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May 19, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

I was wary of this one, but I'm not about to turn down a new book about Bhutan!

Travel memoirs are tricky. The author must strike a balance between blandly listing what they experience in the country and making the journey all! about! them! Radio Shangri-La is hit or miss in this regard. Unlike other travel memoirs I've read, there is a wealth of information about the Bhutan of the past four years. Napoli's pretty straightforward about how little she knew about Bhutan before arriving, More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 30, 2011

Athira rated it:

When I was first offered to review this book, I spent a while thinking about Bhutan, the country which is the focus of this travelogue memoir. The first sad thing I realized was that even in spite of having stayed for eight years in India, and having grown up on a steady diet of news regarding the southern Asian peninsula, Bhutan very rarely featured in any flash news from that region. Although I knew plenty about Bhutan, there was still a lot I didn't. That, as well as the real reason why news More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 17, 2012

Shomeret rated it:

Although I did learn about Bhutan from this book, I thought that Lisa Napoli's memoir was not the best vehicle for doing so. It occurred to me that Napoli isn't very visual. One incident that stood out for me was when she was guessing the nationality of another visitor to Bhutan by his accent rather than his appearance. Another one was when she purchased a ring as a keepsake from Bhutan and didn't describe it at all. Her descriptions are general rather than specific. A travel writer should b More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Oct 20, 2011

Renee rated it:

This book is about the author’s accident introduction to Bhutan and her series of visits between 2007 and 2010. I certainly learned more about the country and found that aspect of the book interesting. For example, Bhutan until recently had no access to television, radio, internet.

Not a heavily tourist destination, as many travelers are put off by the (still in place)$200 per person per day tourist tax. The country boasts the idea of measuring a society's GNP worth in “Gross National More...

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Jun 08, 2011

Sarah rated it:

Story of a 43 year old Public Radio worker who ended up in Bhutan for 6 weeks helping with the country's first radio station for Bhutanese youth with music (pirated from the internet) and news of a country that was just opening up to outsiders and had literally kept the rest of the world out to maintain its "Gross National Happiness". But the new king, who would be starting elections for a democratic government instead of the singular power of the monarchy which had been run by this f More...

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May 25, 2011

Jaylia3 rated it:

In spite of being in the news business herself, Lisa Napoli was tired of its noisy, incessant, over simplified sound bites, so when offered a six month volunteer position at a startup radio station in faraway Bhutan she put her job at NPR on hold and jumped at the chance. Bhutan, a tiny landlocked Buddhist kingdom surrounded by India and China and full of gorgeous alpine vistas, is famous for having a king who prefers promoting Gross National Happiness over Gross National Product. Mass communica More...

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Apr 26, 2011

Brenda rated it:

Any time you read a book that isn't based on the United States and our language you often have names of people and places that makes the eye like the tongue when reading out loud, stumble every time you see it. That is what slowed me down with this book. It wasn't totally enjoyable for me, I didn't zoom through the book in a day or two as I do when reading books I'm totally enamored with. This story was a true story of one womens fascination with a country that she went to visit often after her More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 21, 2011

Barbara rated it:

I selected this book from Amazon Vine because I don't know much of anything about Bhutan and since the author lived and worked there, rather than vacationing, I thought she would give me an open-eyed view of the people, the government, and the landscape.

Since I have an ARC copy, there are no photographs and I can't see from amazon's website that there are any in the published book either. I hope I'm wrong because it really needs pictures of Bhutan, her friends there, and herself.
More...

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Apr 06, 2011

Anna rated it:

I won an advance copy of this book from readitforward - thank you RIF for allowing me to do some armchair travel (even if I rarely read on an armchair).

I like to travel in the real life, but traveling in books is usually fun too (and way cheaper). I loved all the trivia and exotic bits about Bhutan in this book (more than the story; that was well written too, but I just loved the travel and discovery parts way more). I knew vaguely where Bhutan was located before reading this book, but More...

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Mar 19, 2011

Marija rated it:

We all have one place we’d love to visit “someday.” Bhutan is mine. I read everything I can get my hands on about that obscure country. So when “Radio Shangri-La” came out, I grabbed a copy. Lisa Napoli, in a mid-life rut, got a fantastic opportunity dropped on her lap: consult with Bhutan’s very first radio station, a fledgling start-up run by hip young people.

Napoli lacks the ability to make her stories come alive. I was more than half-way through the book before she provided More...

