When I wasn't looking, Wordsmithonia turned nine years old earlier this month. It's been a journey that has seen my interest and energy wane over the years, but I've never felt as if I was really ready to give it up for good. I've been slowly getting back into the rhythm, and I'm eternally grateful to those who have stuck by the blog over the years.
In appreciation for the love and support you have shown me over the years, I've decided to do a giveaway in celebration of the nine year journey I undertook with no prior forethought of what I was embarking upon. I've reviewed a lot of books over the years, and I'm letting one of you go through my review list and pick any book you want. All you need to do is leave a comment with the book title of your choice and your email address. I'll pick a winner by random draw on 08/15/2017.
The book will come from either B&N or Book Depository.
Thank you once again, from the bottom of my heart, for all the support you've given over the years. I'll never be able to properly express my gratitude.
Today, April 23rd, 2016, marks William Shakespeare's 400th birthday! Incidentally, it's also the anniversary of his death. In celebration, I have a copy of Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare's Globe by Andrew Dickinson, provided by Henry Holt, to give away.
If you ever wanted to know how Shakespeare's fascination with travel, though he never went anywhere, influenced his work, this is the book for you. But it's more than that, it's also a journey through time as the world has embraced him and his works, of how different cultures have interpreted and assimilated his work into their societies. It's a fascinating book, and one that I'm still digging into. I will have a review coming up shortly, but for now, I'm hoping you guys are ready to find out how to get your own copy.
All you have to do is leave a comment, telling me a personal tidbit about your relationship with Shakespeare. It's open to interpretation, so I'm looking forward to reading your comments. Please leave an email address that I can contact you with, if you are the winner. Sadly, this is only open to U.S. Residents. The giveaway will run until 11:59 pm CST, on 5/7/2016. The winner will be selected by random draw, and I will contact the winner by email. The winner will then have 4 days to get in touch with me, before I draw a new winner.
So good luck, and if you want to read more about the book, please visit the website at: WorldsElsewhereBook.com
Born to a Russian family of lower nobility, Xenia, an eccentric dreamer who cares little for social conventions, falls in love with Andrei, a charismatic soldier and singer in the Empress's Imperial choir. Though husband and wife adore each other, their happiness is overshadowed by the absurd demands of life at the royal court and by Xenia's growing obsession with having a child - a desperate need that is at last fulfilled with the birth of her daughter. But then a tragic vision comes true, and a shattered Xenia descends into grief, undergoing a profound transformation that alters the course of her life. Turning away from family and friends, she begins giving all her money and possessions to the poor. Then, one day, she mysteriously vanishes. Years later, dressed in the tatters of her husband's military uniform and answering only to his name, Xenia is discovered tending the paupers of St. Petersburg's slums. Revered as a soothsayer and a blessed healer to the downtrodden, she is feared by the royal court and its new Empress, Catherine, who perceives her deeds as a rebuke to their lavish excesses.
Most of you already know that I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction, with few exceptions, I normally can't connect with the approach the author chooses to take with the subject. So you may be surprised to see that I agreed to review The Mirrored World by Debra Dean. If I don't like historical fiction, why choose a historical fiction book to review. My friends, that's a good question. So let me try to explain it to you.
Since I was a kid, I've been fascinated by the men and women who have been so revered, that they are called saints. I was intrigued by the happenstances and situations that could place someone in a position to be considered a actual saint, anointed by God to do good works on Earth. Whether they came from the Roman Catholic tradition or not, saints have always fascinated me. St. Xenia is from the Russian Orthodox tradition, and while I had never heard of her before this, I was hooked on the synopsis. I was ready to delve into her life and find out, even if it's only a fictional account, what happened in her life to lead her down the road to sainthood.
So now, I get to explain why this book was no different than almost every other historical fiction book I've read. I was wanting to learn about St. Xenia, her life and her beliefs. Instead I got a puff piece told from the viewpoint of a cousin who shared Xenia's life from childhood to old age. And when I say share, I really mean they were around each other all the time until Xenia went out on her own. After that we only glimpse Xenia when the two come together again, often times years go between those meetings. I didn't get to see Xenia at work in the slums, except through the cousin's eyes, and that was just a little glimpse. I didn't get, from Xenia's viewpoint, why she took this path or what she was personally feeling at the time. Everything I learned about Xenia is secondhand knowledge.
