Book Review: The Truth About Moving Abroad (& Whether it's Right for You) by Paul Allen

I hadn't realized how pervasive the dream of living abroad is until I read the stats in Paul Allen's new book, Should I Stay or Should I Go?: The Truth About Moving Abroad and Whether it's Right for You. Turns out nearly 10 million Americans are seriously considering moving to another country for at least a while, and nearly 50% of British citizens yearn for foreign shores (presumably sunnier ones.) However, roughly 25% of Brits who take the plunge and actually emigrate wind up moving back home again often because the reality of living abroad wasn't for them.

Should you get serious about your dream, or would you be happier as an 'armchair emigrant'? I know I've often wondered myself as my own family's target date for formally moving to the Balkans grows closer. So, I was happy to get Paul's book.

First he gives a light overview of some of the most popular countries - Australia, Canada, Mexico, France, the UK, and more. (Serbia didn't quite make the list.) Next, he examines the 10 'make or break factors' for living a happy life abroad. This was the most interesting part of the book for me because it's not information I can get from any guidebook.

For example, did you know people living in northern Spain may be plagued by flies throughout the extra-long fall season? Or that people in San Diego spend many sunny summer days cooped up indoors with the air conditioning at full blast just to cope with the heat?

And, the cost of living in most European countries is much higher than in the US. For example, Chicago is a bargain compared to Madrid. Cost of living overseas also fluctuates a lot more than I had expected, countries that were fairly cheap as recently as 2002 are now harder to afford. That could make planning hard for people on a fixed income. Healthcare costs for expats may also be rising as governments save money by restricting national healthcare systems to their own citizens alone.

Paul's 'lifestyles' chapter is perhaps the most insightful. For example, although he expected to explore all of Europe on holidays when he moved from the UK to Spain, he wound up spending every holiday back in the UK visiting family. Also, if you're lucky enough to land a job overseas, bear in mind that expats often have to work far longer hours than they did back home, especially if they're reporting back to an HQ in their original country.

The point of this book is to add a dose of reality to your expat dreams. Paul has included both personal stories of his own experiences as well as lots of charts and graphs from formal research studies. I like that mixture of anecdotal and observational data a great deal.

If you've already lived in another country for an extended period (longer than a holiday) then you may not learn much. But, if you haven't, and you're even remotely seriously considering moving abroad, I'd recommend this book strongly. Expatriating is too big a decision to make with nothing but stars in your eyes.

Book Review: French Dirt - The Story of a Garden in the South of France by Richard Goodman

The painting on this book's cover is absolutely marvelous, and sums up what Northern gardeners imagine when we have Mediterranean fantasies. A line of tall cypress lead to a red-tile-roofed villa. All around are grape vines, yellowed-hills, and in the foreground a gardener crouched down next to his watering can, tending to a row of vegetables grown huge in the strong sun.

The book was well reviewed by the literary establishment. But, I think not by anyone who's actually passionate about gardening. It's really a book for New Yorkers. A pleasant diversion for people who have never gardened and probably never will in the future. You'll find passionate descriptions of Richard's excitement about his garden, the first of his adult life, but precious little actual information on the specifics of gardening. So, on that front, it's a wash.

However, there's one bit I really do like. Richard describes how tough it is to get to know the locals beyond a polite smile. French people don't rush to include new neighbors - foreign or not - in their daily lives. There's a natural insularity and slight standoffishness that's natural to many cultures (I've experienced it in England but not Scotland. In Croatia, but not Serbia.)

Richard broke through this wall unexpectedly, when, needing money, he went to work as an unskilled laborer for a few local farmers. Most well-to-do retirees living in foreign countries will never discover that trick and they'll be lonelier for it. (In fact most living abroad books talk about the opposite, getting to know locals by cozying up to one's own hired help.)

In summary, this isn't a bad little book, as long as you're not expecting serious information about gardening. And, that cover is a delightful thing to display face-out on your bookshelf. I happen to own a full-blown poster of it, left over from a bookstore promotion, and I thank my lucky stars daily.

Book Review: 'Spotted Dick, S'il Vous Plait' by Tom Higgins

The author photo in the back reveals the Frenchest-Chefiest-possible-looking man. But, Tom Higgins is British and had no chef or restaurant experience prior to opening his own cafe in Lyon in 1986. Luckily, he was ready to work all hours of the day and night, had some great recipes, and the natives, surprising themselves considerably, liked British food enough to return again and again.

