Reviews (7)

A Taste of Communism
This seems like a pretty good idea for a book: adventures of a twenty-something in three Communist capitals. Throw in the kicky title and a punchy attitude and it can't lose.

I enjoyed Griest's stories. Her writing style is light. I can understand the criticisms of one earlier reviewer here who thought Griest was too superficial and didn't learn anything. I'm not sure that's really the case, but Griest does keep her narrative in the moment, without spending too much time analyzing what it all meant. This makes for a smoother telling of the story.

Griest spends the most time in Moscow and knew years ahead of time that she would go to Russia someday. This section was not surprisingly the best part of the book. The part about Beijing was okay, in which Griest works for an English-language Chinese newspaper. She never fits in and is constantly reminded of the fact. Her journey to Havana is a spur-of-the-moment trip, and it is more fun than Beijing. She doesn't have to worry about upsetting the boss or embarrassing her friends. Even though she's there for only a short time, she falls in love. She also falls in love in Russia, but only after she has been there quite awhile. And she never gets close to having a serious relationship in Beijing.

Around the Bloc is a good first book. It isn't as good as Almost French by Sarah Turnbull, another book about a journalist who finds adventures halfway around the world. Although it's more revealing, somehow it isn't as personal. But I suspect that Griest will only get better and I look forward to more from her.

Breezy Summer Read
Our 21 year-old author takes us to Russia, China and Cuba, and shares with us her 21 year-old perspective. While there is nothing earth-shattering or enlightening here, this is a good breezy summer read. Perhaps the author's most interesting comparison of these three cultures is this: The Russian bond by drinking vodka together, the Chinese by eating lavish meals, but the Cubans by dancing. And that's the level of analysis the book leaves us with, for better or worse.

Travels with Stephanie
The chief thing wrong with this book is that it was written by a journalist. Throughout, our author displays naivete, gullibility, superficiality, and ignorance - the ever-recurring stigmata of Grub Street. Compounding her faults is her extreme youth and an oddly stubborn resistance to education. She repeats what she hears at second and third and fourth hand, displaying no sophistication about sources and (apparently) no inclination to check facts. She appears to know very little about history. Perhaps a 21-year-old (her age when she started her travels) couldn't help some of this - but she was a lot older by the time she published, and it's not too much to expect more balance, more sophistication, in a word more intelligence from the Miss Griest of today.

It's not her fault that I don't much care about fashions in clothes, makeup, pop music, dating, or the bar scene, but it -is- her fault for filling so many pages with her quite real and sincere concerns with these things.

Early on, she brings up her very personal concerns with her ethnic identity, and returns to them repeatedly throughout her book. This might make an interesting topic as a separate memoir (although I can't really make out what she's so exercised about), or even if she could relate it in some significant way to her travels. But it feels dragged in; it looks in places too much like padding. Or a big ego chewing a pretty small bone.

Miss Griest thanks a number of people for editorial help. She shouldn't. Her style is potholed with clichés, malapropisms, and faulty syntax. Even newspaper scribblers should be able to do better than this, especially when they sit down years later to compose at leisure.

In sum, it's just not a grownup's book.

Travel by book
As someone who has always planned/thought/meant to travel and have lots of adventures of my own (but never actually had the means or time to travel), I can really appreciate all the detail and descriptions in Ms. Griest's Around the Bloc. I may not always agree with her conclusions, but I actually am grateful for them. I would so much rather hear opinions that cause me to think than feel affirmed or bored. It is almost as if she is an incredible, funny, and lively travel companion throughout this journey around the "Communist Bloc" and I get to hear her end-of-the-day assessment of her adventures and then begin to form my own. Her openness throughout the book about her experiences and mistakes help to endear and make her experiences much more "real" than a flat newspaper-style book. I have learned SO MUCH from this book about places that I will likely never visit and very much enjoyed having my eyes open to new perspectives on some very old issues.

Move over Bryson
I rarely buy into the "so good you can't put it down" rhetoric when talking about books to read. Stephanie Griest's Around the Bloc is an exception. Reminiscent of my favorite, Bill Bryson, she has an amazing combination of detail, brilliant humor, and historical research that both teaches and entertains. This is a book that can profoundly change the way young people look at foreign travel or foreign study. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to study abroad as a guidebook for how to truly capture the essense of cultural immersion. Griest's re-discovery of her own culture through learning about others is an inspiring gem of a lesson. ... Read more

Book Description

In the spring of 1964, Joel Agee, not quite at home in his native New York (having spent much of his youth behind the Iron Curtain), accidentally ingests a sizeable dose of LSD. He is thrown from the precincts of bohemian normalcy into a whirl of bizarre synchronicities, symbols, and omens. His brilliant, mentally ill younger brother is descending into a psychic netherworld without chemical inducement, and the culture at large is undergoing a mutation of its own. A small inheritance comes Joel's way. Together with his wife and their infant daughter, he emigrates in search of kindred souls. On the way, a fantastic project takes root in his imagination: to exorcize his brother's madness by transforming his own consciousness, first with "acid," then in a quest for enlightenment under the tutelage of spiritual teachers. Thirty years later, a sobered Joel Agee sets himself the task of recounting his adventures. Somewhere, he knows, the ghosts of past terrors-his own and his brother's, who died by his own hand at the age of twenty-seven-are still trapped and crying for release. To find them, to save them, he must write his way into the house of his fear. ... Read more

Reviews (13)

Essential for any Twain fan.
Mark Twain, the most globally recognised of the greatest American writers, comes closest to autobiography in this odd and fascinating book. This is the story of part of his life at least, and lays out much of his unique moral and political philosophy.

As a book, Life on the Mississippi lacks a truly coherent story line after the half-way point; it tells the story of Twain's training as a Mississippi steamboat pilot, then, when he returns to the river years later as a successful writer, it drops off into anecdotes as Twain travels down the great river, and can be a deadly bore for some readers.

But, oh, what a picture of Twain it draws! There are great tales of characters he meets along the river, told in his inimitably funny style, wonderful bits of his childhood - like the tale of his insomniac guilt and terror when the match he loans a drunk ends up causing the jail to burn down, killing the drunk - and insightful portraits of the towns and villages along the river.

This is a characteristically American book, about progress and independence as well as the greatest American river, written by this most characteristically American writer. It is a true classic (a thing Twain despised! He said, "Classics are books that everybody praises, but nobody reads."), a book that will remain a delight for the foreseeable future.

A Magnificent Journey to be Savored
Life on the Mississippi is by far one of the most wonderful books ever written about the post Civil War era in America. Mark Twain takes the reader on a melancholy look at this period of time in history as you journey into the Mississippi of his youth, adulthood, and the people and the communities he knew so well. He conveys a miraculous picture of this lively river giving it the grandeur and prominence it deserves. He defines the river very much like a living organism with a power and personality all its own. As the book unfolds, he begins in his days when he grew up along the river and became a steam boat pilot, ending that career with the advent of the Civil War. Later he returns to the river after some twenty years and takes a journey as a writer from around St. Louis to New Orleans and back up the river into what is present day Minnesota. You learn about the different cultures along the river, its tributaries, as well as the remarkable people who become part of the forgotten history of our nation. Twain's anecdotes are sheer brilliance, and he has an incredible way of choosing just the right story to illustrate a particular point transporting the reader back into time as if it was the present day and you are standing beside Twain observing what he is seeing. His reflections of his times along the river and his descriptions of the people and places make this a true masterpiece of literature and I highly recommend it. I found myself only able to read short portions at a time, as I personally found the sheer beauty of the entire book was a work to be savored and digested rather than rapidly consumed as you would with any other book. As I poured through the book, I felt often as if I was traveling with Mark Twain as a companion along his charming and magnificent journey during a wonderful period of history.

