No comments about Chrome Horse Chronicles: One Man's Motorcycle Travels Through North America.

3 comments about The Plague Lord: Bloody Murder at the Court of Kublai Khan.

1. Paul Doherty is the consummate professional when it comes to writing historical novels. I for one do not know how he can be so prolific with his offering of books and yet make sure that each of them is well researched. Whether they be 13th, 14th, or fifteenth century they are always true to the period. He also writes about Ancient Egypt and Alexander the Great. Paul Doherty has the rare talent of making you feel as though you are there, be it medieval England, or battling with Alexander. The sounds and smells of the period seem to waft from the pages of his books.
   
   In this book Paul Doherty turns his hand to yet another new subject China in the 13th century. It is a China at the time when the legendary Kubla Khan rules over Cathay. It is also a time when Marco Polo has travelled from Venice and followed the Silk Route all the way to the court of Kubla Khan. Marco has become a favourite of the great man and has even been promoted to being one of his ministers.
   
   When the leaders of a demonic sect disappear from the desert into which they had been banished Kubla Khan turns to Marco to help solve the mystery of where the men have disappeared to, as they are now threatening to cause havoc . . .



2. Paul Doherty aka P.C. Doherty aka Paul Harding is one of the best writers of historical mysteries both fiction & real events. He's been a favorite of mine for many years and I continue to buy his books.
   I suppose I expected the Plague Lord to be more of a mystery on how "The Plague" got started and wound it's way into Europe since Marco Polo was one of the main characters. Instead, it's more of a biography of Kabula Khan and Mongolia of his time. The writing was rich in detail (it always is - one reason he's a favorite) and a good read. I was just expecting a different type of book from the title.
   If you're a fan of Ancient Mongolia & Kabula Khan, then I highly recommend it, as for the mysterious plague it wasn't quite there for me.



3. This is a new entry by Paul Doherty, long known for his medieval mysteries. The location (ancient China) is different from his usual ones, and this story doesn't seem to have the depth of plot and characterization that I've come to expect in his books...nevertheless, it is still better than offerings by most other writers, and is money well spent! Read it...you won't be sorry!

3 comments about Ancient Mariner: The Arctic Adventures of Samuel Hearne, the Sailor Who Inspired Coleridge's Masterpiece.

1. Any literature or history aficionado would enjoy this book. I have recently gotten interested in this area of the world and have just finished a historical fiction novel called The Tenderness of Wolves and a movie entitled Snow Walker that opened my eyes to this frozen area of the world and its inhabitants. The author has completed a tremendous amount of research into Mr. Hearn's life and adventures, but the anecdotes he tells make it come alive. I forgot to cook supper tonight because I was so engrossed!



2. This book by Ken McGoogan recalls Peter C. Newman's fascinating books about the Hudson's Bay Company: Caesars of the Wilderness and The Company Adventurers. I think that schoolchildren should be reading these books rather than dry old history tomes. And, if all you have read are these history textbooks, then I suggest you give yourself a chance to revisit these amazing explorers. The story of Samuel Hearne is magnificently told by Ken McGoogan and it will have you thirsting for more stories of the amazing men and women (yes, women!) who lived, fought, loved in a cruel land. It was a book I could not put down.



3. Exploration stories often focus on the tropics. David Livingstone, Albert Russel Wallace, Richard Burton and others are readily recalled. The polar quests of Amundsen, Cook, Peary and Byrd probably follow in popularity. The upper latitudes seem almost overlooked. With little land mass approaching Antarctica and its pole, Canada and Russia are left for investigation by the enquiring mind. Having offered the life of one such wanderer in John Rae, McGoogan now reaches further back in time and place to reveal the life of Samuel Hearne. It's a fine study of a dedicated man.

   McGoogan's lively narrative traces Hearne's Royal Navy career, then follows him to the Hudson's Bay Company [HBC] station of Prince of Wales Fort. With the Canadian Arctic still a terra incognita, various quests were under consideration - the Northwest Passage and/or an inland sea leading to Asia being prime contenders. A more specific ambition arose with indications of a vast copper resource near the Arctic Sea. Hearne pursued this rumour by trekking across the Canadian tundra to find it. Various interludes occurred along the way.

   Hearne's expeditions to the Arctic seem pre-ordained to failure. Having but a hazy notion of what confronted him wasn't a hindrance. Bureaucracy proved the more serious impediment. The British attitude toward indigenous peoples compounded faulty notions of requirements for such a trip. With no idea of how Native Peoples? societies were structured, British HBC agents blundered into one crisis after another. In today's world, for a man to suggest that women must accompany the expedition to perform specialised tasks would bring down the wrath of the Human Rights Commission. In the 18th Century rise of the HBC in Canada women performed essential roles. No Native Peoples? women meant no Native Peoples? men. No men, no expedition. McGoogan explains all these circumstances without apology or condemnation. It's a professional historian's approach, worthy of full praise.

