5 comments about Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia.

1. Eat Pray Love is one of those semi-biographies about hard-done by individuals finding meaning and healing by doing whatever it is the book is about.
   
   If that sounds cynical, this novel is actually pretty good. Perhaps what I enjoyed the most was insight into each of the different countries that Gilbert visited (which I realise wasn't necessarily the main intent of the book but whatever).
   
   The book isn't too long and not paticularly melodramtic or grandiose, the 'Pray' section meandered for me, but I found Gilbert's insights genuinely interesting towards the end of the section.
   
   Definately worth a read, it won't take much out of your day.



2. So you are in your thirties, recently divorced and just out of a tumultuous rebound relationship ending in a crippling depression, the first thing you do is head abroad for a year, right? Sound a little crazy? Well that is just what Elizabeth Gilbert did, and she chronicles her journey in her spiritual memoir "Eat Pray Love: One Women's search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia." The book was engaging and easy to read and enjoy. It is something that would be a great book to read on the beach. However it also ended up being quite superficial and hard to believe.
   
   In the midst of her divorce Gilbert takes a journalism assignment in Indonesia that will prove to change her life forever. While in Bali she met Krueit Lieyer a ninth generation Balinese medicine man who told her minutes after meeting "You will come back her to Bali and live here and teach me English. And I will teach you everything I know" (28). She decided she would spend 4 months in Italy, India and Indonesia, specifically Bali.
   
   After her divorce is finalized she heads first to Italy and rents an apartment in the City of Love, Rome. There is one stipulation of her trip that defies "the word of Rome, SEX" (103) she vows to be celibate for the trip. Instead of having sex she chooses to satisfy herself by eating decadent and fattening food. While the events of this section are believable the names of people are a little out there. She has a friend for example named Luca Spaghetti. The name seems a little too ironic to me.
   
   I found the third of the book describing her time in Rome to be by far the most interesting. She spends her time eating, traveling, and learning Italian. However she did not dedicate time in this country to her spiritual and faith journey, which is of course the entire purpose of the book and her travels. The only serious part of this section was the process of overcoming loneliness and stopping her usage of anti depressants. Elizabeth is an over exaggerator of sorts, but her description of depression and loneliness is incredibly believable and the reader is able to really see how she is feeling. These are feelings that are easy to relate to.
   
   The next part of the book was much duller. The events seemed unrealistic and the way in which it is written is hard to follow. While in India she spends her time at the Ashram of her Guru. Her Guru is her spiritual leader, yet she has seen her only once while she was speaking in New York. She is not in actual contact with her at all; the guru is traveling abroad and doesn't communicate with the students at the ashram. How can someone who you have never even had a conversation with guide you on how you should live your life? This path is completely about her spirituality and the journey she makes. She spends almost all of her time there meditating and trying to get closer to god.
   
   This section was the least believable to me. Some of the events just don't seem realistic. At one point her roommate forgot and padlocks her into their room. She jumped out her window two stories to get to morning prayer on time, a prayer which she in fact hated and was always trying to avoid, and skipped on many occasions.
   
   Bali came next and was also a more exciting part of her trip; however, it also showed Gilbert in an obnoxious way putting herself on a pedestal. While in Bali, Gilbert was able to show a balance between her spiritual journey and also her ability to enjoy herself in other ways. She was able to study meditation, with the same medicine man from over two years earlier who told her she would return. He teaches her more about spirituality and happiness, telling her to just sit and smile while meditating (231).
   
   At one point she got into an accident and scraped up her knee. The medicine man for some reason could not help her, so she had to find someone else who, surprise, became her best friend. This seems almost scripted to me; why wouldn't her friend who is a medicine man help her? She wants to make a point of how great a person she is with her donation to Wayan her new friend, and how she is trying to help her. Wayan is slow to be a house with the donated money so Gilbert lies and says she will take the money if a home is not bought, she then wants pity and reinforcement that she is doing the right thing and is not a bad person.
   
   Elizabeth Gilbert's book chronicling a year of soul searching is clearly a spiritual memoir. The purpose of her trip was to become closer to God and to have a greater understanding of that voice that speaks to her. She seems to start off as a Christian but her spirituality takes many unconventional twists and turns in her path to "enlightenment."
   
   As this is a spiritual memoir of it is course all about Elizabeth Gilbert. Her writing however is a little to self absorbed for my taste. When she has conversations with people it is always about her and her problems, never the other person. This at times turned me off from Gilbert. I started out reading this book very excited. I was quite disappointed, while I like the book; I wanted to like it more. As someone who is only twenty and still in college it should be no surprise that I did not connect well with the book. Gilbert is not writing to the twenty-somethings, but rather to women in their thirties and older. I believe that if I was in that age group I would have enjoyed it more and been able to connect and relate to what she went through.



3. I have never taken the time to do a review of any book online... but I absolutely think this book is crap and boring that I had to go to Amazon's website to write a review. I think the author is so self-absorbed that she has not really done any justice to researching and thinking what search for self and life's meaning really is. Granted that it's her book so she can talk about herself all she wants, and for some reason, a lot of people have bought her book that it has become a bestseller, there are so many more books that are more insightful on the same topic! I will be more wary next time when I see a New York Times Book Review that says a book is irresistible. Her book's a New York Times Notable Book... and I suddenly had this thought on whether author's can pay to get such accolade.



4. I enjoyed this book at the time of reading. I had been going through a similar process myself, and it was wonderful to follow Elizabeth's journey of self-deprecating wit and humor amidst a rather turbulent mental breakdown.



5. Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love chronicles Gilbert's yearlong sabbatical in hopes of healing from her recent divorce, discovering herself, and achieving the balance between pleasure and spirituality. In lieu of her recent messy divorce from her husband, Gilbert begins to look for a meaning beyond her superficial life in her little personal 14-mile wide world, known as Manhattan. She journeys to three very different countries in the pursuit of three equally different aspects of life: pleasure, spirituality and the balance between the two. Gilbert's talent as a writer is undeniable. She has a witty and refreshing writing style that makes Eat, Pray, Love a very entertaining read and what makes her book so entertaining are Gilbert's mini-adventures throughout the book. However, Gilbert develops story lines leave the reader questioning the authenticity and truth behind her story.
   In the first stop of her journey, Italy, Gilbert discovers the art of pleasure. In Rome, she develops a steamy, passionate love affair with gelato and pizza. She learns the language, meets new friends and immerses herself in the Italian culture. She embraces the romanticism that makes Italy one of the most unforgettable places on earth, and leaves Italy free of the chains of depression she was bound to in Manhattan.
   In India, Gilbert studies the art of devotion. She works with a Guru to guide her spiritual journey. Gilbert sets out to separate herself from the luxuries and chaos that she has padded her life with and separate herself from materialism in order to reach spiritual understanding. Gilbert, frustrated with the difficulty of meditation, spends endless hours in her cluttered mind trying to reach the divine state of cognitive peace. Finally, after weeks of silent meditation, she has a spiritual breakthrough. Gilbert writes, "To know God, you need only to renounce one thing, your division from God" (192). This quote illustrates her realization that in order to be at peace with your spirituality, your must realize that God is not your superior, but a part of your spirit.
   Gilbert's last stop is in Bali, Indonesia. In Bali, Gilbert reconnects with an elderly medicine man that teaches her the importance of balance between the art of pleasure, and the art of devotion. In her quest for this balance, she finds herself living out a spiritual love story of her own.
   Eat, Pray, Love is a book that could easily be found in the travel or self-help section of a bookstore, however it is considered a spiritual memoir. From the beginning of Gilbert's journey she makes it clear that she is seeking spirituality beyond the Christian belief of one sole and singular God. Instead, she is looking for a more personal and self-reliant god, one who is within Gilbert and accepts her for who she is. She is searching for a God who loves and appreciates her positive traits and accepts and embraces her negative flaws, all at once. Gilbert writes that she, "always responded with breathless excitement to anyone who has ever said that God does not live in a dogmatic scripture or in a distant throne in the sky," (14).
   I enjoyed reading about Gilbert's understanding in the Buddhist and Hindu faith, however I felt myself constantly waiting for more insight. While reading Eat, Pray, Love I prayed (no pun intended) that Gilbert would tear down her walls of narcissism and superficiality. Yet despite her spiritual awakening in India, she never reaches this resolution, this aspect made it difficult for me to like and relate to Gilbert as a person and the heroine of her novel.
   Gilbert's writing style, riddled with her clever humor and vibrant attention to detail, make for entertaining storylines. I felt like I was walking the crowded streets of Rome with her or perched seaside in India, deep in meditation. I often found myself laughing out loud at her witty commentary. Her unique and witty metaphors/similes such as "Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it's what you want before you commit," (67) made her book enjoyable. I found it refreshing that the author of a spiritual memoir could interject borderline cynical and self-deprecating humor without steering too far off the spiritual path.
   Despite Gilbert's humor and wit, it is Gilbert's lack of authenticity that made me dislike the book. Every event seems to be prepackaged and wrapped in a bow, leading to a realization and stepping stone for the next event to come. Everything seems to fall in Gilbert's favor. As an avid traveler, I have found this to be true: when travelling, not everything, if ANYTHING, goes according to plan. Gilbert writes "...to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice," however I did not see any sacrifice in Gilbert's journey in between drinking wine on the sea in Italy and meeting her soul mate. It was all a little too Hollywood for me, as if Gilbert wrote her memoir with a future screenplay adaptation in mind.
   A memoir clearly geared for women in their mid 30's to early 40's, at times it felt as though I was reading recycled Sex and the City plots. Gilbert's stories were complete with the same rising action, climax and resolution that is expected in a 30 minute television show. Trite quotes such as, "In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely," (147) made me roll my eyes and made me at how obviously she was preying on middle-aged women on the cusp of a mid-life crisis, looking for a spiritual guru to lean on.
   For a reader looking for a spiritual memoir, I would not recommend Eat, Pray, Love. Gilbert's book has an entertaining plot and story, but Gilbert's book as a whole is just that: a story. Her lack of authenticity and superficiality make this book just another New York Times Bestseller, not a staple for bookshelves or a tool for spiritual enlightenment.

5 comments about Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy.

1. When I first saw the cover of Melissa Milgrom's Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy, I thought (and hoped) it would be much like Mary Roach's book "Stiff." After reading the first few chapters I realized that this was not the case. For example The first chapter William Schwendeman, the last chief taxidermist of the American Museum of Natural History, who is part of a family taxidermy business in Milltown, New Jersey. Chapter two follows a taxidermy competition in Springfield, Illinois that reminded me of a combination between a dog show and car show in the participant's obsession with detail, that separates winning and losing mounts. Milgrom also spends time with Emily Mayer, a British artist that uses taxidermy as a tool for making modern art. She also follows Ken Walker, a Canadian taxidermist who attempts to create a mount of a long extinct Irish Elk. I think though that may favorite chapter is on Victorian Mr.Potter's Museum of Curiosities that before it's recent auction featured cats dressed and mounted in every day human activities that came to be known as the grotesque school: weddings, working at a gristmill, and so on. It's hard not to imagine how this phenomenon must have influenced countless childrens books.
   
   While "Still life" does contain many memorable people, which shouldn't be surprising since taxidermy is a relatively obscure art, Milgrom's writing is rarely laugh-out loud funny. Instead, still life is an ethnographic study of the culture surrounding still life. In addition to an overview that traces taxidermy as a way of preserving newly discovered wild life. It touches on some of the great taxidermists and the role it played in dioramas natural history museums and their eventual exodus as more interactive exhibits came about and it became somehow politically incorrect to have mounted animals in a museum.
   
   Finally at the end of the book, Milgrom tries her hand at mounting a squirrel and entering it in a judged Taxidermy contest. Still Life is an engrossing book and readers who come to it with an open mind will learn who and why taxidermy is practiced.



2. I picked this book by chance after returning home on yet another day of seeing multi dead animals laying on the highway thinking among other things, I wonder if you can make a hat or something useful out of road kill. The book is not about that but the author did a fabulous job of entertaining me while informing me of the art of preserving animals for what ever reason and whether you agree it should be done or not I think you will find this a great read with quite a bit of historic value and I would defiantly be up to reading the next thing the author would like to write about.



3. Melissa Milgrom takes a subject that you wouldn't normally think much about, taxidermy, and turns it into a fascinating and playful stroll through a passionate sub-culture. The writing is at turns fluid, witty, and opinionated.
   
   I picked up this book because the owner of our local bookstore recommended it to me despite my not having any particular interest in the topic. I was hooked from page 1 and read the whole book in two days (my wife hates it when I read a book that completely immerses me because I neglect all my other obligations such as child care).
   
