Blog, Book Reviews, Articles & More
Book Review: Selfie by Will Storr
The ancient Greeks obsessed over the idea of a perfect man (yes, always a man with the Greeks) who believed that fate was centered on the individual to the exclusion of other cultural forces (like, say, being a woman…
Book Review: Euphoria by Lily King
Beautifully written and sometimes jarring, this is a great read that challenges the reader to step out of the world as they know it…
The Lost City of the Monkey God A True Story
The Lost City of the Monkey God is a true adventure as gripping as fiction. In it, Preston recounts a 2015 expedition into the remote Mosquitia mountains of Honduras to find the legendary Ciudad Blanca—the White City, also known as the City of the Monkey God. In indigenous and local stories, Ciudad Blanca is the magnificent city where ancestors fled to escape Spanish invaders, and is now long-buried under tropical overgrowth.
Book Review: Don’t Sleep There Are Snakes
Daniel Everett was a missionary linguist with SIL—the Summer Institute of Linguistics—who went to the Piraha people in Amazonian Brazil and studied their language and culture for 20 or more years..
Book Review: The Immortality Key
An epic romp through history and prehistory to investigate the claim that the modern Christian eucharist ritual was built on a sacrament of psychedelic wine
Book Review: Where It Rains in Color
Everything is now…this idea is at the heart of this imaginative story. Contemporary Earth and the mythology of the (real) Dogon tribe of Mali seed the world of Swazembi…
About Kristine
Kristine Madera is an Amazon #1 bestselling author who writes fiction and nonfiction shaped by travel, culture, and lived cross-cultural experience.
Inspired while volunteering at Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying in Calcutta, her novel God in Drag examines what happens when spiritual faith fractures in the sacred city of Varanasi. Read the first chapter of God in Drag HERE
She birthed her upcoming novel, The Snakeman’s Wife, as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Papua New Guinea.
Be on the lookout for her Etiquette Express Guides, a series of short, practical travel guides that help readers understand the customs, social expectations, and everyday dos and don’ts that make travel smoother and more connected.
Her travels have taken her across India, Asia, Europe, Australia, and Papua New Guinea as both a backpacker and Peace Corps Volunteer. A portion of her book proceeds supports cross-cultural education scholarships.
You don’t need to “master” a culture to move through it well.
You just need a few steady skills:
- How to stay curious,
- How to adjust without performing
- How to recover gracefully when you miss a cue—because we all do.
This free PDF guide gives you 12 simple, human skills you can use anywhere: whether traveling abroad, navigating a new city, joining a host family, starting a new job, or even re-entering your own life after a trip.