I looked but all I can find is $35.00 plus. Abe books is $40
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What are you reading?
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I looked but all I can find is $35.00 plus. Abe books is $40
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Alan, if your dad has not yet read it I would recommend ISIS The State of Terror (Stern and Berger, 2015)
http://www.amazon.com/ISIS-State-Ter...tate+of+Terror
A buddy got me "Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England" for Christmas. Looking forward to it.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/136070.Reading_the_Forested_Landscape
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/136070.Reading_the_Forested_Landscape
Excellent book clemency, I've read it a few times. Wessels has a couple other great books
"Forest Forensics" is the field guide form of the book you're reading.
The other is "The Granite Landscape" where he examines granite domes form Arcadia thorough New England and into the Rockies.
"Forest Forensics" is the field guide form of the book you're reading.
The other is "The Granite Landscape" where he examines granite domes form Arcadia thorough New England and into the Rockies.
Thanks. Adding them to the list.
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Thanks Clemency and Sweeper. I added those titles to my “Reads” list. They sound like keepers, so off on a used book search I went.
While I was on a used book search I took a gander at what else was already on the list that I’ve not found in the local library system. Some of these I believe are Canoe Tripping suggestions from this thread.
A Pirate of an Exquisite Mind, The Life of William Dampier: Explorer, Naturalist and Buccaneer.
A Look at Life in a Deer Stand
Daylight in the Swamp
I found them all Amazon used/cheap (well, some weren’t much more new than used and those looked like keepers).
Since I’ll own these books I may put them away unread as travelling truck library. And maybe pass them around or give them to friends along the road. I’ve had some fun book exchanges while travelling cross country.
While I was on a used book search I took a gander at what else was already on the list that I’ve not found in the local library system. Some of these I believe are Canoe Tripping suggestions from this thread.
A Pirate of an Exquisite Mind, The Life of William Dampier: Explorer, Naturalist and Buccaneer.
A Look at Life in a Deer Stand
Daylight in the Swamp
I found them all Amazon used/cheap (well, some weren’t much more new than used and those looked like keepers).
Since I’ll own these books I may put them away unread as travelling truck library. And maybe pass them around or give them to friends along the road. I’ve had some fun book exchanges while travelling cross country.
Mike. The book authored by your late friend was on my Christmas wish list, but went unfulfilled. I'm not willing to wait another year and will search out Gulf Stream Chronicles (by David. S. Lee.) I know I'll love it, as I'm in love with both the natural world and the OBX. I also know that having an NC brother and 2 biologist daughters means this book will become well travelled in the family. Actually, I'll probably just keep it and buy Christmas copies for the others. Thanks Mike.
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Brad, I have faith those copies will be happily passed around. That offshore Outer Banks/gulf stream area is an interesting locale. I’m not a charter boat fisherman type, but I’m glad to have made it out there in the company of skilled naturalists. I don’t know how you feel about charter boat stuff but a trip out to the Gulf Stream is a worthwhile adventure. I’d go with Big Al on the Countrygirl
http://countrygirlcharters.com/
It is ironic for me to lament the passing of used bookstores while ordering from Amazon. I feel kinda guilty, even as a late adopter of that technology. I once knew where the best used bookstores were in places around the country. My favorites were the “Trade in for store credit’, swapping paperbacks I brought along and read plus small change to refresh a travelling library.
There was a great used bookstore in Tucson, and I would stop in while visiting friends there. Knowing that the reading material would have to last and last I would pick out toughest stuff I could find, going heavy on philosophy and natural history books, or classics that I had struggled to read. Ulysses, Moby Dick. If that’s what I’ve got to read I can’t just put it down and turn to something easier.
I was in the AZ mountains waiting out some weather and camped near a grizzled “prospector” likewise roaming the country. Every day he would drive off prospecting and return having successfully found a gallon bottle of cheap table wine. He professed to be mourning the recent loss of his kitten, but proud to tell me that he had “Gutshot the sumbitch catamount that killed her”
We got to talking about books on evening and affected a trade.
He got Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. I got a couple of Zane Greys and a bodice ripper.
