About the Book
Six years ago, Alice Steinbach, a Pulitzer prize winning journalist decided to take a break from her life. She took a leave from her job, friends and family to go on a European journey of self-discovery, and her first book, WITHOUT RESERVATIONS, was the exquisite result of that trip But once Steinbach had opened the door to a new way of living, she found herself unwilling to return to her old routine. She left her job and went travelling again, only this time her objective was not so much one of self-discovery as it was a reaching out. She wanted to learn, by taking lessons and courses, but also by connecting to and learning from the people she would encounter along the way Choosing exactly where to go and what to study turned out to be harder than she'd anticipated, but Steinbach found herself repeatedly drawn to the interests and fantasies of her youth.
And so her lifelong fascination with writing, animals, gardening, and food led her to study dog training in Scotland, writing in Prague, gardening in Provence, calligraphy and flower arranging in Kyoto, music in Cuba, cooking in Paris and Jane Austen in Exeter Her weeks and months spent with fellow students of all ages are, as she'd hoped, every bit as educational as her courses. And studying side by side with people preparing for careers in these various fields gives Steinbach a second chance at some roads not taken - a chance to reconnect with her past, when so many options were still open to her. In pursuing interests she's never had time to fully explore, she finds that her sense of curiosity is as strong as it ever was, and, as she discovers during the course of this wonderful trip, we are never too old to learn
About the Author :
Alice Steinbach, whose work at the Baltimore Sun was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, has been a freelance writer since 1999. She has taught journalism and writing at Princeton University, Washington and Lee University, and Loyola College. She lives in Baltimore. She is author of WITHOUT RESERVATIONS and EDUCATING ALICE.
Review :
"Highly recommended . . . The beauty of [Steinbach's] narrative . . . lies in her luminous descriptions. . . . But it is her perceptive looks into the lives and minds and hearts of the people she meets through her studies that bring her settings to life and make this collection of essays truly engaging."
-Library Journal
"Steinbach makes such a life look highly desirable. . . . Her stories are powerfully seductive to anyone who's ever been tempted to get up and go, following interests wherever they may lead."
-Publishers Weekly
"A delicious experience . . . This book will entertain, educate and perhaps inspire readers to make their own journeys."
--San Francisco Chronicle
"I loved "Educating Alice,."..Alice Steinbach may visit some of the world's most popular tourist cities but she does not follow the ordinary tourist route. Oh no! Down the back alleys Alice Steinbach goes, slipping through side doors and riding on employees-only elevators; dropping huge, slippery salmon on the floor of the Ritz Escoffier Ecole de Gastronomie Francaise and charming retired geishas into showing her their prized kimonos, wrapped in rice paper and stowed in boxes in the attic. Ms. Steinbach must be who Henry James imagined when he advised novelists to try to become 'one upon whom nothing is lost.'"
--Sarah Pritchard, author of "Crackpots: A Novel""
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"In these uncertain times, the smart thing to do is stay home and read "Educating Alice: Adventures of a Curious Woman. "Alice Steinbach has more fun than anybody, whether chasing sheep in Scotland, or taking cooking lessons at the Ritz in Paris, or swinging to a salsa beat in a down-at-the-heel cafe in Havanna, or taking awriting course in Prague, or studying landscape architecture in Provence, etc. etc. etc.--- Alice's etceteras are limitless, and what all of us, surely, have always wanted to do ourselves. What is more, no matter what she does or who she sees or how hilarious the encounter, she is a lady to her toes."
--Jane Geniesse, author of "Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark""
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"A brisk and companionate tour of the Paris Ritz, ancient streets of Kyoto, the Scottish Highlands, inner Prague and Renaissance Florence, in search of the secrets of French cooking, Japanese dance, sheepherding, writing and painting. Alice Steinbach's travel memoir serves up, in savory detail, the tricks and ingredients of these trades, even as she reveals steps in the intimate dance of an epistolary romance of her own."
--Jean McGarry, Chair of the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars
