5 comments about Story: The Way of Water.

1. A very detailed look into the life of an iconoclast. This is a truly deep dive into, not only the life of Story Musgrave, but his philosophies and methodologies toward living life the way you want. It stares into hardships unflinchingly and takes the viewer into space with the proper sense of anticipation and awe.
   
   A very great read presented in an original and entertaining manner. Not your typical biography.



2. I thoroughly enjoyed "Story, the Way of Water". It is a gripping book that keeps you riveted to the development of Story's life as he overcomes the problems he encountered. The book gives a clear picture of his strong character, intelligence, and robustness. The great part of the book is that
   it conveys his feelings as he accomplished the many great tasks he set out to do. Using those that knew him to help tell his story was truly magnificent. I picked up the book and could not put it down until I finished it.



3. This is a biography with a difference about a man whose lifetime achievements are incredible; leaving school unqualified, obtaining multiple degrees, more hours on the T38 jet than any other human being, astronaut, multiple spaceflights, multiple space walks, poet etc.
   As well as the straight biography you get quotes and writings from Story himself. Somehow he seems to view the world differently from other people.
   A really good read but enough to make even the highest achiever seem like a bit of a failure!



4. This book is the first major work by a young author. It has been written with passion, based on incredible research. This book is both educational and motivational as you witness Story's persistent efforts leading to extraordinary achievements. You are encouraged to follow his example in some small way in your own environment.



5. A very thoroughly and thoughtfully researched chronicle of the life of an iconoclast. Story is a unique person even among his peers. Anne Lenehan captured far more than the typical celebrity biography!

No comments about Twenty-Four Years a Cowboy and Ranchman in Southern Texas and Old Mexico: Or, Desperate Fights with the Indians and Mexicans.

2 comments about Daniel Boone: An American Life.

1. I blame television. When reading _Daniel Boone: An American Life_ (University Press of Kentucky) by Michael A. Lofaro, I realized that I didn't know anything about Daniel Boone. I thought he wore a coonskin cap and was a contemporary of Davy Crockett, and maybe fought at the Alamo. I discovered at the end of the book that Lofaro blames television, too. Boone's fame to my generation comes from "...Fess Parker playing the lead in _Daniel Boone_, a historical disaster for baby-boomers who still confuse Boone with Crockett" because Parker sequentially played one then the other in the mid-fifties. Lofaro had insight on my own ignorance, and his book is shot through with impressive scholarship that takes Boone, as much as possible, from myth and tall tales (and television-inspired error) and puts him into realistic historical perspective. There is plenty here that is inspiring, and fit for legend-making, and also plenty to show that Daniel Boone had essential trouble in managing to get along with society. And also (_pace_ Davy Crockett), Boone hated coonskin caps.

   He was born in Pennsylvania in 1734, to devout Quakers. His rudimentary schooling shows up in many excerpts from his writings here; for instance, it seems to be true that on an East Tennessee tree he carved the inscription "D. Boon cilled a Bar on tree in the year 1760." Boone did indeed become an accomplished woodsman and hunter, and was always less fit for the life of frontier farming. He had a pattern of reaching out to new lands; he had a wanderlust, to be sure, and encroaching civilization always meant that he had to move to new frontiers to hunt game, but he was always eager to apply the simple solution of moving away when having people live around him was just too complicated. He would be on the move all his life. He fought for the British (along with Washington) in the French and Indian War, and then against the British in the western version of the American Revolution, which consisted mostly of fighting Indians. He had prodigious skill in the outdoors, and there are many stories here of heroism and craftiness. Although he could always win battles against Indians, he could not win against lawyers, and was often in court because of disputed boundaries he had surveyed. He was guileless and always assumed that treating someone honestly would get him honest treatment in return, an assumption that he never seemed to learn was unwarranted.

   Boone was amazed that he became famous. There was a bogus autobiography printed in 1784, that was translated into German and French, and made Boone internationally known. He was painted by the young John James Audubon. James Fennimore Cooper based much of Natty Bumppo on him, and in a note to one of the Leatherstocking Tales said that Boone headed out from Kentucky to Missouri in later life "because he found a population of ten to the square mile inconveniently crowded." Tales of Boone's dry wit became staples. He did indeed, when asked if he had ever gotten lost in the wilderness, reply, "No, I can't say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days." He blazed trails, most notably through the Cumberland Gap, and then was dismayed that they became widened for wagon travel and further encroachment by civilization. Ending up in Missouri, he spent his last years hunting buffalo and trapping beaver. He died at 85, as the nation was pushing further west and the wilds were more speedily declining. Lofaro's informative biography puts the brilliant pioneer and naïve citizen at the center of a complicated and longstanding war between settlers and Indians.




2. This book tells how Dniel showed honesty and cofidince. Everything about Daniel Boone is in this book. If you have a report due on a leader this is want you want. I prefer this book to anyone.

2 comments about Fever & Thirst: A Missionary Doctor Amid the Christian Tribes of Kurdistan.

1. Before I read this book I knew little about this part of the world and nothing about the 19th-century missionary movement. The author writes with grace and confidence and has a reasssuring command of his subject. The book makes accessible a particularly complicated political arena and the motivations -- so foreign to a 21st-century reader -- of a passionate individual determined, at all costs, to bring Protestantism (and medical help) to the Christians of Kurdistan. Highly recommended.



2. An extraordinary book. This slice of 19th Century history, remarkable in its own right, is background to much of the strife in today's geopolitical news. My benchmarks for such things being David Fromkin's wonderful A Peace to End All Peace, and Karl Meyer's Tournament of Shadows, plus the works of Peter Hopkirk, I can safely say Taylor surpasses them all in rendering complex events, timelines, and relationships with clarity and immediacy. Fever and Thirst fills out an extra perspective on the machinations at the fringes of the Great Game, and serves up a hugely erudite portrait of fractious Christian attempts at empire-building in the Middle East circa 1840, mischief which remains at the heart of so much woe in that region. Taylor is not afraid occasionally to render sophisticated judgments on everything from the missionary's apolitical disengagement to the quality of the local wine (which I'll remember to forego should the occasion arise). It's reassuring that the author has opinions on his topic, and cares to express them. Likewise, that he can find some wry humor in such a tale of Romantic - even obsessive - zeal, despite the horrendous human cost he has catalogued. Fascinating detail and broad learning underpin the superbly sustained narrative (including some finer points of Christian theology, not to mention the history of the Ottoman Empire, about which it's hard to imagine many Westerner knowing a useful amount these days), and a controlled dramatic tone pushes the character-driven story forward. Fever and Thirst is particularly good at portraying the endless political chaos in the soul of the regions then nominally under Turkish domination, characterized by ever-shifting alliances, greed and betrayal. Artfully written and thoroughly enjoyable, the book offers lessons we may be thankful for, especially those that resonate with our contemporary experience, in particular the hubris, ignorance and fantasy at the heart of our misbegotten role as Crusaders still. Highly recommended.

1 comments about Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis.

1. A short but encompassing summary of Lindbergh's life. Unlike Berg's biography, it omits all but the most important details but gives an accurate overview. Well written and interesting.

2 comments about Robert Service: A Great Canadian Poet's Romance with the North (Amazing Stories).

1. Never realized that the poet Robert Service was such an adventurer and rebel until I read this book. A tightly-written biography filled with interesting information about his early life in Scotland, his life in British Columbia, California and Yukon, and then later in Europe. Author does a great job of taking the reader along as Robert Service goes after his dreams and along the way, writes some of the world's greatest poetry.



2. This is an well-written book that is great read for all ages. The author has produced a fascinating book that keeps you reading into the night. The book captures well the adventuresome, wanderlust side of Robert Service, weaving in stories about his family life and his career as a poet, author and novelist. Excellent book about an incredible man who has become a Canadian icon.

2 comments about John Sutter: A Life on the North American Frontier.

1. The author has obviously done a tremendous amount of research, and his portrayal of Sutter, the Californios, and the Native Americans puts a reader into a position of feeling that he is right there at the time. No one is portrayed as being an idol to be admired, but just as they must have been, complex human beings interacting with others motivated by their own personal self interest. We learn not all Indian tribes are the same, and that they were reacting to the opportunities and racism prevalent at the time. The historical interplay of Mexico, England, Russia, and the United States is very well shown, not just stated. The author writes in a very accessible style. When he does not know what happened, he says so, and then makes conjectures clearly labled as such. Albert Hurtado deserves a Pulitzer Prize.



2. Albert L. Hurtado's JOHN SUTTER: A LIFE ON THE NORTH AMERICAN FRONTIER is a top pick for any high school or college-level history collection, and for California history holdings in particular. John Sutter founded a modern settlement in California's Sacramento Valley whose economy depended on Indian slaves and free laborers: it drew immigrants and fortune seekers alike, and made Sutter one of the richest men in the early West - a wealth brought down by his poor business sense. Professor Hurtado uses a range of source materials to provide the definitive coverage of Sutter's life, times, and rise and fall. An essential coverage.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch

4 comments about The Shark God: Encounters with Ghosts and Ancestors in the South Pacific.

1. We're all interested in God. (Even atheists make a theological statement when saying there is no god; and presumably, they've said so based on an informed consideration of some sort.) Montgomery takes us on an extra-ordinary quest in pursuit of God-knowledge. And he does so in the footsteps of his great grandfather, who was a missionary to the people of the south sea islands. He starts as a well-studied skeptic on a grand adventure. Along the way we encounter history and myth surrounding magic, cannibal stories, hallucination, faith, and genuine self-sacrifice. And we see our stalwart tour guide grow as a result of his quest. His appreciation for the power of myth expands to reveal the truth that it can convey. And his spirituality makes a significant transition from that of someone inquiring into the basis of religion -- to observing its significant influence on the human family, in practice.
   