One of Twain¿s Greatest!
This book--at times disjointed, rambling, self-referential, and irreverent--is decades ahead of its time. It's an interdisciplinarian's dream as Twain takes on economics, geography, politics, ancient and contemporary history, and folklore with equal ease. Mostly though, one appreciates his knack for exaggeration, the tall tale, and the outright lie. It's a triumph of tone, as he lets you in on his wild wit, his keen observation, and his penchant for bending the truth without losing his credibility as a guide.

The book's structure is also modern: He recounts his days as a paddlewheel steam boat "cub," piloting the hundreds of miles of the Mississippi before the Civil War, then, in Part 2, returns to retrace his paddleboat route. Although a few of his many digressions don't work (they sometimes sound formulaic or too detailed) most of the narrative is extremely entertaining. Twain seems caught between admiration and disdain for the "modern" age-but he also rejects over-sentimentality over the past. He writes with beauty and cynicism, verve and humor. Very highly recommended!

Twain's Mississippi River Recollections..........
In Life on the Mississippi, Twain recounts his river experiences from boyhood to riverboat captain and beyond. Encompassing the years surrounding the Civil War, this book is an excellent source of 19th-century Americana as well as an anthology of the mighty river itself. Replete with rascally rivermen, riparian hazards, deluge, catastrophe, and charm, Life on the Mississippi is another of Twain's stellar literary achievements.

Wit and wisdom are expected from Twain and this book does not disappoint. It is equally valuable for it's period descriptions of the larger river cities (New Orleans, St. Louis, St. Paul), as well as the small town people and places ranging the length of America's imposing central watershed.

The advent of railroads signalled the end of the Mississipi's grand age of riverboat traffic, but, never fear, Life on the Mississippi brings it back for the reader as only Samuel Clemens can. Highly recommended.

Excellent
The best work by Twain I've read to date. This combination history, memoir, travelogue, and collection of sketches is both humorous and entertaining. I have also learned a great deal about Twain, his time, and the history of steamboating and the Mississippi. Written later in his life, this work is mature in style as well as content in spite of its loose organization and focus. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Book Description

ONE MAN'S REMARKABLE SEARCH FOR
THE ULTIMATE TRUTHS OF OUR WORLD

For Professor Roger Hart, life truly began after he almost lost his -- in a horrific fall off the slopes of Mount Everest that he miraculously survived. This near-death experience sparked a desire in him to devote his studies to the very nature of human consciousness, in order to unlock the code of reality that binds our world.

On an adventure of discovery that would take him around the world, Hart would experience life-altering transcendental events in Tibet, Morocco, and Tierra del Fuego -- opening the door to a true understanding of the nature of man. In this groundbreaking volume, he explores the participation of consciousness in the creation of reality, challenging the traditional scientific view of time, space, and objectivity -- and describing in detail his own metaphysical journey, which has involved synchronicity, precognition, and telekinesis. It is an exploration of the very things that make us human -- and a quest that touches upon the meaning of life itself. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

Strange and beautiful things told by a reliable witness.
Young adventurer has religious experience during apparently fatal plunge off cliff with famous mountaineer during first breathing apparatus-free attempt at Everest and follows it up with a series of extreme, live-changing experiences in harsh and exotic places to build a theory about causality as well as a solid career in geophysics.

Very trippy and exciting -- I read it from cover to cover in one long airplane flight.

Also, I think he's a very solid witness, unlike a lot of books in this genre. He's a research scientist, as well as having a serious interest in religious and existential questions, and it makes his voice much clearer and more convincing to me at least. His theorizing is a bit dodgy to me -- not wrong as much as not very predictive -- but certainly thought-provoking enough and enlightening to contemplate.

Highly recommended!

A scientific review of the mystical
Dr. Roger Hart had a near death experience, an out of body journey, and a couple of other mystical events in his life. He has searched quantum physics for the answers and has blended these life altering events in an authoratative tale that can be accepted by the most skeptical - if read with an open mind.

His delivery of the information is like a novel, and is an exciting autobiography.

This book can be a life altering event.

Interesting, Informative, Intriguing, Inspiring
As a geophysicist, author Hart had a difficult time reconciling his two near-death experiences and other transcendental moments with the mechanistic scientific worldview he had adopted. "I did not believe anything unless I actually experienced it or could prove it scientifically, as with electromagnetic radiation, quantum mechanics, or relativity," he writes.

During a 180-foot fall high up on Mount Everest, Hart felt "perched on the cusp of time" as a great warmth and euphoria overtook him. He remembers thinking he was about to die and wondering why it felt so wonderful. "Space seemed warm, comfortable, full of light, even though there were no visible objects," he writes. In a later NDE, during an expedition in s Tierra del Fuego, he recalls another part of himself watching his freezing physical body as if from a telescope in another universe.

Because his NDEs and experiences of synchronicity, precognition, and telekinesis were life-altering, Hart began struggling with the materialistic ways of life, finding his jobs meaningless and boring while lacking the motivation to rise through the ranks of academia. Thus, he began a lifelong quest to understand the nature of consciousness. He encounters two gurus, one a Sherpa tribesman named Chombi and, while working in India, a yoga teacher named Guruji, both of whom help him make sense out of his experiences. Among other things, Chombi explains to him that the world we see, even time itself, is an illusion projected by the lower self and that if we are to experience the higher world, the lower self must be subdued. Guruji informs him that consciousness is composed of vibrations and that all matter is to some degree conscious. "We and the stars are part of the same field of vibrations," Guruji explains. "Separation is only an illusion."

An Indian physicist, Goswami, provids further enlightenment, helping Hart apply the lessons of quantum physics to the NDE. Hart, who seems to have a good grasp of quantum physics, has a number of "eureka moments" in which his experiences and observations begin to make real sense to him. One not well versed in quantum physics will likely struggle with his interpretations and explanations, but nearly everyone should get the gist of it.

"I am not the first person to realize that the mind survives the body, or that the reality of the universe is a marvelous field of information and infinite potentials, or that we ourselves create time by opening static time capsules in the field of information," Hart states. "But I had the joy of discovering these ideas independently before I was exposed to them by others." His discoveries make for a fascinating read.

An awsome book
It is a thrilling adventure; it keeps you on your feet, turning the pages with a fear of having to stop; but even more important, it offers insightfull and inspiring thoughts on the meaning of life; it makes you ponder the reason for your own existance.

