Here are 100 books that One Girl One Dream fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve always enjoyed reading memoirs that pull me in, take me on a unique journey, and entertain me with real-life drama. Nonfiction can be better than fiction, when the experiences and a compelling voice are present. I have been a writer and a nomad since 2003 and, during my thirties, sailed throughout the Caribbean and South Pacific for eight years with a partner and two dogs. When publishing my own account of this journey, I merged the present tense with enticing elements of fiction writing, like flashbacks, foreshadowing, and cliffhangers. Using correct grammar and eliminating typos are important to me as well, which is why I am a picky reader.
The Motion of the Ocean has been a longtime favorite sailing memoir of mine, not in the least because I read it during my own sailing years and felt connected to the author.
I appreciate her humorous, honest, conversational, and compelling writing style and love the title of the book, which inspired me to keep adventuring by sailboat and even to write my own memoir.
The narrative focuses on Janna and her husband’s relationship on a small boat in a remote area of the world. It’s a story not unlike mine in regards to relationship idiosyncrasies, the Pacific territory, the couple’s ages, and some of their experiences.
Janna was a teacher in a previous life as well and shares my love for travel and writing. This is an entertaining, well-written book.
The humorous true story of a woman who abandons her tidy life to honeymoon across the Pacific on a leaky, old boat—only to find that sailing 17,000 miles is easier than keeping her relationship off the rocks.
“Somewhere fifty miles off the coast of oregon i realize the skipper of this very small ship is an asshole. he also happens to be my husband.”
While most thirty-somethings are climbing the corporate ladder or popping out babies, Janna Cawrse and her boyfriend Graeme take a different tack: they quit their jobs, tie the knot, and embark on a most unusual honeymoon…
I’ve always enjoyed reading memoirs that pull me in, take me on a unique journey, and entertain me with real-life drama. Nonfiction can be better than fiction, when the experiences and a compelling voice are present. I have been a writer and a nomad since 2003 and, during my thirties, sailed throughout the Caribbean and South Pacific for eight years with a partner and two dogs. When publishing my own account of this journey, I merged the present tense with enticing elements of fiction writing, like flashbacks, foreshadowing, and cliffhangers. Using correct grammar and eliminating typos are important to me as well, which is why I am a picky reader.
Tightwads on the Loose is another honest and well-written account of a couple’s ups and downs, in this case while cruising in the Pacific for seven years; only one year less than my husband and I traveled on our sailboat.
This enticing story also has a lot of parallels with my life: the couple’s age, their sense of adventure, their frugal means, their full-time commitment to their boat for many years, their need to make money, and some of the geographical and cultural experiences. Recognizing experiences and personality traits while reading this book made me enjoy it better.
Luckily, Wendy and her partner did not have to endure numerous dramatic life-altering events. Tightwads on the Loose is an easy-to-read sailing memoir that I highly recommend.
Everyone dreams of tropical escape. But what happens when you escape for too long? Imagine spending 24 hours a day with your spouse in 31 not-so-square feet . . . for years; crossing the Pacific Ocean on two gallons of fuel; and tossing spaghetti marinara around your living room, then cleaning it up while bouncing like ice in a martini shaker. Tightwads on the Loose tells the story of Wendy and Garth, lured to sea by the promise of adventure. They buy a 31-foot boat that fits their budget better than it fits Garth's large frame and set sail for…
I’ve always enjoyed reading memoirs that pull me in, take me on a unique journey, and entertain me with real-life drama. Nonfiction can be better than fiction, when the experiences and a compelling voice are present. I have been a writer and a nomad since 2003 and, during my thirties, sailed throughout the Caribbean and South Pacific for eight years with a partner and two dogs. When publishing my own account of this journey, I merged the present tense with enticing elements of fiction writing, like flashbacks, foreshadowing, and cliffhangers. Using correct grammar and eliminating typos are important to me as well, which is why I am a picky reader.
Love with a Chance of Drowning had been recommended to me for a while, but I only recently dove in.
One of the reasons was the high price for the eBook, undoubtedly because this is a traditionally published memoir. And, what can I say? I adored this well-crafted love story set on a small sailboat crossing the Pacific Ocean, sprinkled with fearful and heartfelt incidents.
Torre is a fabulous writer, who pulls you into the narrative. She is witty, sarcastic, smart, straightforward, and doesn’t shy away from sharing personal insights, flaws, and brutal honesty, a touted aspect of my book as well.
