Tag: adventure

Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll

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Mutis, Alvaro. The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll. Translated by Edith Grossman. Harper Collins, 1990.

Reason read: the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano in Columbia occurred in November of 1985. The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll did not take place in Columbia, but Alvaro Mutis was born in Columbia.

Maqroll the Gaviero’s life is told in a series of four novellas:

  • Amirbar (92 pages) – the time Maqroll spent mining for gold until his mining partner went crazy.
  • Tramp Steamer’s Last Port of Call (59 pages) – the love affair between a tramp steamer captain and a woman named Warda. As an aside, I want to be Warda when I grow up…or at least have her style.
  • Abdul Bashur, Dreamer of Ships (105 pages) – this story includes a scam involving imitation Turkish rugs.
  • Triptych on Sea and Land (111 pages) – “Appointment in Bergen,” A True History of the Encounters and complicities of Maqroll the Gaviero and the painter Alejandro Obregon,” and “Jamil.”

It’s as if Maqroll is in the back corner of a dimly lit bar whispering his secrets. His companions share these adventures with us. The adventures take the reader all over the world.

Lines I liked, “My companion’s words held a conviction he could not fully express” (p 30), “This is how we forget: Our affairs, no matter how close to us, are made strange through the mimetic, deceptive, constant working of a precarious present” (p 111), “Human beings, I thought, change so little, and are so much what they are, that these had been only one love story since the beginning of time, endlessly repeated, never losing it’s terrible simplicity or it’s irremediable sorrow” (p 151).

Music: “El Relicano,” “Espana Cani,”

Author fact: Mutis is from Columbia.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Hail, Columbia!” (p 90).

Kansal Clunker

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Kansal, Neil and Ruchin Kansal. Kansal Clunker: the Car That Rebuilt Us. Koehler Books, 2025.

Reason read: Being a member of the Early Review Program with LibraryThing I get to review cool books. This is one such book.

Prepare to be thoroughly entertained by Neil Kansal and his father, Ruchin. Sharing perspectives on a singular adventure, they have written a charming book about driving across the country in what they call the Kansal Clunker, a rebuilt 1998 Acura Integra with 159,068 miles. What started as a desire to learn how to drive a car with a manual transmission in 2020 turned into an epic road trip. Stopping at interesting sights along the way filled out an adventure of a lifetime. From Connecticut to Colorado, this was a chance for sixteen year old Neil to get to know his father as a person and vise versa.
I thought the maps, memories, photographs, and family comments were a nice touch.

Natalie connection: the family relocated to Newtown, Connecticut. Natalie has performed in support of Ben’s Lighthouse a few times now. I will be attending the benefit this November.

Playlist: “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” “Happy Birthday,” Garth Brooks, Blake Shelton, Kane Brown, and “Itsy-bitsy Spider.”

Author facts: Ruchin design Cinemark theaters and Neil was a principal cellist of the University Orchestra.

Book trivia: you can learn more about the Kansal adventure via their website and Instagram site.

Goodbye to a River

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Graves, John. Goodbye to a River: a Narrative. Alfred A. Knopf, 1960.

Reason read: June is National River Cleanup month. What better way to honor the event than by reading a book about a little known river called the Brazos?

The premise behind Goodbye to a River sounds like something I would do. When John Graves found out the state of Texas was going to dam parts of the Brazos River he decided to take a three week journey on the river of his childhood to say goodbye. Portions of the Brazos clearly reflected Graves’s childhood memories. Other times he reflects on the history, myths and legends of the region. At times he becomes philosophical, thinking of “Saint” Henry David Thoreau and “Prince” Ernest Hemingway, but more often he recounts tales of violence and racism: scalpings, hangings, raps, and murders indicative of the Comanche history of the region. He mentions Charles Goodnight from time to time. Occasionally, he interacts with locals he meets along the way, but most of the time he is alone with a dog he calls the passenger. My favorite parts was when Graves remembered the exact same trees he used to climb and the same beaches he used to build campfires on.
Did you know that October is the best month for traveling the Brazos for the weather is at its most pleasant?

As an aside, I would like to hear a canyon wren singing in harmony with her desert landscape.

Lines I loved, “You are not in a hurry there; you learned long since not to be” (p 3), “The silent air of ruin is fragile” (p 44), “Heights have that kind of humor” (p 126), and “One can get pretty literary on islands” (p 168).

Confessional: when I said Goodbye to a River reminded me of myself, here is what I meant. I was supposed to be paid off from the job I had had for over twenty years. Knowing the end was near, I spent four weeks saying goodbye to every corner that meant something to me.
As another aside, I am watching Only Murders in the Building (yes, I know it has been out for a while). Brazos makes me think of Steve Martin’s character.
As yet another aside, the mention of Alma-Tadema paintings reminded of Natalie’s interpretation of his daughter’s poem, “If No One Ever Married Me.”

Author fact: Graves taught “off and on” at Columbia and spent time wandering and writing (according to his biography).

Book trivia: the children’s version of Goodbye to a River was illustrated by Russell Waterhouse.

Playlist: “Annie Laurie”, Frank Sinatra, Ricky Nelson, “The Good Old Rebel”, “Beulah Land”, “Drink to Me Only”, “Flow Gently, Sweet Afton”, and “Rambling Wreck”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “A River of Words” (p 201).

Ends of the Earth (Artic)

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Kolbert, Elizabeth (Ed.). Ends of the Earth: An Anthology of the Finest Writing on the Artic. Bloomsbury, 2007.

Reason read: Ernest Shackleton was born on February 15th, 1874. Read in his honor.

Straight away, as soon as you open this anthology, you know it is going to be different. The very first story is one of suspected murder. Was Charles Francis Hall murdered by Bessells? Hall’s biographer travels to the North Pole just to dig up his remains and perform an abbreviated autopsy. (As an aside, lethal amounts of arsenic were found in Hall’s body tissue…Food for thought.). Then there is the mystery of Robert Peary. Did he actually make it to the North Pole? We cannot forget that there are the humorous bits, as well. Rockwell Kent drew up a list of supplies for his time in the Arctic. It included a sketch of a young girl. Ask and you shall receive…[As an aside, Rockwell Kent was an artist who spent a great deal of time on Monhegan Island. I would have been his neighbor had I been born during his residence on the rock.]

Quote to quote, “Birds tug at the mind and heart with a strange intensity” (The Land Breathing by Barry Lopez, p 147).

Author Editor fact: Kolbert was a staff writer for the New Yorker at the time of publication.

Book trivia: Because there is a great deal of overlap with this book and others I am reading for the Challenge, I am opting to skip excerpts in Ends of the Earth.

Music: “Oh, Susanna”, “Napoleon’s March Across the Alps”, “Boston Burglar”, “Handsome Cabin Boy”, “Mr. Tambourine Man”, Marilyn Monroe’s version of “Diamonds of a Girl’s Best Friend”,

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the obvious chapter called “To the Ends of the Earth: North and South Pole” (p 230).

Massachusetts Bucket List Adventure Guide

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Briggs, Erin. Massachusetts Bucket List Adventure Guide. Canyon Press, 2022.

Reason read: For fun, I decided to read an adventure book about places to see in Massachusetts. Here are a few of my favorite selections:

  • The Tiny Museum
  • the Forest Park rose Garden
  • Gunn Brook Falls
  • Purgatory Chasm
  • the EcoTarium
  • Chesterfield Gorge Reservation
  • Parker River National Wildlife Refuge
  • Hancock Shaker Village (Natalie connection: she performed there!)
  • Pontoosuc Lake (the book doesn’t mention swimming, but fishing is popular)
  • Myles Standish Burial Ground
  • the Museum of Bad Art
  • New England Aquarium (a word to the wise: be mindful of price information. Even though — was published in 2022, the price listed is $10. It’s actually $44 unless you are a member, child, or senior citizen.)
  • Warren Anatomical Museum (gets my vote for the strangest place)
  • Boston Gardens where the Make Way for Ducklings statue is located (I did not know that the Mallard family all have names. The ducklings have J-Q names rhyming with “ack” and mama is just Mrs. Mallard.)