Contains a Yeti sighting
This book has an otherwise, until now, unreported Yeti sighting in it. The author, Roger Hart, explorer, adventurer, and today a retired geophysicist, takes us on an insightful and personal journey. The sighting is the least of the strange things he talks about in this level-headed, nonfiction book. It certainly demonstrates that probably more Westerners than we routinely hear about are having these kinds of unique experiences in the Himalaya.

Enjoy the trek with Hart. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

For what it may be worth
I read a little of this book and then found that I just didn't want to waste my time reading any more. And it sounded so interesting in the NYTimes review! I feel this book is pure garbage. He seems to be under the impression that every thought and memory which flits through his head is of great value. Just as power corrupts, fame insufflates the ego - unless you have the supreme wisdom to resist it. I read halfway thru another book called something like 'the delights of aging'. It was just as disappointing. And I'm aging. Are there any books which genuinely make you believe aging isn't as bad as it feels? Like that music isn't as bad as it sounds? Maybe self-delusion is the only way to joyfully tolerate the whips and scorns. Maybe that's Mortimer's real message here - message by example.

A Man in His Best Season
Everybody and their brother and sister, which includes Gertrude Stein, of course, seems to be penning memoirs. A caveat to the form practiced at its best: The memoir of a man nearly eighty should be read quickly. In part to raise demand - if the recounting is revisited in prose artfully and summons forth a brilliant life - for a return engagement of cottage industriousness from the un-retiring pensioner, and chiefly because the best memoirs offer frothy recollections and musings which naturally propel alacrity.

In the case of "The Summer of a Dormouse" by John Mortimer, the episodic visits taken around the world and within the circle of the celebrated novelist, Queen's Counsel, playwright, knight (bearing a unique coat of arms), and "champagne socialist" end all too soon. We need some levity to dispel the infirmities of old age, septuagenarian John Mortimer advises.

The adapter of "Brideshead Revisited," Mortimer compares his life to scriptwriting's pace, "scenes get shorter and the action speeds up towards the end." And sped-up indeed it is for Mortimer. He plays the strolling scribe and player, from the "Chiantishire" to San Francisco and Watford to Antibes, respectively. He loosely adapts Franco Zeffirelli's life in "Tea with Mussolini" and Laurie Lee's (with whom he worked in government films during WWII) "Cider with Rosie"; for the former he is whisked off to Cinecitta - enclave of la dolce vita for the film industry set.

Back in London, Sir John chairs the Royal Court Theatre's - presenter of George Bernard Shaw and John Osborne - rebuilding. Despite stupefying behind the scrim skirmishes, he soldiers on through meetings with overly sensitive playwrights of the cut-off-your-nose-in-spite-your-face variety. Finally, Mortimer's common sense prevails and the theatre gets built. The redoubtable David Hare, none the worse for bygone artistic differences, writes a play for the new stage.

Goaded by a politico hostess to "have a go" at [then] Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw, this former barrister uses a lunch encounter to argue the defense of civil liberties and Magna Carta, and he hosts another lunch, a fundraiser on behalf of prison reformation, where a CEO is drilled over the company's annual report by a major stockholder--a convict--at the prison's groaning board. He also dispatches his opinion to the newspaper on the crisis in farming, easily deducible from the vantage point of his countryside home that is roundly ignored by Tony Blair's New Labour government. In fact, Mortimer questions whether "the promised land of a Labour Britain" looks or acts any different from its Conservative Party predecessor.

Mortimer recalls, from his youth, the Shakespearean passages his father quoted and conjures the blinded in middle age, intrepid, yet reliant for personal matters such as daily dressing on his wife (Mortimer's own Shavian, strong-willed mother), barrister that mirrors Mortimer's own age-related frailties - from use of a wheelchair to not being able to put on socks anymore - to wistful effect. A tinge is likewise evoked during a visit to an old artist friend with late-stage Alzheimer's who has, nevertheless, recapitulated a radiant painting he had done twenty years earlier, "this was only an echo, something left stranded on the beach after the sea had retreated."

Famed as Mortimer is for his Rumpole of the Bailey series, he acknowledges that when filling up his writing pads he draws more interest from failure than success. Coincidence, perhaps fate, abounds in his lifetime, and he attends the funeral of his first wife, Penelope, with his wife, Penny (for Penelope), surrounded by children of the first marriage and his teenaged daughter from the later union. The couple of years chronicled in this memoir include an eclectic cast of friends and colleagues: Muriel Spark, Neil Kinnock, Stephen Daldry, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Alec Guinness, Lord Richard Attenborough, Joss Ackland, and twins, Vicky and Jackie, who married Deep Purple band members. When an elegiac tone sets in, as birthdays come and friends die, Mortimer says the "cure is to be found among the living..." And so it is.

In the interim between another trip down memory's lane, once past the surfeit of this writer's well-lived life is consumed, the reader can go back to John Mortimer's catalogue of autobiography (now in three published books), novels, and plays. Then, with delight still at the fingertips, perhaps the champagne-tippling dormouse will serve up yet another rich and textured morsel from a gracious and blessedly prolonged summer for Sir John Mortimer, Esquire.

More like a door stop
John Mortimer is a wonderful English author. My husband is a great fan of his work. I read of this book this summer in England and when I returned home I rushed to buy it.
My husband hated it! He said he had already read most of the stories in other works. The author also gives his opinion on the wonderful Labor Party in England. His mother should have taught him not to discuss politics in polite society.
It is really a dreadful book. Only useful as a door stop on a windy day.

Not going gently into that dark night.....
SUMMER OF A DORMOUSE takes it's title from Byron who said when one subtracts sleeping, eating and other personal maintenance one has about as much time to be productive as the summer of a dormouse. Of course Lord Byron himself was quite productive until he was bled dry by leeches says John Mortimer whose wife gave him a ring with an engraved dormouse on his last birthday.

DORMOUSE is Mortimer's third installment in his autobiography (the official one, Rumpole is unofficial). In his earlier entries (CLINGING TO THE WRECKAGE, MURDERERS AND OTHER FRIENDS) he covered his childhood, life with wife number one (Penny) and wife number two (Penelope) as well as his writing and legal career through age 65 or so. In DORMOUSE, Mortimer continues the tale covering recent events in his seventies (with flashbacks).

Mortimer has not slowed down very much though he is blind in one eye and forced to use wheeled conveyences through air port terminals (sometimes at the risk of life and limb) as he whizzes around the globe on various book-signing tours and other business trips. For instance, during the 1990s he was busy writing the screen play for the film 'Tea with Mussolini' -- an autobiographical account of Franco Zefirelli's boyhood in wartime Italy starring Dames of the British Empire Judy Dench and Maggie Smith as well as Lady Joan Plowright. As a result of his involvement, he has been privy to the behind the scenes antics of the old gals. Seems these pillars of the theatre were caught nude in Franco Zefirelli's swimming pool one afternoon. (I knew Dench couldn't possibly be as dull as her biographer suggested!!)

Mortimer has literary flashbacks, amazing tales to convey, and engages in a bit of reflection as he faces "Timor mortis" which he says becomes rather acute after age 75. During the course of his book, several old friends and his first wife Penelope exit the stage. From time to time he feels like throwing in the towel himself but something always seems to come along set him going again. For example, the ulcer on his leg hasn't healed and after two years it seems to have become a permanent part of his anatomy when he encounters two twins who suggest he try an alternative approach to healing.

