Here are 100 books that Wish Lists and Road Trips fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve always loved romance. I discovered the world of Harlequin one summer and never looked back. Now that I’m older, I appreciate female triumph and female-centered stories even more. I’ve read thousands of romances in my lifetime, so I know my stuff. As a San Diego area resident, I’m also an expert at “beach,” like Ken. When island vibes meet romance, it’s magic. The third element I can’t resist, exemplified by On the Island, is survival. I wrote my book with these passions in mind, and I make these recommendations with my whole heart. Happy reading!
I love this book because it brings two lost souls together for the trip of a lifetime. The heroine, Anna, is an emotional wreck, struggling to move on from the death of her fiance. The hero, Keane, is a steady guy recovering from a major accident. Anna needs a sailing partner for her trip around the Caribbean, and Keane is the perfect man for the job.
I’m a sucker for messy, imperfect heroines like Anna. Trish Doller delivers relatable characters in a charming page-turner of a romance. I love the island-hopping journey, Keane’s Irish accent, and all of Anna’s missteps as she navigates a sea change.
Since the loss of her fiance, Anna has been shipwrecked by grief - until a reminder goes off about a trip they were supposed to take together. Impulsively, Anna goes to sea in their sailboat, intending to complete the voyage alone.
But after a treacherous night's sail, she realises she can't do it by herself and hires Keane, a professional sailor, to help. Much like Anna, Keane is struggling with a very different future than the one he had planned. As romance rises with the tide, they discover that it's never too late to chart a new course.
Since I was a child, my imagination would run rampant with ideas and fantasies I had no idea how to channel. Then, when I was fifteen, I joined my high school’s creative writing class, and suddenly, every fantasy I’d ever concocted in my head had somewhere to develop. Sweet romance books have always fulfilled me, and I love it when, from the first page, you can feel the sparks between the main characters. They have a wholesomeness that leaves me feeling refreshed and hopeful, and I love that, for a few hundred pages, I can dive into another world and experience love through someone else’s eyes.
Sometimes I just want to read a book that is lighthearted and adventurous—no angst or tragic happenstances—and this book checked that box for me. The characters’ banter and youthful tones had me smiling frequently. This book was a great summer read, and having the plotline center around a game of Assassins made for a lot of laughs.
"The feel-good summer read of my dreams!"-Alicia, Goodreads Reviewer "Boy, did it also give me all the summer feels."-Larissa, Goodreads Reviewer "This book is bound to become a favorite of all who love contemporary romance."-Kelly, Goodreads Reviewer "If beachy contemporary romances are your jam, then trust me-you do NOT want to miss this book."-Jessica, Goodreads Reviewer Meredith's family's annual game of assassin at Martha's Vineyard during a summer wedding is the perfect chance to honor her sister's legacy, and finally join the world again. But when she forms an alliance with a cute groomsman, she's at risk of losing both…
I’m an author because I was a reader who loved to be transported to a world and land outside my own. My favorite books are the ones that introduce me to a place and time I’ve never been, an immersive read that brings me somewhere new. I believe in the power of story and the magic of its transport. Come along with me and discover a few books that do this very thing.
Julia Whalen is also a renowned audiobook narrator, and I listened to this book in her melodic voice, being carried to Oxford. Julia attended Oxford for a year, and she takes us there in this beautiful story.
The story is about a young American woman named Ella Durran who has made it to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. Through twists and turns, Ella must decide whether to turn her back on the man she’s falling in love with or follow her political dreams, which are coming true. Can we change our dreams? Read to find out.
She could never have guessed what the year would hold...
'A pure delight . . . will stay with you long after you're done' TAYLOR JENKINS REID
Gazing up at the dreaming spires of Oxford, American student Ella Duran can't believe it: she has finally arrived at Oxford University.
A new life starts, and not even Ella's handsome lecturer Jamie Davenport can distract her from her classes. But, as the term goes on, Ella can't deny the growing attraction between them - an attraction that soon turns to love.
And when Ella learns of Jamie's life-changing secret, their relationship becomes…
As a romance author, I pull a lot of inspiration from my travels. My husband always says that shared experiences strengthen bonds and I believe that wholeheartedly—which is why I think travel romances just work. Romance as a genre isn’t necessarily known for lush setting descriptions, but travel romances are sort of the exception to the rule, and I eat it up every time. If I close the book feeling like I’ve just got back from a vacation, it’s a five-star read for me.
Serengeti National Park is one of those places I’m not sure I’ll get to visit in my lifetime, and in my opinion, that’s exactly what makes books like this one so special.
I love when I finish a book feeling like I’ve been there. Farah Heron’s descriptions of Tanzania are absolutely stunning. I also love the idea of second-chance romance on vacation, sort of forcing the characters to find common ground and work through their problems. Definitely worth the read.