   One of my favorite vignettes was the author's visit to Emily Mayer's studio in England. Emily Mayer is the taxidermist for British artist, Damien Hirst. Emily is both profane and profound but is a huge advocate for taxidermy and its place in art.
   
   The book really came together for me when the author decided to enter her own squirrel into the World Taxidermy Contest, amateur division. She takes you through the nitty-gritty detail of how to do a mount. That type of writing reminded me of Tracy Kidder's description of computer programming in Soul of A New Machine.
   
   Put this book on your reading list -- you won't be disappointed.



4. Absolutely fascinating -- well, OK, some might call it morbidly fascinating -- look at the (who knew?) incredibly complex and diverse world of taxidermy. Author Melissa Milgrom turned a somewhat disconcerting safari trip years ago into a multiyear exploration that yielded this richly researched, passionately written book that delves with journalistic precision into the nooks and cranies of taxidermy, its practitioners, colorful personalities, societies, conventions, perils and triumphs. I can't help but compare it to the sensational "Stiff" from several years back. I ordered this book pretty much on a dare to myself -- what possibly could I really find intriguing about taxidermy??? -- and found myself trying to carve out quiet moments to slip back into the guilty pleasure that was reading this exceptionally engaging and unusual book.



5. In the interest of full disclosure, I got a copy of this book sight unseen, in order to review it for Amazon's Vine Program. Had I been at a bookstore and able to flip through it first, I can say with relative certainty that this review would be different -- as in, it wouldn't exist.
   
   From the description, I thought this would be stories about and an examination of the art of taxidermy, which is kind of fascinating and kind of creepy, all wrapped in one. And honestly, it *is*. The book begins with how the author got involved with a semi-local taxidermist and learned about the trade.
   
   From there, though, the author lost me. Not every book will be written in a style you connect with, I know, but I had a *really* hard time reading this one. It reads a little like journalistic writing, but I had real trouble connecting with the information in the way it was presented. At times, it was so dry that I'd put it down and walk away for several weeks, and finally, I put it down and didn't come back.
   
   I do want to make it clear that this is just a case of me, personally, not being able to get through it -- someone more interested in the subject matter or with a longer attention span might find it fascinating. There's a lot of information presented; I just couldn't get into enough to access it.

5 comments about Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage.

1. An absolutely fantastic account of an ordeal almost beyond belief. The reading was wonderful, because the writing was impeccable. Granted, one can't really go wrong with a subject this fascinating; Shackleton's voyage (actually several voyages in one, or so it seemed) is something that is hard to fathom. How he actually accomplished what he did in those conditions is something I don't think we'll ever really understand, unless you believe in miracles. And Lansing's account of it is flawless.



2. Definitely non-fiction, but written in an easily read manner. Even knowing how it all turns out, it was a great adventure.



3. There are a few books we can consider required reading of a modern educated person. Anne Frank's diary would be one, and I think this version of the Shackleton drama would be another. I have a friend who reads it every year.
   
   Because there are so many strong reviews of this book, I'll speak briefly of something that might be overlooked.
   
   In the eyes of most readers, the most astonishing thing about this adventure is that not a single life was lost. And that truly is amazing. Obviously, things could have gone much worse with just a tiny bit more bad luck. But I'd note something that might be just as strange. In all of the grueling and painful twists in this adventure, Shackleton seems never to have lost the trust and respect of his men. Think of that. Every little decision he made was potentially fatal for the whole crew, and he often had to make decisions that had every chance of being lethally wrong. And yet his men stood stoutly behind "the old man" and were prepared to die with that kind of total trust.
   
   Anyone who wants to be a leader should read this book annually and think about what qualities were present in Shackleton that allowed him to be such an effective leader under such wretched circumstances.
   
   Sometimes our minds can be our worst enemies. Rational thought can save the life of an explorer caught in a life-threatening crisis. But when the situation we are in is apparently hopeless, rational thought is our potential enemy. There were many times during the Shackleton adventure when a rational person would have to conclude that the story had no chance of getting a happy ending. That is when "endurance" becomes a queer virtue, when you put one foot in front of the other in spite of the fact that you are suffering hugely in an effort that is "surely" doomed to fail.
   
   I am not a great fan of adventure literature, and yet the best of it is utterly captivating. In a sense, extreme adventures can be like laboratories that experiment with human nature, testing the limits of what it can do. Nobody would ever get permission to put humans in such grim and painful circumstances as they chose to put themselves in for these grand adventures. Since they do volunteer to do dangerous and painful things, we can take advantage of the chance to see how the human spirit fares when exposed to the worst possible tests.
   
   And that is the particular gift of this book. Without blinking in its description of the hell these men experienced, the author shows us how magnificently they were led and how courageously they fought to keep alive. In the end, they proved that the human spirit can soar above threats and challenges that seem perfectly invincible. The salvation these men ultimately earned was bought at a terrible price, and yet we can thrill with them when we see them prevail when it was surely "impossible" that they would.



4. An earlier reviewer, with experience of frigid conditions in Alaska, cast some doubt on the ability of these men survive while wet in below zero temperatures and howling wind chill factors. It does sound incredible, especially when they were in the boats with no source of heat. But I note that they wore mostly wool undergarments, trousers and sweaters, with gabardine overcoats. Also fur-lined boots. Gabardine, at least back then, was made of worsted wool. Their sleeping bags, often soaked as well, were made from reindeer hides. Fur-lined, that is. I also note Allan Frey's excellent survival book, based on 40 years of living in the Yukon territory, often in a teepee. He prefers wool as well -- and I have cashed in some of my outdoor gear for wool pants and parka. It retains insulating qualities even while soaked and compressed. How else do you think the critters who originally wore it survived outdoors without tents or roofs over their horned heads?
   
   Had these men slept in and been garbed in what most outdoorsmen wear today -- down shrouded in nylon or polyester -- we wouldn't be reading this phenomenal book because they would all have perished in the first year. Even the newest miracle fillings -- Hollofil and the like -- would have blown out of their shredded shells like that down wafting from weeds in the Spring. I don't think they had duct tape for patching such shells back then -- a common site among modern outdoorsmen in their Michelin-man coats.
   
   Yes, in a long, dire emergency -- give me Shackleton every time. And I had btter be clad in leather and wool.



5. This is one of the very best "adventure" stories of all time. You can not possibly go wrong buying this book if you have any interest at all in adventure books. I have read several books on this subject. This one, in my opinion, is the best.

5 comments about Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe (P.S.).

1. Makes use of much of the same source material as Tim Joyner's Magellan, but with some expanded coverage of the world at large. My biggest annoyance is some condescending Western political correctness about Asia. The fact that the West was more rapacious than China is without question, but the assertion that China always believed that everyone should rule themselves, that conquest was wrong is comical. As a Korean, I know the 3,000 year record of Chinese invasions of Korea, Tibet, Indochina and certain areas of China which were formerly independent and are now part of China. China is morally superior to the West, but it is a RELATIVE superiority, not an absolute one. There is a difference. Also, Chinese merchants visiting the Philippines made everyone near water literate? A few local merchants gaining literacy is all there is real evidence of.
   Anyway, this book or Joyner's are valuable reading on a significant figure in world history.



2. Laurence Bergreen has written a fascinating book about Magellan's circumnavigation of the earth. Bergreen relies on many sources including the diary of Antonio Pigafetta, one of Magellan's crew. Bergreen also relies on some 16th century sources which were recently translated into English.
   
   Reading the book is almost like being on the journey. Bergreen describes the living conditions, the fears of the crew, the beliefs about the oceans and monsters, the jealousies and mistrust of the crew, the mutinies Magellan faced, the natives encountered, the great storms at sea, starvation, disease, murders, torture, and more. In one of the mutinies before reaching the Pacific Ocean, Magellan fires his ship's guns at one of his ships with the mutineers, but the ship sails away. The mutineers sailed back to Spain and tarnished Magellan's reputation. When Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean, there were no accurate maps, and Bergreen says that Magellan might as well have been sailing on the dark side of the moon.
   
   I don't want to give a number of spoilers, but there are a number of historical facts mentioned in the book's dust jacket that tantalize those who do not remember their history. Magellan sailed from Spain in 1519 with 5 ships, and only one ship with 18 men completed the journey around the earth. Magellan was not among the 18. As Bergreen points out, Magellan was a man of contradictions. Those contradictions eventually lead to his downfall. It's an engaging story, well worth reading.



3. I ordered the book 'Over the Edge of the World' by Eric Verbreen. I ordered the hardcover version because the print on the softcover was too small. However, the softcover was sent to me. I want to order the book again but I have a feeling the same mistake will happen and I will lose money twice in the deal.



4. The author, Laurence Bergreen, tells the spellbinding story of Ferdinand Magellan's attempt to reach the Spice Islands from Spain via a westbound route. I say "attempt" because Magellan, himself, did not survive the voyage. He got hacked to pieces by Mactanese islanders in the Philippines after his odd, occasional excesses finally got him into more trouble than he could handle. Magellan's original crew had already been decimated by disease, battle deaths, desertions, executions, and the marooning of mutinous crew members. After the fateful battle on Mactan and the loss of most of the expedition's remaining officers in a massacre on Cebu a few days later, only a very small fraction of Magellan's crew was left to complete the voyage to the Spice Islands and return to Spain; in accomplishing those two feats, they became the first to circumnavigate the globe. Among the fortunate survivors was the Italian diarist, Antonio Pigafetta, whose first-hand accounts of the expedition are the only reliable, detailed records of the voyage. Were it not for Pigafetta's chronicles, knowledge of Magellan's exploits probably would be lost in antiquity.
   
   I agree with all of the positive 5-star remarks that others have already made here in this forum, so please read them for insights into this excellent book.
   
   My only gripe is that the author, himself, rather than a first-rate professional reader, read the book aloud for the audiobook version. Bergreen's reading of the book rates no more than 4 stars, even though the story rates 5 stars.



5. This is a great book. It made me a little put out with my grade school teachers. How unforgivable was it for them to drone on for a couple of minutes about Magellan circling the globe, mentioning only the date we must remember for the quiz? Couldn't they have just taken fifteen minutes to tell us more about the voyage? Couldn't they have infused us with a slight taste of the tension, danger,high drama, and toughness of the men and the voyage? History is considered the most boring subject by many when it should be the most exciting class we take, and the most interesting books we read. Bergreen does a fine job on the book and it is well worth reading.

5 comments about The Last American Man.

1. I began reading this believing it to be a work of fiction. And I couldn't believe the story of Eustace Conway, modern day mountain man in his deerskin clothes. And I thought the back story--how his parents were raised, and how that affected him--was too much, the narrator too all-knowing. Around page 70, I read on the back that it was a true story. Then it became unbelievable in the sense that the author had accumulated such details and put together such a complete portrait. And Eustace is a fascinating enough character to defy belief. This is as engaging a biography as they come.



2. The good: Gilbert is a truly fantastic writer - her vocabulary, grammar, style and tone are truly wonderful and a joy to read. She has an exceptional ability to vary the tempo of her prose and her literary voice is unique and brilliant.
   
   The bad: As good a writer as she is, this is a poor book for one reason. Instead of a taking a character (in Eustace) and simply telling his story, Gilbert has taken her idealogy of what Eustace represents and built his character around that. In short, the writing is biased. I had never heard of Eustace Conway until I read the book but even I can tell that she is attempting to push some kind of agenda.



3. If Eustace Conway were the last American man, then fare thee well.
   
   The man described by Ms Gilbert does not actually live primitively. Nor does he treat his animals (or wildlife) with respect. Nor does he show any compassion for his 'apprentices'. Even his primary expectation of his women is that they be beautiful.
   
   Ms Gilbert writes that Conway lives 'mindfully', suggesting some Zen-like awareness on his part. Yet every novice zazen practitioner realizes the connection between true mindfulness and compassion. Ms Gilbert draws a portrait of a man without compassion.
   
   Rather, he is pictured as a man of uncommon cruelty to both humans and others, a self-serving, self-promoting, self-described 'tortured' soul (lacking in paternal love). Oh, poor little unloved Eustace. He treats women with no respect and whines when they leave him. He experiences the AT by running across it as quickly as possible, leaving even his 'love' to catch him at camp late in the evenings. He runs horses to extremes for his own fun and because "that's what they are made for."
   
   The first challenge in reading this book is to look past Ms Gilbert's own infatuation with her subject, and to ignore her comparisons of Conway to actual American pioneers like Daniel Boone and Davey Crockett. While she correctly recognizes the self-promotions of those men, she overlooks the thousands of others who moved west, pioneering, living 'primitively' because that's what it took, thousands who actually subsisted on their work's rewards, without self-promotion, without abusive relationships, without whining about daddy-love.
   
   The ancestors of many of us, ancestors who struggled on the edges of a migrating population and diminishing wilderness, would not recognize Eustace Conway as one of their own. His own ego would have separated him from the serious business at-hand for those determined to be productive survivors.
   