This enjoyable memoir is the perfect book to give anyone who dreams of opening their own restaurant in a foreign land. It's humorous, honest, and sweet.

Book Review: Notes From an Italian Garden by Joan Marble

I love the story of how Boston-born journalist Joan Marble first became obsessed with gardening ... adding one little potted plant after another to her small Roman balcony. Finally, she and her husband bought a piece of land north of Rome and built a summer home there, so she could expand her plant collection.

The land was dense, red clay -- terrible for gardening. We're talking pick-axes. In fact, they had to dynamite holes to plant the long rows of cypress trees lining the driveway. But Joan and an assortment of helpers persisted. This memoir, written 30 years after the founding of the garden, gives a behind-the-scenes look at how it evolved, and the lessons learned and friends made along the way.

My favorite part describes her research into green houses for warmer climates. You can't use a traditional glass greenhouse in the Mediterranean because your plants will fry. Instead, you have to create a shady-greenhouse. Joan's sounds delicious, but I do wish she'd included some actual blueprints or photographs to illustrate. The book is packed with artistic line drawings which are pretty, but not much help for me at least.

Book Review: O Come Ye Back to Ireland by Niall Williams and Christine Breen

I can't imagine how they stayed. No, really. When the Niall and Christine abandoned their just-taking-off publishing careers in New York City to move to a small family farm in County Clare, they were as hard-working and positive thinking as you can possibly be. There they were, living their dream, and it mainly turned out to be as dreary and dreadful as life could be.

The darling old cottage was dirt-floored and drafty, and they didn't have enough stored turf to burn to keep it warm. Their crop was threatened by blight. The potential pool of local friends were nearly all senior citizens or close to it. They learned they could not have children naturally. They desperately missed basics such as orange juice, doughnuts and a fat Sunday paper. It rained and rained and rained and rained and rained. Then it rained some more.

But, despite everything, they stuck it out. They learned to cut turf, plant a garden, own chickens and cows. They started a local exercise class, put on a play, learned to paint, finished novels... Life, despite everything, got better.

Book Review: A Pig in Provence by Georgeanne Brennan

When I'd heard famous, California-born, cookbook author Georgeanne Brennan had written an autobiography of her life in Provence, I was expecting, well, an autobiography; but, that's not what this is. Instead, it's a collection of eight autobiographical essays, each centered around a particular Provencal food item. For example, one is about aoli, another on wild mushrooms, and a third about freshly butchered pork.

I'm not a true foodie, but most of the details she mentioned were things I already knew about from other books or personal experience. So, there's nothing unique in here, although the eight featured recipes look fairly useful. Frustratingly, Georgeanne includes just enough biographical details to get your taste whetted... and then goes back to food again. You can tell she's got a great memoir inside of her, but it's not this book.

Perhaps the most illuminating information in the book are little side comments strewn throughout about how much Provence has changed since Georgeanne first moved there in 1970, and indeed how lucky she was in 1970 to witness the very last of the oldtime customs. Tellingly, her son was the first child born in the village after an entire decade. Her local friends, at that time, were nearly all old age pensioners. Today the people inhabiting those same homes are mostly well-off vacationers from places like Germany, the UK and Paris.

Georgeanne has asked many of her oldest French friends if they miss the old days. No, they all say. It was too much hard work and isolation. But I can tell she's nostalgic for those times, if only because the food, then all homegrown and homemade, was slightly better.

Book Review: Ninety Dozen Glasses by Marguerite Cullman

Back in 1958, near the peak of America's golden years, President Eisenhower appointed Marguerite Cullman's husband to be the US Commissioner General to the Brussels World Exhibition. Her charming memoir, published January 1960, has long been one of my favorites -- the sort of old, beloved book you dig out to read on a rainy day every few years.

I suppose it's partly because this is the sort of book you expect when you imagine diplomatic wife memoirs. Lots and lots of cocktail parties, much being made over who sits precisely where at all official functions, dealing with the servants (should one find a drunken butler amusing, or fire him?), house hunting with a fat budget and perfect taste in a European capital city, and unexpected friendships with one's diplomatic peers from all sorts of exotic countries.

One of the most memorable parts of the book is Cullman's description of what each nation chose to display to symbolize the power and might of their culture. The Russians put a giant piece of agricultural equipment on display. The US put a big fat copy of that week's Sunday New York Times.