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Mar 16, 2011

Denise rated it:

In Radio Shangri-La Lisa Napoli is struggling on the edges of depression, trying to find a way to reconcile herself with a life that isn't all she dreamed of. It all begins when she attends an experimental workshop on positive thinking. One day the instructor assigns the class homework, each night before you go to bed write down three good things that happened. As Lisa takes the assignment to heart her outlook on life and what she values begins to change.

Thus when the friend of a fri More...

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Mar 16, 2011

Rebekah rated it:

Imagine Eat, Pray, Love. Subtract the self-indulgent whining. Add work. Voila! An approximation of Lisa Napoli’s Radio Shangri-la.

I don’t mean that in a reductive way, though. This is a very thoughtful, interesting travel memoir about a successful journalist in a mid-life crisis. After a chance meeting at a party, Lisa agrees to travel to Bhutan, a tiny country touted as the “happiest kingdom on Earth.” A radio vet, her skills are needed to help professionalize a Bhutan’s first rad More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Mar 02, 2011

Jen rated it:

First of all, I am so thankful for the opportunity to have read this book. I won a free copy and received it in the mail not long after- the best kind of package ever!

I have long been intrigued by the Kingdom of Bhutan, so this book was something of a pot of gold for those of us interested in knowing more. I read every single word of the entire book (literally) because I didn't want to miss a single thing Lisa Napoli had to share about her Bhutan experiences. The resource list at th More...

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Feb 27, 2011

David rated it:

I received this book as part of the Goodreads First Reads program.

After a chance meeting at a party, Lisa Napoli stumbles across the adventure of a lifetime. Radio Shangri-La covers two main narrative threads: a memoir of Napoli's sort of mid-life crisis and the history of Bhutan as well as its increasingly rapid democratization and commercialization. As a geography/culture junkie, I found the latter topic more compelling. Indeed, at times Napoli's personal developments seem a bit su More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2011

Jeannie rated it:

Although I am an avid reader of travel narrative books, Radio Shangri-La was my first armchair adventure story into the country of Bhutan.

While going through a personal midlife crisis, Lisa Napoli realizes she needs some changes in her life. Her personal relationships, her work at an L.A. radio station, and her previous view of the American dream dipped in a materialist world, were ingredients causing her life to fold and unhappiness to descend upon her life devoid of joy and meaning. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 10, 2011

Gigi Ann rated it:

My Thoughts: Radio Shangri-La is what I would guess an armchair memoir of Lisa Napoli's visits to Bhutan. From your easy chair you can visit Bhutan and follow the author and her visits to Bhutan. There are some parts of the story that are very interesting, and other parts are just downright boring, and maybe unnecessary. It was not a page turner for me. That being said, the experiences and thoughts Napoli shares made the reading of the book worthwhile.

I have to admit I had to google More...

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Apr 19, 2011

Amanda rated it:

Dear Lisa Napoli,
What DID you learn in Bhutan, the happiest place on earth? As a fellow traveller I hestitate to criticize your "Travel changed my life because it made me happy" epiphany, but such an epiphany does not a whole book merit. I enjoyed learning about Bhutan, a country I had only once heard of before when I went to a Gap Year meetup and a presenter who had been to nearly every country in the world insisted that Bhutan was the absolute best, and the absolute most expens More...

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Sep 01, 2011

Rae rated it:

There's a fine balance that should exist in the travel/self-discovery genre between the personal journey and physical one. In Lisa Napoli's Radio Shangri-La, far too much space is given to the mid-life crisis that propels her journey to the remote country of Bhutan. I was left at the end knowing more about her dislike for radio journalism and in particular her job at Public Radio's Marketplace as a reporter then what made her visits to Bhutan so special.
Bhutan is a tiny remote country tuc More...

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Mar 21, 2011

Jayme VA rated it:

I won this book on Read it Forward.

I really enjoyed this book. A lot of people compared it to Eat Pray Love but I actually liked this quite a bit better. Lisa set out to contribute, whereas I don't think Elizabeth Gilbert really had that in mind.

This memoir is set in the tiny Kingdom of Bhutan, a place I had heard of but wasn't really sure where it was or if it was its own country. Until a few years ago, Bhutan did not have any connection to the outside world, not tv, More...

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Mar 14, 2011

bookczuk rated it:

Bhutan captured my imagination back in my son's freshman year at Stanford because of a connection with one of his Stanford faculty and the Royal family. He almost spent part of that summer there, but time and finances worked against him heading to the Happiest Kingdom on Earth. Had he gone, he would have been in Bhutan the same time Lisa Napoli first went there, to help with the fledgling youth radio station Kuzoo FM.

