What are you reading?

[Guest]

Mike, thanks for the offer, I think. I'll live in fear for a while. I'd send you my version of Daylight, but it's in a epub form.

OK Mem, here’s the deal. I’ll mail you Well’s Daylight in the Swamp, san (I promise) any Doug D-ish embarrassing label or return address, provided you will pay that book forward to another Canoe Tripping poster, with the recipient to mail you some enjoyed book from their library.

And so on, back and forth and around. Books rate shipping is cheap, at least within country.

I have at least a half dozen well enjoyed and departabe books in the home library. heck, I’ll pick up another copy of The Gulf Stream Chronicles and send it around next in line.

 

[memaquay]

Sounds like a good deal! Thanks Mike!

 

[yellowcanoe]

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/14/the-wayfarer

In MC Crea territory he just disappeared..

 

[memaquay]

That was a really interesting read YC, thanks for posting!

 

[Guest]

OK Mem, here’s the deal. I’ll mail you Well’s Daylight in the Swamp, san (I promise) any Doug D-ish embarrassing label or return address, provided you will pay that book forward to another Canoe Tripping poster, with the recipient to mail you some enjoyed book from their library.

Sorry Mem, but as my North Country kin would say, “Well yass, I guess not, eh”

$15.50 to mail a $3 used paperback seems kinda stupid. I have a couple of Iowa address in mind instead.

so off on a used book search I went.


A Pirate of an Exquisite Mind, The Life of William Dampier: Explorer, Naturalist and Buccaneer.

I located a copy in a University library, compiled from Dampier’s journals and museum archives.

It is astounding that Dampier’s life and influences are not better known. Just read the Legacy portion of his Wiki page. Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, William Bligh, Coleridge, von Humbolt, Darwin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dampier

A worthy read. First person to circumnavigate the earth three times. Privateer/Pirate. Coastal raider. Explorer. Naturalist. Influential author. Prisoner. Ship wreck survivor. Died in debt laid in an unknown grave.

Giant cojones.

 

[memaquay]

Ha ha, yes international shipping is a dog right now. However, you brought back a book to my mind.

http://www.amazon.ca/Sailing-Alone-Around-Joshua-Slocum/dp/0486203263

The story of Joshua Slocum is a must read for all those who are adventurous at heart. I grew up a few miles from where he was born, and used to work up by Mt. Hanley on an old farm. You spend any time on a farm up there, you know why people ran away to the sea.

 

[Odyssey]

The William Dampier biography is compelling to say the least. If we were to watch a film saga of his experiences and exploits we'd find it all over the top and unbelievable, but those were unbelievable times. His descriptions of coaxing rotted and worm infested fragile ships across the expanse of the Pacific is scary stuff. His night time guerrilla attack of a heavily defended Spanish fort is daring and crazy. What struck my imagination was his account of putting ashore on the west coast of Australia (the first European to do so), and stepping onto virginal sand to see an aboriginal standing in the distance in the dunes. Both frightened and curious Dampier attempted to find the native but couldn't. Was an attack imminent or were they truly alone? Seeing only your own footprints in the sand on a vast expanse of tropical coast would be stirring, with an empty blank space staring back at you from the map. It's interesting that his written journals were not unique. There were others publishing their travels (travel blogs of the 1600s) and earning praise and profit. What must have been frustrating was the knowledge that few actually made those journeys besides Dampier. Many published accounts were nothing more than flights of fanciful fiction. Dampier's on the other hand were valuable records of tides and winds, natural history and indigenous peoples. But was he a ruthless buccaneer or a misunderstood man of science?

 

[yellowcanoe]

Christine Jeromes AnAdirodack Passage. I can pass it on domestically at the end of the month

 

[JagDaddy]

The Lost World Of The Old Ones by David Roberts

Been sitting on my Kindle half the winter but I'm getting excited about the tripping season. All the SW rivers run though very archeoligy rich country and I enjoy checking it out.

 

[Guest]

Sorry Mem, but as my North Country kin would say, “Well yass, I guess not, eh”

$15.50 to mail a $3 used paperback seems kinda stupid. I have a couple of Iowa address in mind instead.

$2.72 book rate to Iowa.

 

[clemency]

Just bought this for my kindle on the recommendation of a friend. Looking forward to it.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/164972.Gertrude_Bell

 

[MacCamper]

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande and something lighter, the Genghis Khan series by Conn Iggulden. Listening to Lee Child's Personal, a recent Jack Reacher novel.

 

[Guest]

The Lost World Of The Old Ones by David Roberts

Been sitting on my Kindle half the winter but I'm getting excited about the tripping season. All the SW rivers run though very archeoligy rich country and I enjoy checking it out.

Thanks. The local library system had a copy and it is on loan request.

I love the desert SW, and the “old one’s” history mystery.

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Ol...89&sr=1-1&keywords=Lost+World+Of+The+Old+Ones

I have a feeling I’ll be buying a used copy to give to a friend who loves to roam the more inaccessible areas of the SW.

BTW, a hard to find book technique I recently discovered. Both of my sons are readers, and one still makes trips to his old University library to slake his history thirst. The University library has a far better non-fiction selection that our (well-regarded) county library system.

He has been able to bring home dang near every obscure title I have asked for, and the check-out period is 30 days before return or renewal.