   There are occasional sentences written in a creole which might require a bit of a stretch for some readers -- but it really is English if you sound them out carefully. (Let your eye and ear work together to parse those words, out loud, if necessary.) The editors would have done well to include a glossary for those who are intimidated by foreign-looking words. But please don't let this discourage you from this very enjoyable book which tracks a coming of age from spiritual infancy into a dawning maturity.
   
   ~eric.



2. Having a missionary ancestor is a fine prompt for travel. Most early missionaries, to justify their existence and purpose, were dogged journal keepers. Montgomery's grandfather was no exception. Rev. H.H. Montgomery had not only kept extensive notes, but much of that collection and other thoughts were produced in a book, "The Light of Melanesia". Discovering that account led Vancouver-born Charles to light out to the Pacific to see the results of his grandfather's and other missionaries' endeavours. In keeping his own records, Charles has produced a 21st Century adventure yarn of captivating interest.
   
   If there is a pivotal point in this book, it is the 1871 "murder" of Bishop John C. Patteson. The bishop seems to have died happy - martyrdom has an appeal to some religious folk. The century following may have justified his bizarre view, since his death has become a symbol to the local people. For one thing, they are able to brag that "we don't kill white folks any more". The author has some reason to doubt this claim as he travels through Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. He has trouble separating the various Christianities spread throughout the islands. A good many of them are still practising various forms of ancient witchcraft as part of their new religious activities.
   
   Montgomery sets himself a quest to find Melanesian witchcraft in its pure form. This is easier told than accomplished, since today's missionaries, and many of their converts, hunt down the practitioners. Sometimes with violence. The islanders, however, have a long warrior tradition supporting their activities and working out winners and losers is challenging. Still, for him to unearth the ancient practices, he must trek deep into mountain hideaways, convince those claiming to hold special powers that he won't reveal them to Christian authorities, and come away unscathed. If the Melanesians don't do him in, the weather is always waiting for its own chance. "Getting there is half the fun" as the author haunts docks and ships seeking elusive transport. Ships run weekly, monthly, or when fuel money is produced. His persistence ought to be worth some kind of award.
   
   His luck might be due to some recognition, as well. In the islands, the witchcraft Montgomery seeks is based on "mana". Mana is the life force and may be transferred from one human to another - by head hunting [cognitive scientists take note]. The more exalted the victim, the greater the mana. The missionaries, and the military forces they frequently called in to support them, sought to quell the practice. Their substitution was "Christian love", which often took a beating when the islanders objected to their land being taken or their wives and daughters raped. Montgomery laces the history of missionary work with his personal account seamlessly. Daily confronting the results of what the missionaries imposed [this book was originally titled: "The Last Heathen"] Montgomery's scepticism of their work can only be enhanced. Belief, however, is an immense force among humans. Montgomery realises he cannot dismiss it thoughtlessly. The result of his quest results in a fascinating essay on what "religion" has come to mean to the Pacific Islanders. It's far from what the missionaries intended - and intend - but it's demonstrably real. The book is a valuable social commentary, both about the Pacific islands and our own culture. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]



3. As a correspondent I was in the Solomons for most of the key moments - and many of the darker moments of the civil war on Guadalcanal. Montgomery, whose original motivation was plainly to write some kind of family travel account, was deeply changed by what he saw and felt. As were we all. I never met him during the dramas, suggesting he kept away from the media events linked with it all. For this we all owe a very deep debt of thanks; he has bought a powerful light to parts of the story that needed to be illuminated. The horrors of Harold Keke and his gang, off set by the glories of the Melanesian Brothers. This is a major Pacific work; something to be celebrated and cherished.



4. What is relegion? Why do we believe what we believe? These are important questions since all of us look for meaning within our existence. This book offers valuable insight into those issues. Not just a travel book.
   
   This well written book takes you deep into the South Pacific like no other book I have read before. In many ways this book transcends the travel category and takes you into the relm of relegion and theology as well as anthropology and a little political science thrown in too just for good measure. I was very pleasantly surprised.
   
   I also like the way this book helps to educate us on a part of the world that is so far off the beaten path, at the edge of our existence, that we ignore it. Huge mistake. Read this book, ponder the issues it brings up, and you will learn a lot.

No comments about Arctic Ordeal: The Journal of John Richardson, Surgeon-Naturalist With Franklin 1820-1822.

1 comments about On High: The Adventures of Legendary Mountaineer, Photographer, and Scientist Brad Washburn.

1. The biography of Brad Washburn makes a terrific yarn, even for us armchair adventurers. This is a well-told tale, with a transcribed "oral history" from Mr. Washburn, interspersed with the narrative supplied by Mr. Smith. The significance of Mr. Washburn's life, and what makes this book worth reading, is that his mountaineering adventures were part of the 20th century's final conquest of high places in this world. The high mountains were the last frontier, and Mr. Washburn lived it, wrote about it, mapped it, and (more importantly) photographed it. Fortunately, National Geographic chose to include a variety of Mr. Washburn's best photographs. His friendship with, and admiration for, Ansel Adams is apparent. Buy this for the read, but also buy it as a coffee table book.