Andrew Evans and Alden Jones

Harvard Book Store welcomes National Geographic travel writer ANDREW EVANS and award-winning author and world traveler ALDEN JONES for a discussion of their books, The Black Penguin and the new-to-paperback The Blind Masseuse: A Traveler's Memoir from Costa Rica to Cambodia.

About The Black Penguin

A devout young boy in rural Ohio, Andrew Evans had his life mapped for him: baptism, mission, Brigham Young University, temple marriage, and children of his own. But as an awkward gay kid, bullied and bored, he escaped into the glossy pages of National Geographic and the wide promise of the world atlas. The Black Penguin is Evans's memoir, travel tale, and love story of his eventual journey to the farthest reaches of the map, a wild yet touching adventure across some of the most astonishing landscapes on Earth.

Ejected from church and shunned by his family as a young man, Evans embarks on an ambitious overland journey halfway across the world. Riding public transportation, he crosses swamps, deserts, mountains, and jungles, slowly approaching his lifelong dream and ultimate goal: Antarctica. With each new mile comes laughter, pain, unexpected friendship, true weirdness, unsettling realities, and some hair-raising moments that eventually lead to a singular discovery on a remote beach at the bottom of the world.

Evans's 12,000-mile voyage becomes a soulful quest to balance faith, family, and self, reminding us that, in the end, our lives are defined by the roads we take, the places we touch, and those we hold nearest.

Praise for The Black Penguin

"A traveler of boundless curiosity and compassion, Evans spins a globe-trotting tale of daring and discovery. His expedition proves that our inner and outward journeys can take us everywhere we need to go, from happiness at home to elation at the ends of the Earth." —George W. Stone, editor in chief of National Geographic Traveler

About The Blind Masseuse

Through personal journeys both interior and across the globe, Alden Jones investigates what motivates us to travel abroad in search of the unfamiliar.

By way of explorations to Costa Rica, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Burma, Cambodia, Egypt, and around the world on a ship, Jones chronicles her experience as a young American traveler while pondering her role as an outsider in the cultures she temporarily inhabits. Her wanderlust fuels a strong, high-adventure story and, much in the vein of classic travel literature, Jones's picaresque tale of personal evolution informs her own transitions, rites of passage, and understandings of her place as a citizen of the world. With sharp insight and stylish prose, Jones asks: Is there a right or wrong way to travel? The Blind Masseuse concludes that there is, but that it's not always black and white.

Praise for The Blind Masseuse

"Smart, witty, and well traveled, Alden Jones has given us a beautifully written book that honors the wandering spirit in all of us. Take this journey with her and return newly alive to the pleasure of moving through the world." —Ana Menéndez, author of Adios, Happy Homeland!

"Alden Jones is something of a 'Prodigal Daughter,' and she has come home from her long travels to tell us the stories from her own life and education. We both delight and learn from her wisdom and her tales of nine places in the world." —Brian Bouldrey, author of Honorable Bandit: A Walk across Corsica

"Jones takes us straight to the heart and to the resonating pulse of exotic pin dots most of us never have the nerve to explore. In writing both lyric and colloquial, she captures the voices that emerge in each landscape and setting. Her journeys are examined with a growing self-knowledge and a delicious sense of humor. The Blind Masseuse is an expedition into the interior life of a smart, engaging American woman who makes us feel at home no matter how far from home she takes us." —Maria Flook, author of Invisible Eden