   The other aspect of British imperialism's shortsighted view is the relationships among Canada's Native Peoples. Hearne and others would counsel peace to those who had been warring when the British still painted themselves blue. These animosities were not easily quelled and might break out without warning nor discernible reason. Hearne was confronted with this near the mouth of the Coppermine River. McGoogan, relying on Hearne's own account, describes the massacre of an Inuit settlement leading to the naming of "Bloody Falls". The event remained fixed in Hearne's memory for the remainder of his life.

   Hearne, seeking an ephemeral copper lode, traversed immense stretches of the Canadian North. With various teams, but particularly relying on a Dene negotiator, Matonabbee, Hearne viewed the Arctic Ocean, the first European to reach it overland. The copper wasn't there, nor, in Hearne's opinion, was there any possibility of a Northwest Passage. He saw the Great Slave Lake, but when he later reported on his journey, skeptics were confounded by how far west it lay. Canada's vastness overwhelmed chair-bounded geographers. Hearne wasn't simply seeking mineral wealth. He recorded copious observations on plant and animal life in the region, as well as collecting information on the native peoples. More than just an adventurer, Hearne is credited by McGoogan as being one of earliest naturalists.

   Hearne's return to England was less than satisfactory. An account of his travels netted him not a penny - he died before publication. One event, a likely meeting with Coleridge at a boy's school, may have led Hearne to become the source of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. While the notion is McGoogan's speculative idea, it's plausible enough to be valid. It certainly provided a good, if unexpected, title for the life of an Arctic explorer. McGoogan presents that life vividly, with only minor, forgiveable, embellishments. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

1 comments about From the Harpy Tomb to the Wonders of Ephesus: British Archaeologists in the Ottoman Empire 1840-1880.

1. Former London museum employee and freelance lecturer Debbie Challis presents From the Harpy Tomb to the Wonders of Ephesus: British Archaeologists in the Ottoman Empire 1840-1880, an extensive study of British-backed mid-1800's archaeological expeditions. Exhaustively researched, From the Harpy Tomb to the Wonders of Ephesus covers the amazing true stories behind the intelligent and driven men who led expeditions, reconstructs their labors and rewards, and analyzes the ripple effect of their discoveries. Notes, a bibliography, an index, and a handful of black-and-white photographs round out this scholarly historical chronicle. A welcome addition to archaeological history shelves.

3 comments about Lost In the Yellowstone: Truman Everts's Thirty Seven Days of Peril.

1. Besides being one of those - Why haven't I heard of this story before? - adventure stories, this book offers a great opportunity to further enhance the Yellowstone experience.

   I read this book while staying in a ranch outside Yellowstone National Park. As luck would have it, our first day of "touring" the park via automobile closely paralleled Truman's path, and I managed to read this story aloud to the kids later that night, in front of a big cast iron stove, while Clark's Fork gurgled 30 feet from the door. I'm not sure if it was the story or the setting, but they were captivated! They were able to tie Truman's adventures in with many of the places we had been earlier that day, and it gave them an entirely different perspective of the park. In addition to bringing the book to life (again - what a story!), it contributed immensely to their appreciation of Truman's ordeal, the magnitude of the park and the wilderness that lies 100 yards off the main roads... Highly recommended.




2. Knowing the history of the exploration of this magnificent park makes me even more anxious to visit this beautiful country. After reading this book, when I visit YSNP, I will focus on a time long ago, when all the modern conveniences were not there. It is a great book to have read to get some of the background knowledge of this area, before you go out and explore yourself!



3. Today, being lost in Yellowstone National Park is as simple as turning on the wrong road after you lost your complimentary map or you can not locate the restroom in the Old Faithful complex. For Truman Everts, being lost in Yellowstone was a struggle between life and death. Everts's account details his 1870 adventure in Yellowstone after finding himself separated from his travelling companions. The separation began Everts's thirty-seven day struggle for survival in a pre-developed Yellowstone in which Everts had to find what little food and shelter he could just to survive. Readers will find this account to be a real-life struggle for survival reminiscent of Jack London's fictional work. The editor, Lee Whittlesey, does a superb job of editing Everts's story by providing the reader with additional information and the historical background of the book. The work is also illustrated with many early day photographs of Yellowstone which provides an stunning visual account of early-day Yellowstone National Park. This book will be appreciated by anyone looking for an exciting true-life adventure story as well as historians of the American West. People who have been "lost" recently in Yellowstone will also appreciate the book, even if their modern-day adventure pales in comparison to Evert's

1 comments about On to the Alamo: Colonel Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas (Penguin Classics).