From Mortimer's perspective some politicians seem bent on destroying England, so he and wife Penny do what they can to stall the barbarians at the gate. As friends of the Kinnocks, the Mortimers find much to take on including the movement by the "politically correct" to deny accused rapists access to cross-examination of the accuser. Sometimes the local populace is with the Mortimers and sometimes not. For example, they are not opposed to fox-hunting--which earns them the enmity of extremist animal lovers who send very bad things through the post.

From the scuba diver scooped up and dropped on a blazing forest fire which leads to an insurance battle over the cause of death, to the lightening struck movie star with a melted phone receiver in his hand, to wife Penny's escapades in Cuba with headless cattle, not much escapes Mortimer's notice. On the other hand, he's not above burning his trousers and radio in the rubbish pile or forgetting the name of the actor he just saw on tv for whom he is writing script. Like Rumpole, Mortimer continues the fight against premature adjudication.

The Summer of a Dormouse
John Mortimer is a talented writer with true English wit. However, The Summer of the Dormouse falls short. Some of his episodes were previously told in Clinging to the Wreckage. Seventy odd years of life is too long to have repeats. ... Read more

Book Description

On the eve of her 60th birthday, Nan Watkins decided to embark on the around-the-globe trip she had always dreamed of--a trip she would take alone. Having endured both the death of her twenty-two-year-old son and the dissolution of a thirty-year marriage, the author resolved to follow a solo path east across Europe and Asia to renew connections with old friends and explore foreign lands and cultures. As her adventure-filled weeks and months unfolded, what began as a trip of discovery transformed itself into a powerful journey of the spirit.

With elegant style and thoughtful insight, Watkins considers the issues particular to a woman living and traveling alone and examines the complexities of global development and the changing role of women in non-Western cultures. This rich and beautifully rendered chronicle, which takes the author from the lonesome, rugged coast of Ireland to the bustling streets of Kathmandu to the majestic Rajasthan desert of western India, is a spirited testament to a woman's determination to overcome loss with joy and passion. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Two Journeys
I found this a fascinating book on two levels. The journey around the world visiting and sometimes traveling with friends was an absorbing story in itself. But the inner journey-the "solo" journey- was a moving and uplifting experience. Everyone has those special birthdays-30, 40, and in the author's case, 60, when one tends to take stock of one's life. The trip was a chance to both see a part of the world we rarely get to see as well as to look back with the author at the process of becoming the person who is taking this trip. I believe a great many people will enjoy taking these journies with Ms Watkins. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (3)

Peculiar in the Best Sense
Jennifer Lash, who appears to be the mother of the actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, made a solo trip of pilgrimage through France in l993 after winning a battle with cancer (for awhile). As a non-practising Catholic in late middle age, she knew her theological territory when traveling from convent to monastery to basilica to pilgrimage camp; but she approached her visits in a determined spirit of not-knowing. I found that intellectually or maybe morally refreshing; it served as a Carlos-Castaneda-like bridge role which helped me, the reader, someone else who does "not know". Her experience of moving on repeatedly reminded her that travel brings us back up against our selves. She feels strongly and works transparently to understand her feelings; the sorting-out process which the pilgrimage crystallizes for this writer can illuminate whatever journey her reader is on.

Her writing is both erudite and humble. She was a sophisticated Briton who had spent much of her life raising her very large family. From miracle site to miracle site on the French trains, carrying her baggage on an injured back, she tells us the stories of the saints whose cults have given rise to these sites, and describes the religious communities which maintain them. In between, she tells us about the people she meets and re-meets. She is often wry, but never sarcastic; describes ridiculousness sharply but never cruelly. She learns as she goes, and as she learns she teaches, in the kindest way. She is a LADY - decent and sincere, and also funny and engaged.
Her descriptions make the feel of each place most vivid - the baroque, fully alive Santiago de Compostela, the gloomy, cold Rocamadour, the wild emotional Gypsy pilgrimage in the Camargue are all made quite visible, audible, smellable, each entirely different from the others - and there are about fifteen of these places in the book.
The book is horribly proofread - the commas are in the wrong places, so that Ms. Lash reads like a rather bizarre speaker - a peculiar pauser for breath in funny places. There are outright mistakes that no one caught - the word "paramount" is confused with "tantamount", for example, and a priest is described as wearing a "scapula", the shoulder blade, when she meant "scapular", a liturgical garment. We know what she means, but we have to wade along doing our own corrections.
This strange aberration makes reading the book feel like chatting with a deeply imaginative, thoughtful, unselfconsciously wacky human being, rather than "a writer". But what a writer, and what a significant story this journey is when told in her voice.

Enjoyable for the most part
Just finished the book and found it very poetic in some parts and kind of confusing in others. There were two errors that I found, and maybe it is nit-picking, but it made me wonder about other information that was given. First, Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine in the cathedral at Poitiers, not in Lisieux, and Abelard is buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetary in Paris with Heloise, not in Cluny. Well worth reading, tho, especially if you've been to some of the places mentioned, or plan to visit others. I found it fascinating that she most always found a room wherever she stopped whatever the time. Obviously she spoke French well.

interesting travelogue with a difference
I read a previous book by Ms. Lash and disliked it very much. Her fiction prose is declaratory and disjointed. I always thought her writing style would be much better suited to non fiction. This book proved me correct. Her declaratory statements and random philosophizing are suited to this pleasant travelogue. As an armchair traveller you get an impression of what it would be like to visit different sites of pilgrimage. You get a good sense of what it would be like to travel alone, meet interesting people and open yourself up to the possibilities of not only a physical pilgrimage but a spirital pilgrimage. As a former Catholic, Lash is tolerant of the beliefs of others without proselytizing for the Catholic faith or judging those who still believe. ... Read more

Book Description

The fascinating travel diaries and photographs that make up Back on the Road are a vital complement to The Motorcycle Diaries, described by the London Times as "Das Kapital meets Easy Rider." These journals chronicle Che Guevara's second trip through Latin America as his youthful idealism was developing into the political fervor that made him a revolutionary icon. More than any of his peers in the Cuban revolution, Che had a continental sense of justice, first conceptualized during his travels as a young man. He saw the mountains and deserts of Bolivia, the Inca remains at Machu Picchu and Cuzco, the forests of Guatemala; he sailed up the Pacific coast from Ecuador to Panama and met his first wife in Honduras. He witnessed the CIA overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and, in Mexico, he was introduced to an ambitious young man named Fidel Castro. Back on the Road provides a vital link between The Motorcycle Diaries and the Cuban Revolution, offering an indispensable portrait of the gestation of a revolutionary mind. "A wonderful glimpse into the maturing mind of a great man and a vital companion to the previous Che diaries." -- Michael McCaughan, Irish Times ... Read more

Reviews (2)

FINDING CHE IN PARIS
I found Back on the Road at Shakespeare & Co. in Paris. I had not know about this book and it is a splendid companion to his Motorcyle Diaries, in fact reading both books let's you look into Che's mind and what made him a Revolutionary. His style of writing appeals to me, he writes about what he sees, how he feels, and best of all, his friends and lady friends, he seems to have been catnip to women, but, he writes in a style that does not talk down to either sex and this makes him easily the best revolutionary writer of his time. Che is very popular in Europe and not just with the younger generation. Buying this book will open your eyes to what Che was really like.