If your tastes fall into the sci-fi dystopian novel and/or thriller genres, you may enjoy The Water Knife by Pablo Bacigalupi. An page turning apocalypse novel that has a large dose of "now" and near future in it. No plagues, no zombies or nuclear fallout but rather changing climate and its effect on what we all need to live - water. Story is set in the southwestern United States which is suffering from lack of rain and snowpack, so much so that Texas and New Mexico are basically done with Arizona non to barely functional with "water refugees" trying to survive and escape into the upstream states controlling water from the Colorado River.
Have to wonder how these areas will survive as the aquifers are pumped dry and the rains and snows fail to replenish the water sources these areas currently tap with water becoming scarce but used to water golf courses and run huge fountains in Vegas etc.
Water rights play a huge part in the story and I admit I didn't fully understand the western USA legal ramifications around water use (guess it's because we have so much here, except for some drier areas of our prairie provinces) Anyway, I enjoyed it and it got me looking further into the question(s) around water and the impacts of our globally warming climates and changes to our weather patterns etc. Here's a quick dirty link to a Wiki article on water appropriation rights - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior-appropriation_water_rights
Have to wonder how these areas will survive as the aquifers are pumped dry and the rains and snows fail to replenish the water sources these areas currently tap with water becoming scarce but used to water golf courses and run huge fountains in Vegas etc.
Water rights play a huge part in the story and I admit I didn't fully understand the western USA legal ramifications around water use (guess it's because we have so much here, except for some drier areas of our prairie provinces) Anyway, I enjoyed it and it got me looking further into the question(s) around water and the impacts of our globally warming climates and changes to our weather patterns etc. Here's a quick dirty link to a Wiki article on water appropriation rights - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior-appropriation_water_rights
Bacigalupi is a fantastic writer, I just finished The Windup Girl. I don't think I have read anything as unique and captivating since I was a kid reading Dune. I'll have to see if The Water Knife is on kobo. Thanks for the heads up!
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Wow, that’s on the list. I am a fan of the dystopia/apocalyptic genre in movies, and in books if reasonably scripted, and have long read - and believed - that one coming scarcity crisis will be water.
Prolonged drought, wells run dry, pumping out aquifers, wildfire seasons run amuck, the Colorado’s water being 120% subscribed, reservoirs too low to draw municipal water supplies; that stuff isn’t fantasy, that’s just current events.
Thanks, I will find a copy.
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I see Hurley's Journal is indeed pricey now. I double-checked my account and, yes, I bought it for $3.14 off Amazon, delivered December 18th. Maybe check back in a few months and see if the crazy low prices return.
I too lament the passing of independent bookstores, like With Pipe and Book in Lake Placid, and still feel a bit complicit when using Amazon for books. When I told the owner of With Pipe and Book how disappointed I was that he was going out of business, he asked how many books have you bought here? Ouch.
The Book Plate in Chestertown, Maryland, is still going. My best tip for bookstores is 2nd and Charles, which has something like 25 locations in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio, among others. They sell used books and other media. I have bought many fine used hardcover books there while brosing that I would not have though to get otherwise, and of course no shipping charges. It is easy to take a risk on a hardcover, excellent condition book for something like $7.
The best book I have read recently is "Empire of the Summer Moon, Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History." It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and extremely well written. I picked it up while stranded at Philly International Airport for eight hours last year. If ever there was proof that truth is stranger (and more interesting) than fiction, this is it. I would take this a hundred times over pure fantasy like Star Wars or Game of Thrones, but that is just me.
I guarantee you that your jaw will drop more than a few times. For example, the Comanches started out as a small band in Wyoming, went on to become the best horsemen and women on the plains, and thus came to dominate the whole southern-central part of the country, and stopped the Spanish advance north of what is now Mexico, thereby radically shaping US history. Comanche girls rode so hard so young that it affected fertility and so the Comanches tended to incorporate young captives into their tribes. Some of the things I remember now seem so fantastical that I have to wonder if I am remembering it correctly, like the distances the Comanches could travel on horseback in a single night.