   All-in-all, The Last American Man is a mis-titled volume as emotionally unbalanced in its writing as its subject is in his living.
   
   Read John Muir instead. Or just go sit under a tree.



4. "The Last American Man" is one of those books you pull off the shelf unexpectedly and, with sudden shock, inspired by a world that could have life-changing ramifications. The book is that good. Of course, the histrionic title could be off-putting, and I imagine the bio's subject Eustace Conway rolled his eyes - or maybe he didn't.
   
   Author Elizabeth Gilbert has done a near-brilliant job in examining the life of Conway, a conflicted and contradictory individual who made a firm choice at a young age to live a primitive life in the woods - to put it simply. Inspired by his mother, who was the daughter of another fascinating man who ran an unusually strenuous summer camp, Conway at an early age showed uncommon affinity with nature. Traipsing through the woods behind his North Carolina home, Eustace began collecting and documenting his discoveries, becoming a self-made naturalist of the highest order. Conway collected turtles and had an intricate zoo in his backyard. He studied Native American culture and learned to hunt with a bow and arrow (though he's equally skilled with a gun). He lived in a tepee while attending college (though rode to campus on a motorcycle). He wears self-made buckskin (though wore jeans on the first day of class). He hiked the entire route of the Appalachian trail in four months carrying little more than a bag of raisins (no contradictions here). He dines regularly on fresh road kill. He lived (and lives) an ideal painfully remote to modern culture.
   
   Conway is unique, if not extraordinary, in that while most people may sample primitive lifestyles during phases of their lives, returning to the comforts of modern worlds (even Thoreau - Walden - eventually went home), with the determination of a mad monk he permanently embraced the spirit, forming his life's mantra. It was a long and winding road to where Conway is today, as the owner and leader of Turtle Island, a sanctuary/commune operating as a primitive farm without electricity or running water, but his adventures are nothing short of fascinating. His 1000-mile hikes, cross-American horse trips and buggy journeys through the gut of the northwest, are enthralling. I would have liked more detail of these epic treks, though much is offered to ponder.
   
   It's clear early on, and well documented by Gilbert's substantial work, that Conway's brutally strained relationship with his father, a stubborn academic estranged from his eccentrically brilliant son, has much to do with the man Conway is today. Those endless journeys, traveled through canyons, sleet and hunger, are not moving towards, but away from painful memories of adolescence. And those unlucky enough to bear witness, including his brother and ex-girlfriend, are alienated due to his uncomfortably obsessive determination. Quite simply, Conway's message can be a royal pain in the butt.
   
   Gilbert does an admirable job in probing beneath the surface of Conway's obsessions, documenting his awkward relationships with numerous women. Some are star-struck by the modern mountain man, only to be rudely awakened. Others, great academics, lose their identity within his shadow. A few, free-spirited hippies and musicians, quickly lose interest when faced with harsh realities. All find the comforts of Conway's tepee oppressive. Conway's a determined tortured soul, a cold fact having much to do with his lifestyle. Like a stubborn priest, he continues with his life's mission, a glorious ideal to expose thousands of people on an annual basis to the purity of primitive life, revealing the spiritual waste of an increasingly out-of-control industrial age. Conway, comfortably living off the land, is convinced if society does not return to similar roots, it's destined to die. Naive perhaps, though an ahead-of-its-time philosophy growing in strength today (Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy).
   
   After reading "The Last American Man," I found myself questioning my own life. There's inspiration to be found in Gilbert's passionate work, and what a fine writer she is, with several comedic passages a wonder to behold. It's deeply comforting to know someone is asking questions about an increasingly technical age in which almost all of life is spent in sheltered leisure, moving from one box to another. There's peace to be discovered in Conway's arduous beliefs, and they're as close as your own backyard. One of the best books I've read in years.



5. The story of Eustace Conway is fascinating from both a society and psychological perspective. Anyone who might be interested in gender studies or controlling types of behavior, or anyone interested in wilderness study would most likely find it a compelling read. I found myself riveted personally through the whole thing, from the very first power-punched sentence.

No comments about North by Northwestern: A Seafaring Family on Deadly Alaskan Waters.

5 comments about Wind, Sand and Stars.

1. Faced with the absurdity of life, French existentialists threw their hands up in the air and gave up. They failed utterly to place man within the universe. Saint-Exupery lived through the same depressing times as did Sartre and Camus feeling just as lost as they did but he never gave up on living. Man defines himself by the act of living.
   
   One of the most famous passages describes how Henri Guillaumet made his way out of the Andes after a plane crash. Walking several days and nights through the snow, he refuses to stop because he knows his comrades and his wife believe that if he lives, he walks. He fell once and accepted he would die buried in the falling snow. He got up so he could wedge himself on a rock and that way his body would be found in the spring. That way his wife would be able to collect the insurance money without having to wait the statutory seven years after a mere disappearance. When Guillaumet reached the rock, he simply continued walking. "What I did , no animal would have done." said Guillaument when found, broken but alive.
   
   We read of young peasant girls bursting with joy at caring for a pet and of soldiers fighting because that is their trade, despite knowing war is futile and horrible. Later, when Saint-Ex relates his own crash in the middle of a desert, he goes on the same way Guillaumet went. Dying of thirst, he is not even tempted to use his gun to end his suffering. Living is its own end.
   
   Vincent Poirier, Tokyo



2. I absolutely felt lifted above the earth, into the French author's big world view of 1936, as he spoke of his adventures and thoughts about life from the vantage point of an early aviator. Please read this book!



3. A short review.
   You can't walk away from this true adventure book without feeling great about mankind, its accomplishments and its future.
   Every young man with a future ahead of him should read it (and any young woman who can stand a book without any female characters).
   The prose is simply beautiful, and I never thought I would say that about any book. The translator deserves a prize.
   
   A second shorter piece at the end talks about the authors experience in observing the 1930's Spanish Civil War, between the fascists and the nationalists / socialists.
   Shorter, as emotional and more readable than Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" - it deals with the same civil war. The fascists won.



4. I really enjoyed the book. being a pilot ,it was exciting to read of his adventures.



5. Fear of flying nowadays mainly involves a strong distaste for the crowded planes, fear of drawing a far too overweight passenger as your next seat companion, the comedy of the search routines prior to boarding, including a fear of more than 3 oz. of water, and the reminders over the loudspeakers about the "threat levels" to one's existence. "Il etait une fois..." once upon a time, as Saint Exupery's wonderful, classic book reminds us, there was a fear, but also the thrill of flying, and pioneering new routes for the "mail planes" of the `20's and `30's.
   