The only complaint I had about the book is that the book is organized in alphabetical order of town rather than adventure. You have to know where you are going before you can chose the event. The “did You Know?” section is a little goofy, but I did learn a few things.

Facing the Congo

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Tayler, Jeffrey. Facing the Congo: a Modern Day Journey into the Heart of Darkness. Ruminator Books, 2000.

Reason read: read in honor of Mobutu’s birthday in October. He was Zaire’s first and only president.

What began as a discovery of V.S. Naipaul’s novel, A Bend in the River became an adventure of a lifetime. Jeffrey Tayler takes a hand-carved pirogue down the Congo River, much in the style of Henry Morton Stanley’s journey one hundred and twenty years before. The 1990s were different times, and for his safety, Tayler must bring a guide who turned out to be an essential addition to Tayler’s expedition. Desi was a strong pilot and could handle the pirogue better than Tayler. He added to their comfort aboard the pirogue by making proper tea and building sturdy shelves for their belongings. Desi cooked the meals and set up shelter when they camped. Tayler needed Desi for protection as Tayler’s white skin was a sign of the devil and the natives didn’t trust him. Sometimes Desi could speak the language of the natives they encountered. Other times he had to communicate by holding a gun high. While Facing the Congo makes for a thrilling adventure story, I could not help but think Tayler was naïve about his abilities, in denial about his safety, and completely selfish when it came to needing the people around him. No matter how many times he was warned about the various dangers, he ignored them all.

Author fact: despite being born in the United Stated, Tayler makes his home in Moscow, Russia.

Book trivia: Facing the Congo has a smattering of black and white photographs. As being the one with the camera, Tayler is not in many of them.

Playlist: Bob Marley and “Amazing Grace”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Congo: From Colonialism to Catastrophe” (p 69). Also in More Book Lust in the chapter called “True Adventures” (p 223). As an aside, Tayler is spelled wrong in the index. Pearl has it right in the body of the text.

Common to This Country

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Munger, Susan H. Common to This Country: Botanical Discoveries of Lewis and Clark. Illustrations by Charlotte Staub Thomas. Artisan, 2003.

Reason read: August is Friendship month. Read in honor of Lewis and Clark’s relationship.

Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, an exploring match made in heaven. Lewis’s specialty was botany and Clark was an expert at creating topography maps. Together, they spent two and a half years traveling the country from the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific Ocean in search of a waterway passage. Along the way, they were tasked with collecting, preserving and recording thousands of artifacts for President Thomas Jefferson. With the help of Sacagawea and varying native tribes, the members of the Corps of Discovery made their way over hundred of miles of prairies, mountains, cataloging and describing every rock, bird, animal, flora and fauna along the way.
Munger had a diplomatic way of describing conflict with certain Native American tribes. She called their relationship “edgy.”
In addition to sharing parts of Lewis and Clark’s journals and interesting facts about each plant, Munger shares if the particular plant can be purchased in a garden center.

Here are the flowers Munger highlighted in Common to This Country:

  • Osage Orange – supposedly this plant is still growing on the University of Virginia campus. It is said to be the direct descendant of the cutting sent by Lewis.
  • Calliopsis – used as a dye or tea. I want to see if I can grow this in my garden.
  • Bur Oak – fire, drought, and pollution resistant.
  • Narrow Leaf Coneflower – used to “cure” the bite of a mad dog or rattlesnake.
  • Lewis’s Prairie Flax – each bloom only lasts one day
  • Prickly Pear – probably my favorite from the southwest.
  • Western Serviceberry
  • Snowberry – planted on the banks to hold soil in place and prevent erosion.
  • Angelica – used for respiratory ailments and as a sweetener.
  • Camas – used the root to make bread.
  • Bearberry
  • Oregon Grape Holly
  • Lewis’s Syringa – used to make needles or combs.
  • Glacier Lily – the bulb, leaves, flowers and seed pods are all edible.
  • Ragged Robin – beautiful and uniquely shaped flowers.
  • Silky Lupine – probably my favorite of the bunch highlighted since they remind me of the lupine we have at home.
  • Old Man’s Whiskers – a unique looking flower that resembles an old or wisps of smoke.
  • Shrubby Penstemon – related to the Indian Paintbrush.
  • Monkeyflower – it needs a “cool situation” in order to thrive.
  • Bearberry Honeysuckle – not edible
  • Gumbo Evening Primrose
  • Bear Grass – a very beautiful plant that can lapse for ten years between blooms.
  • Ponderosa Pine – Indians ate the inner bark, seeds and rosin.
  • Bitterroot – the state flower of Montana.
  • Wood Lily – the official flower in the emblem for the Province of Saskatchewan.