I too lament the passing of independent bookstores, like With Pipe and Book in Lake Placid, and still feel a bit complicit when using Amazon for books. When I told the owner of With Pipe and Book how disappointed I was that he was going out of business, he asked how many books have you bought here? Ouch.
The Book Plate in Chestertown, Maryland, is still going. My best tip for bookstores is 2nd and Charles, which has something like 25 locations in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio, among others. They sell used books and other media. I have bought many fine used hardcover books there while brosing that I would not have though to get otherwise, and of course no shipping charges. It is easy to take a risk on a hardcover, excellent condition book for something like $7.
The best book I have read recently is "Empire of the Summer Moon, Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History." It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and extremely well written. I picked it up while stranded at Philly International Airport for eight hours last year. If ever there was proof that truth is stranger (and more interesting) than fiction, this is it. I would take this a hundred times over pure fantasy like Star Wars or Game of Thrones, but that is just me.
I guarantee you that your jaw will drop more than a few times. For example, the Comanches started out as a small band in Wyoming, went on to become the best horsemen and women on the plains, and thus came to dominate the whole southern-central part of the country, and stopped the Spanish advance north of what is now Mexico, thereby radically shaping US history. Comanche girls rode so hard so young that it affected fertility and so the Comanches tended to incorporate young captives into their tribes. Some of the things I remember now seem so fantastical that I have to wonder if I am remembering it correctly, like the distances the Comanches could travel on horseback in a single night.
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One of my favorites when coming back from trips to the shore is the Unicorn in Trappe.
I had driven past the Unicorn hundreds of times before finally stopping to have a look. I have not driven past without stopping since.
The entire back wall is the “Nautical” section. There is everything jumbled there from outboard engine repair manuals to sailboats to warships and ocean liners, and I have yet to leave without finding some new to me canoe book or out of print river guide.
Plus the place has its own strange timeless charm, ending with getting your purchases rung up.
http://www.unicornbookshop.com/
Finished it a couple of days ago. A very good read, although I would have to say Windup Girl was more fantastic. I'm going to search Kobo right now for something else by him.
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River, by Colin Fletcher (Knopf, 1997)
In 1989, Colin Fletcher--the Walker—--at the age of 67, floated the entire length of the Colorado River, from the source to the sea. From an unnamed feeder lake of Trail Creek in Wyoming’s Wind River Range, down through the canyons, deserts, lakes, farms and ranches to the Gulf of California. He took his time with his customary leisurely pace filled with siestas and tea and reflections and naps--—six months--—and with the exception of Grand Canyon National Park (from Lee’s Ferry to Diamond Creek), he paddled alone. Oared, I should say, a thirteen and one half foot Maravia raft. He was not a paddler, and therefore the NPS required him to tag along with another party for the big rapids: a requirement Fletcher wholeheartedly agreed with. And for this reason I will forgive Martin Litton for advising him that paddling a canoe through the Grand Canyon would not have been practical. A canoe would have required a few more years of training. The book he gave birth to following the trip is called, River: One Man’s Journey down the Colorado, Source to Sea.
If you appreciate, in your reading, the wisdom that comes with age, the occasional perspective of a sensitive (and thoroughly competent) novice river runner, the philosophies and ramblings of a good-natured inveterate environmentalist, the sort of stream of thought that can encompass an hour spent watching the mating dance of black flies and the admission of a slight but present hypochondria, and the linguistic cadence of a writer in the autumn of his life, comfortable and certain…... Colin Fletcher’s book might be worth a look. It’s a joy to read. Not only in terms of what he sees (which, in the end, is nothing really unusual: humans stamping around on the earth, the earth dying and recovering. Birds beating their wings to hold a position. “Each interval of stillness and soaring movement so simple and beautiful that I found my muscles tensing as I tried to grasp the moment and force it to endure.”
, but how and even why he sees what he sees. In the end, of course, his own life’s journey dovetails with the downhill rolling of the river, and he is remembering some of the same places from earlier trips, earlier revelations, as he himself journeys, with the river, toward the inevitable sea. His watchful eye and quiet demeanor and simple tone cannot be beat.