There was a lot I liked about this book, but it had little to do wi More...

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Mar 15, 2011

MARILYN rated it:

Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in the Happiest Place on Earth by Lisa Napoli

This is an ARC from Reading Forward.

Radio Shangri-La is a memoir/travelogue of Lisa Napoli's adventures in Bhutan, the Happiest Place on Earth. One of the sources of Bhutan's happiness is that they have had little contract with the outside world. That is changing though, the King finally allowed a television station and radio to broadcast in the tiny kingdom. Lisa is brought in as a consultan More...

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Jul 23, 2011

Staci rated it:

Why I read it:
I really enjoy reading about people's experiences living countries that I know next to nothing about. I remember watching The Today's Show feature about Bhutan, which sparked my curiosity about the country and their way of life. When the chance to read this one came along I thought it sounded like a great read.

What's it about:

Lisa Napoli was in the grip of a crisis, dissatisfied with her life and her work as a radio journalist. When a chance encounter More...

2 comments like

Sep 28, 2011

Candice rated it:

A chance meeting with a handsome stranger led radio journalist Lisa Napoli to Bhutan to help the Bhutanese start up a radio station. This book grabbed me from the beginning. In the preface, the "Three Good Things" idea intrigued me. Every day, write down three good things that happened to you that day. As one who tends to the pessimistic side of life, I took that as a challenge to appreciate life's little moments of cheer. But on to the book itself. I thought a 14-hour plane ride More...

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Mar 21, 2011

Catherine rated it:

I was interested by the premise of this book -- American radio journalist goes to Bhutan to help professionalize the country's first and only radio station -- but ultimately disappointed. It felt more like a bunch of anecdotes strung together than a story with a narrative arc. Much of the book was also a little vague. It was never 100% clear what she was doing at the radio station other than hanging out and serving as a den mother to the 20-somethings working there, and there were brief menti More...

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Mar 26, 2011

Jody rated it:

I love the author's style of writing. She made me feel like I was in Bhutan with her.

Lisa is having a mid-life crisis, reflecting back on her life and wondering what life is all about and if she made the right choices. This is something many of us in this stage of our life can relate to.

She went to a "happiness class" and was given methods to appreciate her life (since I don't want to spoil the story for those who haven't read it, I won't go into details; but I lo More...

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Mar 01, 2011

Susan rated it:

Bhutan, with its Gross National Happiness emphasis, its gorgeous and isolated setting, wonderful people, and sudden ascent into the 21st century, has intrigued me, so I couldn't wait to read this memoir by a woman who volunteered at a fledgling radio station in the country. And I loved learning more about this unique country.

Unfortunately, the writing didn't quite live up to my expectations; it just didn't grab me as much as I had anticipated. To start, the author writes about Harr More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 05, 2011

Mallory rated it:

I really think they need 1/2 stars on here. I would probably give it 3.5 stars. I won this book from Read It Forward. This book is about a middle-aged woman who is divorced with no children who works in the radio industry. She comes in contact with someone with connections in Bhutan (supposedly the happiest place on earth), and goes over there to help them with their little local radio station. I'm a little torn with this book. I liked learning a little bit about another country and the pe More...

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Jul 28, 2011

Diane rated it:

A really good read (read as an advanced reader copy), I passed it on to a customer, who is very much into zen and stories of people finding themselves and finding happiness. Much more enjoyable than EAT, PRAY, LOVE - Lisa didn't annoy me by taking a year off, she's actually working & helping others, not whining about her life.

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Mar 08, 2011

Zohar - ManOfLaBook.com rated it:

“Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth” by Lisa Napoli is a memoir starting in 2007. The author volunteered to go to Bhutan and help launch their first radio station.

Long time journalist Lisa Napoli is in her early 40’s, without a family and unhappy at her job. She readily agrees to a stay for six weeks in Bhutan to help a fledgling radio station called Kuzoo.

The station is staffed by a young and inexperienced group which are as much a p More...

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Dec 02, 2011

Josephine rated it:

I think Lisa Napoli is wonderfully brave.

The back cover blurb says Napoli was dissatisfied with her job as a radio journalist and in the grip of a crisis when the “big transition” in her life occurred — but I didn’t really get that sense.

In my eyes, Napoli is one of those rare, brave souls who seizes an opportunity to lead a life less ordinary when it’s presented to her.

She decides to make a giant leap of faith when a chance encounter with a handsome stranger More...

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