March 30, 2015
A poet, essayist, and literature teacher at the University of Houston meditates on the incongruence of her conventional life with the path she desired but never took as a young womanââa bohemian-explorer-intellectual kind of life"âin this travel memoir. Meyer and her oldest daughter embark on a life-enhancing odyssey through Germany, Italy, Croatia, Greece, and parts of the Middle East to duplicate the pilgrimage of Felix Fabri, a Dominican friar in the Middle Ages. Meyer weaves together Fabri's pilgrimage with her own, revealing a confluence of insight and experiences, even though they lived centuries apart. Occasional bumps in the road include a case of head lice, intestinal afflictions, transportation and lodging hardships, and a frightening encounter in the Sinai, which could have ended very badly. These are balanced with a lighter tone. Meyer follows Fabri's path, âto bare myself to the actual world, to see it and experience it for myself, not just read about it in books... trying to return to something essential within myself." Meyer's internal dialogue is accessible, and will resonate with readers experiencing similar midlife reflection.
March 15, 2015
Per her somewhat itinerant upbringing and her inquisitive nature, Meyer understands the pilgrim's sense of exile, and his quest through fields, lands, countries for an eternal home in God. Thus does she, with her oldest child, Ellie, set off on a two-month journey retracing the 1483 path of the medieval monk Friar Felix Fabri, using his Book of the Wanderings of Brother Felix Fabri in the Holy Land, Arabia, and Egypt as a guide. Meyer's poetic voice and sincerity make this quest not a gimmick but a richly felt expedition, one she anticipated long before she became pregnant and then a single mom while still in college. The book's life comes from Meyer's pondering the years of waiting and wondering if she would ever do what she had dreamed of so long ago and whether it would bring her all that she hoped. An uncommonly rich and spiritual book, The Book of Wanderings speaks not just to satisfying wanderlust but to finding home in this world or beyond.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)