Title: How I Took a Bartending Course and Traveled for Seventeen Years
Author: Steven Nicolle
Publisher: Author Reputation Press, LLC
ISBN: 978-1-97008-151-0
Genre: Biography / Non-Fiction
Pages: 234
Reviewed by: Allison Walker

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Steven Nicolle has the spirit of a wanderer. In 1979, at 20 years old, he takes a bartending course and sets his life in motion for a whirlwind of adventure. Instead of finding stability in the hospitality industry, Nicolle becomes an international traveler. The next seventeen years of his life is defined by lots of travel, lots of jobs, and lots of partying. In his novel, How I Took a Bartending Course and Traveled for Seventeen Years, Nicolle divulges the highs and lows of his fast life. He recounts how every bit of bad luck led him to a better opportunity. Nicolle’s is a lifestyle which is hard to find now, and probably not too common in the 80’s and 90’s either! Readers will love Nicolle’s frankness, and also his ability to see the positive in every situation.

“I always liked the risk rather than living with the regret of not finding out,” Nicolle explains in How I Took a Bartending Course and Traveled for Seventeen Years. Every time Nicolle thinks he can finally settle down, another opportunity finds him and he cannot resist. It’s how he goes from working at hotels in homeland Canada, all the way to a cruise ship dry docked in Greece. Nicolle’s adventures are happening faster than readers can turn the page, and there’s always more excitement to be had. It’s almost impossible to not catch the travel bug! Every risk might put Nicolle one step back, but every success puts him two steps forward. “When something turned wrong it was always because something better was waiting for me,” Nicolle summarizes at the end of his book. For example, the final, major turning point of Nicolle’s life was all due to an unexpected, compulsory job promotion. Nicolle signs a contract to work on a cruise ship, but before he sets off, his employer tells him they instead need him to work as maitre d’. Nicolle protests then eventually relents, and comes to love his new position on the ship. Through a series of coincidences therefrom, he meets the woman who becomes his wife and his entire life is again set on a different axis.

How I Took a Bartending Course and Traveled for Seventeen Years is about not being afraid to take chances. In the course of seventeen years, Nicolle sees more of the world than many people do their entire lives. Sometimes he makes his own luck and sometimes it’s pushed upon him, but he never hesitates for fear of change. When events take a backward turn, Nicolle embraces and pushes forward to the next big thing. His book is an exciting and unusual memoir, a real feel-good story with a happy ending.