Now I know The Mirrored World is historical fiction, not a history book. I get it. If I really want to learn about St. Xenia, I should read nonfiction books about her life. I shouldn't rely on a fiction book to sate my curiosity. But is it wrong to expect more from a fictional account of a real person's life? Shouldn't the subject of such a book get to tell her own story, instead of it being told from the viewpoint of someone else, someone who isn't around for much of her life? I get that an author has the prerogative to tell a story from any viewpoint they want, and honestly, the writing was quite good. It was a well crafted exploration, and I'm glad I read it. I just wish, like I do so many times when I read historical fiction, that there was more meat on the bones.
I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read and review this book. Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.
The wonderful group at TLC Book Tours have generously offered my readers the chance to win a copy of this book for themselves. The giveaway will last until 11:59 pm, CST, on 8/19/13. You must be a resident of the United States to enter, and all you have to do is leave me a comment with your email address.
Like today's Beyonce and Madonna, the book's heroine was know to her vast public by just one name: Leitzel. There may have been some regions on Earth where her name was not a household word, but if so, they were likely on polar ice caps or in the darkest, deepest jungles. Leitzel and and Alfredo were the biggest stars of the most famous road show ever produced, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Some of you may already know this about me, some of you may not, but the years between 5th and 9th grade, where spent traveling with a carnival. Even before then, we led a pretty vagabond life. We moved a lot, and when I mean a lot, I'm underrating the reality of it. I understand what it means to really not have a physical understanding of the word "home." Because of that, I've always been fascinated by those who were as, if not more, rootless than I am. Those whose lives never seem to get the attention they deserve, almost as if that lack of physical connections somehow made them less important. When those individuals are connected with the carnival or the circus, my interest knows no bounds.
Like most of the situations that fascinate me, I always seem to be a bit too easily to do any sort of research or reading about it though. I can almost tell you diddly squat about the history of traveling shows in this country. I can tell you even less about the men and women who knew no other life. It's only when I'm handed an opportunity to do so, that I ever seem to take it. Opportunity knocked when the good folks at Crown offered Queen of the Air: A True story of Love & Tragedy at the Circus, for review. I was hooked by the synopsis in the email they sent me, and I knew it was a story I had to read.
Lillian Leitzel and Alfredo Codona were the Queen and King of the circus world, the first and the last. Both of them were born into circus families, and Lillian at least, not under the best conditions. Her mother was only twelve years old when she was born, and the two never really saw each other on any sort of a continuous basis for years and years. She grew up under her mother's shadow, only to eclipse it at a young age. Her star became the brightest on planet, burning hotter and by the year. She was one of the first performers in any venue to become know by her first name, and it was a name known all over the world. What she could do in the air, on her rings, was second to none. Stars of Hollywood and Broadway held her in esteem. Presidents and corporate leaders flocked to her circle. She was the Queen of the circus and became one of the most famous and revered women in the world.
Alfredo was in love from the moment he saw her. He became a star in is own right. He was the first performer to nail the triple somersault on a trapeze. It was a feat that became a regular feature in his shows. And while both of their lives would take twists and turns, including other marriages and flirtations, they were destined to be together. They were the royal couple of the circus, and everyone knew it.
To say their relationship was smooth sailing, is like saying I had a normal childhood. It was tumultuous, passionate, and about every other adjective you could think of. Leitzel couldn't stop flirting with other men, and Alfredo couldn't tame his jealousy. By the end of their relationship, they were in different countries trying to move on with their lives.
They weren't able to do it though, just as Leitzel had come to good terms with her mother and as she is moving on from Alfredo, the unthinkable happens. Her tragic death shocked the world, and brought the circus world to its knees. Alfredo's end is even more shocking and tragic, but it's one I'll let you discover for yourself. They died the way they lived their lives, in a blaze of glory and burning brighter than anyone else around them.
How this story hasn't been made into a movie, is beyond me. I hope some screen writer is feverishly working even know, their story deserves to be told, and they deserve to be remembered by the general public that once adored them.
The wonderful group at Crown Publishers have generously offered my readers the chance to win a hardcover copy of this book for themselves. The giveaway will last until 11:59 pm, CST, on 8/15/13. You must be a resident of the United States to enter, and all you have to do is leave me a comment with your email address.
