Rowling, Carroll, Riordan, Baum – it’s time to make room up on that shelf of elite writing goodness for another author. Scoot over. It won’t hurt. James Gough, take your place. His new novel, Cloak, is a classic, an eminently readable, interesting, extraordinary book. If you’re like me, you’re already imagining a movie. But I digress.

I just can't wait any more. I HAVE to share this with you! Last month, I read THE best YA book I've ever read. The book, Cloak, is about enchants, travel, the magic of life, eating (Spam, or bugs, or...), friends, growing, learning, BEING.

If you're going to Kathmandu, plan to buy pashminas. Here's what you need to know.

We're water people. We live on a lake. We have a cottage on a lake. And, whenever we travel, we seem to gravitate toward water.

Travel has been and continues to be a lifelong passion of mine. Over the fifteen years that I've worked as a makeup artist and hair stylist in film and television production, I’ve had many opportunities to develop a travel style that works no matter where I am in the world.

With great insight, author Kwei Quartey brings the children of Accra's streets to life in his latest book, Children of the Street. If you're like me, you haven't read a lot of fiction about or from Ghana. I'm not sure whether it was from a lack of authors that have been translated, or that the literature isn't accessible to me, but I had no idea what I was missing. Kwei Quartey, a doctor and intercultural author that delves deeply into Ghanaian culture in his books, is the real deal.

Sir Edmund Hillary is never really out of mind in Nepal's Khumbu district. By far the greatest tourism draw is Mount Everest, which is forever linked to the names of its first summiters, Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

Kathmandu: What's Not to Like?

      Boy, this place sure has gone down the crapper. When I first came in 1974...