As an aside, I was thrilled to learn of the pen pal relationship of Bartram and Collinson. while they never met, the exchanged letters for thirty-five years. I find that remarkable.

Book trivia: the map to plot Lewis & Clark’s journey is stunning. Common to This Country was dedicated to “The Tennis Group” whoever they are.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Lewis and Clark: Adventurers Extraordinaire” (p 136).

Life on the Mississippi

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Twain, Mark. Life on the Mississippi. Oxford University Press, 1996.

Reason read: June is supposedly National River Cleanup month. I bet the Mississippi could stand a cleanup every now and again.

Twain was obviously in love with the Mississippi River. He gives a historical perspective of what was happening (and not) in the year 1542. He astounds the reader with a barrage of facts. I am not about the check validity of his claims, but here are a couple: You weren’t anyone until you got a job on the mighty river and pilot was the most coveted position. To put Life on the Mississippi into perspective, in 1874 there were only twenty-eight states and territories. The south was wide open territory.
One of the cool things about reading Life on the Mississippi is that the reader gains insight about Twain’s work in progress, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He calls it a story about “an ignorant village boy” and shares a chapter or two. Another insight is how Samuel Clemens became Mark Twain. While piloting the Mississippi Clemens learned that the words mark twain come from a call for the measured depth of a river. And just like that a pen name is born.
All in all, Twain is a masterful storyteller. Keep that in mind when you read Life on the Mississippi because not everything he says is true and the second half of the book is all over the place. Wouldn’t it be great to have dinner with Twain and ask him what he was thinking when he put together the second half of Life on the Mississippi? My favorite part was the detailed description of New Orleans and the cemeteries.

As an aside, does anyone else think that the portrait of Mark Twain looks like a scowling grump?

Favorite quote, “…there is music in the rush of water…” (p 145). Yes, yes there is. Here is another, “I killed Brown every night for months; not in the old, stale, commonplace ways, but in new and picturesque ones, – ways that were sometimes surprising for freshness of design and ghastliness of situation and environment” (p 224).

Author fact: Samuel Clemens was a very influential person in his community.

Book trivia: my copy of Life on the Mississippi contained over three hundred illustrations. Another point to note: in addition to Twain’s story there is one page for the editor’s note, nineteen pages for the foreword (written by Shelley Fisher Fishkin), twenty-two pages for the introduction (written by Willie Morris), eighteen pages for the afterword (written by Lawrence Howe), the table of contents takes up eight pages, the list of illustrations takes up another six, and there are 30 pages of appendices.

Music: “Buffalo Gals, Can’t You Come Out?” “Battle of Prague”, “Bird Waltz”, “Arkansas Traveller”, “Rosin the Bow”, “Marseilles Hymn”, “On a Barren Isle”, “The Last Link is Broken”, “She Wore a Wreath of Roses”, “Go, Forget Me”, “Long Long Ago”, “Days of Absence”, “A Life on the Ocean Wave”, “Bird at Sea”,

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapters called “Companion Reads” (p 63) and again in “Rivers of Words” (p 202). Here’s what I find really interesting. Nancy does not have a “Mark Twain: Too Good To Miss” chapter in any of her Lust books. Why not? She certainly lists a few he has penned: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Adventures of Huckleberry Sawyer, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Innocents Abroad, Life on the Mississippi, the Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg, Roughing It and even essays in In a Fog. Mr. Twain is indexed in all three Lust books.

Old Glory

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Raban, Jonathan. Old Glory: an American Voyage. Simon and Schuster, 1981.

Reason read: read as a companion to Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain (which was read in honor of National River Cleanup month).