1. This book is a novel, or historical fiction as the long introduction will point out. The author Smith wrote this and had the publishers say it was the journal of Davy Crockett. It isn't. Smith read some books ghost written by Crockett, and then wrote this story in a similar fashion. That being said, it is a good and entertaining read. However, it is not true, so fellow historians beware.
   Crockett is a colorful figure in American history. I can't say I know much about him, but this story places him in a very favorable light. The saying much attributed to Crockett about the voters of Tennessee going to hell, but he was going to Texas is one of my favorites. This is a great short read and I much recommend it.

No comments about Silver Spoons, Mad Baboons, and Other Tales of Tea.

1 comments about The Astonished Man (Peter Owen Modern Classics) (Peter Owen Modern Classics).

1. This is the first of a four-volume "memoir" by Swiss modernist Blaise Cendrars and the first joy of this book is finding a copy (the first three volumes are very hard to locate). Cendrars appears in many modern poetry anthologies and its his early poems that really made his reputation but along the way he enjoyed many other careers. According to Cendrars he made and lost many fortunes as a film director, speculator, etc... While readers may, at times, be suspicious as to the veracity of much of what these "memoirs" contain (it seems impossible that one man could have done all that Cendrars claims to have done), Cendrars' sheer outrageousness, his utter refusal to remain true to the facts (and what are "facts" anyway?), is simply one of the many charms of these autobiographical narratives.
   
   One of the mysteries of these memoirs is that although Cendrars knew just about every artist working in France before & after WWI (Picasso, Cocteau, Modigliani, Braque) he rarely mentions any of them. Instead of going on about the famous people that he knew as most memoirists would, he chooses to go on about the unknowns (his foreign legion buddies, his cinematographer, fishermen, maids, gypsies, and other under-appreciated & unsung human beings). But this is Cendrars charm; he knows that you know the "greats" of modernism already anyway, and one of his many tasks is to undermine the very idea of what qualifies as "great".
   
   Ultimately, Cendrars is not interested in the professional aspects of "art" or "literature" (and all of the pretensions that go along with these terrains), rather he is interested in the influence of art on everday life and/or the relation of art to everyday life. For Cendrars life is a series of impostures & antic gestures designed to relieve the tedium of actual living. For Cendrars, one suspects, art is the antidote to living. (At one point he says "writing is an abdication of life.")
   
   Cendrars is an author, like Sir Richard Burton & like Joseph Conrad & like Ernest Hemingway, who will appeal to the manly side of a reader's sensibility. His favorite topics are war & travel & women. But he writes about these topics like no one else. When writing on WWI, for instance, he is not interested in the politics of the whole thing nor in the individual battles nor in the loss of the old order, rather Cendrars (born Swiss and fighting for the French Foreign Legion) as always is interested in adventure for adventure's sake and in how various adventures (including writing) save us from the thrall of the ordinary.
   
   With Cendrars you get a love of adventure and unadorned salt-of-the-earth existence (even though he adorns "salt-of-the-earth existence" with all kinds of romantic notions of his own), and so the attraction to love & war is at once an attraction to adventure and a chance to commune with his fellow humans on a larger than life project (the only kind of project that he sanctions). He treats his two favorite topics in much the same way. He romanticizes & demystifies both. "War," he concludes, "is a drug designed to counteract the fear of living." But one could easily replace "war" in this sentence with "love" or "art". Each of these, for Cendrars, are forms of existential escapism, and all are to be approached with equal amounts of caution. Really the cure-all for Blaise Cendrars (his name, a pseudonymn, is derived from the French words for "embers", "ashes", and "art") is ceaseless change. In one particularly memorable episode Cendrars recounts a night of lovemaking by comparing the act to a ship crashing through rough seas. But the entire affair lasts only one night. "Human pain," he concludes,"results from the attempt to make impermanent things permanent." Cendrars demystifies each thing that he encounters but he also keeps things spiced with his own epic sense of bravado/grandiosity/comedy for what is ultimately being crafted here is a self that is at one with its epic (and the main point of the epic seems to be that all rules have been suspended & everything is there for the taking). Love & war & art & modernity in Cendrars eyes are all just hoaxes, but Cendrars' sense of the absurd allows him to get the most out of each kind of hoax.
   