BTW: The ninety dozen glasses of the title refer to the massive cabinet of cocktail glasses of every size and description that were a requirement for the job. Too bad I never had a job like that!

Book Review: North of Ithaka by Eleni N. Gage

Daughter of Nicholas Gage, in her late 20s, New York journalist Eleni Gage gave up her job and spent a year in the small village of Lia in northern Greece in order to rebuild the family home which had been abandoned 50 years before when her grandmother Eleni was infamously murdered.

What's wonderful for me about this book is that the author not only shows the every day life of the village as it is today but also reveals what it's like being the first generation born in the USA, complete with tons of aunties full of life advice from the old country.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to move to a small Greek town in the mountains, this is the book for you. Rather unromantically, every single inhabitant is at or over retirement age. But, Eleni makes friends with most, creating a community and support network of grey haired friends. You get the feeling that if younger Greeks stuck around in the old towns, she'd be there still.

Includes eight pages of photos of the people and places described in the book (very welcome, especially because so few memoirs include photos) and details about Eleni's home renovation (nearly a complete rebuild) of her grandmother's traditional stone home.

Book Review: Our Man in Belize by Richard Timothy Conroy

When I heard Belize got hit by a 7.1 earthquake yesterday morning, my thoughts immediately turned to this classic diplomatic memoir. Back in the fall of 1961, when Belize was still British Honduras and its biggest city had a population of 30,000, Hurricane Hattie hit causing massive devastation. 400 buildings were wiped out, along all utilities, roads, and the town's supply of drinking water (Conroy's description of dealing with would-be rescuers a few days later when he'd had no sleep since Hattie and nothing safe to drink but alcohol is marvelous.)

Although it's now touted as a green tourism destination, back in 1961, Belize was a butthole pure and simple. It was one of those diplomatic postings you got when you seriously pissed off the wrong person at State Department.

In the decades since his tour as Belize's US Vice Consul, Conroy, self-admittedly, honed his stories until they "took on a life of their own". And boy are they good. Reading this book, you completely understand why St Martin's editor Ruth Cavin, laughing like crazy, paid for Conroy's lunch at DC's Hotel Madison (not a cheap place), and then begged him to write it all down. I'm awfully glad he listened to her.

You'll enjoy this book if:
- You love dry humor, especially targeted at the State Department
- You're a hurricane story buff
- You're considering moving to Belize, now a much-hawked retirement and 2nd home destination for Americans, and would like a reality check on what it was like before the current developers moved in.

Book Review: No News at Throat Lake by Lawrence Donegan

On vacation with an old girlfriend, London-based journalist Lawrence Donegan fell in love with a small country village in Ireland. They spent their days at the beach and nights watching stars in the marvelously clear skies. Touched to his core by the "vast stretches of wild unspoiled beauty" and a slow, ultra-relaxed pace of life, Lawrence decided to chuck in his job at The Guardian and start over again working at a farm in Creeslough.

In this very funny memoir, Lawrence tells the story of what it's really like when you move to the Irish countryside. As you can guess, his farmer's helper job was short-lived (going from a desk job to a muddy field with a bunch of angry cows doesn't usually work out.) So, he threw himself o the mercy of the editor of the local paper, circulation 2,745, and became a local reporter.

It was a fantastic job for an outsider to luck into -- access to all the local events along with the official right to go poking your nose into everyone's business. If I ever move to another country where I speak the language well enough to pull it off, I'll try to do the very same thing.

You'll like this book if:
- You ever dreamed of the simple rural life in amidst "film set" beauty.
- You followed the story of American heiress Doris Duke's butler Bernard.
- You're a journalist or would-be reporter.

Book Review: Married to the Foreign Service by Jewell Fenzi & Carl Nelson

Based on 170 oral interviews with US foreign service spouses (nearly all women), this history book is packed with behind-the-scenes details of what diplomatic life was really like from the 1920s to the 1990s.

It's not at all dry -- I was completely engrossed by the personal stories and lengthy quotes which cover everything from being evacuated from Tehran; being stationed in Moscow during the height of the Cold War; surviving coup attempts in Baghdad; coping with the McCarthy hearings; and swimming the Bosporus. Not to mention a few cocktail parties along the way.

