Books - Robin Pascoe

The Carry On Imperative

A Memoir of Travel, Reinvention & Giving Back

The stories in The Carry-On Imperative recount Pascoe’s ambitious beginnings as a journalist and broadcaster through her years as a not-so-diplomatic foreign service spouse. Her trail-blazing books about globally mobile families made her an in-demand speaker worldwide and led to the creation of The Expat Expert, one of the first websites for expats.

Fans of The Diplomat will relish this rollicking memoir from “the wife,” who trails her husband to far-flung locales but works hard to establish her own identity and career. Wise, touching, and laugh-out-loud funny, The Carry-On Imperative is a delightful, inspirational chronicle of one woman’s lifelong quest to transmute the pain of her early losses into understanding and assistance of others.

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In Robin’s unique style, she recounts a powerfully poignant story of life-shaping, traumatic losses in her early years. Yet she does not let these losses rule her life, making this also a story of resilience, hope, and healing. You will cry and laugh—maybe at the same time—as you read. Robin’s honesty invites all of us to realize we are not alone.

—Ruth Van Reken, co-author, Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds

Robin Pascoe's entertaining and internationally focused memoir aptly reflects her reverence and passion for resilience. Whether dealing head-on with circumstances beyond her control, embracing waves of unremitting change requiring near-continuous reinvention, striving to maintain emotional equilibrium and a healthy sense of self, or continually seeking the positive and the pragmatic, Pascoe models a lifelong insistence on meaning and contribution.

—Linda A. Janssen, author of The Emotionally Resilient Expat

A Broad Abroad

The Expat Wife’s Guide to Successful Living Abroad

Comforting and irreverent, encouraging and practical, Robin Pascoe’s book for expatriate wives, the first honest account of the challenges of following a partner’s career overseas, is back in print with a new name. Originally entitled, Culture Shock! A Wife’s Guide, this updated version has lost none of its original empathetic and honest advice for married women who have been catapulted into a foreign country. A Broad Abroad is as essential as an entry visa, packed with emotional and practical support for relocating your life.

Homeward Bound

A Spouse’s Guide to Repatriation

Like the move overseas, the move home relies on a solid and stable person to act as the emotional touchstone in order to help everyone else in the family through re-entry shock. That someone is typically the spouse. Homeward Bound is a repatriation reality check to help spouses create new, meaningful lives when they return from abroad.

A Moveable Marriage

Relocate Your Relationship without Breaking It

Canadian journalist Robin Pascoe put her own journalistic career on hold to join her diplomat spouse on what would become more than a twenty-year voyage across continents, time zones, and cultures. She offers an irreverent, quirky, and just plain hilarious look at modern-day marriage and at the quagmires and pitfalls that lie ahead when you and your marriage hit the road.

Reading Robin's memoir is like sitting down for a drink with your favourite sister and getting her to dish all her favourite stories. It's sharply observed and funny, and is a fast, breezy read about someone claiming her own identity and history across multiple continents and cultures. I came away with a sense of someone who, through telling her story, has found her roots, and is generous enough to share that journey with us.

—Kaile Shilling, executive director, Vancouver Writers Fest

Raising Global Nomads

Parenting Abroad in an On-Demand World

A lot has changed since Canadian author Robin Pascoe wrote Culture Shock! A Parent’s Guide. The world has become globalized, digitalized, and, sadly, terrorized. That’s the big picture Pascoe examines in Raising Global Nomads. Well-known for her books for expatriate families, the author recounts with honesty and her trademark humour what worked for her family, and shares the hard lessons learned. Parenting styles in general, and of Third Culture Kids in particular, have changed dramatically, prompting this timely and comprehensive re-examination of the challenges of parenting abroad.