Dr. Kate Philo and her scientific exploration team makes a breathtaking discovery in the Arctic: the body of a man buried deep in the ice. As a scientist in a groundbreaking project run by the egocentric and paranoid Erastus Carthage, Kate has brought small creatures - plankton, krill, shrimp - "back to life." Never have the team's methods been attempted on a large life form. Heedless of the consequences, Carthage orders that the frozen man be brought back to the lab in Boston, and reanimated. As the man begins to regain his memories, the team learns that he was - is - a judge, Jeremiah Rice, and the last thing he remembers is falling overboard into the Arctic Ocean in 1906. When news of the Lazarus Project and Jeremiah Rice breaks, it ignites a media firestorm and massive protests by religious fundamentalists. Thrown together by circumstances beyond their control, Kate and Jeremiah grow closer. But the clock is ticking and Jeremiah's new life is slipping away. With Carthage planning to exploit Jeremiah while he can, Kate must decide how far she is willing to go to protect the man she has come to love. A gripping, poignant, and thoroughly original thriller, Stephen Kiernan's provocative debut novel raises disturbing questions about the very nature of life and humanity - man as a scientific subject, as a tabloid plaything, as a living being: A curiosity.
I don't know if any of you have payed attention to this before, but see that last paragraph, the one just before this one, I normally don't include those when I'm typing up the synopsis. Partly because I find it to be part of an opinion by someone who is not me, rather than being an actual part of the synopsis. And partly because, it's just too much typing for me. I already take up more than my share of blog space, so why add to your reading. Of course there are those who have claimed I'm lazy for not writing my own, but quite frankly, I think my thoughts belong in the review itself.
But I'm digressing, so let me get back to the point I was trying to make to begin with. The reason why I chose to include that last paragraph, was pretty damn simple. I won't go as far as saying it's a big fat lie, but I will say it's a little grandiose for what the book actually read to me. I'm not sure where the thriller part comes in, unless they are talking about the last few pages where Kate and Jeremiah are running away from the paparazzi. And while I may agree that the book does touch on the themes of medical ethics, faith, what it means to be alive, and the state of our media driven culture; I can't say as if they seemed to be overarching themes that the author was trying to explore. Instead the felt as if they were a small part of the story, a story of a man brought back to life and those around him who for various reasons are trying to exploit him in one way or another. And it's a story of two people, who despite the obvious differences find themselves connecting in ways they didn't see coming, nor fully act upon that connection.
I don't want you guys to think I'm critiquing the book, because I'm not. The book itself, despite a slow start, was an engaging read that once it got a hold of me, I was hooked. I fell in love with Jeremiah. Of all the characters in the book, he was the one that felt the most real to me. He is one of those characters that had I a huge Edwardian country home, he would be a frequent guest. He was a man who came of age in a period of time where everything was new, where his contemporaries were exploring far flung lands and new inventions seemed to spring up all over the place. His was a time of true human expansion and progress was achieved by brave men and women who put their blood, sweat, and tears into everything they did. He was one of the youngest district court judges in history, and his intellect is one to be admired. Add in the fact that he is gorgeous, kind, and a truly good person, and you almost have the perfect man. And despite all that, he never seemed to be the stereotypical romantic hero, there was something grounded and real about him as a character.
I could go on and on about Kate as well, but at this point in time, I think I'm taking up way too much of your time already. She is the perfect instrument for Jeremiah to see this new world through. She is a truly interesting character, that while I may not have fallen for her in the way I did Jeremiah, I was never bored when it was her turn to tell the story. She had her own voice, and it was one that I found myself respecting and in many ways admiring.
My love affair with the character ends there though. The other two characters who narrate this story are one dimensional bores that I could have done without. Dr. Carthage is what he is described to be in the synopsis. There really isn't much more to say about him, other than I felt as if the whole reference to his father felt a little forced and seemed a bit out of place. The sleazy reporter, was like Dr. Carthage, a one dimensional character that despite his good nature, I never liked, and I just wanted him to shut up. And it's in how we get to know these character that I think this book did have one major flaw.
The book is told, after the events are already over, from the viewpoints of those four characters. So while I may have loved half of the chapters, the other half were just flat out annoying to read. I think this story, and these characters, would have been served better by having the story told by a third person narrator. It would have allowed more page time for the two characters I loved, but wouldn't have fragmented the story itself in such a way that I found myself annoyed with certain chapters and truly enjoying others.