You are better off reading "Motorcycle Diaries"
Having just read "Motorcycle Diaries" and loving it, I was eager to read this book. The problems with it are two-fold. It was edited by his widow and not by Guevara himself as the first book was. In the preface it is noted that she extracted parts of the original text. The second fault is that it is a journal but it is written with very few dates. There are no breaks between daily entries so as you read along from paragraph to paragraph several days worth of entries are present. It makes the text hard to follow. His writing is still interesting but also several times he writes that nothing new is happening. It seems that his "heart" is not in this journal. There is some very interesting information included though ranging from the disaffected tone about which he writes to his mother about his first marriage to his firsthand observation of the overthrow of the Guatemalan government. The highlights of the book are the letters he wrote home to family and friends. It is a short book and definetly worth a read but don't have the expectation that it will be as good as "Motorcycle Diaries". ... Read more

Book Description

At a time when Americans are so riveted by questions about their place in a newly hostile world that they are swearing off air travel, Elinor Burkett does not just take a trip; she takes a headlong dive into enemy territories, crisscrossing back and forth between Ronald Reagan's old Evil Empire and George Bush's new Axis of Evil.

Her adventure begins with her assignment as a Fulbright Professor teaching journalism in Kyrgyzstan, a faded fragment of Soviet might in the heart of Central Asia -- a place of dilapidated apartments, bizarre food and demoralized citizens clinging to the safety of Brother Russia. But when she refuses to join the other expatriates evacuated from the "-stans," it turns into much more. She flies into Afghanistan just as the Taliban are departing, mingles with tense Iraquis watching the gathering storm clouds of an American-led invasion and becomes the target of the resentments of the old comrades of the former Soviet Union. Journeying between Iran and Mongolia, Uzbekistan, China and Vietnam, she confronts old enemies in an era of terrifying new ones.

When she left home, Burkett, a seasoned journalist, wasn't gathering material for a book; she thought she was "taking a vacation from reality." But she emerges with a dazzling political travelogue that will make even the most enlightened reader question what he or she has considered as truth. Whether she's writing about being served goat's head in a Kyrgyz yurt, checking out bowling alleys in Baghdad, avoiding mullahs zooming along on motorbikes in Tehran or simply trying to cook a chicken in her own crumbling apartment, Burkett offers an eclectic series of adventures that are alternately comical, whimsical, poignant and discomfiting.

Reviews (21)

Elinor Burkett: Today's Marco Polo
Just finished Elinor Burkett's So Many Enemies, So Little Time.
I liked it a lot. It's really a Marco Polo travel diary for today. Burkett provides needed background to world events, in a lively personal style. Fun to read, and you can think about it afterwards, too. The book recounts Burkett's adventures in Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, Burma (officially Myanmar), China, Vietnam, and Cambodia during the 2001-2002 events, when she was a Fulbright Scholar. I agree with her view that the Fulbright program is one US government initiative that really works as it was intended. She explains how her view of the world changed after her experience teaching abroad in the wake of 9/11--just the kind of growth experience Senator Fulbright wanted.Burkett has a real gift for noticing the interesting detail. Her description of the little things at her university in Bishkek--such as wandering around the hall trying to find a classroom after being kicked out for some sort of seminar--tracked pretty exactly to my experience at UWED in Tashkent (which I was pleased to see she called the Harvard of Central Asia). Burkett's observations are generally acute, the most telling ones based on her personal confrontations with age-old traditions.

Most of all, I enjoyed Burkett's Kyrgyz anecdotes, which I think reflect a certain mentality--and reality--in the region. Here's a sample:

While walking in the countryside, two Uzbeks and two Kyrgyz fell in a hole. "I'll give you a hand up," the younger Uzbek said to the older. "Then, when you're on solid ground, you can pull me up." The older man agreed, the Uzbeks freed themselves and then went on their way.
The two Kyrgyz men looked at each other grimly, and one began climbing out of the hole on his own. "Hey, you can't do that," yelled the other man, pulling on his companion's legs. "If you get out, I'll be alone and stranded."

Unfocused and rambling
Elinor Burkett and her husband, Dennis, having become restless and wanting what might be a final adventure, decide they want to spend some time abroad.Not as tourists, but she as a teacher and he as her companion.They've been to Europe, South America and other usual destinations.Checking on the Fulbright program, she elects to become a professor, teaching journalism in Kyrgyzstan, a fragment of the former Soviet Union.Unfortunately, it seems, they arrive at their home for the next year a week before 9/11.

The book begins right after the attack when all Americans abroad must have been frightened and wanting to go home.She and Dennis, like several others elect to stay.This beginning makes some readers think that this book will be the story of fear and frustration as they cope with hatred and tension over their being Americans in a part of the world that must hate them and their country.

But there is actually very little of that which is what makes her story amazing.During the months following 9/11, the two of them travel to countries in central Asia and the far east.The only real difficulties in their travels is getting there -- the beueaucracy and bribes, suspicions of minor border guards.Everywhere they hear much the same things from the people:America is arrogant and brought the attacks on itself by interfering in the affairs of other states.They should keep their noses out of other people's business.But why don't they do something about . . . (take your pick)"Never has it been more clear that America has such a love-hate relationship with the rest of the world.

In her teaching in the Kyrgyz university her own biases keep her at odds with the administration.In her mind, she is there to teach the journalism students western-style, in-your-face reporting.Never does she say that's what she was asked to do.But this is the style she knows and it puzzles her that none of her students understand, or want to understand, how to do things her way.Nor does she understand their willingness to accept the status quo, or their desire for a return to Communist control.Independence and individual freedom seem beyond their ability to accept.

What surprises most Americans who read this story is our lack of understanding about most of the smaller countries that the Soviet Union brought inside their boundaries.We tend to think that they must be grateful for the breakup of the Soviet state and attaining their new-found freedom.Not so.Everywhere the Burketts run into people who long for the return of order and running water.They accept governments of nearly cult personalities.And wish America would help them get back some of the things they miss most.But don't tell them what to do.

The Burketts' journey is an amazing one through countries where most of us would fear to go.This is an informative read about peoples we don't even begin to understand.But perhaps we can begin to understand that, although we value our way of freedom so highly, not everyone else can embrace it.

Maybe Next Time They'll Just Take a Cruise
With remarkably unlucky timing, Elinor Burkett and her husband, Dennis, arrive in Kyrgyzstan a week before September 11, 2001. They came to Central Asia in a fit of midlife restlessness, and get rather more than they bargained for.

Europe was too easy and South America too familiar. So they decided on Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet Republic, and Burkett got a job as a journalism teacher at the Kyrgyz university for a year. After September 11, they decided to stay and stick it out. After all, the attacks had been in their home of Manhattan, halfway around the world.

