanderlust documents Elisabeth Eaves’s insatiable hunger for the rush of the unfamiliar and the experience of encountering new people and cultures. Young and independent, she crisscrosses five continents and chases the exotic, both in culture and in romance. In the jungles of Papua New Guinea, she loses herself—literally—to an Australian tour guide; in Cairo, she reconnects with her high school sweetheart, only to discover the beginning of a pattern that will characterize her life over the long-term: while long-distance relationships work well for her, traditional relationships do not.
Wanderlust, however, is more than a chronological conquest of men and countries: at its core, it’s a journey of self-discovery. In the course of her travels, Eaves finds herself and the sense of home she’s been lacking since childhood—and she sheds light on a growing culture of young women who have the freedom and inclination to define their own, increasingly global, lifestyles, unfettered by traditional roles and conventions of past generations of women.
“Once Wanderlust embarks, there’ll be no place else you’d rather be. “–James Wolcott, cultural critic, Vanity Fair
“Elisabeth Eaves is fearless! She’s a warrior-writer of love and travel, encountering with equal courage inclement weather and inappropriate, (though fantastic) men. She’s a twenty-first century Colette, a post-modern Madame de Stael.” —Rachel Shteir, author of The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting
“Wanderlust delivers the goods up front—motorcycles and sex and stories of places that smell nothing like your cafeteria—and then pulls off something trickier. Elisabeth Eaves shows here that our attempts to find a different better self through travel can be immensely entertaining, but we are always already moving. Wanderlust brilliantly, carefully maps how active the heart is, even at a standstill. “—Sasha Frere-Jones, music critic, The New Yorker
About Elisabeth Eaves
Elisabeth Eaves is the author of Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping, and her travel essays have been anthologized in The Best American Travel Writing, The Best Women’s Travel Writing, and A Moveable Feast: Life-Changing Food Adventures from Around the World. Her writing has also appeared in numerous publications, including Forbes, Harper’s, the New York Times, Slate, and the Wall Street Journal, on subjects ranging from lobbyists to lap dancing (but not in the same story). Eaves received a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University and has lived all over the world. Born and raised in Vancouver, she lives in New York City.
Connect with Elisabeth on her website, elisabetheaves.com, on Tumblr, and on Twitter.
Elisabeth Eaves TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Monday, June 13th: English Major’s Junk Food
Tuesday, June 14th: Confessions of a Book Addict
Friday, June 17th: Amused by Books
Monday, June 20th: Melody & Words
Wednesday, June 22nd: Books Distilled
Thursday, June 23rd: Life in Review
Monday, June 27th: Nomad Reader
Wednesday, June 29th: Regular Rumination
Thursday, June 30th: Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog
Thursday, July 7th: The Girl from the Ghetto
Tuesday, July 12th: Books Are My Boyfriends
Thursday, July 14th: Joyfully Retired
Thursday, July 21st: Chaotic Compendiums