Peking to Paris: Life and Love on a Short Drive Around Half the World

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In May 2007, leaving Chinas Great Wall is Car 84, one of 128 antique autos racing in the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge. Its guided by one Dina Bennett, the worlds least likely navigator: a daydreamer prone to carsickness, riddled with self-doubt, and married to a thrill-seeking perfectionist who is half-human, half-racecar. What could possibly go wrong
Funny, self-deprecating, and marred by only a few acts of great fortitude, Peking to Paris is first and foremost a voyage of transformation. The reader is swept on a wild, emotional ride, with romance and adversity, torment and triumph. Starting in Beijing, Dina and her husband, Bernard, limp across the Gobi, Siberia, Baltic States, and south to Paris in a 1940 Cadillac LaSalle, while Dina nurses the absurd hope that she can turn herself into a person of courage and patience.

Writing for every woman whos ever doubted herself and any man whos wondered what the woman traveling with him is thinking, Dina brings the reader with her as she deftly sidesteps rock-throwing Mongolians and locks horns with Russians left over from the Interpol eranot to mention getting a sandstorm facial and racing rabbits on a curvy country road. Come along for the ride with a dashboard diva!

Reviews

Her [Bennett s] writing captures the beauty of the austere landscape, changing social dynamics with other teams and the nuances of her shifting relationship with her husband. A fun ride, worth the trip. --Kirkus Reviews
Selected as a top 10 Travel Book of Spring 2013 by Publishers Weekly.
Her [Bennett's] writing captures the beauty of the austere landscape, changing social dynamics with other teams and the nuances of her shifting relationship with her husband. A fun ride, worth the trip. --Kirkus Reviews

Author Bio

Dina Bennett was born in Manhattan. After five years as a PR executive, she joined her husbands software localization company as senior VP of sales and marketing. The two worked side by side until they sold the firm in 1998 and abandoned corporate life for a hay and cattle ranch. Since then she has untangled herself from barbed wire just long enough to get into even worse trouble in old cars on over 100,000 miles of far-off roads. She is the author of Peking to Paris, and she resides in France.