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Paris Dear Alice, Each morning I am awakened by the sound of a tinkling bell. A cheerful sound, it reminds me of the bells that shopkeepers attach to their doors at Christmastime. In this case, the bell marks the opening of the hotel door. From my room, which is just off the winding staircase, I can hear it clearly. It reminds me of the bell that calls to worship the novice embarking on a new life. In a way I too am a novice, leaving, temporarily, one life for another. Love, Alice In the tradition of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea and Frances Mayes's Under the Tuscan Sun, in Without Reservations we take time off with Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Steinbach as she explores the world and rediscovers what it means to be a woman on her own. "In many ways, I was an independent woman," writes Alice Steinbach, a single working mother, in this captivating book. "For years I'd made my own choices, paid my own bills, shoveled my own snow, and had relationships that allowed for a lot of freedom on both sides." Slowly, however, she saw that she had become quite dependent in another way: "I had fallen into the habit . . . of defining myself in terms of who I was to other people and what they expected of me." Who am I, she wanted to know, away from the things that define me--my family, children, job, friends? Steinbach searches for the answer to this provocative question in some of the most exciting places in the world: Paris, where she finds a soul mate in a Japanese man; Oxford, where she takes a course on the English village; Milan, where she befriends a young woman about to be married. Beautifully illustrated with postcards Steinbach wrote home to herself to preserve her spontaneous impressions, this revealing and witty book will transport readers instantly into a fascinating inner and outer journey, an unforgettable voyage of discovery.… (more)
User reviews
It is possible my experience reading this book is too influenced by having just completed Eat, Pray, Love, which is beautifully written.
Worse, I found no particular insight into the places she went to. Except for her time in England, she didn't even know the languages, nor did she stay long enough to be more than a tourist. The one place she went to I had personally visited was England. But I didn't feel any pull or identification with her experience of London and other places I had visited. Maybe it's because she had visited before, but I didn't find reflected here all the little details that stood out and made England feel paradoxically at home and yet strange as an American. She might as well been describing my hometown of New York City. After putting down this book, I next read Conway's The Road from Coorain, the memoir of a woman who grew up on an Australian sheep farm and would go on to become the first woman president of Smith College. At one point she visited London and other parts of Europe with her mother--and here, in a memoir not focused on travel per se, in the one chapter about her visit to Europe, I found more keen observations and insights in each paragraph than I did in the whole of Steinbach's book.
Alice Steinbach, a
Along the way she befriends many people and even finds romance in Paris. In the end, Alice gains closure in her role as daughter and acceptance in her changing relationships with her sons.
The book is a well written travelog. The author may have experienced life-changing revelations during the sabbatical, but she never fully reveals herself to the reader.
I loved Steinbach's writing, especially the postcards of personal insight and inspiration mailed home (to herself) throughout the trip. They appear at the beginning of each chapter. I hope to read her later book, Educating Alice: Adventures of a Curious Woman, sometime this year.
Thank you Alice for your wonderful writing. I have given copies to my adventure seeking friends.