Let's face it, there are times when you just can't travel -- or don't want to. Vicarious web travel can be a great supplement to boots-on-the-ground journeys, and we should know, right? However, our wise elders keep talking about these things called "books", so we decided to check out these paper dinosaurs a bit, and guess what, they aren't all a waste of time. Some of them are quite good.
Pairs of adults circle the globe, competing for a primo prize and being taped along the way for a major television network. Hey, haven't we seen this somewhere before? But if "The Amazing Race" was ever turned into a novel, it would be lucky to be half as good as our first Jaunted fictional pick, Carolyn Parkhurst's second novel Lost and Found.
The pairs picked to compete on "Lost and Found," a globe-trotting show in which participants have to fetch unwieldy objects (like parrots) and take them along to checkpoints, follow stock reality templates like "the mother and daughter separated by a secret" and "the child star looking for a comeback." But because Parkhurst isn't limited by 43-minute episodes, she can give each character from Egypt to Tokyo (and beyond) his or her own chapter. And the longer they travel, the more unhinged they get -- and the more their surroundings seem to eerily mimic what's going on inside their heads. It's pressurized travel, and while your own exploits might not include cameras and waivers, at least no smarmy host asks you at the end of your trip, "And what have you found?"
[Photo: CarolynParkhurst.com]
Related Stories:
·Jaunted Recommended Travel Books [Jaunted]
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egw
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