Book excerpt: When inquisitive American journalist Joel Stratte-McClure decides to walk around the Mediterranean Sea, we're in for an exhilarating adventure. As a 30 year expatriate in France, he explores the coast, countryside and regional cultures - as well as his own mind - with compulsive vigour. Armed with a copy of Homer's Odyssey, he re-opens this great book for us as he ponders life, divorce, Buddhism, alcoholism, the art of trekking and a vast collection of weird, wicked, wonderful people along the way. This is a trip to get into!