   Though this is marketed as a memoir, its really more of a collage of war & travel writings as well as a collection of portraits of the many people that he met while doing the many things that he did (...colonel in the French Foreign Legion during WWI, documentary filmaker in Africa, patron to many of Marseilles' many dens of vice, chronicler of gypsy life...). The amazing thing is that Cendrars was an active man (one might even say hyperactive) who also happened to be one of the early twentieth century's most important poets. As a poet he is hypervigilant of the fact that many writers fall "prey to [their] obsessions" as well as become "victims" to the "distortions of [their] vocations" ( as a species Cendrars finds writers to be the least trustworthy people on the planet) but the thing that comes across in Cendrars poetry & prose is that despite the many liberties taken with objective fact he never seems to let the vocation get the better of him. Or, one might say, that, as a writer, he knows all the tricks of the trade and he takes great pleasure in exploiting these tricks, but he never loses of the fact that they are just tricks.
   
   Cendrars never seems to be a "writer" serving up "writing" for writings sake. Cendrars ultimately seems to be serving something more dear to him than art, he seems to be serving his sense of life, and his sense of life is marked by two things: an insatiable hunger for more of it & an almost religious awe before all things even though this religious, almost mystic, reverence for life is easy to miss as it is almost always buried beneath a potpourri of sensual detail & earthly delight & endless fictional/nonfictional digressions/transgressions. (Although its quite possible that this religious awe is just another mask, just another part of the Cendrars mythos, as worked on & crafted as any of his other personae.)
   
   Cendrars is "modern" in the sense that he understands that the old ways of ordering the world no longer work, but unlike other "moderns" he is in no rush to find a new order for Cendrars embraces disorder, chaos, & anarachy as man's natural element. He knows exactly who he is & exactly what he is doing with words & why what he is doing is different than what others have done. In his earthy kinetic prose he captures the frenetic pace and the disorienting effects of modern life as well as its enchanting allure. Reading Cendrars one gets the impression that he feels that the whole of modern life were placed before him for the sole purpose of inducing one phantasmic state after another. One senses that he purposefully upsets genres, but not because he wants to make an artistic statement or breakthrough, but because he has no patience with the confines of established rules & genres nor for the commonplaces of accepted writerly decorums (all of which he enjoys smashing). Rather, Cendrars is a liberator who feels that art should serve (respond to & capture & create) life & that form should serve content and not the other way around; new life needs new forms and so Cendrars ceaslessly invents.
   
   There are certainly plenty of innovators among the moderns, but Cendrars' motive for innovation makes him almost entirely unique among them. Hemingway, who also tried to create an art that was much more responsive to the rhythms of real life, is the most obvious precedent, but Cendrars embraces much more of life than Hemingway was ever able to and Cendrars has a much more complex vision of the interrelatedness of art & life. What both men share is a sense of living & writing as performance but Cendrars has much more fun with the great game than Hemingway ever did. Cendrars embraces both the high & (especially) the low, both the sublime & the abject, both the profound & the ridiculous in a way that Hemingway does not. And he combines all of his interests in his own modernist cocktail shaker. If Hemingway is the modern equivalent of a classical tragedian mourning the loss of traditional values like courage & discipline & honor, Cendrars is the equivalent of a classical comedian reveling in the newfound freedoms & energies & absurdities of the new epoch.
   
   Cendrars is not a self-promoter as so many of the moderns were; he lacks the self-interest & ambition of the artist who always has one eye on public & critical opinion. Cendrars is not completely immune from this kind of concern but what he promotes is life, not art (or, maybe its more accurate to say that what he promotes is the interconnectedness and/or co-dependence of art & life). What he has, and what is rarely encountered elsewhere among the more renowned moderns, is a rare kind of curiosity for and geuine passion for all kinds of "life" & "art" that comes primarily from living such a rich and varied existence, but also from reading all kinds of books for all kinds of reasons and this sets him apart from other writers whose lives & interests seem narrow and self-important in comparison. Said in another way, Cendrars knows too much to be fooled into believing that "art" is anything but shameless self-promotion and he prefers the company of the unpretensious who know this to the company of the self-important artistes who don't. And yet Cendrars' vision is, nonetheless, "artistic" and his earthy persona is something that is as carefully crafted as any other modernist work.
   
   The intangible thing is perhaps this: Despite his hyper self-conscious posing, Cendrars always comes across as being more interested in people and how they really are than in art (something that cannot be said of most "modern" writers) and so what he does seems to be something much less categorizable & much less reducible than most "art" ultimately is, and thus he is a writer that is rarely mentioned in the usual literary places. Restless readers hungry for unique visions (those interested in countermodernisms, anti-modernisms or postmodern modernisms), however, will respond to Cendrars immediately.
   
