The Babel Hiking & Book Club (or, A Sexual Odyssey) tells the story of a recently retired fifty-five-year old Exxon geologist who is wealthy, attractive, and now has a lot of free time. Kieran decides to start his own book club based on three things he enjoys: traveling, hiking, and reading. The unusual aspect of his book club is that it will include just himself and a different female to accompany him to thirteen different locations: Colorado, Canada, Hawaii, Norway, Iceland, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, Bali, Borneo, Thailand, and Japan. Kieran states after hiking that they will discuss a book by a writer who has written about that place. Kieran states all expenses are paid and sex is not part of the deal. However, things start to happen and Kieran begins to lose his naivete about women and sex. The question is whether or not he will find his soul mate on this Bildungsroman journey that turns out to be more sexual than spiritual.