Interwoven with these stories, you'll find a history of the role of diplomatic spouse, from an unpaid helpmeet with little or no official training to the upheavals of the women's movement (1972 was the year "they fired the wives") to the end of the century when some spouses were male. Also included, an examination of what it means to be a foreign-born spouse representing your new country when you've barely lived there yourself. (More common than you might think.)

You'll like this book if you:
- enjoy tales of diplomatic adventures from a female perspective.
- are considering a foreign service career yourself (or your spouse is.)
- study women's history.

Book Review: Hidden Immigrants, Legacies of Growing Up Abroad, by Linda Bell

When I lived in Northwest Washington DC in my 20s, it was still a fairly sleepy little town with used car dealers and strip clubs within a few blocks of the White House. Aside from a few friends who worked for the government, it seemed everyone else my age was foreign, either a recent immigrant from one of 100 different countries, or a foreign journalist, a World Bank minion, an Iranian refugee, or an embassy staffer. In fact so many people in my neighborhood were foreign that you were assumed foreign until proven otherwise. I was myself often mistaken by fellow Americans for a Swede, and complimented on my well-spoken English!

That foreignness, that international flavor, attracted another demographic like crazy -- foreign service brats. Now young adults who had been brought up around the world by parents in the diplomatic service or other international careers. I remember one boyfriend who kept exclaiming because all the city signs were in English and it was so "incredibly" convenient. He'd never lived anywhere the English language was public before. Like him, many of my friends had lived everywhere as children ... except America itself. Suddenly they found themselves at 21 or 22, ejected from school and family, starting a new life in a strange country.

Now, as a stepmother to two young adults who grew up in two different countries before immigrating to America, I again see that "Which country is mine? Where do I fit?" played out around me.

So, I was happy to find Linda Bell's book, 'Hidden Immigrants' because she helped explain that no-man's-land of adjustment when you've spent much of your life in one country and then move back to your "native" land. Much of the material is direct transcription highlights of oral histories given by 13 real-life 'hidden immigrants' about their adjustment to life back in the home country.

Most fascinating are the conclusions about life patterns that Bell draws from her research. It seems people who grew up outside of their home country, especially those who moved several times, often exhibit very similar patterns, pains and problems. And yet, the stories they told of their childhood, the worlds they lived in... you can't help but be a little jealous.

Book Review: Moscow Spring by William and Jane Taubman

In the best tradition of academics, the Taubmans eschewed the expat ghetto in Moscow when they lived there in the late 1980s. Instead, they were the only non-Russians in their apartment building and possibly entire neighborhood, just as Gorbachev's reforms kicked in.

In this memoir, written as events were happening and published in 1989, the Taubmans recount their Russian friends and neighbors' daily life and passionate feelings about a future with the cold war ended and capitalism blooming.

You'll find this book this book fascinating if you:

- want insight into the formative early adult experiences that shaped the (mostly) men who are the generation in power in Russia today.

- are interested in studying societies at their moments of earth-shattering transition (not to mention economic upset.)

- consider "may you live in interesting times" a blessing you'd like to be gifted with.

Book Review: Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr

This book is exquisite, luminous, dazzling, poetic, enthralling. It is literature with a capital L. I almost feel as though it should be perfumed with a subtle yet intoxicating scent and cost at least $100 a page.

It's awfully, awfully well written and a vast pleasure to read. (These two things don't always go together you know.)

On the day Anthony and his wife came home from the Boise Idaho hospital with their newly born twins, he received a letter informing him he'd won the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts & Letters (a prize he'd been unaware he was up for) which included a free apartment plus writing studio in Rome for an entire year, as well as a stipend to live on.

This book is the story of that year, an insomniac's diary of what it's like to be a new parent in a strange city in a foreign land, as well as what it's like to be an artist working, and sometimes failing to work, at your craft in such an exotic place. Snowfall in the coliseum, fresh fava beans at the greenmarket, a child's first step, 13 obelisks, white gloved policemen, a funeral at the Vatican, pediatricians who make housecalls on Vespas, Caravaggio, peacocks and parrots, Pliny, four-hour dinners, "hopelessly good antipasti"... it's all in there.

You'll adore this book if you:
- Are an armchair traveler yearning for the next best thing to actually being in Rome yourself.
- Are the parent of twin infants (although you won't have time to read it.)
- Want a behind-the-scenes look into the everyday life and creative process of an award-winning 30-something novelist.

