Be There Now: Travel Stories from Around the World
By Mike O'Mary
3/5
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About this ebook
Be There Now is a collection of true travel stories featuring twenty-two contributors who share adventures and escapades from around the world.
"Travel pieces that capture the exterior world and offer a vivid sense of personal reflection." Brevity
"More of an experience than mere reportage; I truly was there instead of here." Marginalia
The stories include the tale of an amateurish kidnapping in Nicaragua that could have been told by Woody Allen, and a David Sedaris-esque tale of two ships passing in a Paris art supply store. Existential stories from a man lost on the flooded Amazon River at night, and from a woman who encounters a grizzly--in the same area where her father and stepmother were killed by a bear. Insightful stories about a woman's spiritual journey in Peru (complete with hallucinogens!), and about a female journalist's friendship with an Iraqi translator in Syria. And stories about endangered species in exotic locales, including helping a sea turtle lay its eggs on a Costa Rican beach, and taking a blind man to visit the mountain gorillas in Rwanda.
Be There Now is travel writing at its most authentic--real people sharing real stories of awe and insight, fear and laughter, humility and humanity as they explore the world around us and seek footholds on their own inner journeys. In a world that often demands that we "be here now," it is nice to take a break, daydream, and "be there now" with thoughtful people who take us with them on journeys that lead to inspiration, insight, humor, and deeper meaning.
Be There Now is part of a series of anthologies of creative nonfiction on various topics from Dream of Things, which strives to publish anthologies that fill the gap between popular collections that can be regarded as "short and sweet," and the Best American Essays series, which tend to be longer-form. The goal for Dream of Things anthologies is to be not short and sweet, but short and deep.
Mike O'Mary
Mike O'Mary is a writer of essays, fiction, drama and sketch comedy. He has published stories and essays in the Sunday magazines of the Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, Baltimore Sun, Cleveland Plain Dealer and Detroit Free Press, and in Catholic Digest, and he was a regular commentator on WNIJ – Northern Illinois Public Radio, doing weekly commentaries as part of the local segment of National Public Radio's Morning Edition program. He has also written and produced sketch comedy in Chicago. Mike is also founder of Dream of Things, an independent book publisher focused on memoirs and anthologies of creative nonfiction. Mike is a graduate of Knox College (BA in Economics and English-Writing), the University of Montana (MFA in Creative Writing, MA in English Literature), and the Second City Comedy Writing Program. In addition to his creative work, Mike has more than 20 years of experience in corporate communications, producing speeches, annual reports and other executive communications for many leading corporations.
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Reviews for Be There Now
6 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This book collects very brief essays that capture a moment of a travel experience. It's interesting idea but a lot of the stories come out vapid and are not at all transcendent. It's a quick read, though, and a handful of stories stand out such as: volunteers helping sea turtles lay their eggs in Costa Rica ( A Trembling Voice by Frank Izaguirr), a blind man visiting mountain gorillas in Rwanda (In the Footsteps of Fossey by Irene Morse), and a writer exploring the world through Google Maps (Virtual Travel by Trendle Ellwood). The book kind of feels the first part of a contest in which the authors of the top stories should be awarded with a chance to publish longer stories of their experiences.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I liked the premise behind this collection of essays but I found the actual essays kind of mediocre. Some of them were better than others. And the introduction gives a quick summary of every essay in the book - I would have rather come to them fresh, not knowing what they were about beforehand.