Paradox Blog

Title: One Year Off
Author: David Elliot Cohen
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Reviewed by: Patrick Wong

This book is written by one of our fellow Bay Area residents who faces many of the same pressures surrounding lives of people like us. One day his mid-life crisis caught up with him and he decided he wanted to quit the get-ahead game. He then quit his job, sold his house and belongings, yanked his kids from school and went on a world tour for a year. The resulting book is a documentary about him and his family's travel through that one year. At the end, he shows us his new life after that drastic year break, as well as what formed his strongest recollection of it.

I love this book partly because I admire his courage and resolution, but to a larger part because it is a well written one. It is humorous, many uncanny observations, diary of travel experience which we yearn to have ourselves, a lot of family interactions that we can well relate to. I don't think I can describe his trip to you as well as he does. You just have to trust my words for it is good. Here is a run down of the countries he visited: Costa Rica, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Switzerland, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, India, Thailand, Australia, Cambodia, Laos and Hong Kong. He has a web site if you are interested: www.oneyearoff.com.

Don't miss it!