Femme D'Adventure: Travel Tales from Inner Montana to Outer Mongolia

Jessica Maxwell has a knack for finding adventure on her way to the refrigerator. Fortunately for her readers, she chooses to venture further away from home and take us along as we whisk from page to page. Maxwell shows us that adventure is trying something new, whether flyfishing in Mongolia or bracing the rapids and fears of whitewater rafting. Through her refreshing literary style, I felt like I was trotting after her in Alaska, Ireland, Italy and elsewhere. Most of all, the book is a fabulous reminder that adventure is in the eye of the adventurer, and to step outside one's comfort level brings life's richest rewards.

Jessica Maxwell has a knack for finding adventure on her way to the refrigerator. Fortunately for her readers, she chooses to venture further away from home and take us along as we whisk from page to page. Maxwell shows us that adventure is trying something new, whether it's flyfishing in Mongolia or bracing the rapids and fears of whitewater rafting. Her refreshing literary style creates a sense of place that allowed me to tag along to Alaska, Ireland, Italy and elsewhere. Most of all, the book is a fabulous reminder that adventure is in the eye of the adventurer, and to step outside one's comfort level leads to life's richest rewards.

"Femme d'Adventure" is a sublime collection of ecotourism and travel essays tied together by a few simple themes -- that Nature is unbelievable but seeing is believing, that water is the stuff of Nature that bonds all species together, that a shared meal is the stuff of humanity that bonds people together, that humanity is just one species in the interrelated world of Nature, and that we may experience Nature in the American backyards that essayist Jessica Maxwell visits as well in the exotic locales -- Mongolia, Ireland, the Rockies, Alaska -- that she visits, too.Maxwell takes us climbing in the mountains and on the hillsides, diving in the oceans, rafting and fishing in the rivers. Frequently she grounds her observations in a shared meal among those sharing her travels. Her vivid metaphors from couture or cosmetics -- e.g., Compared to river dories, "Rafts are a lot like shampoo -- they give your ride more body and bounce, and make it more manageable" -- ring with the eureka! truth that comes of Maxwell's relating apparently unrelated concepts from Natural Science and the powder room. In the process, she reminds us that travel and adventure aren't matters of gender, even if the sexism of the traditional outdoorsman is: "The world in all its natural and cultured glory is out there waiting for each of us, if e're we dare to grab our fly rod, pack out waterproof mascara, and go." My favorite essay is "Day of the Stiff Dogs," in which we come to know California's monarch butterfly, Utah's brine shrimp, Alaska's ice worm, Texas's tadpole shrimp and leaf-cutter ant, Washington's gold beetle and giant Pacific octopus, and Florida's gentle, vanishing manatee and 5-pound Alpo-eating Bufo toad, whose venom temporarily paralyzes the pooches that bite this noxious amphibian to protect their dog food.Whether describing her own anxiety in a new and trying situation or else decrying our collective shame for the condition of the environment, this book is always buoyed with a dry, punning wit that engages our best selves. Between the covers of Jessica Maxwell's "Femme d'Adventure: Travel Tales from Inner Montana to Outer Mongolia," there are enough sunbeams and moonbeams to light our way to save Nature from humanity.

Both Jessica and her hair always were untame-able.:

I love this book, simply put. As an avid traveller, armchair and otherwise, I am always looking for an author with both a sense of wonder as well as adventure, and Jessica Maxwell certainly has that. Whether she is telling us how she got over her personal fear of flying to really see the Pacific Northwest for the first time, or when she weaving a tale of bison roundups, she has a way of being both amusing and down to the earth. If salt of the earth didn't come with all sorts of negative backage, it would be a perfect synonym for both her writing style and her personality, at least the one that shines through her writing. She is deadpan accurate and able to shine a light into the dark corners we never visit and still make it beautiful. Plus, she is able to describe what it is really like to spend 7 hours on a plane with a friend with untamable hair.