My last quibble, and then I promise to shut up, I've been trying to convince myself to be happy with the ending, and I just can't be. It felt a little rushed, and despite some of the differences Kate has made in her life by then, it just doesn't satisfy me. I can't tell you what I wanted, without telling you what didn't happen, so I'm sorry about that. I didn't hate the ending, but I think I could have liked it so much better had it been closed a bit differently, though I think the actual end result would have been the same. And now that I'm done talking in circles, and if you are still reading at this point, please take the time to get this book. I'm almost positive, and while I won't name names, I'm pretty sure I know which of you would fall for Jeremiah just as hard as I did.
I would like to thank Trisha of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read and review this book. Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.
The wonderful group at TLC Book Tours have generously offered my readers the chance to win a copy of this book for themselves. The giveaway will last until 11:59 pm, CST, on 7/20/13. You must be a resident of the United States to enter, and all you have to do is leave me a comment with your email address.
On a Boston street one warm spring day, Hazel and Remy spot each other for the first time in years. Under ordinary circumstances, this meeting might seem insignificant. But Remy, a gifted violinist, is married to the composer Nicholas Elko - once the love of Hazel's life. It has been twenty years since Remy, then an ambitious conservatory student; Nicholas, a wunderkind struggling with a masterwork he cannot fully realize; and his wife, the beautiful and fragile Hazel, first came together and tipped their collective world on it's axis. But as their entwined stories unfold from 1987 to 2007, from Europe to America, from conservatory life to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, each will discover the surprising ways in which the quest to create something real and true - be it a work of art or one's own life - can lead to the most personal of revelations, including the unearthing of secrets we keep, even from ourselves.
I'm a pretty picky reader. I know what I like, and I definitely know what I do not. I will rarely agree to read a historical fiction book, mainly because the misses have vastly outnumbered the home runs. The same goes for what some would consider family drama fiction. I know that's not the proper term for what I'm talking about, but I hope you get the point. It's that segment of literature that focuses on one family, normally over a extended period of time. The book will detail, sometimes in painful detail, their travails and successes. It will put their relationships, both internally and externally, under a microscope that can make a mote of dust look like HAT-P-1.
For whatever reason, I rarely ever get into this type of book. I'm not sure what it is, but I tend to find myself nodding off half way through a paragraph, drool running down my chin. The only reason I was interested in reading Sight Reading, was because of the author. I read Russian Winter by her back in 2011, and despite it being in a genre I normally don't like, I ended up really enjoying it. I figured it would be nice to see if lightning could strike twice. And while you normally don't want to get struck by lightning even once, I'm glad Daphne Kalotay was able to do it twice for me.
Where I would normally find such a story to be plodding and tedious, Daphne Kalotay is able to keep the pacing at a fairly decent rate, without sacrificing the story or the character development. There wasn't even a page or two where the story started to bog down and turn into molasses. Part of her talent lies in creating such wonderfully complex characters, that you fall in love with them so much, you don't really pay attention to the rate at which their lives are being altered or stuck in a rut. I may not be saying all of this that well, but I hope you get my meaning.
Not only was I not bored by the lives of Hazel, Remy, or Nicholas; I wanted more of it. I would have gladly read another few hundred pages of their lives as they revolved around each other and those close to them. I wanted to see what happened after the wedding. I want to be able to check in with them, years after the events in this book. I want to know that they will continue to evolve and keep together as what can only be described as a true family. I would love to be able to invite them over for tea. But since I can't, I'll settle for rereading this book at a later point in time.
I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this book. Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.
The wonderful group at TLC Book Tours have generously offered my readers the chance to win a copy of this book for themselves. The giveaway will last until 11:59 pm, CST, on 6/7/13. You must be a resident of the United States to enter, and all you have to do is leave me a comment with your email address.