The highly acclaimed author of Accidentally Engaged delivers a delightful rom-com of one woman trying to shed her perfect image at a destination wedding with hilarious—and moving—results, perfect for fans of Abby Jimenez and Jasmine Guillory.
Jana Suleiman has never really fit in—everyone always sees her as too aloof, too cool, too perfect. The one time she stepped out of her comfort zone she ended up with a broken heart and a baby on the way. Aaaand lesson learned. Now she’s a bridesmaid for a destination wedding in Serengeti National Park, and almost everyone she knows will be there. Her…
As a coach of elite weightlifters, a lifetime athlete, an outdoorsman, and a passionate advocate for self-reliance, I’m continually searching for quality sources of information that teach, inspire, and drive us to improve our abilities—physical, mental, and emotional—to not just enrich our own lives and bolster our capacity to achieve what’s meaningful to us, but to become better contributors to the world at large and help and inspire others in turn.
Violence of Mind is the only book I can remember immediately reading a second time upon finishing it. While the title is somewhat misleading and will likely dissuade too many people from picking it up, the content is straightforward, intelligent, and far more insightful than any other book in the genre I’m familiar with. Freeborn delivers succinct but critical lessons in self-defense from a philosophical perspective—this isn’t tough guy fantasies squeezed into ill-advised recommendations, but a quest to help us understand how to successfully navigate dire situations in ways that align with our values.
A book covering the topic of self-defense from a shocking, first-hand perspective. The subjects of criminal violence, self-defense, lethal force, mindset, firearms training and concealment have never been introduced so comprehensively in one place. Having successfully sold world-wide in its independently published and distributed paperback form, it is now available on Kindle. "A powerful, gripping, and self-reflective roller-coaster that's part cautionary tale, part how-to book on building the counterpart to the high-order predator, Varg makes no apologies for it being an in-your-face look at real violence from the perspective of that rare someone who can speak from deep personal experience,…
As a medical herbalist for over 25 years, I have long been treating people for chronic fatigue, post-viral fatigue, and, more recently, Long Covid. These days, there is so much stress to consider too, and I have recognized that stress has a major effect on the health of our bodies and also our life experience. One of my great interests in life is the wisdom of Nature, spirituality, and metaphysics. I love to combine medical science with spirituality, metaphysics, and Nature to contribute to helping people to feel their best through the wisdom of nature.
This was a fascinating read. I love traveling, especially to places where the Western world has had less impact, so this book appealed to me. Having traveled widely, adventurer and expedition leader Dan Buettner set out to discover the areas of the world where people lived longer and more healthily than our average modern human being.
On a map of the world, he circled five “longevity hotspot” areas in blue, which became known as The Blue Zones. While chronic disease is becoming increasingly common in the developed world, these Blue Zones communities experience low rates of chronic disease and live in good health, easily into their 90’s and even over 100 years. He says that genetics only accounts for about 20–30% of our longevity and ability to live well. The rest is determined by our lifestyle and our diet.
In this wonderful book, he discusses the lifestyles and choices made…
A long, healthy life is no accident. It begins with good genes, but it also depends on good habits. If you adopt the right lifestyle, experts say, chances are you may live up to a decade longer. Buettner has led teams of researchers across the globe--from Costa Rica to Sardinia, Italy, to Okinawa, Japan and beyond--to uncover the secrets of Blue Zones. He found that the recipe for longevity is deeply intertwined with community, lifestyle, and spirituality. People live longer and healthier by embracing a few simple but powerful habits, and by creating the right community around themselves. In The…
I’ve clocked so many hours on Fallout 3 and New Vegas(and, less so, on Fallout 4)that it’s disgusting, but my real love of wastelands began with T.S. Eliot. His poem (The Waste Land), with its evocative imagery, fascinated me in university. While not about a literal wasteland, it inspired me to seek out stories of that vein. I even have a tattoo with a line from it! What Branches Growwas the focus of my grad certificate in creative writing and has won two awards. I am a book reviewer, writer at PostApocalypticMedia.com, and the author of the Burnt Shipspace opera trilogy.
This novel takes place thirty years after a disease has reduced most of the human population to a primitive state. A thriller with exceptional action scenes and tension, the novel features two converging plotlines that are quests through South America and the southern United States when it is almost devoid of uninfected humans. As with a lot of post-apocalyptic novels the real villains of the story are other humans—their greed and need for control. While this book came out two years after mine, it resonated with me. The themes of trust run strong in both our novels, as well as lengthy stretches of landscape without any humans.
Thirty years after The Great Fatigue infected the globe - and the treatment regressed most of the human race to a primitive state - Seth Keller makes a gruesome discovery in his adoptive father's makeshift lab. This revelation forces him to leave the safety of his desert home and the only other person left in the world... at least, as far as he knows. Three thousand miles away in the jungles of Costa Rica, Sera Peoples has made her own discovery - just as horrific, and just as life-changing. It will take her far from the fledgling colony of New…
Beyond a passion for yachting and flying, sharing adventures in memoir is my true passion. For better or worse, the soul cannot return from a hair-raising adventure as the same person. From roller skating across France as a teen, to sinking ships, being circled by pirates, or surviving an airplane crash, writing these stories brings true action to the pages. Writing memoir also forces me to learn and share life lessons so others won’t have to do it the hard way. Reading true adventures and memoirs lets me share the soul of my fellow travelers for a moment, and live that adrenaline high from the comfort of a reading chair.