“After dinner I sat watching the light seep away. Sat looking at the barren, curving shoreline—appreciating the way the sweep of the land had a rightness to it. Seeing, now, how the evening light slanted in low and lucid. There was a harmony, I saw, between the scene’s many lines: water, weed bed, sand, scattered vegetation... —and finally an open slope, more thickly greened but undeniably desert, that slanted up to the skyline. The long, gross, noisy day began to fade into the past….”...
In 1989, Colin Fletcher--the Walker—--at the age of 67, floated the entire length of the Colorado River, from the source to the sea. From an unnamed feeder lake of Trail Creek in Wyoming’s Wind River Range, down through the canyons, deserts, lakes, farms and ranches to the Gulf of California. He took his time with his customary leisurely pace filled with siestas and tea and reflections and naps--—six months--—and with the exception of Grand Canyon National Park (from Lee’s Ferry to Diamond Creek), he paddled alone. Oared, I should say, a thirteen and one half foot Maravia raft. He was not a paddler, and therefore the NPS required him to tag along with another party for the big rapids: a requirement Fletcher wholeheartedly agreed with. And for this reason I will forgive Martin Litton for advising him that paddling a canoe through the Grand Canyon would not have been practical. A canoe would have required a few more years of training. The book he gave birth to following the trip is called, River: One Man’s Journey down the Colorado, Source to Sea.
If you appreciate, in your reading, the wisdom that comes with age, the occasional perspective of a sensitive (and thoroughly competent) novice river runner, the philosophies and ramblings of a good-natured inveterate environmentalist, the sort of stream of thought that can encompass an hour spent watching the mating dance of black flies and the admission of a slight but present hypochondria, and the linguistic cadence of a writer in the autumn of his life, comfortable and certain…... Colin Fletcher’s book might be worth a look. It’s a joy to read. Not only in terms of what he sees (which, in the end, is nothing really unusual: humans stamping around on the earth, the earth dying and recovering. Birds beating their wings to hold a position. “Each interval of stillness and soaring movement so simple and beautiful that I found my muscles tensing as I tried to grasp the moment and force it to endure.”
, but how and even why he sees what he sees. In the end, of course, his own life’s journey dovetails with the downhill rolling of the river, and he is remembering some of the same places from earlier trips, earlier revelations, as he himself journeys, with the river, toward the inevitable sea. His watchful eye and quiet demeanor and simple tone cannot be beat.“After dinner I sat watching the light seep away. Sat looking at the barren, curving shoreline—appreciating the way the sweep of the land had a rightness to it. Seeing, now, how the evening light slanted in low and lucid. There was a harmony, I saw, between the scene’s many lines: water, weed bed, sand, scattered vegetation... —and finally an open slope, more thickly greened but undeniably desert, that slanted up to the skyline. The long, gross, noisy day began to fade into the past….”...
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The Water Knife is on my bedside table via inter-library loan. I took a run at it yesterday and struggled for a few pages with the realization that it has been a loooong time since I read anything fictional before putting it aside for later.
My last read didn’t help with the non-fiction to fiction transition. Tim Marshall’s “Prisoners of Geography, Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World”
http://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Geog...r+of+geography
That book was on every Best Non-Fiction of 2015 list and deservedly so.
Marshall looks at and explains the geographical causes of national development and geopolitics past and present in Russia, China, the US, Western Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India/Pakistan, Korea/Japan, Latin America and the Arctic.
Sound dry? It is a freaking can’t put it down page turner, and full of fascinating historical/geopolitical asides.
That one may be my most recommended non-fiction of 2015. My sons, who are both interested in international politics and current events, have it after me. If you read one non-fiction book this year make it that one.
Non-fiction spoiled after reading Prisoners of Geography I put down The Water Knife and turned to another 2015 Best of Non-fiction, Susan Southard’s “Nagasaki, Life After Nuclear War”.
http://www.amazon.com/Nagasaki-Life...=1-1&keywords=nagasaki+life+after+nuclear+war
Whatever your historical perspective on the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombs that book is a worthy if horrifying read.