   The author mastered the technical skills, but also the art of flying. His book captures the sheer exuberance of flight, and the excitement of a nighttime aerial crossing of the Sahara. Likewise, he relates finding passages through the 21,000 ft Andes with a plane whose "ceiling" is 18,000 ft. Along with his technical skills, and his descriptive powers, he brings the intellect of a philosopher to his writings. Consider his rebuke to the Luddites among us: "Numerous, nevertheless, are the moralists who have attacked the machine as the source of all the ills we bear, who, creating a fictitious dichotomy, have denounced the mechanical civilization as the enemy of the spiritual civilization." (p 43) And for those amongst us who have been thrilled to the austere beauty of the desert, including myself: "I shall never be able to express clearly whence comes this pleasure men take from aridity, but always and everywhere I have seen men attach themselves more stubbornly to barren land than to any other. Men will die for a calcined, leafless, stony mountain. The nomads will defend to the death their great store of sand as if it were a treasure of gold dust. And we, my comrades and I, we too have loved the desert to the point of feeling that it was there we had lived the best years of our lives." (p84) Or later: "...it was here in the desert he possessed his veritable treasures--this prestige of the sand, the night, the silence, this homeland of wind and stars." (p105)
   
   A strong theme in this book is the lost potential in each person, the contrast between what they could have become, and what they have settled for, once the routines have hardened. Consider: "Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning." (p11). He ends the book on this theme, writing of the child Mozarts throughout the world: "This is a life full of beautiful promise." Saint-Exupery realizes he won't make it to his potential, won't soar among the stars: "This little Mozart will be shaped like the rest by the common stamping machine. This little Mozart will love shoddy music in the stench of night dives. This little Mozart is condemned."
   
   Saint-Exupery is most famous for his children's classic, also of potential and loss, "The Little Prince." This book is a most worthy complement for adults, particularly those who have fought the hardening of their own clay. The author lived as he wrote, perhaps taking one too many chances. His plane crashed in the Mediterranean during WW II, but his mission at the time appeared not to be related to the war, but rather the oldest and most common of peccadilloes, the pleasures of the flesh. The airport in his place of birth, Lyon, is named after him.
   
   Overall, an excellent read, even if you are stuck in the middle seat.

5 comments about Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West.

1. John Wesley Powell was "present at the creation," to use the expression popularized by Dean Acheson. The later was referring to the post-World War II era; Powell was present at the creation of the American West, during the period of its settlement by whites, from the end of the American Civil War to the "closing of the frontier," in the 1890's. Bernard Devoto, in his introduction, says that Powell's report on the Arid Lands is as essential to understanding America as the "Federalist Papers." I would extend Devoto's assertion to cover this work of Stegner, an essential book for anyone wondering why things are the way they are in the United States. Stegner does a brilliant job in weaving Powell's story into the larger background of the settlement of the West. Nothing is "dated" in this book, aside from its 1954 copyright. The lessons still unlearned are as fresh as today's headlines.
   
   Powell lost his arm in the battle at Shiloh, in 1862, and as Stegner says: "Losing one's right arm is a misfortune; to some it would be a disaster, to others an excuse. It affected Wes Powell's life about as much as a stone fallen into a swift stream affects the course of the river." Prior to this book I had associated Powell with his "The Exploration of the Colorado River and its Canyons," which I read in conjunction with my much more comfortable 6 day descent of the Colorado 30 years ago. Powell's trip, which also encompassed the Green River, was almost certainly the first descent of these rivers by any human. This re-enforced Powell's credentials as a man of action, with considerable skills in organization and leadership. And he was able to write a decent account of his trip. Fortunately for us this was still early in the career of this man of insatiable curiosity, which spanned the need to know what was around the next bend, with a need to know how and why humans behave, particularly the natives of the West. Much of his later career involved surveying the West, particularly the "plateau province" which encompasses parts of four states, CO, UT, AZ and NM. The summation of his life was the development of a blueprint for a dry land democracy, essentially a plan to formulate new rules for the settlement of land where there is insufficient rain to sustain non-irrigated agriculture. The Homestead Act's 160 acres was simple not enough land. The book's title denotes that land, since it is west of the 100th meridian, which passes though that American icon, Dodge City, Kansas, as well as forming the eastern edge of the Texas Panhandle. Though Powell was a good bureaucratic fighter too, the countervailing forces were too strong, and we are saddled today with the consequences of unwise development.
   
   Stegner does not start his book with Powell however; rather he describes the career of the antithesis of Powell, William Gilpin, a huckster and con-man, delusional in his belief that rain would follow the plow, and who thought it would be beneficial if the Mississippi valley supported a population of more than a billion people! Puts today's "pro-growth" advocates to shame. Needless to say, Gilpin had many an ally in the political classes, the "something for nothing" crowd.
   
   Stegner attributes Powell's success as an ethnologist to his ability "to approach a strange culture and a strange people without prejudice, suspicion, condescension, or fear..." qualities useful in ending the latest "clash of civilizations." In tribute to autodidacts everywhere, Stegner says: "His homemade education fitted him to grasp the obvious and state it without embarrassment--he had not been educated into scholarly caution and that squid-like tendency to retreat, squirting ink, which sophisticated learning often displays."
   
   A good companion book, which updates many of the water issues outlined in this book is Marc Reisner's "Cadillac Desert." At least one good aspect of the bursting of the real estate bubble is the brakes applied to the Gilpins' of today, the endless apostles of housing development in the dry lands. Turning Albuquerque into Phoenix is fortunately viewed as a nightmare by many of my fellow ABQ's.
   
   Overall, Stegner brings a remarkable erudition to his superlative account of Powell and the settlement of the American West, as opposed to the fantasy so often promoted by Hollywood and the developers. Consider this summation, which could equally apply to the bankers of today: "The American yeoman might clamor for governmental assistance in his trouble, but he didn't want any that would make him change his thinking."