Book Review: Ciao, America! by Beppe Severgnini

"The American news we are bombarded with in Europe is like having a searchlight shine directly into your eyes," notes Beppe in his introduction. "Ordinary America is one of the world's best kept secrets." You know, I'm so glad someone besides me said that. America is as overexposed in the world's media as Paris Hilton, which leads many outside the US to assume, reasonably, that they know all about it. Then they come here and those preconceptions get blown to smithereens.

You can tell that Beppe, an Italian journalist, had a marvelous time writing this book about the year in the early 1990s he and his family lived in the Georgetown area of Washington DC. He details the strange customs of the natives (annoyingly friendly waiters, freakishly quick and businesslike phone calls, continual unalloyed optimism, no need to bribe clerks, boasting being valued over modesty, unusual holiday rituals, the overwhelming variety of offerings on supermarket shelves, etc.) and is terrifically proud of winning signs of acceptance from the neighbors after just six months. (Relentless front yard gardening was key.)

And, of course, he gives an Italian's take on American food. Pancake houses, burger joints, chewing gum, and mountains of ice in drinks.

You'll like this book if you:
- Are an American living in Europe and would like to imagine the reverse sometimes.
- Are an American who always wondered what our country looks like through foreigner's eyes.

Book Review: The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn

When Kathleen Flinn got laid off from her corporate job, the 36-year old took it as a sign from the fates that perhaps she was meant to live her dream life after all. So, she cashed in her savings and left for Paris to study for an entire year at Julia Child's alma mater, Le Cordon Bleu.

This memoir is the world's only behind-the-scenes portrayal of Le Cordon Bleu in the 21st century. Personally I love stuff like this, when you get to see what something terribly glamorous is truly like in real life. Kathleen is a great guide, sharing both the magic and the stresses of studying with some of the toughest teachers in the world. Laughter, new love, tears, and very sharp knives -- it's all in there along with her favorite recipes.

Also includes, to me amusing, sections on how hard it is to find a half-decent rental apartment in Paris for a remotely reasonable price.

Worth a read if you:
- Are a foodie and/or a cook
- Have dreamed of chucking it all in and moving to Paris
- Enjoy true-life love stories and romantic comedies

Book Review: A Lizard in My Luggage by Anna Nichols

What I like about this book is how much, as a busy, entrepreneurial businesswoman Anna Nichols reminds me of myself. I've always dreamed of moving to a country like Spain with a warmer climate and a healthier work/life balance while keeping my American career going, but how, exactly, would that work?

Would I relax so much in my new life that I couldn't keep up with the rat race in the old one? Would I come to despise airlines and having to fly back and forth so much for various obligations? And, how would I fit in, and make new friends in my new country while managing to continue as a good friend to people in my old one?

In this amusing memoir of recent events, Anna describes in detail how she kept a foot in both camps -- running a busy London-based PR practice at the same time as starting a new life with her husband and six-year old son in Mallorca. In between she trained for her first marathon, overcame a vicious fear of flying, learned to speak Spanish, made new friends with natives, and learned how to cope with out-of-town guests who don't remotely enjoy 'going native' as much as she does.

You'll enjoy this book if you are:
- living in two different countries at the same time, moving to and fro between them.
- scared of flying and want to overcome your fears
- an independent PR practitioner
- taking up jogging for the first time in your 40s
- wondering if you can work from home in another country

Book Review: The Olive Farm by Carol Drinkwater

I do not want to be a TV star. The thought of it appalls me. Having to learn all those lines; to appear perfectly groomed and glamorous in public; to live on locations far from home and my garden; to constantly seek my next gig and the one after that....

But, oh, you know I would make the sacrifice. I would. If it meant I could have Carol Drinkwater's villa and olive farm in the hills of Southern France above Cannes.

The way she tells the story, you can't hate her. You can't be nasty and jealous. Because, although she is famous and beautiful, as well as appearing in one of my favorite BBC series ever (Jame's Herriot's All Creatures Great & Small), Carol is so sweet and warm. The sort of a person you'd want as a girlfriend, or failing that, a favorite Aunt.

Plus, life was not easy. She and her husband only just scraped together the funds to buy the old half-ruined farm, and then they both worked like crazy for years to pay a looming mortgage, fix the generously leaking roof, fend off destructive wild boars, and somehow fill the ancient pool. This may be a dream home, but it's a home that's hard won and all the more beloved for it.