Raban was captivated by the story of Huckleberry Finn in 1949. He never forgot it, so in September of 1979 he decides to retrace Huck’s journey. Imagine traveling down the massive and mighty Mississippi River in a borrowed 16′ aluminum boat with just an outboard motor. He didn’t even have a radio to communicate with the larger tows.
Probably the biggest surprise of Old Glory was how much time Raban spends talking about being on shore comingling with the locals. He finds people to feed him and give him rides. He even spends a night or two in the homes of strangers and goes on a few dates. One date becomes serious enough for him to start using words like our garden and we went to church. He takes the time to hang out in bars to listen to the locals gossip and fight and gets caught up in both from time to time. He speaks to schoolchildren about his adventures (and they are not impressed). He hunts racoon, visits the Oscar Mayer factory workers on strike, attends a pig roast and crashes a house warming party. He stays with a taxidermist. He tries to talk politics by asking the locals about the upcoming election to get a sense of the political climate (and they are not impressed with Jimmy Carter). He romanticizes the writings of Twain, Dickens, Trollope, and Thoreau as he learns to listen to the Mississippi River’s moods and heed her whims.
One of my favorite parts was when Raban took on hitchhiking Monarch butterflies as they migrated down to Venezuela and Columbia.
In all honesty, I couldn’t tell if Raban was happy with the conclusion of his journey. Was it worth it and what did he do with the borrowed outboard motor boat?

As an aside, can I say I was shocked when Raban threw the empty cigarette pack into the river? I had to remind myself that Raban was not piloting down the Mississippi for the love of nature; that was not his goal.
On a personal note, Raban mentioned a poky little movie house in Northampton, Massachusetts; watching Twiggy in “The Boy Friend”. The year was 1972 so my husband’s family was not in town, but it was cool to see a town name I not only recognized, but had visited many, many times.

Lines I liked, “It is hard to make travel arrangements to visit a dream” (p 16) and “High wakes from towboats came rolling at me through my dreams” (p 48).

Author fact: other Raban books I have on my Challenge list include Passage to Juneau, Coasting, Waxwings, and Bad Land.

Playlist: Andre Kostelanetz, Aida, Barbra Streisand, Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace”, “Camptown Races”, Carol Lawrence’s “Tell All the World About Love”, Dave Brubeck, “Jingle Bell Rock”, Judy Garland’s “Meet Me in St. Louis”, “I Want That Mountain”, “It Is Well with My Soul”, Len Mink, Miles Davis, “Old Man River”, “On Blueberry Hill”, Patience and Prudence’s “Tonight You Belong To Me”, “Saints”, Scott Joplin, “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”, Smokey Robinson’s “You Better Shop Around”, “South Rampart Street Parade”, and Verdi’s requiem “Dies Irae”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the forgotten chapter “Water, Water Everywhere” (p 254), and again in Book Lust twice. First, in the chapter “Companion Reads” (p 62) and again in “Rivers of Words” (p 202).

Walk of Ages

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Andersen, Withanee with Jim Andersen. Walk of Ages: a Generational Journey from Mt. Whitney to Death Valley. University of Nevada Press, 2024.

Jim Andersen made the journey from Mt. Whitney to Death Valley with three friends in 1974, back when he was thirty years old. They called themselves the Sandwalkers. Now, forty-three years later (in 2017) daughter Withanee wants to honor her father by retracing his footsteps across Death Valley as she turns thirty. She enlists the help of a coworker, her brother, and her boyfriend to accompany her on this epic journey.
With Walk of Ages only being 177 pages, and with a generous amount of photographs, the whole story can be read in one sitting. I definitely thought Withanee could have made it longer. There was so much potential for more. The landscapes are barely described in any detail. I wanted to know about their experiences besides a bum knee, blisters and beer. The different perspective of the same walk with memories from dad was interesting, but it would have been fun to have more narratives from others like Val or Shawn. What went through your mind when you kept making wrong turns and getting lost? What was it like to know you were going to propose to Withanee on this trip?
Confessional: I also want to know how many cases of beer the Sandwalkers Second Edition consumed on their journey. There seemed to be a never-ending supply on ice and I lost count of how many times they said they were motivated and/or powered by India Pale Ale! The craft beer scene has exploded since 2017. I am sure Withanee and Shawn have new favorites.
My only secret letdown was that Withenee and crew didn’t follow the original trip as faithfully as they could have. Withanee talks about walking in her father’s footsteps and while that was virtually impossible in some places, the Sandwalkers Second Edition took shortcuts to shave off miles wherever they could.