2. Superb. So well written. Needless to say, Stegner writes of areas he has known first hand, rivers he has navigated and the depth of times and places only he seems capable of knitting together. A must-read for Western American historians and those having just general interest. Reminds one of Bechloss' Undaunted Courage, although slightly different considering the time written and the base purposes of the journeys.
   Sandy Greenblat



3. Once upon a time in the West, a man named William Gilpin was blown westward along with an expedition of John Fremont that took him as far as Walla Walla, Wash. In 1846 he fought in the Mexican War. In 1861 he went to Washington, DC, after Abraham Lincoln was elected. Later he became the first territorial governor of Colorado. Once upon a time, Gilpin saw the land beyond the 100th meridian (which runs through the center of Nebraska and Kansas) through a mystical fervor. The semiarid lands were no desert, but a pastoral Canaan. Agriculture would be effortless. All that was needed was the plow break the soil so that rain would naturally follow.
   
   At the same time that Gilpin was convincing the country that the West was a Biblical Paradise, an exploration party headed by John Wesley Powell was camped a few miles from Cheyenne, Wyoming. It was 1868. At this time Powell was not the pioneer that Gilpin was, and he was 34 compared to Gilpin's 55. Powell's interests were always varied. In 1860 his *mollusk* collection won awards at the Illinois State Agricultural Society fair. In 1861, he volunteered to join the army in the Civil War. Within six months he rose through the ranks to become a captain, an expert on *fortifications*. In April of 1862, Powell lost an arm due to a Minie ball at Shiloh. Powell continued through the war. In 1865, Powell began a professorship in *geology* at Wesleyan.
   
   Powell began his exploration of the Green and Colorado rivers on July 6,1869. On August 30, 1869, only six of nine men and two of four boats managed to go all the way through the Grand Canyon to come out near Yuma, Az. The rest of the Colorado had already been explored. In a few short months, John Wesley Powell had gathered enough data to challenge Gilpin's portrayal of the West. For the rest of his life, he would try to convince Congress of what he had learned about the proper way to treat the land beyond the 100th meridian.
   
   Powell's geological and *ethnological* work and his study of Native American *languages* continue today to form the basis for our understanding of these subjects for southern Utah and northern Arizona.



4. I re-read this book and Powell's own "Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons" over the Holidays and have decided that these 2 books are absolutely inseparable. You must read both and I'm glad to see that Amazon offers a special deal for the purchase of these 2 books together. In my opinion, you should read Powell's "Exploration..." first and then read Stegner's book. Stegner's book is very readable but I hesitate to call it an easy read. While you are reading this book, you have to stop now and then to absorb and reflect on the opinions, actions, and counteractions of that particular moment. Everything must be placed in some historical, political, and personal context (3 dimensions which necessitate contemplation by the reader). Stegner does a wonderful job in maintaining the general flow of the text and he supplies an extensive listing of notes for those who want more information and detail. In my opinion, this is a wonderful book about a brilliant man with incredible foresight. Now, it seems that we need a beacon like Powell warning the Easterners about their relentless development of land with no thought or planning on the impact to their water resources and water quality. Most folks in the Eastern U.S. take their water resources for granted. We need a modern day Powell to warn us about the consequences of increased impervious area before its too late.



5. Almost everything that could be done wrong in the development of the modern American West (and not just the Rockies westward, but the High Plains as well) was warned against by Maj. John Wesley Powell, but done anyway by the federal government and various states.
   
   The result? Water crises, fights over water rights, lying, chicanery and stealing in the name of water rights, corporate farms squeezing out small farmers, urban sprawl and smog in the middle of deserts, dust bowls and more, were either forseen or hinted at by Powell.
   
   The 100th meridian of latitude is the U.S.'s "dry line." Areas to the west, generally, before you get to the Pacific Coast, average less than 20 inches of rain a year. Hence the title, and the basis of Powell's warnings.
   
   And, AND, all of that came after this one-armed Civil War veteran led the first navigation of the entire whitewater section of the Colorado, actually starting on the Green River in Wyoming and running all the way down past the Grand Canyon. (Despite some claims otherwise, it seems pretty clear James White did NOT do this.)
   
   It was this trip, in the name of scientific research, that gave Powell his standing to eventually found the Bureau of Ethnography, do further Western research and make some top-notch recommendations for the development of the west.
   
   The reason I didn't five-star this is that I would like to have seen a little more depth to Powell's post-exploration career. Also, a little more personality profile of Powell's struggle with disappointment over the Newlands Act and other repudiation of his ideas would have been nice.
   
   True, Stegner may not be a professional historian, but it would have been nice to see him incorporate this.
   
   To get an idea of what I mean by the end of this critique, please read Donald Worster's "River Running West." Also, Worster provides a bit of corrective to Stegner's occasional near-hagiographical approach to Powell.

5 comments about Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone.

1. History, of course, can be endlessly fascinating. But one need not canvas very many bored students of history to find that it can also be endlessly dreary and soporific.
   
   The reason for this is quite clear. History (sadly) is for the most part presented as a tiresome list of dates and events. Accompanying analysis is typically written in a technical, scholarly, textbook mode with no attempt to add colour, flair, atmosphere, background, context or the excitement that is history's due. The list of authors that can turn pure non-fiction history with absolutely no fictional embellishment into exciting reading with the page turning force of modern day thrillers is pathetically short. Simon Winchester, Roland Huntford, Jon Krakauer and Canada's Ken McGoogan and Pierre Berton, for example, make it onto my personal short list.
   
   With the publication of "Into Africa", the epic adventures of Henry Morton Stanley and Dr David Livingstone and their explorations of colonial Victorian Africa, Martin Dugard has added his name to this short list of skillful authors capable of keeping a history reader awake into the wee hours.
   
   "Into Africa" presents the unimaginably complex biography of the legendary journalist and African explorer, Henry Morton Stanley, and his search across treacherous African terrain for the missing British hero, Dr David Livingstone. The ending of the story, the anti-climactic meeting in a remote African village and Stanley's utterance of the fabulously understated "Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" is well known. But the story ... my, my, my! "Into Africa" is a powerful paean to the indomitable, persevering nature of the human spirit of exploration and discovery. Dugard combines disease, danger, treachery, colonial politics, tribal warfare, wild animals, challenging terrain, racism, slavery, greed, love, courage, lust and even blind stupidity into a compelling and endlessly fascinating narrative that begins and then finishes all too quickly.
   
   Dugard has also taken the time to carefully place these events into the context of other events taking place around the world at the same time - the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars in Europe, the American Civil War, Karl Marx's publication of "Das Kapital", Franklin's hapless exploration of the Canadian Arctic, the competitive nature of British and American journalism, the appalling state of the slave trade across Central Africa, cameo appearances in America's frontier west by Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hitchcock, and, of course, the political shenanigans that drove the otherwise exemplary achievements of the Royal Geographical Society.
   