If you have fantasies about olive trees, paths of lavender, a distant view of the sea, and plenty of friends laughing around an outdoor lunch in the Mediterranean sun while dogs pant at their feet, this is your book. May you enjoy it as much as I have. Maybe even more.

You'll adore this book if you:
- yearn to renovate an old stone villa.
- love to garden (or at least fantasize about gardening.)
- want a behind-the-scenes look at how TV mini-series are actually scripted and produced.
- dream of the sunny south of France (even if you can't afford it.)

Book Review: First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria by Eve Brown-Waite

Be forewarned, although this book just came out, with an eye-grabbing cover of an alarmed-looking young woman peeping from behind a huge tropical leaf, it's actually about adventures the author had as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador and then a CARE executive's wife in Uganda... almost 20 years ago.

Just because the stories are a bit older than expected from the publisher's marketing blurbs, doesn't make them any less interesting. Well, ok. A little less. How I Met My Husband & Got Him to Propose moments of 20-something romantic travail will be less than fascinating to anyone older. But that's only the start of the book. The inside look at Peace Corps assignments will be interesting to anyone at any age considering volunteering. I, for one, hadn't realized quite how pushy and entrepreneurial you have to be to find "work" in your host country.

After her marriage, Eve followed her husband to his posting in Arua Uganda, at the time considered so dangerous that the US State Department warned against it. Although Eve's memoirs are full of love and laughter, personally I would have run screaming from the Big Bugs everywhere, not to mention the rat in the toilet. But, she stuck it out, even through one of the skinniest pregnancies ever. (When you can't find any food in the market you're craving, that baby bump is tiny.)

Although she tried valiantly, finding work was next to impossible even though Eve was an AIDs expert in one of the most AIDs-ridden countries on the planet at that time. So, she ended up living a lifestyle that diplomatic spouses would recognize from ages of yore -- including hot and cold running servants and all the gin and tonics she could drink to fend off malaria.

Perhaps Eve's best writing centers around the extreme confusion and disconnectedness expats can feel when they visit home. The moment in Heathrow airport when she simply couldn't cope because she was surrounded by white people is wonderful.

When memoir ended with the announcement of her husband's then-next job posting -- Uzbekistan -- I couldn't help myself and immediately emailed her to ask if a follow-up volume was coming. Cross your fingers!

This book will be interesting for people who:

- Are considering the Peace Corps or working for an NGO in Africa
- Have survived a foreign posting when your spouse had work but you couldn't find anything
- Like amusing stories of living in exotic lands

Book Review: Dome of Many-Coloured Glass by Post Wheeler & Hallie Erminie Rives

In years past, the best used book sale in Washington DC was run by a non-profit arm of the State Department. All the foreign service personnel and spouses would donate books - it was so huge they had to rent the biggest hall in town. If you've lived overseas you can understand why. Books in English are better than Godiva chocolates, so you collect an awful lot of them.

Foreign service officers and their spouses tend to live more exciting lives than most of us and then write books about themselves, which they all in turn collect, and then, when they get old, donate to the booksale. So there's that too.

At my very first Foreign Service booksale, so many years ago that I was in my 20s and living in a one-bedroom apartment within walking distance to the White House, I picked up a copy of 'Dome of Many-Coloured Glass' a diplomatic memoir. I think I liked the heft of the book (860-pages, not including index with tantilizing entries such as 'Anathan, Baroness d' pages 277, 445, 561") as much as I adored the scent of its yellowing pages.

Even in 1955, when it was first published, this autobiography must have been unusual in that husband and wife, both well-published authors, shared the stage. Each one tells the story of a diplomatic posting from their own perspective, the husband who is the diplomatic officer and the wife who must 'pay, pack and follow' as well as create a vibrant social life. Their postings, including Japan, London, The Arctic, Rome, Russia, Paraguay, Sweden and Albania, were extraordinary, and held at extraordinary times in the first half of the 20th century.

This book is no longer in print and second-hand copies are sometimes hard to come by, but you'll find the search is well worth it if you're interested in:

- international relations in the first half of the 20th century.

- what it was like being a diplomatic spouse back when men were diplomats and women were "helpmeets" (and boy did they help!)

- office politics at the US State Department. (Ugly, mean, tough.)

- High society in Japan, Sweden, et al, back when the Wheelers were circulating in it.