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Oh heck yeah. I managed the transition from non-fiction Nagasaki to fiction Water Knife, thanks to an impassible driveway and lack of daily newspapers*, and I am thoroughly enjoying that read.
*I bought the NY Times, Washington Post and crappy Baltimore Sun the Friday before the storm hit. It took a 40 mile road trip to do find copies, but I have read every word, including the “Style” and “Arts” sections. Twice. Thank God I had books already laid in.
The Water Knife is some very cool dystopian stuff, with an intriguing element of slowly revealed terminology, “Zoners” and “Merry Perrys and “Fivers”. I kinda like the way Bacigalupi defines the origin of some of his dystopian terminology; contextually you know what a “Fiver” is, but it isn’t until half way through the book that he identifies it as a 5-digit arcology address; building, floor and unit number. Ohhhhhh, that makes sense.. . . .
Maybe I don’t want to move to SE Arizona. The cabin there does draw from a wet-cave spring and reliable water source that feeds a small orchard and a stock tank further down canyon, but I’m not sure I want to faceoff with that already always-armed rancher if I’m down to draining the flow from his livelihood stock tank.
Thanks for the Water Knife recommendation.
And my thanks to whomever (Ppine?) recommended “Daylight in the Swamp” (Robert Wells, 1978). I found a copy for a couple bucks Amazon used, book plated as withdrawn from the Hazel Mackin library in Roberts WI .
A history of lumberjack life in America. Not a dull read. Packed with anecdotes and stories, techniques and advancements and fascinating asides.
To wit – pre-independence the Crown had claimed any tree larger than three feet in diameter as theirs, for use as sailing ship masts. Yeah, good luck with that your distant Highness. I’m guessing George never met a lumberjack.
Next group trip I may have to rouse my companions by banging on the fry pan and shouting the lumber camp cook’s traditional bellow “DAYLIGHT IN THE SWAMP!”
I've read two more Bacigalupi books since the Water Knife, both of them dystopian novels set in a bleak future United States. Very good reads.
Mike, I gotta wonder about Daylight in the Swamp. The one that canoeists have been talking about is this one: https://www.dundurn.com/books/daylight-swamp
It's the memoirs of Selwyn Dewdney, the Canadian fellow who ended up documenting most of the pictograph sites in Ontario. I'm glad you liked the one you read, in fact, I will probably have to read it as well, but Dewdney's book is pretty good. It has an excellent description of the host of bugs that plague canoeists in Northern Ontario.
Mike, I gotta wonder about Daylight in the Swamp. The one that canoeists have been talking about is this one: https://www.dundurn.com/books/daylight-swamp
It's the memoirs of Selwyn Dewdney, the Canadian fellow who ended up documenting most of the pictograph sites in Ontario. I'm glad you liked the one you read, in fact, I will probably have to read it as well, but Dewdney's book is pretty good. It has an excellent description of the host of bugs that plague canoeists in Northern Ontario.
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I remembered the book title, but not the author’s name. How could I forget a name like Selwyn Dewdney?
There are at least 3 books titled Daylight in the Swamp. Probably four or five is you count southern gothic romances set in Louisiana or True Detective tomes in Mississippi. I randomly found this one used:
http://www.amazon.com/Daylight-Swam...3&keywords=Daylight+in+the+Swamp+Robert+Wells
That was a happy mistake. The Robert Wells Daylight in the Swamp was fascinating. It is the story of White Pine lumbering, concentrating largely on Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Packed with explanations of esoteric – or still in use - terminology, anecdotal tales and characters, land grab cheats, auction frauds and equipment advances from iced sled roads to raker teeth in saws, collection booms, circular saw wood wastage vs band saw skinny cut and etc, etc.
Just the hierarchy of a lumber camp and drive, and the names for each position on a crew, was fascinating.
The lowest man on the totem pole was the guy who walked the ice road, shoveling ox crap from the sled tracks.
No need to find a copy Mem, I need to hit the post office this week and I’ll mail the copy I have. All I ask is that you mail it on to some deserving Canoe Tripping participant when you are done.
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.
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