   But the uncontainable energy of the man, and his insatiable creativity, really need no lengthy introduction, it is all expressed best by Cendrars himself in virtually every sentence that he writes: "The moment the steamer berthed, I jumped on the dock, then leapt into a taxi to be driven to a cafe in the Old Port with as much haste as if I were an opium smuggler anxious to get rid of his hot merchandise, I, who always come back from my trips overseas with a burst of laughter, often a wad of banknotes, and, as naturally as possible and without anyone knowing, a couple of poems..."
   
   As with any unorthodox writer, it is an all or nothing affair: you find the writer & his vision(s) to be completely engaging and immediately part of your pantheon of favorite things or you do not. For me, there is no greater pleasure than finding yet another hard-to-find Cendrars novel or memoir. Lucky for me, it seems that every few years another few Cendrars titles become available in English translation.

3 comments about Hidalgo: The Desert Diaries 100 Days Across The Atacama.

1. The reviewer who rated this book one star because it mentions Hidalgo was unfair. There is indeed a connection to the recent movie Hidalgo. That was the story of a horse crossing the Sahara, this is the story of horses crossing the Atacama. In the preface, the authors mention watching Hidalgo, the movie, and saw "...moments of our own lives on the trail played out on screen;....our own dispair, our own relationship to our horses, our own journey. We use 'Hidalgo' in the title to help you find us." If the title helps even one person find this book who would not otherwise have, it was a good choice, because this true story deserves to be more widely known. I also read the authors' longer book "Riding into the Wind on Horseback Out of Patagonia" and was afraid this would simply be an excerpt of that, but it is not. Although a few entries are duplicates, of course, most of this book, since it focuses just on the Atacama desert crossing, is new material with more detail than the previous book, and many more pictures.
   
   But this is more than an adventure story. The Footes have a lot of useful insights, most still relevant today. Give this story a try. If you like it, get "Riding into the Wind." Hopefully the sequel to Riding will be published one day, to finish the story of the journey from the Mexican border to Canada.



2. Wow! This book is absolutely amazing. To think Nathan and Elly Foote actually did this boggles the mind, and stories like this you just can't make up. An amazing tale of survival while crossing drought-striken landscape and true desert as well. Anyone who enjoyed movies like "Hidalgo", and "Bite the Bullet", and loved books like "Seabiscuit" and other amazing equine related tales will consider "Hidalgo: The Desert Diaries" a must-own!



3. This book's title is VERY misleading. Not what one would expect.

5 comments about My Decision to Live.

1. If you or someone you know has had life's dreams interrupted by an accident or illness, consider "My Decision to Live." It's a real life story about how one person - poised to accomplish his life-long goal - dealt with a terrible setback that completely re-wrote his life's script. Nader's story has elements with which many of us can identify: An imperfect yet loving family spread across several states, strong, individual motivation, bureaucratic obstacles, and bitter disappointment. Through it all, we see a young man's character and faith grow while he charts a new course in life. I'm glad Nader Elguindi took the time to share his story. It's given me a renewed perspective on overcoming my own challenges through an honest account of one person's struggle. Nader would have made a great submarine commander and his leadership would have meant a great deal to the men with whom he served. Having lost the chance to attain that goal, Nader instead has chosen to serve us all by telling his story and helping others in the process. Read this book and pass it along.



2. It's cliche to say "This book has been an inpiration to me, but so be it. This is an incredible story of overcoming obstacles and living by design with purpose and intensity.
   
   The next time life gets hard and you don't know if you want to make the effort - buy this book, read this book and then get in gear.



3. I am still reading this book and I am enjoying it very much. The language is simple and unsophisticated which may disappoint some, but this makes it more appealing to youths. I want my son to read it so he understands what it is to be a man of character.



4. I just could not believe all that he has been through, and he still managed to do two remarkable feats by getting submarine qualified with a prosthetic leg, and starting a business which is hard to do anyway. If he can find his way, I can also.



5. Prior to the read, I expected a book 3/4ths about the after Navy struggles and little about the submarine experience. Being a former submariner I was happy to find I was mistaken. Knowing of the lack of physical space on submarines and moving fore and aft becomes routine for us but in retrospect I can remember how difficult it was especially during a call to "Battle Stations."
   An excellent story of the hills and valleys of recovery both physically and career wise and how persevere in the business world.
   I'm recommending it to all my viewers on my submarine BBS.
   Thanks Nader!