Call You When I Land
by Nikki Vargas
Available next Tuesday is Nikki Vargas’s Call You When I Land, an interesting travel memoir which should delight fans of Eat, Pray, Love. Nikki Vargas, an immigrant from Columbia, is in her late 20’s and although to her friends and family she looks like she has achieved the dream, a successful advertising career and sweet French fiancé, but she feels trapped by both and desires to have the freedom to travel and see the world. Set across the globe including Panama, Columbia, Argentina, France, Indonesia and New York the book captures not only her physical journey, but also her life journey in finding a second chance at love and finding a way to merge her work life with her desire to see the world, first getting comped hotels and flights with a small travel blog that then inspires her to think bigger and create the first major feminist female centered travel publication. The memoir is cleverly broken into three sections Turbulence, Changing Pitch, and Landing that reflect her experience. This should resonate with other millennials who may struggle with finding a way to balance their dreams and the realities of life.
The Catch Me if You Can
by Jessica Nabongo
Nikki may have seen a lot of countries that I’m envious of but Jessica Nabongo has literally seen the entire world having been to all 195 countries. In 2019, she became the first black women to have gone to all the UN recognized countries. The Catch Me if You Can covers her top 100 memorable visits including places like Japan, South Africa, Tonga, Peru and North Korea. She captures not only some of the hot sightseeing spots, and delicious native cuisines, but also the people and cultures she encounters on her journey. I enjoyed the audiobook, which she reads herself and feels like a good friend giving you the highlights of their vacation or work trips. The one thing I found was that because she is trying to cover so many places sometimes she only has a short time at destinations and I was left wanting to hear more about them. I learned a lot of interesting details about the world such more pyramids are not found in Egypt, but in Sudan. Nabongo has an especially interesting perspective about African countries being an Ugandan-American.
Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager
Hoboken Library Staff Picks 