For the next year, in between teaching her journalism classes, Burkett and her husband visited Afghanistan, Mongolia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and most of the other -stans. Remarkably enough, they faced almost no physical threats, and nearly everyone they met was fascinated with their American-ness. In every country they visited, even during the Afghanistan war and the run-up to the Iraq invasion, they were welcomed by the people, if not by the border guards, and made to feel welcome.

What Elinor and Dennis experienced is what America has experienced internationally -- people everywhere disagreed with American foreign policy, but they welcomed actual Americans. Nearly everyone they encountered, in every country, resented American "meddling" and arrogance, thought that America had brought the New York attacks on themselves, and yet were perfectly willing to share their homes with two American travelers.

As a journalist, Burkett knows how to tell a story. So Many Enemies, So Little Time starts off on September 11, 2001, then fills in the gaps a little later. She is very opinionated, and never hesitates to tell her guests and students what she thinks or if their arguments are weak. In spite of this candor, she doesn't seem to fit a blatantly left or right political stereotype. By the time I finished the book, I still couldn't predict who she will vote for in November, 2004. This works in her favor, because if there had been an obvious bias to the right, I wouldn't have been inclined to continue reading, and I'm sure those with a right-wing tendency would feel similarly if the book had been obviously left-leaning.

It's a real eye-opener to find out what the average Uzbek or Iranian thinks about America, especially during the events following September 11. By the end of the year of travel, Burkett has reached her limit of hearing America being criticized for interfering too much and for not helping enough. She lashes out, at least on paper, at those who hold America to a higher standard than other countries and who conveniently forget the sins of former Western powers like Germany, Britain, and even Belgium. But her exasperation clouds her reason -- she tells her journalism class that although America had allowed slavery once, we realized it was wrong and stopped it. She doesn't mention that the actual people holding slaves had to be forced to give up slavery after a bloody war. I wonder why she doesn't cut the old European empires the same slack she does for America?

So Many Enemies, So Little Time is a real slap-in-the-face of a book. You will have a strong opinion about it, one way or another.

Narrow view--she missed out on a lot.
I tend to agree with "A lot of Intellect, Little Heart." I know Burkett went to Kyrgyzstan with the idea of teaching, but all good teachers learn from their students, and Burkett was so bent on criticizing that she didn't enjoy the differences in culture she professed to be seeking out. Having spent a year in Central Asia, I know the place can be infruriatingly bureaucratic, gloomy, and, well, sure, not as wonderfully enlightened and democratic as the US. So what!!! It's also fascinating, culturally diverse, dynamic, and unbelievably hospitable. She should have recognized from the onset that she wasn't going to "change" anything, per se, in fact, it was arrogant for her to have thought she might. Instead, she might have done her best to impart some new ideas and enjoyed her surroundings a bit more. 70 years of communism may have taken a toll in some negative ways, but they constitute a generation in the history of her hosts' lives (traditions and all) and should not be so summarily dismissed as a waste.

She was particularly snotty about the food, which I found disrespectful. Yeah, a lot of people around the world don't have access to fresh fruits and veggies year round. So, she can't handle a diet of carbs for a few weeks until she jets off to the MIddle East? And the sheep, procuring that sheep might have cost that family a month's salary or more. Would it have killed them to sample just a bit, maybe not from the head but from the body? Why go to such places and get involved with locals if you aren't prepared to be a bit adventurous?

Informative & highly readable
I found this book fascinating for the insights it gave me into parts of the world I know very little about.I now feel that I know more about the breakup of the former USSR, about the "-stans" that used to be part of it and how they are different from each other, about social and economic factors which are influencing events in central Asia, and about how and why tribal interactions affect politics in some countries.

I can understand the "Lots of Intellect, Little Heart" reviewer's point, because I too did not always agree with Ms. Burkett, but for me this did not detract from the value of the book.Overall I think this may have been the most highly readable "geography lesson" I've ever encountered. ... Read more

Book Description

When the opportunity arises for Carol Drinkwater and her husband, Michel, to purchase ten acres of a disused olive farm in the South of France, the idea seems ridiculously farfetched. After all, they are newlyweds of limited means, and Carol is still adjusting to her role as stepmother to Michel's two daughters. But the splendor of the region becomes a force they are unable to resist. Michel presents their life savings to the real estate broker as a down payment for the farm, embarking the family on an adventure that will bring them in close contact with the charming countryside, querulous personalities, petty bureaucracies, and extraordinary wildlife (including a ravenous wild boar) of Provence.

In the spirit of Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence and Frances Mayes's Under the Tuscan Sun, The Olive Farm is a splendid tour of southern France, from the glamour of Cannes to the Isles de LŽrins and a Cistercian monastery on the tiny isle of St. Honorat, to Carol Drinkwater's own small piece of land, which she transforms from an overgrown plot of weeds and ivy to a thriving, productive farm, transforming in the process her own dream of a peaceful and meaningful life into reality. ... Read more

Reviews (15)

As warm as the Mediterranean sun.
Carol Drinkwater, actress in my all-time favorite television show, "All Creatures Great and Small," takes us with her on a warm and wonderful journey to the south of France where we experienced first-hand with her the toils, traumas, tears, and triumphs of pursuing one's dream. In this case the initial dream was to make a go of a dilapidated olive farm near Cannes and Nice, and ultimately, it led us on a voyage with the author to find her (and vicariously our) heart's desire. The farm is just a stage -- it is the people, their warmth, caring, and interdependence, that make life worth living. The story is very interesting, with plenty of ups and downs, interesting people and experiences, writing that touches all our senses (I can almost smell those orange-scented breezes), genuinely moving events and realizations, lots of heart and humor, and very importantly, excellent writing. Her descriptions are very clear, the story keeps moving forward at an interesting pace, and there were a number of passages that I re-read several times to fully appreciate her excellent use of language. (Peter Mayle could take some lessons here.) I regretted having to finish the book and stepping back out of Ms. Drinkwater's world, and I hope we will have a sequel to sink our minds and hearts into. It's enough to make me (almost) forgive the actress/author for relinquishing her role in the final episodes of "All Creatures.." I highly recommend this book, I thank the author for inviting us into her world, and I look forward to OF2.

On the Fence
Hours after listening to the last installment of Drinkwater's The Olive Farm on unabridged audio cassette, I vacillate between liking and disliking this offering. The narrative, although an interesting recount of actress Carol Drinkwater's purchase of and initial rennovations on a run-down olive farm in the South of France, lacks the sparkling energy of Peter Mayle's 'A Year in Provence'. Instead, Drinkwater's tale mingles oh-so-sweet recollections that tiresomely wax on the poetic with bald reenactments of her lowest emotional moments--moments that transform her dream of a working farm producing rich and succulent olive oil into nothing more than a meaningless childish fantasy. The result never quite gels to produce an even story---instead the reader wants to either fast-forward through the author's awkward poetry to get to an action sequence, or fast forward through the melancholy action to reach an enjoyable idyll in the Midi sun. Unfortunately, the idylls in the sun are few and far between--Drinkwater only sparks with life when she writes about the numerous dogs that stray onto her newly-acquired property.

