No comments about The Adventure of My Life.

2 comments about SOLO TO TOP WORLD.

1. How many of us have thought we were born at the wrong time? For most of us, the era of barnstorming heroes is long gone, but Gus McLeod brought those times back with his bare hands and an ancient biplane. The results are both harrowing and humorous. Gustavus balances wry wit with self-effacing humor. He also fills the story with well-observed, quirky characters (including an Inuit, rechristened Studley, who need help handling the ladies). This is a FUNNY book. My daughter said she enjoyed listening to me chuckling out loud as I read it.

   At the same time Gustavus brings together bits of history and contemporary concerns to draw us into the meaning of his quest. This is a spiritual journey as well as a man against nature tale. Gustavus struggles with his identity in a society that wants to categorize him according to only part of his rich heritage, and he shows how to win some battles. He also survives against punishing odds, repeatedly tipped against him by frostbite, failing equipment, loneliness, exhaustion and unrelenting cold.

   The main creation of this book is a full, complex character, a man of charm and intelligent observations. You won't meet another like him.




2. Solo to the Top of the World is a great American adventure story. This is a lively historic account of how the first person reached the magnetic and geographic North Pole in a open cockpit airplane, a 1939 Boeing Stearman biplane, respectively in 1999 and 200, after several others had failed, died or disappeared in the Arctic. The book has all the elements of a great thriller- danger, excitment, high risks, success against tremendous odds, but it is even better than most thrillers because it is true. Readers will not want to put this book down.

No comments about Sutter's Own Story: The Life Of General John Augustus Sutter And The History Of New Helvetia In The Sacramento Valley.

No comments about The Runaway.

No comments about This Everlasting Silence: The Love Letters of Paquita Delprat and Douglas Mawson 1911-1914.

No comments about Stories Of Great Explorers: Through North America, South America And Africa.

No comments about Capitan Scott/ Captain Scott.

1 comments about Were the Hawaiian Islands Visited by the Spaniards Before Their Discovery by Captain Cook in 1778? (Communal Societies in America).

1. Erik Dahlgren has written a definitive historical analysis that
   thoroughly disproves the popular myth that Hawaiian had been
   visited and charted by Spanish explorers. This myth was mentioned as fact in W D Alexander's "A Brief History of the Hawaiian People" published over 100 years ago. It was perpetuated by a Spaniard living in Hawaii, Francisco de Paulo
   Marin ("manini").
   The argument in favor of the Spanish discovery rests in some
   part on the Spanish charts which were seized by Anson when he
   captured a treasure ship in the Phillipines. Certainly this
   chart was known to Cook, and it does show islands at approximately the same latitude as Hawaii, but well to the east
   of Hawaii's actual location.
   Dahlgren carefully sorts through the facts and demonstrates that
   this Spanish chart was not based on any known observattions,
   furthermore he shows that the Spaniard who supposedly made the discovery was in fact not even a competent navigator.
   It is a serious historical work, carefully written, and 100%
   convincing.

No comments about Who we are: An informal history of Tacoma's black community before World War I.

No comments about Freedom Flight.