As an aside, as someone who participated in a three-day, sixty-mile cancer charity walk, I know all about the blister on blister phenomenon. The trick a series of treatments: Vaseline, moleskin, duct tape, double layer socks (Wright socks were my favorite) and cross trainers (Asics have always been my go-to shoe)…in that order. After that first year I never had another blister or hot spot.

Playlist: “Lookin’ for a Reason” by Creedence Clearwater Revival (their theme song), “Dem Bones”, and the National Anthem.

Book trivia: the title of the book is a play on the hymn Rock of Ages.

The Royal Road to Romance

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Halliburton, Richard. The Royal Road to Romance. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1925.

Reason read: Halliburton was born in January. Read The Royal Road to Romance in his honor.

The Royal Road to Romance opens with Halliburton’s Princeton days when the mere scent of apple blossoms could distract him from his studies. Indeed, he had an adventurous spirit from a very young age and was a self-proclaimed “horizon chaser.” Later he calls himself the “devil’s pet protégé”, unable to resist the call of the road.
Halliburton was a reckless adventurer. He yielded to illegal temptations all the time. He told a stranger he was “in quest of the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow” (p 102). For some reason he and his roommate wanted to climb the Matterhorn so badly that they were willing to lie about their mountaineering experience and hide their lack of equipment. They traveled without an itinerary; going where the fancy took them. Halliburton made impetuous decisions – jumping off a train somewhere in Switzerland because he couldn’t get a sense of the countryside by rail, breaking into the gardens of the Generalife by scaling a wall protected by thorny rose bushes, or using lies to get where he anywhere needed to go. He told one farmer he was a horse doctor so that he could acquire a donkey. After he was arrested he told a guard he was a train robber and bigamist and then stole a copy of the Short History of Gibraltar as a souvenir of his penal adventure.
Other adventures include climbing the pyramids at night, swimming naked in the Nile, trekking to the city of Ladakh where only twelve white visitors are allowed each year (because he wants to see a town that practices polyandry) and climbing Mount Fuji in the offseason, just to say he did.

As an aside, Halliburton got me to look up the painting of Lady Recamier and the champagne, Paul Roget.

Lines I loved, “How many successes are plunged into failure by not letting well enough alone?” (p 87), “…we deliberately set about finding some way to circumvent our restrictions” (p 237), and “A common tongue is not vital to understanding when there is congeniality of spirit” (p 317).

Playlist: I only noticed Beethoven mention.

Book trivia: The Royal Road to Romance was dedicated to Halliburton’s Princeton roommates.

Author fact: It is my personal opinion that some of Halliburton’s escapades were greatly exaggerated. The attack of pirates and subsequent murders on the high seas was hard enough to swallow, but Halliburton’s reaction to it seem implausible.

Nancy said: Pearl said Halliburton’s books are a bit dated.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the interesting chapter called “Where in the World Do These Books Belong?” (p 258).

K2

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Viesturs, Ed and David Roberts. K2: Life and Death on the World’s Most Dangerous Mountain. Read by Fred Sanders. Random House Audio, 2010.
Viesturs, Ed and David Roberts. K2: Life and Death on the World’s Most Dangerous Mountain. Broadway Books, 2009.

Reason read: in honor of National Writing Month I chose a nonfiction.

It needs to be said that K2 may be the second highest mountain in the world, but it is arguably the most dangerous mountain to summit. Beyond unpredictable weather and inhospitable traverses, language barriers, varying climbing skills (and, let’s be honest, knowledge), and clashing egos of the climbers make the mountain even more treacherous. Viesturs and Roberts cover six different campaigns to climb K2. At times these campaigns are confusing to read about because they include details from other mountain climbs (like Everest) and the timelines jump around.
The most enjoyable passages were when Viesturs and Roberts outlined the changed in technology and climbing gear. It makes earlier successes of summitting K2 even more impressive. More on that later.