Amazing true adventures are the heart and soul of memoir. As Jimmy Buffet and his crew plan a seaplane adventure to celebrate his 50th birthday down Latin America, across to Colombia, and further into the Caribbean, I was ready to read the depth of stories the likes of which might inspire so many of my favorite songs. The adventure was lost on me when he followed the seaplane by jet, meeting the crew in Costa Rica. Further south, they ran into “trouble in Cartagena.” As a boat captain and pilot with Colombian pirate experience, I was looking for stories of real, relatable trouble. Good stories, but the grit I was looking for from a Jimmy Buffet adventure wasn’t there.
For the millions of fans of Jimmy Buffett's music as well as his bestselling books, Tales From Margaritaville and Where Is Joe Merchant?, here is the ultimate Jimmy Buffett philosophy on life and how to live it. As hard as it is to believe, the irrepressible Jimmy Buffett has hit the half-century mark and, in A PIRATE LOOKS AT 50, he brings us along on the remarkable journey which he took through the Southern hemisphere to celebrate this landmark birthday.
Jimmy takes us from the legendary pirate coves of the Florida Keys to the ruins of ancient Cartegena. Along the…
Growing up in a strait-laced Southern family, I was always fascinated with casinos. In my twenties on a summer hiatus from teaching in North Carolina, I drove to California and became a dealer at Caesars in Lake Tahoe. My mother highly disapproved of my working in a casino, "a place so bad it has 'sin' in the middle." Eventually, I returned east to take a hi-tech job in Boston. I also began working on my MFA in writing at Emerson. My characters were breathed into life from my years in the gambling industry. You learn a lot about the human personality when you watch thousands of people from behind the felt of a blackjack table.
How does a girl go from working in a Thai restaurant to running a sports gambling operation in Costa Rica? All roads lead through Las Vegas, where Beth meets Dink a math genius. Sports bettors love to hang out in casinos it’s like a contact high. He hires her and she trains in the Vegas casinos. She not only becomes enthralled with the eccentric Dink and the colorful cast of characters that surround him but she shares their stories with you. It was the early days of Internet gambling, a free for all or so they thought. It is great to view the industry through the observant eyes of Beth whose colorful descriptions bring the characters to life.
“Beth Raymer’s crackling, hilarious memoir ricochets through the gambling underworld in Las Vegas, and is peopled with all manner of lovable wack-jobs, none of whom is quite as wacky—or lovable—as Raymer herself.”—Marie Claire
Beth Raymer waited tables at a dive in Las Vegas until a customer sent her to see Dink, of Dink Inc., one of the town’s biggest professional sports gamblers. Dink needed a right-hand man—someone who would show up on time, who had a head for numbers, and who didn’t steal. Beth got the job.
Lay the Favorite is the story of Beth’s years in the high-stakes, high-anxiety…
I'm the author of several books on this topic and work on this topic as executive director of a nonprofit organization. I see war as one of the dumbest things that we could easily stop doing and as one of the most damaging things we do. It's the reason we are at risk of nuclear apocalypse, the leading cause of homelessness, a leading cause of death and injury, the justification for government secrecy, one of the most environmentally destructive activities, the major barrier to global cooperation on non-optional crises, and one of the main pits into which massive resources are diverted that we all desperately need for useful things.
The possibility that Costa Rica did something significant and hugely beneficial by abolishing its military is generally dealt with by ignoring it, but sometimes by making excuses for it—by claiming that Costa Rica secretly really does have a military or claiming that the U.S. military defends Costa Rica, or claiming that Costa Rica’s example is unlike and unuseful for any other country.
We would all benefit from reading this fantastic book. Here, I learned not to ignore what Costa Rica means and learned that Costa Rica does not secretly have a military, that the United States military does not serve any function for Costa Rica, and that many of the factors that probably contributed to Costa Rica’s abolition of its military, as well as many of the benefits that have probably resulted, are probably subject to duplication elsewhere, even though no two countries are identical, human affairs are highly complicated,…
Costa Rica is the only full-fledged and totally independent country to be entirely demilitarized. Its military was abolished in 1948, with the keys to the armory handed to the Department of Education. Socially, Costa Rica is a success story. Although 94th in the world for GDP, it is in the top 10 on various measurements of health and well-being. Citizens enjoy high standards of living that include universal access to healthcare, education, and pensions. In addition, the country practices sustainable resource management, such as reforestation and the development of solar and wind power, and it expects to be carbon neutral…