One gets the sense, that this book started out as a series of essays rather than a fully planned out book--the ending was rushed and I would have thought that as the book began with the idea of working towards and owning the farm, an appropriate ending would have been the actual purchase of the property outright after all the trials and tribulations both Drinkwater and her husband labored through. Instead, a murky resolution of the author's feelings about her father's death and the troubles regarding a television production seem to overshadow the book's original theme and premise.

Recommended only to those who cannot read enough about the south of France, especially those who enjoy the 'Under the Tuscan Sun' genre of travel literature.

Sweet life in southern France
When we came home from our vacation in southern France this summer my sister in law gave me this book. I have read Frances Mayes' books about Tuscany several times and love them so much, I though, oh, just another writer trying to write like her. But I was totally wrong. Carol Drinkwater buys a farm in southern France just like Mayes does in Tuscany, but there stops the similarity.

Carol Drinkwater's style of writing is unique in the way she let us take part in her life. The book is so much more than a book about buying a farm, it is a love story to the man in her kife she has just met, it is the story of how to adjust in the life of being a step mother, it is a story of adapting another country and it's inhabitants. And her writing is so good you just melt into the book, can't put it down, feel you are there at the farm with her.

What I liked most about the book si that it shows several aspacts of the "sweet life". Not everything is romantic, we also meet the shadows of the life of buying the farm. Drinkwater opens her heart to the readers for good and for worse, and this way she makes to book a masterpiece of the love story literature.

Thanks for this book. I have already ordered it's sequel and know that when it arrives I will need to put aside anything else for some reading hours.

Britt Arnhild Lindland

An experience to be envious of
Carol Drinkwater is a British actress. She is in a relationship with Michel, a French television producer. Together they decide to buy a neglected olive farm in the south of France. The book revolves around their eventful purchase of the farm and their even more eventful attempts to change the farm into a place where they can live. The book provides some insight into the lifestyle of the French, especially the rural communities. The characters they meet during these eventful times add much colour to the already fascinating tale - from the old lady from whom they buy the farm to the variety of workers and contractors that help them to fix the place.

Carol refers only where necessary to her and Michel's more glamorous entertainment careers, which I appreciated as I have bought the book for the story around the farm. I was easily drawn into the story by her writing and enjoyed their successes with them and stressed through the downturns with them. Her description of the countryside and their rather romantic excursion to the islands off the coast, south of Cannes, add to the enjoyment of the book.

The struggle to retain the farm and the typical human interactions between the various characters maintain a tension that holds throughout the book and it actually pulls the reader through it. I thought it was well written and well edited. Actually, similar to other reviewers, I would not mind a follow-up to learn how their lives and the farm developed further!

I read the book because of the olive element in it and the fact that I am jealous of people doing things that I want to do but am too scared to do! I am comfortable that I got value for my money and was inspired by the book, although I have still not bought my olive farm! People who enjoy biographies will not be disappointed by this book. Readers who read travel stories will also find it enjoyable. A few months ago, I have also read Extra Virgin by Annie Hawes, a similar story and also enjoyable. However, if I have to choose between the two, I will go for The Olive Farm.

The Olive Farm
Both humorous and sad at the same time, Carol Drinkwater invites us into her life for a year. This is not this typical all is well Provence story. There is love, laughter and loss. Well worth a read. ... Read more

Book Description

Auto accidents, nine years apart, took the lives of Dwight Smith’s two teenage sons. A few years later, heart disease claimed his wife of 39 years. The cumulative impact of these losses spurred Dwight to retire and embark on a healing journey—13,784 miles alone on a bicycle around the perimeter of the United States. His story is filled with vivid descriptions of forests, prairies, deserts, swamps, and croplands. But his interactions with strangers and friends alike inspired him most, bringing new experiences, new people, and new strength to a man who had lost so much. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Bill Lentz
Some will see this as an interesting story concerning one man's ride around the perimeter of America. Most will find in these pages, the story of how a man faced some of the most discouraging challenges life presents and worked through them. Dwight Smith writes about his journey in a manner that is as interesting as it is inspirational.

Terrific read
This book has some of everything. As he cycles around the perimeter of the U.S. (he was in his sixties, so that is incredible), he describes a lot about the environment and the people he meets. It is amazing all the different climates, weather patterns, cultures, fears, beliefs, and animals there are in this country. There is also interesting info about "Old Faithful" his bike, how he took care of it, and prepared for the trips. This book is amazing.

Old Faithful and Dwight
One Mile at a Time is a unique chronicle of the cycling journey of a man in his 60's who decides to take a ride around the perimeter of the U.S. after enduring tragic family losses.Smith used a throat mike while he was riding, thereby adding a fresh perspective to his descriptions.His dry humor and broad-minded outlook on our country is not only entertaining but also thought-provoking.The physical and mental stamina required to complete such a journey is inspiring and will make the reader want to drag his/her bike out of the dusty, old garage and take a spin - at least around town.
Lynnita Mattock, author of Abductee ... Read more

Reviews (32)

Daring and unconventional approach makes it fresh
I was in Australia recently for business (art dealer) and read two broadsheet newspaper reviews about this book, which I had read before heading Down Under. One said it was a ``must read'' for anyone interested in the adventure game, but ``deserves a much wider audience'' because of its searing psychological insights. It also noted ``the triumph of the book'' lies in the way the two voices complement one another. The other review said Elder (who carries the main narrative) was trying too hard to be original. The book is an original: a duet, where Elder paints the emotiional, historical and physical landscapes and Hillary speaks directly in the voice of someone telling wild tales, giving the feeling that he's right there in your ear. Elder's voice is in plain type, Hillary's in bold. The structure gives the book its pace and deepends its empotional resonance. Perhaps if the publishers had included a note to that effect for people who might struggle to get it -- but personally I don't think it's hard to figure out. If you enjoy literary intelligence, youi'll love the book -- if you like your stories straight up and down maybe you won't.

Journey to the centre of the soul
If you love a good old-fashioned gut-spill, especially by somebody with a famous name, then you'll love this book, too. It reads like you are walking through a very strange and colorful and often violent dream. Through a series of recollections in the form of hauntings, famous son Peter Hillary shares the very-high highs and the brutal lows of an extraordinary restless life. And thankfully he does it with a stoic and often very black humor, without losing respect for the people he's mourning. He admits there is a big cost in devoting your life to adventure, and one of them being cursed with a ruthless selfishness, yet in the end these almost psychedelic memoirs are a tribute to other people. It's not all about him. I also enjoyed the pacy, very tight and clever re-telling of Scott's last journey and Shackleton's wild times, as well some fascinating comparisons with other modern polar journeys that went to hell. And i love the fact that the opening two sentences make a limerick!

Howling in the face of of the abyss
Man oh man. Two journeys -- one a lonely haul to the South Pole, the other a haunting visitation to the past, as ghosts rise up to keep Hillary company. It's a thrilling concept, made more exciting that this is how the brain works under the pressures of social isolation and sensual deprivation. The son of Sir Edmund has certainly spilt his guts here. But the writing is so poetic and evocative much of what could have sunk this book is transcended. Nowhere have I read a better exploration of the interior life -- the mind -- of an adventuring man, or of any man for that matter. Hillary's partner Elder is obviouskly the genius here, not to take anything away from Hillary who has become a surprisingly more forthright writer than he was in his youth -- but it's Elder who has clearly taken the reigns here and through using two voices -- his and Hillary's -- has crafted a masterpiece of form and revelation. Certainly blows the mystique.

