Rating: 
Summary: An Amazing Find!!
Review: I read all the good travel books I can find and was given this one for Christmas. I'm happy to report that not only is it beautifully written, it is superb in other ways as well. For one, the author has the gift of being able to effortlessly transport her readers to the far corners of the globe while maintaining a compelling narrative throughout. At the beginning, Gough writes that she can never return to her island in Fiji, "not while he's alive," and we never stop wondering, who this "he" may be and what happens between them. We find out in the end of course and "he" is not who we think it is. I stayed awake four nights in a row to finish this book and am now telling all my friends about it. There is no better gift than the gift of inspiring your friends to travel and see the world. That is what this book has done for me. I also laughed out loud several times at some of the scrapes she got herself into. She's an incredible story teller.
Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Find!!
Review: I read all the good travel books I can find and was given this one for Christmas. I'm happy to report that not only is it beautifully written, it is superb in other ways as well. For one, the author has the gift of being able to effortlessly transport her readers to the far corners of the globe while maintaining a compelling narrative throughout. At the beginning, Gough writes that she can never return to her island in Fiji, "not while he's alive," and we never stop wondering, who this "he" may be and what happens between them. We find out in the end of course and "he" is not who we think it is. I stayed awake four nights in a row to finish this book and am now telling all my friends about it. There is no better gift than the gift of inspiring your friends to travel and see the world. That is what this book has done for me. I also laughed out loud several times at some of the scrapes she got herself into. She's an incredible story teller.
Rating:
Summary: The best travel book I've read in years
Review: I read all the travel books I can get my hands on, and over the last decade have reviewed many of them for the San Francisco Chronicle. Five days ago I finished Laurie Gough's "Kite Strings of the Southern Cross" and have been mulling it over (it rarely leaves my mind, actually), looking for a weakness. I have concluded that it doesn't have one -- it's pretty darned perfect. In Fiji, on nights when her Fijian lover is not serenading her under the stars, on the beach, Ms. Gough swaps tales around the local backpackers' campfire -- and most of the best ones are her own. A superb storyteller with an easy writing style, Ms. Gough comes across as an intelligent and intrepid traveler and an endearing personality. She weighs in thoughtfully on all the philosophical and metaphysical questions the road raises, and blends cultural insight, travel lore, and personal introspection seamlessly, veering in mood from serious to lighthearted at exactly the right times. Hers is simply the best travel book I've read since Jeff Greenwald's "The Size of The World" a few years back, the kind of book you want every traveler you know to read.
Rating:
Summary: The best travel book I've read in years
Review: I read all the travel books I can get my hands on, and over the last decade have reviewed many of them for the San Francisco Chronicle. Five days ago I finished Laurie Gough's "Kite Strings of the Southern Cross" and have been mulling it over (it rarely leaves my mind, actually), looking for a weakness. I have concluded that it doesn't have one -- it's pretty darned perfect. In Fiji, on nights when her Fijian lover is not serenading her under the stars, on the beach, Ms. Gough swaps tales around the local backpackers' campfire -- and most of the best ones are her own. A superb storyteller with an easy writing style, Ms. Gough comes across as an intelligent and intrepid traveler and an endearing personality. She weighs in thoughtfully on all the philosophical and metaphysical questions the road raises, and blends cultural insight, travel lore, and personal introspection seamlessly, veering in mood from serious to lighthearted at exactly the right times. Hers is simply the best travel book I've read since Jeff Greenwald's "The Size of The World" a few years back, the kind of book you want every traveler you know to read.
Rating:
Summary: Sensual , lyrical writing...beautifully mastered
Review: I received this book as a gift since a friend knows I've always had a secret desire to travel, especially to the South Pacific, where much of this book takes place. I was excited when I read the reviews on the back cover, but was even more so when I started reading the book. I found that Laurie Gough not only has written an absorbing, often very funny account of her journeys, but is a wonderful, engaging writer as well, drawing us in almost from the beginning with her poetic descriptions and lyrical use of words. I can't recommend it highly enough. Bravo!!
Rating:
Summary: Sensual , lyrical writing...beautifully mastered
Review: I received this book as a gift since a friend knows I've always had a secret desire to travel, especially to the South Pacific, where much of this book takes place. I was excited when I read the reviews on the back cover, but was even more so when I started reading the book. I found that Laurie Gough not only has written an absorbing, often very funny account of her journeys, but is a wonderful, engaging writer as well, drawing us in almost from the beginning with her poetic descriptions and lyrical use of words. I can't recommend it highly enough. Bravo!!
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing...
Review: I was so disappointed by this book, as soon as I finished the last page I hopped on the computer to recommend readers to NOT make this purchase. It read like high school rhyming poetry. It was sappy and wordy. If I didn't know better, I would have been left with a negative view of Fiji, as Gough's descriptions of the negatives during her travels seemed to be the only solid writing in this book. Anything magical and good during her stay in Fiji was given a flighty, exasperating description that went on for pages. Hemingway she is not.
Rating:
Summary: When you see the Southern Cross for the first time...
Review: It was the title that sucked me in. I was passing through the travel literature section of my local bookstore when the words "Southern Cross" caught my eye. Now, I am not a travel literature person, but since the theme song for my life is Crosby, Stills, and Nash's "Southern Cross" I had to investigate the book further. What a treat, what a gem, what luck that I was looking down that day! I love this book. The author's voice is so real, so authentic, it's as if you were reading her diary. The people and places that she describes, the smells, the views, the weight of the pack on her back, you experience it all. I highly recommend this book for any woman, whether she travels or not. In fact, I liked it so much I bought it in hard back for myself and for my three closest friends.
Rating:
Summary: If you loved Kite Strings, read her latest story in salon
Review: Kite Strings of the Southern Cross is the best book I've read in years! It picks up where traditional travel books (i.e. male) leave off, with potent vignettes about life on the road that capture the sensual side of travel. You'll be transported from sinister Malaysian nightclubs, to the back of a motorcycle with a mad maritimer, to a lush Fijian island you'll never want to leave--all seen through the eyes of a world-class adventuress. I missed the book so much when it finished that I started reading it all over again. I just found a fabulous new travel story by Laurie Gough on salon magzine: http://salon.com/travel/feature/2000/03/11/naxos/index.html
Rating:
Summary: Breath-taking and lyrical travel odyssey
Review: Kite Strings of the Southern Cross is the big-hearted, sensual, vibrant and extraordinarily compelling true travel diary of a Canadian woman in Fiji. The writing is breathtaking and skilled. The places she takes the reader are places the reader wants to remain long after the book is put down. Gough's book is set mainly on a remote south pacific island where Gough lived and taught school. Within the Fiji journal itself are ten short stories based on her travels around the world. The early stories are light-hearted and extremely funny, as are the first few journal chapters of Fiji, but as her stay in Fiji intensifies, the short stories begin to take on weight and reveal the darker sides of the human spirit. Some are set in Morocco, Malaysia, Bali, Hawaii, New Zealand, Italy and North America. The story of the author's hilarious motorcycle escapade from California to eastern Canada with Chester McQuiggle is alone worth the price of the book. This exceptional new talent should be read, and read widely, for within her writing we find secrets loaded with stars. When this book came out in Canada last year, under the title of "Island of the Human Heart", it was an immediate sensation. Soon to be published in the US with a new title and a bigger publisher, Americans will now have the chance to be taken on the travel odyssey of their lives.
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