The author used the present tense to impart a sense of urgency (it’s a wonderful tool to keep you turning the pages) and focused on the connection, strength, and commitment that is needed to rescue her relationship. Thisis one of the most skillfully written and compelling…
City girl Torre DeRoche isn't looking for love, but a chance encounter in a San Francisco bar sparks an instant connection with a soulful Argentinean man who unexpectedly sweeps her off her feet. The problem? He's just about to cast the dock lines and voyage around the world on his small sailboat, and Torre is terrified of deep water. However, lovesick Torre determines that to keep the man of her dreams, she must embark on the voyage of her nightmares, so she waves good-bye to dry land and braces…
I’ve always enjoyed reading memoirs that pull me in, take me on a unique journey, and entertain me with real-life drama. Nonfiction can be better than fiction, when the experiences and a compelling voice are present. I have been a writer and a nomad since 2003 and, during my thirties, sailed throughout the Caribbean and South Pacific for eight years with a partner and two dogs. When publishing my own account of this journey, I merged the present tense with enticing elements of fiction writing, like flashbacks, foreshadowing, and cliffhangers. Using correct grammar and eliminating typos are important to me as well, which is why I am a picky reader.
This book entertained me from the beginning until the end.
I applaud the author’s learning curve, increased happiness, and sense of belonging as the story progresses. Her circumnavigation brought back memories and made me feel like a kindred spirit, because her personality traits, passions, priorities, and thought processes are similar to mine. My favorite parts were her wildlife encounters.
I also recognized myself in Jackie’s experiences and musings – from being in a mixed-culture relationship, learning to sail from our partner, leaving our home country for good, departing our adopted country after becoming a resident, needing our own challenges and jobs, getting seasick, and not spending money on ourselves to her statement that life is not about luck but about choices.
We both take our readers on a journey of courage and discovery that is inspiring, thrilling, and thought-provoking.
After suffering an emotionally-brutal bereavement and against her counsellor's advice, Jackie ran away. Suddenly within a new culture, with a new husband, and no friends, she was living in the obscure world of cruising with zero knowledge of boats. Crashing within the first twenty-four hours, Jackie realised life would never be the same again; a floating home with no fridge or hot water, and with a dinghy instead of a car. Suffering self doubts, she became fearful of her new world. The first off-shore voyage took Jackie into a ferocious storm, which battered her physically and mentally. Amid the raging…
Similar to many other men and women, when I was younger and more naïve, I had the romantic dream of sailing around the world, exploring and experiencing new times in exotic places. Like many others who turned that dream into reality, I quickly learned the new and exotic moments were far out-shadowed by the life-threatening, dream-ending, nightmare realities of ocean sailing. Fortunately, I ended the voyage before I killed myself. I wanted to share my dream and nightmare experiences with those who dream.
I like this book because it was the first book I read as a child about sailing around the world. It filled me with a sense of adventure that ignited in me a desire to do the same while also filling me with a sense of dread.
Unfortunately, I focused more on the romance of the story than on the reality.
"The classic of its kind." —Travel World "One of the most readable books in the whole library of adventure." —Sports Illustrated "The finest single-handed adventure story yet written." —Seafarer Challenged by an expert who said it couldn't be done, Joshua Slocum, an indomitable New England sea captain, set out in April of 1895 to prove that a man could sail alone around the world. 46,000 miles and a little over 3 years later, the proof was complete: Captain Slocum had performed the epic "first" single-handedly in a trusty 34-foot sloop called the "Spray." This is Slocum's own account of his…
I have loved writing since I was in grade school and after graduating university with a degree in International Affairs I became a journalist. I’ve written six non-fiction books and also teach Journalism at SUNY Purchase. I’ve always been fascinated about the way one person’s life or one seemingly small episode in history allows us a way to examine the larger picture: whether it was how Fanny Bullock Workman showed what it meant to be a woman in a predominantly male world of mountain climbing or how the deliberate sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff in the closing days of WWII showed that war is never black and white, that there are layers to people and stories and events that we should always try to consider.
Eighty Days takes readers behind the scenes of the lives of Bly and Bisland, two successful women who made a name for themselves during the late 1800s. It reveals the private women behind the public personas during an era when women were expected to mind house and home.
On November 14, 1889, Nellie Bly, the crusading young female reporter for Joseph Pulitzer’s World newspaper, left New York City by steamship on a quest to break the record for the fastest trip around the world. Also departing from New York that day—and heading in the opposite direction by train—was a young journalist from The Cosmopolitan magazine, Elizabeth Bisland. Each woman was determined to outdo Jules Verne’s fictional hero Phileas Fogg and circle the globe in less than eighty days. The dramatic race that ensued would span twenty-eight thousand miles, captivate the nation, and change both competitors’ lives…
I am an avid lover of all cultures, especially travel memoirs. I had a goal to travel to 30 countries in 30 years, and I wrote a memoir, Traveling in Wonder. I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting both the author and side characters in all of these books, as each brings something extraordinary to the story. I also loved the descriptions in these memoirs, which brought me back to my memories!
I really enjoyed how it tackled traveling through different experiences and in a way that was so unique. I haven't read anything like it before! I also enjoyed the strength of the main character and the comical relief it brought!
In this captivating memoir, Kim Dinan takes readers on an extraordinary expedition that all began with a mysterious gift: a simple yellow envelope containing three life-altering rules. Fueling her with curiosity and courage, Kim and her partner set out on a soul-stirring adventure that transcends borders and redefines their sense of purpose.
Join Kim as she navigates through the vibrant landscapes of diverse cultures, encounters inspiring souls, and grapples with the complexities of life's unexpected turns. This compelling narrative weaves heartfelt emotions, stunning imagery, and profound reflections that resonate with every traveler…
I remember the first time I stepped onto a sailing ship and that was the full-size replica of the Cutty Sark at Greenwich, London. The younger me descended below decks and started to imagine the enormity of risking everything on an expedition into the unknown. Since that time, I’ve become an eighteenth-century scholar, able to channel my wonder at the age of sail into researching, teaching, writing, and broadcasting about many aspects of the period. I hope the books on this list help you journey all over the globe with a sense of what it was like to trust your life to a self-contained floating world heading into unchartered waters.
Before I read this book, all I knew of Magellan was that he led the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe by sea and that he did it by finding the strait at the tip of South America that links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and that still bears his name.
I imagined the Strait of Magellan as a marine superhighway, easily found if sailing down the continent’s eastern seaboard. Bergreen made me realize how painstakingly slow was the process of finding and navigating the Strait, full of dead-end channels and submerged glacial moraine.
Before the book reaches the Strait, I was struck by Bergreen’s account of the mutinous tensions between the Portuguese Magellan and Spanish officers and crew. I finished the book, marveling that anyone made it back to tell the tale.
The astonishing tale of the first sea voyage to circumnavigate the entire globe. Magellan's dramatic maritime expedition in 1519 discovered the straits that enabled Europe to trade with the Eastern spice islands and changed the course of history.
In an era of intense commercial rivalry between Spain and Portugal, Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese navigator sailed to explore the undiscovered parts of the world and claim them for the Spanish crown in one of the largest and best-equipped expeditions ever mounted in the Age of Discovery. Yet of the fleet of five vessels under his command, only Victoria was to return…
As a queer/bi girl labeled as a tomboy from early on, I ached for a sense of belonging in my life that I only found in books. The adventurous women and girls that I looked for in the pages of books that were like friends to me spanned from Anne of Green Gables to Harriet the Spy. As I got older, I realized that important and awesome adventurous women had been left out of my history books, and only now are we starting to find out who they were, and how many women like myself were erased, and are now being redeemed through these wonderful stories.
Captain Liz Clark is who I would have wanted to be when I grew up, had I found her story in my teens.
There were almost no strong female role models that I could point to as a girl who inspired me, and illuminated a path of an adventurous woman. Captain Liz Clark built her own sailboat and decided to take on the entire Pacific Ocean on her adventures to find love, connection, and a relationship to nature and her own pure heart.
I clutched this book to my heart and took it with me everywhere for a month. Then I wrote Captain Liz to option it, so we can make a TV show about her life, because we need her story on screen!
Chasing a dream is never easy, but if you go far enough, it will set you free.
Captain Liz Clark spent her youth dreaming of traveling the world by sailboat and surfing remote waves. When she was 22, she met a mentor who helped turn her desire into reality. Embarking on an adventure that most only fantasize about, she set sail from Santa Barbara, California, as captain of her 40-foot sailboat, Swell, headed south in search of surf, self, and the wonder and learning that lies beyond the unbroken horizon.
In true stories overflowing with wild waves and constant challenges,…
Since I was old enough to read and watch screens, I’ve been fascinated by the promise of adventurous journeys. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Huckleberry Finn, the Starship Enterprise, Star Wars – all occupied valuable real estate in my consciousness. That thirst for journey took me to Eastern Europe after college, where I worked as a freelancer, and to Baghdad and other Middle East cities, where I was a correspondent during and after the Iraq War. My sense of adventure continues today in my writing, drawing me to stories in colorful places, such as the U.S.-Mexico border, to try to make sense of the world and our place in it.
I was trying hard not to rename an author in this exercise. But I admittedly failed. Sides does it again with The Wide, Wide Sea, an enthralling narrative on the final voyage of Capt. James Cook.
The author wastes no time putting me on the deck of the Resolute, Cook’s ship, for his third and final journey, as he and the crew sail to the Polynesian islands, Hawaii, up near the top of the earth and back to Hawaii–where he meets his demise. Even though you’re aware of the outcome, you can’t help but flip through pages with growing intensity, yearning to see how, exactly, this respected British admiral becomes the target of native hostility. Sides delivers.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR FOR 2024 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • A “thrilling and superbly crafted” (The Wall Street Journal) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day.
“Hampton Sides, an acclaimed master of the nonfiction narrative, has taken on Cook’s story and retells it for the 21st century.”—Los Angeles Times
On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest…