Read an excerpt -- make up your own mind
The buzz in Britain is that this book has broken new ground in writing about the emotional life of a man, in this case an adventuring man, and that it is superbly written. I found the use of two voices worked brilliantly to create clever shifts in pace and to heighten the feeling that Hillary is whispering ion your ear. My husband is a sports addict, and he didn't really get into it. I found it very exciting, and I expect this is one of those books that will sharply divide readers and critics. Anyone worried about wasting their money, can read an excerpt on the Barnes & Noble site. You'll either be intrigued or not.

Where's the index????
Loved the book overall, felt the writing had a very beautiful rhythm to it, found some of Elder's imagery a little baffling sometimes -- but I have to say that for such a complex piece of work, even for a work of art, it is unforgivable there is no index. (...) ... Read more

Book Description

When David Roberts came across a reference to four Russian sailors who had survived for six years on a barren Arctic island, he was incredulous. An expert on the literature of adventure, Roberts had never heard the story and doubted its veracity. His quest to find the true story turned into a near-obsession that culminated with his own journey to the same desolate island. In Four Against the Arctic Roberts shares the remarkable story that he discovered, perhaps the most amazing survival tale ever recorded.

In 1743 a Russian ship bound for Arctic walrus-hunting grounds was blown off course and trapped in ice off the coast of Svalbard (Spitzbergen). Four sailors went ashore with only two days' supplies to look for an abandoned hut they knew about on the island.They found it and returned to tell their shipmates the good news, only to find that their ship had vanished, apparently crushed and sunk by the ice.

The men survived more than six years until another ship blown off course rescued them. During that time they made a bow and arrows from driftwood (Svalbard has no trees) and killed nine polar bears in self-defense. They survived largely on reindeer meat, killing 250 of the animals during their ordeal.

Fascinated as he was by this remarkable story, Roberts wondered how it had dwindled into obscurity. For two years he researched the tale in libraries and archives in the United States, France, and Russia. In Russia he traveled to the sailors' hometown, where he met the last survivors of their families, who knew the story from an oral tradition passed down for more than 250 years. Finally, with three companions he organized an expedition to the barren island of Edgeøya in southeast Svalbard, where he spent three weeks looking for remnants of the sailors' lost hut and walking the shores while pondering the men's astonishing survival.

Four Against the Arctic is a riveting book about man versus nature and a delightfully engaging journey deep into an obsession with historical rediscovery. But it is more even than that: It is a meditation on the genius of survival against impossible odds that makes a story so inspirational that it still fires the imagination centuries later. ... Read more

Reviews (16)

Should be Titled: Find the Hidden Story
This narrative is an excellent account of how people can survive in the face of a challange. Unfortunately, the author details the actual writing of the tale much more effectively than dramatizing the task of wintering the arctic. The actual story, (which is hard to find in the book), and the photography would have made a very interesting cover story of a National Geographic. What is ultimately presented turns out to be a mediocre story of how the auther did toil to research the information in his book. But that was not about what I had wanted to read.

Pompous Author - and boring
I'm sure the tale of survival is interesting, but I'll find another book to tell me that story. David Roberts is more interested in telling you what a great researcher he is. He repeatedly tells you how "poor" his foreign language skills are (German, Norwegian, Russian) and yet he then proceeds to tell you how, with his meager knowledge, he managed to translate just as well as his professionally translated text. I've read probably 40 or 50 Arctic/Antarctic books filled with daily trivial entries, minute details, weather and longitude/lattitude readings - and I'll read thru days of that before I pick this book up again. Couldn't get past page 97. Then I skimmed through to find where he gets off his soapbox about his skills, and gets back to the story - but it was too carefully hidden. I understand that he was trying to weave in how the mystery was uncovered, and that can be fascinating too - I thank God for historians and authors who do and have done that - but Roberts just doesn't have the skill to do that without coming off as arrogant.

Not enough info for a book
It's amazing the story of four Russian sailors' survival on the sub-arctic island of Svalbard for six years isn't better known, considering it's probably the most amazing feat of arctic survival in the long and checkered history of arctic and antarctic exploration.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with many of the other reviewers here that the "signal to noise ratio" of the book is pretty low; there really isn't that much information about the sailors' story, and most of the book is really about the extensive research the author did and his own personal journey to discover the facts of the story. Unfortunately, very little real information seems to be available and the result shows in the final book.

There is no doubt that the author went to considerable trouble and did very thorough and extensive research to glean what little information was available, and the author certainly deserves credit for that. As a former researcher myself I understand the fascination of doing research and the thrill of discovery in ferreting out all the facts, but the end result here unfortunately is still pretty thin.

The author also spends too much time finding fault with the French academic's style who originally interviewed the sailors, considering that Roberts's style itself is a little too ponderous and grandiloquent at times, especially about pretty trivial matters.

On the positive side, however, I did learn a few interesting details of how the sailors managed to survive for the time they did, and I enjoyed that. For example, they were able to build a wooden hut from the driftwood that floats up on Svalbard's rocky shores. Svalbard itself has no trees, but what it does have is literally tons of driftwood. This is due to the prevailing currents which cause the logs that float out to the sea from Russian rivers to end up on the coast of the island. The sailors also had to kill several polar bears. That's probably the most exciting fact in the book although nothing else is known about it.

If you do decide to buy the book the best way to read it would be to skip over the sections about the author, the French professor, and most of the details of the research and just read the passages about the sailors, because there is some interesting information and material there. This would have made a fine magazine article but there just isn't enough information to justify a book-length treatment as the author has done here.

The Title Is Misleading
I'm glad I was able to borrow this book from the library because if I had bought the book I would have demanded a refund. The author devotes very little space covering the trials of the four survivors and devotes page after page discussing how he researched the book. Here is an example of what you must plow through:
"Through the Slavic Languages and Literatures Department at Harvard, I contacted a graduate student named Julia Beakman Chadaga, whose area of specialization as she pusrsued her PH.D happened to be the eighteenth century. ... Short with staight brown hair, parted in the middle, hanging loose about her face, Julia had brown eyes and delicate features. Though she looked twenty-two, she was about to turn thirty,... Julia had been born in Minsk, so her first language was Russian. After her parents moved to New York when she was eight, she learned English like every other kid in public school."

WHO CARES? I suspect most readers, like me, wanted to read how the four survived for six years in the arctic.
The author also devotes much too much space criticizing those who researched this sory of survival before him. I found this annoying and very unprofessional. In short, don't buy this book unless you're interested in reading about how he did his research. I gave up after page 75 which was about one-third of the way through. A more appropriate title would have been "How I Researched the Story of Four Men Stranded for Six Years In the Arctic."

A breath of fresh air, without the dramatics
this book is so much more than the usual survival story one finds on the shelves these days. it is not only about how men made it through through many harsh months, it is also about the story behind the story. it delves into the inner phsyche of the survivors, and their families expond on what was passed down through the generations. no blood and guts here, simply a good read that once started will be like a race to the finish.

SR ... Read more