In the summer of 1893 in Portland, Maine, police detective Archie Lean follows a trail of ashen footprints to the site of a dead body. the victim is horribly scorched, and ominous occult symbols mark the nearby walls. But what troubles Lean most is what he saw two days earlier: this same dead man being lowered into his grave without a burn mark on him. Perplexed by the diabolically staged scene, the brilliant criminalist Perceval Grey. Grey faces a mystery of his own when he agrees to a wealthy businessman's deathbed plea to locate his missing granddaughter. The dying man's kin resent Grey, a half Abenkai Indian, intruding into their affairs. They seem less interested in the vanished woman than in the recent theft of the thunderstone, a peculiar family heirloom marked with curious symbols. Phebe Webster, the sister of the missing heiress, complicates matters for Grey when she joins forces with him only to find her own life in danger. As the Webster family's shadowy history is revealed, the three mysteries intertwine to draw Lean and Grey into a maze of murder, deceit, and revenge. Each deadly new clue points toward an even greater puzzle that will pit Grey against a devious murderer in a race to decipher the thunderstone's riddle - and reveal a centuries-old secret that men will kill to possess.
So in the last review I posted, I was reminding myself about how I used to have this habit of getting involved in a series, not from the beginning, but from somewhere in the middle. I actually did it with the last book I reviewed for Crown, The Bedlam Detective. So it should come as no surprise to anyone, let along myself, that once again I'm reviewing a book that takes place after another one. And much like The Bedlam Detective, I'm finding myself a bit lost this time around.
I'm trying not to take anything away from A Study in Revenge, because the story itself, is terrific. What I struggled with, where the relationship between the characters. So much of what happened in the first book, is reflected in this one. I feel as if I started watching a movie halfway through. A movie I loved, but didn't fully get.
One day I will get around to reading the previous book, then maybe I will get why the librarian is so important or why the mysterious occult leader seems so bent on his diabolical, evil ways. I may even begin to understand the full connections between the two protagonists. It is definitely worth looking into, now I just need to find the time.
The wonderful group at Crown Publishers have generously offered my readers the chance to win a hardcover copy of this book for themselves. The giveaway will last until 11:59 pm, CST, on 5/27/13. You must be a resident of the United States to enter, and all you have to do is leave me a comment with your email address.
A young girl goes missing after getting into a car with a mysterious man. Soon after, a second girl disappears, and her devastated father, Witness, sets out to seek revenge. As the trail grows cold, Samantha - a new detective (and the only woman) with the Botswana police force - is reminded of a childhood friend who had gone missing, and she devotes herself to keeping the first case open. she suspects that the girl was killed for muti, the traditional African medicine usually derived from plants and sometimes animals. But recent evidence shows that human parts are being incorporated into certain potions to conjure up a supposedly more potent formula. Detective Kubu joins forces with Samantha to take the investigation to the next level. Meanwhile, Witness is convinced that his daughter, too, was murdered for muti - for a potion to ensure an election victory for opposition leader Marumo. On the night of Marumo's win, Witness waits outside the politician's home and murders him before fleeing town. Now Kubu and Samantha have yet another murder investigation on their hands, and the search of Marumo's home yields a sample of muti that confirms their worst fears: the formula includes traces of human DNA remains. Kubu and Samantha are thrust into a harrowing race to stop a serial killer or killers - and those who would pay for their special, lethal muti.
Back on Thursday, September 22, 2011, I was lamenting the fact that I found myself falling into a pattern. Back then I was agreeing to review books that sounded so good, I wouldn't do my diligent research into the book. Over and over again, I found myself agreeing to review a book that was actually in the middle of a series that I've never heard of before. On that day, I was reviewing Death of the Mantis, the book that precedes this one. Back then I was picking book after book, series after series, and none of them from the beginning. I said Death of the Mantis was worth the frustration,and it must have been since I was more than willing to read Deadly Harvest.
What I loved about the previous book, I still love with Deadly Harvest. Kubu is one of those detectives that I could sit down with over a huge platter of pasta, some good wine, and enjoy every moment of the conversation. He has a brain that is worthy of putting him amongst the best in the business, and one day I hope he will be considered one of them. The secondary characters, from Kubu's family to Samantha and the rest of the police force, are strong well written individuals that add so much to the overall story. Even the bad guys, and this time around, they are truly evil, are three dimensional nasty bits of work.
The mystery itself is one of those that pulls you in and never allows you to catch your breath or fully grasp the horrifying truth of what's been going on. The idea of men, women, and children being slaughtered for their body parts, to benefit someone else, is revolting. The fact that you can die because of your name, a name that someone else wants to harness for it supposed power, should scare the living daylights out of everyone who reads the events that take place in between the covers of Deadly Harvest. The name of the book itself lends itself to the horror of the depravity needed to justify such actions.