Confessional: this may be just me, but I got the feeling Viesturs was jealous of more successful climbers. The written attempts at modesty ring a little insincere especially when he is constantly inserting his own experiences into the narrative of successful summits that were achieved before he was even born. For example: noting his personal record of traversing 150 miles on cross-country skis when describing the 360 miles the 1938 team had to cover just to get the expedition to climb K2 started. So what? I honestly thought he could not help but insert himself in every campaign, no matter how long ago. The humble brag made me think of Greg Mortenson and his expeditions. I guess the moral of the story is you have to have some kind of ego to survive climbing 8,000 feet into the clouds. But more than the ego was Viesturs apparent disdain for people who want to be first at whatever (first man to climb without oxygen, first woman to climb without a Sherpa…first whatever). Viesturs says a first whatever is not a good enough reason to climb a mountain, but yet he calls the first to get to KS in winter a “triumph.” Seems contradictory to me.
Even worse than the humble bragging and contradictory beliefs, this is the sentence that shocked me the most, “For me, it would be a sad turn of events if helicopters could pluck stranded climbers off the highest summits (p 319). Why? Don’t you mean it would be sad turn of events if inexperienced people climbed only because they banked on a helicopter rescue? To me, it would be a sad turn of events if helicopters could drop people off at the summit. Viesturs honestly seems disappointed that “outsiders” could come to your rescue. Isn’t a helicopter just another advancement in safety like the technological advances of climbing gear, tents, clothing, willow wands, and oxygen supply?

Author fact: in 1992 Ed Viesturs climbed K2 and kept a diary of that expedition. Viesturs also wrote No Shortcuts to the Top. For the Book Lust Challenge I am not reading anything else by Viesturs or Roberts.

Book trivia: K2 has two sections of photography: one in black and one and a latter one in full color.

Playlist: “Wreck of the Old 97” and Ezio Pinza.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about K2 except to describe the premise.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” (p 64).

Mister O

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Trondheim, Lewis. Mister O. NBM Publishing, 2004.

Reason read: in the spirit of cartoons I am reading Mister O. in honor of Otto Messmer’s birth month. Messmer was responsible for Felix the Cat.

This is the little story about a round little thing called Mister O. It doesn’t have a gender, but due to the Mister I am going to call it a he/him/his. Anyway, Mister O. needs to jump a crevasse of indeterminate depth. The reader never learns why Mister O. needs to do this, but one can tell he is obsessed with succeeding in this task. On his first attempt he first imagines himself covering the distance in a single leap, but when fear sets in he can’t follow through. What follows is a series of varying attempts to span the gap: filling it in with rocks, using rockets and birds to fly, rabbits to jump, farts to propel…it’s very silly. Even though Mister O. falls in this crevasse many, many times he always climbs back out. It reminded me of the very persistent Wile E. Coyote who would not and could not give up chasing the road runner. Wile E. died over and over again and yet, he came back every time. Just like Mister O.

Author fact: Trondheim has written quite a few books. This is the only one I am reading for the challenge.

Book trivia: even though Lewis Trondheim is a French cartoonist, there is not one single word in Mister O so nothing needs to be translated.

Nancy said: Pearl called Mister O “funny and heartbreaking” but I would disagree. Unless you consider the fact that when Mister O gets out of the chasm he doesn’t climb out on the side he wanted to reach and go on his merry way.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the simple chapter called “Graphica” (p 104).

Berserk

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Mercy, David. Berserk: My Voyage to the Antarctic in a Twenty-Seven Foot Sailboat. Lyons Press, 2004.

Reason read: June is the month to celebrate the ocean. Nothing celebrates the ocean more than sailing on it.