   I'll wager a fiver against with almost any potential reader that they really had no idea at all of the colourful background and story of Henry Morton Stanley's life before Africa!
   
   Highly recommended.
   
   Paul Weiss



2. I really enjoyed reading Martin Dugard's "Into Africa". I enjoyed his telling of the story of Stanley's search for Livingstone and found that the author further illuminates the story by setting it within the global historical time frame. Not only do we learn about the trials and travails of exploring a pre-civilized Africa but we also learn about late 19th century media feuds, England's fascination with global exploration,the disgusting African slave trade and the role of the Arabs therein, European designs on colonization of Africa and even a glimpse of the United States' wild west in the post Civil War era. That to me was what made the book a great read. I found Dugard's style to be engaging. He engages the reader in the historical narrative and at the same time avoids bogging it down with minutia and resists interjecting personal bias and political agenda. I plan to find and read other works by this author.



3. Into Africa follows Henry Stanley's quest to find Dr. Livingstone in the heart of Africa. For the layman reader who doesn't know much about this event except for the famous greeting, it's a good overview of the unlikely journey that brought Stanley from an impoverished background, to a life as a newspaper reporter, then to a great explorer in his own right. The hardships endured are much as one would expect on such a journey, as well as some of the conceits of the newcomer to Africa. Stanley showed that he could learn from his mistakes, as he pressed forward with relentless purpose.
   
   The author alternates between Stanley's travels and those of Livingstone, who was near destitution at many times. He tries to get into the minds of both men, especially what motivated them to endure such hardships, besides glory and fame (on Stanley's part especially). It's also a clash of two cultures; the Victorian Livingstone and the reporter from an America expanding its power after the Civil War. The reality of the Arab slave trade is a major factor in this story, both Stanley and Livingstone had to deal with the presence of it. Overall it's worth reading, the accomplishments of both men were substantial.



4. "Dr. Livingstone, I presume." Of course, we all know this famous line from the story of New York Herald reporter Henry Stanley, who was sent out to find the missing African missionary and explorer David Livingstone.
   
   If you read this book carefully, you'll find that Stanley may or may not have actually said these words. And, if you read the New Yorker review of this book (June 2, 2003), you'll find that some of the incidents recounted in this book are probably based on Stanley's highly embellished memoir How I found Livingstone. The New Yorker writer chides Martin Dugard for his broad "pattern of unreliability."
   
   Keep this in mind while you read Into Africa. But don't let it stop you. This is a ripping tale of adventure, heavily dosed with enjoyable biography. It's a winning combination. I love the way the author starts each chapter with a geographical accounting of the miles that stand between Stanley and Livingstone while they are living their separate lives and then while their destiny is becoming intertwined.
   
   Livingstone and Stanley both come across as more noble than they probably were. Stanley's brutality toward the African people and Livingstone's cruel desertion of his family are both downplayed. So, if you want to know more, check out Mr. Dugard's bibliography. If not, just content yourself with knowing more than you knew before about this iconic greeting.
   
   If you want to know more about the travels of missionaries sent out by the London Missionary Society, the agency that first sent out Livingstone, read Tom Hiney's On the Missionary Trail: A Journey Through Polynesia, Asia, and Africa with the London Missionary Society. It's the story of a two-man deputation sent out in the early 1800s to check on the society's first missionaries in remote places around the globe. Another great book.



5. Incredible book. I've read several historical non-fiction books by this author and all I can say is that I think he's brilliant. History comes alive here as the author follows the trails of 2 extraordinary people in the days of exploration when much of the earth south of the equator was still uncharted.
   Read this book!

5 comments about In Patagonia (Penguin Classics).

1. i didn't know what to make of this book when i heard about it. it seemed to be on on eveyone's list of must read travel writing so i added it prior to a trip to south america. it doesn't disappoint. there's a little bit of everything for everyone here. if you like personal vignettes, it's got 'em. if you want a historical perspective on things, it's got 'em. chatwin seems to weave together a compelling read without a well defined travelogue.



2. Chatwin captures the essence of Patagonia page after page, and I really enjoyed how he described the bleakness of the land but also how he found and described interesting people along the way. His adjectives were wonderful. He's right up there with best travel writers of all time, including some of the early explorers into lands unknown to Europeans. A classic to be read every couple of years, and also one to have in your packsack when you venturing into Chile and Argentina. Paul Theroux and Graham Greene liked his writing - that's a message in itself. Very enjoyable afternoon read...



3. Chatwin's "In Patagonia" continues to sell well and is widely appreciated as good writing, widely quoted, as if the book had some sort of value as a proper work on the history of the region. "In Patagonia" is great writing, some say, where style and entertainment are more important than the veracity of the content. And therein lies one of the curious issues surrounding good travel writing (though Chatwin reportedly did not like to be called a "travel writer.") Author Dan Buck was charitable when he wrote of Chatwin's book, "He narrated, but he was not necessarily telling the literal truth in every instance...." Writers from the region superficially visited by Chatwin often describe his work as something on the order of "full of inventions, but good writing." For tourists visiting Patagonia it may be sufficient to be amused and entertained by Chatwin's famous book. The cafés of Puerto Natales seem to be full of tourists reading and quoting from Chatwin's book as if it were the emblematic work on Patagonia. Fact-checkers, on the other hand, will seek other sources.



4. My passion for travel and discovery made this man and his writings a great addition to my library. In Patagonia is a great introduction to Chatwin's style and stories of exploration, and the delivery is pleasant. He goes beyond the tourist venues to become immersed in local culture, and then shares his experiences in such a way as to make me grateful he did.
   
   What makes his writings more than simply a travelogue is the ability to make culture and perspective not only accessible, but fun!
   
   For those that want to go everywhere and do everything, Bruce Chatwin is a great example: he did. He did, and his writings are a beautiful tribute to that passion to go off the beaten track.



5. Of all the travel books I've read over the years, this is the one I always come back to. It's an extraordinary work: a brilliant mix of journey, revelation, history, people of another land, another time. I marvel at Chatwin's gift of language, his insights into the ways and means of how the people in this ancient land of South America live, and have lived for centuries. There's a kind of authenticity to the storytelling techniques that Chatwin employs: it makes everything personal, almost private. And as a reader, you're drawn into his world, his engagement with the locals, with their roots and the richness of their history. The book is, quite simply, a masterpiece.
   
   -Tom Maremaa, Author of the Forthcoming Metal Heads: A Novel from Kunati Books in Spring 2009