 

[JagDaddy]

The university's also digitally reproduce some old volumes and provide them free of charge or super cheap on Kindle :- )

Another excellent nonfiction SW author is Craig Childs, not a bad book yet IMO

...and of course all us backcountry bum SW folks read and re-read Edward Abbey haha

Favorite semi-non-fiction is John Nichols and his 'Milagro Beanfield War' trilogy. Im

I was born and raised in Wy-Mt area but I born again hard in the SW. My canoe tripping gets me into some great country some of the best in the San Juan drainage. Ceder Mesa etc. After the 'tourist season is over in the fall and the water starts dropping to winter levels the canoe is perfect. And a lot easier to hide when I do off river backpacking trips :- )

I've only lived full time in the SW 4 years, but had been bouncing in and out for awhile.

I'm breaking into the Gila River drainage this year, first trip is for 7 days in mid/late march.

 

[Guest]

I am a newspaper junkie, and part of the reason I find newspapers so savory is the occasional obit of some fascinating character I would never have heard of otherwise.

From today’s Washington Post, Eric Brown. British Navy pilot. First man to take off and land a jet on a carrier. A de Havilland Sea Vampire. In 1945.

Holds the record for number of different aircraft flown (487).

And the record for carrier landings (2407). Gotta love Brown’s quoted statement when the US Navy pilot assigned to break his record fell short - “To his everlasting credit he got up to 1600 and then had a nervous breakdown”. Sometimes the Brits crack me up.

Fluent in German he interrogated Wernher von Braun and Herman Goring after the war.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...9d7a26-d974-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html

I would never have wandered into that story in the Post on-line. I need me a physical newspaper to fold, set aside and pick back up. Those kinds of obits are an intimate glimpse at history and I find myself shaking my head in admiration and thinking “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore”.

 

[Alan Gage]

I'm not reading this book but by dad is and has been telling me about it. Thought some here might be interested in it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FC1ISQ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1

Sounds like the book, and the entire story for that matter, were pretty much unknown until recently, not having been much available outside Russia.

Alan

 

[Guest]

I'm not reading this book but by dad is and has been telling me about it. Thought some here might be interested in it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FC1ISQ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1

Sounds like the book, and the entire story for that matter, were pretty much unknown until recently, not having been much available outside Russia.

Alan, I think I’d dig your dad, springing peculiar book read trivia on you every morning.

The Lost World Of The Old Ones by David Roberts

Started it last night. And I can not thank you enough.

I have already ordered used copies of both The Lost World of the Old Ones and In Search of the Old Ones to share with a canyon wandering friend.

Having read Robert’s regrets in the Lost World about the consequences of his earlier book, reading them in reverse order may be illuminating.

Alan, if you are not already familiar I think you (or maybe your dad) would enjoy both of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Ol...r=1-1&keywords=the+lost+world+of+the+old+ones

http://www.amazon.com/Search-Old-On...625&sr=1-1&keywords=in+search+of+the+old+ones

 

[southcove]

I am a newspaper junkie, and part of the reason I find newspapers so savory is the occasional obit of some fascinating character I would never have heard of otherwise.

From today’s Washington Post, Eric Brown. British Navy pilot. First man to take off and land a jet on a carrier. A de Havilland Sea Vampire. In 1945.

Holds the record for number of different aircraft flown (487).

And the record for carrier landings (2407). Gotta love Brown’s quoted statement when the US Navy pilot assigned to break his record fell short - “To his everlasting credit he got up to 1600 and then had a nervous breakdown”. Sometimes the Brits crack me up.

Fluent in German he interrogated Wernher von Braun and Herman Goring after the war.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...9d7a26-d974-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html

I would never have wandered into that story in the Post on-line. I need me a physical newspaper to fold, set aside and pick back up. Those kinds of obits are an intimate glimpse at history and I find myself shaking my head in admiration and thinking “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore”.

Agree with you 100% on the obits, though I sometimes get surprised in a bad way, if you follow me...someone I know or met along the way.
And you need that darn physical paper, plus it comes in handy afterwards for so many things... recently a gent who we did home repairs on, passed, he was a B-24 pilot and participated in many campaigns that I wasn't aware of, he refused to talk to a stranger like me given all the time constraints, but he had a great framed pic of he and his crew in the theatre of war and said that one day we would talk...but was impressed that I knew so much about the plane, the air war and was obviously interested in learning much more, etc. Wish he and I had more time to chat. Opportunity lost.

 

[Canotrouge]

I'm half way through the " The Blue Bear" Lynn Schooler! It is really good!! And before that I read "The Monkey Wrench Gang" Ed Abbay, really good books!!

 

[Alan Gage]

Alan, I think I’d dig your dad, springing peculiar book read trivia on you every morning.

Yes, I think the two of you would get along quite well.

Alan, if you are not already familiar I think you (or maybe your dad) would enjoy both of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Ol...r=1-1&keywords=the+lost+world+of+the+old+ones

http://www.amazon.com/Search-Old-On...625&sr=1-1&keywords=in+search+of+the+old+ones

I will certainly be checking them out. The SW has had a strong pull on me since I first visited there about 13 years ago. More recently this winter I've been feeling a similar pull from the barren lands of far northern Canada. I haven't been there yet but am hoping for a long trip up that way in 2017. It struck me that these two places, apart from climate, are quite similar in that they're viewed by many people as useless (except for mining) and inhospitable and are not very well traveled (if you ignore places like Phoenix). They also have a long history of aboriginal use that is still apparent in old campsites, graves, and artifacts, mainly due to the nature of the land, namely very little soil or vegetation to bury things over time.

My ideal life would be summers spent canoeing Canada and winters hiking AZ and NM.

I started Daylight in the Swamp last night. Interesting read so far. Package heading your way.

Alan