From the very onset, David Mercy is a little berserk. Who signs up to sail to the Antarctic with two other men he met only a week earlier? Mercy does. He agrees to travel in a twenty-seven foot sailboat with a twenty-one year old Norwegian and an immature Argentine. The book opens with the three of them, practically strangers, in the middle of a hurricane off Cape Horn. But Mercy is no stranger to adventure – he has already been to the Congo, Outback of Australia, Tibet, China, India, the Bering Sea, and Mexico. He has been on every continent save one. Antarctica. Mercy is not tethered to the normal trappings of adulthood – no job to clock, no romantic or plutonic relationships to miss, pets nor even a vehicle to look after; nor is he afraid to try new things (like touring the La Paz prison system with a cocaine-dealing inmate). This is the perfect time to sail to the Antarctic with a couple of strangers. What could possibly go wrong?
Aside from the adventure it was to reach the Antarctic, Mercy’s story is primarily about getting along (mostly not) with his shipmates. His rash choice to travel with these men is a little suspect. “Jarle had seemed competent enough in the ten minutes we had spent together” (p 31). Sure. Then there’s whiney Manuel. This man wants to go home at the first sight of whitecaps or hard labor. Stating the obvious, the infighting begins immediately. I don’t know about you, but I would think it a red flag to travel to the Antarctic (or anywhere) with someone who has never heard of Shackleton. Just saying.

As an aside, I am not a fan of inconsistencies. Mercy says “I undress, stripping off my wet clothes” but several sentences later someone “grabs me by the collar of my Richard III sweater” (p 5). What gives? Did he undress or not? Is it that I don’t understand what a Richard III sweater is? As an another aside, Mercy seems fashion-centric. Besides the Richard III sweater (whatever that is), he is wearing a Peruvian llama-wool cap. But, I digress. Back to inconsistencies. At one point he dons a Viking helmet but a few sentences later he was forced to cover his head to protect his scalp from dive-bombing skuas. Wait. I thought he was already wearing something to protect himself? What happens when the writing skills do not match the caliber of the adventure begging to be told? You sigh and move on because, overall, it’s such a great story.

Author fact: Berserk is Mercy’s only work in LibraryThing. He calls himself a director and producer of film.

Book trivia: Berserk contains no photography even though they all took turns with a camera. Bummer. I would have liked to see the whales or at least a penguin.

Playlist: AC/DC’s “High Voltage”, Iron Maiden’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, Metallica’s “Sanitarium” and “Unforgiven”, James Hatfield, Grateful Dead, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Nancy said: Pearl said “Here are some books about sailors whose grasp of the fundamentals is much better than mine…and many of whose outcomes were far worse” (Book Lust To Go p 201).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “See the Sea” (p 201).

Travels of Jaimie McPheeters

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Taylor, Robert Lewis. The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters. Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1958.

Reason read: February is national history month and Travels of Jaimie McPheeters is a historical fiction.

Although The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters is grounded in fiction its bibliography indicates Taylor made extensive use of letters, memorandums, maps, memoirs, guidebooks, journals, and sermons to give the novel sincere authenticity. In a nutshell, it is the adventures of young Jaimie McPheeters as he journeyed with his father to seek gold in the mid 1800s. [As an aside, I could not help but think of Natalie Merchant’s song “Gold Rush Brides” when I read The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters.] The story has everything: clashes with Indian tribes (including kidnapping, torture and murder), gambling, religion (Mormonism and the question of polygamy), humor, weather, and the hardships of the trail. This was the wild west; a time when at plate passing someone could offer a live rattlesnake in lieu of money. Confessional: I didn’t know if I liked audacious Jaimie McPheeters when I first met him. My favorite parts were the interactions he had with his father. The interesting conversation about Latin and who killed the dead language was one of my favorites. Taylor has an interesting way of using words. The words ‘pranced’ and ‘shotgun’ usually do not go together in the same sentence.
A word of warning: speaking of language, it is a bit dated with derogatory and racist words.

Line I liked, “When one set of sense lies down on the job, another reports in and takes over” (p 18). This quote hit a little too close to home, “It went along very much like a dentist trying to pry out a wisdom tooth that had got wrapped around the jawbone” (p 101). I have a wisdom tooth that is sitting too close to my jaw bone.

Author fact: Taylor was first a journalist before becoming a Pulitzer winning author.

Book trivia: It is my personal opinion that The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters would have benefitted from a few maps, but it won a Pulitzer without them.

Nancy said: Pearl said she would buy The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters for a history buff in her family.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “A Holiday List” (p 114).