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A Round-the-World Journey to Invite a Stranger Home
by Brad NewshamA book you'll want to read and recommend over and over. With poignancy and persuasion, Newsham demonstrates the power individuals have to make the world a better place.
A free trip to America? To many this either sounds like a scam or a dream come true. But to Brad Newsham it was a a promise he made to himself. Someday, when I am rich, I am going to invite someone from my travels to visit me in America. Newsham was only 22 when he scribbled this note in his journal, with "only an immature sense of the staying power of ideas." He had no idea that years later he would make it his mission to fulfill the promise so casually made to his younger self. Or, that he wouldn have to be "rich" to make good on his word.
Newsham's Take Me with You tells a story that changes his own, the life of a stranger he has yet to meet, and the lives of those who read this hopeful, heartwarming account. How often do you encounter such a the story of a traveler whose central purpose is to give a trip to someone else, someone he randomly meets on the road? The world, according to Newsham, is a place in which individual people matter, in which the dream of one may touch the life of another. Take Me with You is the true account of Newsham 100-day journey through the Philippines, India, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, all the while seeking someone very special to invite back to America.
Take Me with You is a book you'll want to read and recommend over and over. With poignancy and persuasion, Newsham demonstrates the power individuals have to make the world a better place.
Chapter 1.
ONE HUNDRED DAYS
When it is a question of money, everyone is of the same religion.
– Voltaire
The cab driver glanced back at me. "You..." he said. "America?"
It was a Wednesday evening in early November–the pleasant, dry season in the Philippines–and a breeze with the feel of warm coconut milk was pouring through my open window. I’d studied a map on the plane: the blackness beyond the row of palm trees to our left would be Manila Bay. To our right a congregation of burlap lean-tos overflowed onto the sidewalk, and, between two of them, a woman was cooking something over a smoky fire.
"Yes," I said. "America. San Francisco."
"Ah, Cah-lee-for-nee-ah!" said the driver. "California best."
He slowed to acknowledge a red traffic signal, then, reassured, sailed through it. Above the meter were a license and photo identifying the taxi as Golden Cab Number Two (it was painted black) and the driver as Mr. Alfredo Errabo. At the airport ...
Adair Lara, San Francisco Chronicle columnist and author ofSlowing Down in a Speeded Up World
Take Me With You makes me sick with longing to travel. It is, at least, the next best thing. Donna Levin, author of Extraordinary Means
Newsham takes all of us with him on this daring, fantastic, funny and informative journey to parts of the world that only the adventurous see. If you've been there, come visit again. If you haven't, read Take Me With You and find a reason to go. Herbert Gold, author of Bohemia
Brilliant, sharp, unswerving, humorous travel writing by a man skilled at letting the scales fall from his eyes; it is a memoir of travel seen through time and resolve--in short, a wonderful book. Jamie Zeppa, author of Between the Sky and the Earth
No travel book can be as satisfying as the journey itself, but this one comes close. Take Me With You brims with the very wondrous, startling, beautiful, strange--that make travel so stimulating, so perplexing, and so addictive. Jeff Greenwald, author of The Size of the World
In this era of conquests and ego-trips, it's refreshing and unusual to read a travel adventure that begins with a generous impulse. But Brad Newsham's global search for the perfect stranger--someone to invite home--is deceptively simple. We learn a lot about the world in this book, and we learn a lot about Newsham--and both of them are well worth knowing. Pico Lyer, author of Video Night in Kathmandu
For everyone who believes that travel is mostly about kindness and an open heart, Newsham is an ideal guide. He travels armed only with curiosity and a friendly trust, and brings back treasures that every wanderer might envy. His journey, at heart, is into humanity. Steve Zikman, author of The Power of Travel A Passport to Adventure, Discovery & Growth.
Brad has done it again. In surefooted language, rhythm and insight, he tugs at our traveler's heartstrings and greatest impulse. He brings us to places within and without, mirroring perfectly the questions that mesmerize and fascinate us the most.
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