Vodka & Apple Juice, by Jay Martin

Vodka & Apple Juice is a travel memoir with a difference…

First of all, it’s about travel in Poland, not a destination that gets much attention in the travel memoir market.  Secondly, it’s written by the wife of an Australian diplomat, based in Warsaw for a three-year posting.  And finally – most importantly- the author took the trouble to learn Polish so that she was not dependent on translators for local information.

Jay Martin was a senior public servant in Canberra when her husband’s career change took them to Warsaw, a world away from more fashionable destinations like Paris, London and Rome.  Before long they are caught up in the diplomatic social whirl, and Jay finds that she has a lot to learn about how to shop, how to dress and especially how to make small talk with people she will never see again.

(Her struggles to maintain a vegetarian diet in…