Rating: 
Summary: Finally, a literary giant for the new generation
Review: Laurie Gough is divine.To a culture familiar with superlatives, such an exclamation might seem meaningless, but I assure you that I am a critic of the cruellest school-- few authors short of Virginia Woolf and her excelsior kin can satisfy me. I have long turned to Bellow and Updike (and the rare work of Roth) for a sense of true contemporary genius, but undeniably their work is for an earlier generation. Miss Gough, although not in technique so polished as Forster or Bronte, has a truly creative talent-- her _Kite Strings_ feel reminiscent of Woolf's _Voyage Out_, and I can only pray that she we never stop writing. If her recent publication in Salon is any indication of the development of her talent, I feel there is a good chance we will hear from Miss Gough for years and years to come.
Rating:
Summary: like lucious dark chocolate
Review: Laurie Gough writes like lucious dark chocolate melts on your tongue
Rating:
Summary: I BEG TO DIFFER TOO! IT WAS MY BIBLE!
Review: Laurie Gough's "Kite Strings" put me on the road to travel and to pursuing other excellent travel writing. So far, I've found no book to match this one. After reading it, I was so inspired to take off myself and explore the world, that I took a year off and haven't been able to force myself back. Like Gough, I wanted a journey rich with experiences where I'd live among other cultures and learn from their wisdom and laughter. What a shock to read this one strange review here from someone calling herself "westsailgirl" in New Zealand. She obviously could not have read the book--maybe the odd paragraph here and there--or she wouldn't be so perversely inaccurate about it. I practically used Gough's book as my bible in how to appreciate other cultures of the world. What on earth could this New Zealand girl mean by saying the author has no respect for people or cultures? That's what her whole book sings with!! If anything, Gough has too much respect, is too open-hearted and too willing to let herself fall into another culture's mythologies. That's one of her lessons and she explores it with grace, humility and wisdom in this highly thoughtful, funny and lyrical memoir. Where in the book does she ever mention being afraid of cannibals? Never. And having being to Fiji, I know that she used the correct term to describe those males who are raised as females. Was she supposed to make up another word for it? It's not as if she called them that to their face. How troubling to think that mean-spirited political correctness is still alive in NZ, a country the author loved and wrote about so generously. Besides, I doubt Gough was the only non-Brit (she's Canadian) shortlisted for the prestigious Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for nothing. In case you didn't know, westsailgirl, that's the award for the best travel book written in the English language. Gough's book deserves all the awards and rave reviews it's getting.
Rating:
Summary: I BEG TO DIFFER TOO! IT WAS MY BIBLE!
Review: Laurie Gough's "Kite Strings" put me on the road to travel and to pursuing other excellent travel writing. So far, I've found no book to match this one. After reading it, I was so inspired to take off myself and explore the world, that I took a year off and haven't been able to force myself back. Like Gough, I wanted a journey rich with experiences where I'd live among other cultures and learn from their wisdom and laughter. What a shock to read this one strange review here from someone calling herself "westsailgirl" in New Zealand. She obviously could not have read the book--maybe the odd paragraph here and there--or she wouldn't be so perversely inaccurate about it. I practically used Gough's book as my bible in how to appreciate other cultures of the world. What on earth could this New Zealand girl mean by saying the author has no respect for people or cultures? That's what her whole book sings with!! If anything, Gough has too much respect, is too open-hearted and too willing to let herself fall into another culture's mythologies. That's one of her lessons and she explores it with grace, humility and wisdom in this highly thoughtful, funny and lyrical memoir. Where in the book does she ever mention being afraid of cannibals? Never. And having being to Fiji, I know that she used the correct term to describe those males who are raised as females. Was she supposed to make up another word for it? It's not as if she called them that to their face. How troubling to think that mean-spirited political correctness is still alive in NZ, a country the author loved and wrote about so generously. Besides, I doubt Gough was the only non-Brit (she's Canadian) shortlisted for the prestigious Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for nothing. In case you didn't know, westsailgirl, that's the award for the best travel book written in the English language. Gough's book deserves all the awards and rave reviews it's getting.
Rating: 
Summary: road less travelled
Review: Looking for a book that will inspire you to think about taking a journey that challenges? Laurie Gough's 'Kite Strings...' does just that. Her writing reveals the beauty of the places she sees, the people she meets and the confidence that comes from traveling solo to a foreign place. It is about taking chances--as a woman who is not in her 20's, I am heartened by Laurie's bravery and panache, using the tales of her travels to fuel my plans to journey to places I have only dreamed of. Brava!
Rating:
Summary: CULT-CLASSIC FOR BACKPACKERS
Review: Okay, now I understand what all the hype is about surrounding this book for the backpacker crowd. it took me a while to finally get my hands on acopy (i only use libraries and borrow from friends and never buy from stores) but this is the best book i've ever read. i'm a backpacker who has been around the world as the author has and i understand most of the things she went through and it killed me to have to this book end. it's true when people say they couldn't put it down. get your hands on this book. you won't be sorry! it will make you cry and then make you laugh and then make you want to start traveling.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring........................
Review: Perhaps it's me but I found this travel book to be over lyrical and extremely boring. How many times can you describe the paradise of Figi. I also felt as if the author was keeping something from us. I am not sure what but just felt the book lacking of soul. I agree with another reviewer that Rita Golden Gelman's Tales of a Female nomad was much better to read.
Rating:
Summary: A BOOK TO SAVOUR
Review: This book has given me so much pleasure. The words are carefully crafted; paragraph after paragraph is a lyrical treat where the reader is swept away from place to place, adventure to amusing escapade, to the sheer delight of arm chair travel. I haven't travelled much as yet (I live in northern B.C. where we're far from the madding crowd) but after reading this book, feel as though I could take on the world. I'll read it again and again, to get that sensuous and sultry south pacific feeling back.
Rating:
Summary: A BOOK TO SAVOUR
Review: This book has given me so much pleasure. The words are carefully crafted; paragraph after paragraph is a lyrical treat where the reader is swept away from place to place, adventure to amusing escapade, to the sheer delight of arm chair travel. I haven't travelled much as yet (I live in northern B.C. where we're far from the madding crowd) but after reading this book, feel as though I could take on the world. I'll read it again and again, to get that sensuous and sultry south pacific feeling back.
Rating:
Summary: Kite Strings of the Southern Cross: A Woman's Travel Odysse
Review: This is a WONDERFUL book. I read it almost a year ago and I'm still recommending it to others, it is one of my few all time favourites. There's something in it for everyone, no matter what your tastes are when it comes to books. I'm eagerly awaiting another!
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