I don't know if I will ever have the time to go back and read the books that took place before Death of the Mantis, but I'm pretty sure I'll continue along with the series as it goes forward.
I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this book. Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.
The wonderful group at TLC Book Tours have generously offered my readers the chance to win a copy of this book for themselves. The giveaway will last until 11:59 pm, CST, on 5/25/13. You must be a resident of the United States to enter, and all you have to do is leave me a comment with your email address. Challenges: A-Z
On November 5, 1942, a U.S. cargo plane on a routine flight slammed into the Greenland ice cap. Four day later, a B-17 assigned to the search-and-rescue mission became lost in a blinding storm and also crashed. Miraculously, all nine men on the B-17 survived. With the weather worsening, the U.S. military launched a daring rescue mission, sending a Grumman Duck amphibious plane to find the men. After picking up on member of the B-17 crew, the Duck flew into a severe storm, and the plane and the three men aboard vanished. In this thrilling, true-life adventure, Mitchell Zuckoff offers a spellbinding account of these harrowing crashes and the fate of the survivors and their would be saviors. Full of evocative detail, Frozen in Time brings their extraordinary ordeal vividly into focus - a fight to stay alive and sane through 148 days of a brutal Arctic winter. Zuckoff takes us deep into the most hostile environment on earth and into the snow case and tail section of the broken B-17, where the airmen took refuge from subzero temperatures, hurricane-force winds, and vicious blizzards. He places us at the center of a group of valiant men kept alive by sporadic military food and supply drops until an expedition headed by the famed Arctic explorer Bernt Balchen attempts to bring them to safety. But that is only part of the story that unfold in Frozen in Time. Moving forward to today, Zuckoff recounts the efforts of the Coast Guard and North South Polar Inc., led by and indefatigable dreamer named Lou Sapienza, who worked for years to solve the mystery of the Duck's last flight and recover the remains of its crew.
Before I sat down to write my review of Frozen in Time, I went back to read the review I did of Lost in Shangri-La, the last book I read by Mitchell Zuckoff. Boy, did I like that book. I'm not sure I've given such a glowing review to another nonfiction book since I've started blogging. I droned on and on about how masterfully the author was able to not only bring the events alive, but to humanize the the men and women involved, making them feel three dimensional in ways most authors can't do with historical figures. I had paragraph after paragraph lauding the author's narrative voice, his attention to detail, and his ability to make history as easy to read as fiction. It would be far easier for me to cut/paste my review of Lost in Shangri-La, changes a few names around, and have the review over and done with. Since that's cheating, I won't do that.
What I do want to say is how much I appreciate books like this. There is so much of our history, heroic stories that seem to be forgotten in a rather short amount of time. They may capture the news of day, or even a month or two, but new events slowly force them back in time, into a miasma of obscurity that tends to swallow them whole. Rarely, and only after an untold amount of dedication brought to the story, do the men and women history forgot, get a chance to be remembered again. Zuckoff is brilliant at being able to pluck a instance of history and bring it back to life in all it's glory. He doesn't just tell the story, he makes his readers live the story along side those he is bringing back to life within the pages of his books.
Parts of me, felt every moment these men spent on the ice. I put myself in their shoes, and I honestly don't know that I'm man enough to fill them. What they went through, the physical and mental anguish brought forth by the circumstance they found themselves in could easily break most of the men I know. I gasped out loud as men who survived a plane crash onto a desolate Arctic wasteland, who survived for untold weeks upon the ice, succumbed to the dangers all around them. Whether they were plunged into the bottomless depths of an icy crevasse, or lost for over 70 years entombed in ice after a plane coming to rescue them, is lost to a storm, I can only imagine the anguish they most of felt, right before they slipped away. It's a horror I'll never feel, but it's a horror I can now sympathize with.
The way he weaves the three crash stories together, two of which are a direct result of the first, is seamless. There is a rhythm to the events and to his narrative that carries the reader along, never allowing them to get bogged down in confusion or apathy for what they are reading. When the narrative switches to the present, where he is not only finding himself personally, but financially as well, invested in the search for the doomed rescue plane, and it's three passengers, it fits in with the rest of the story. So often, there is a jarring sense of dislocation when a historical narrative jumps time periods, Zuckoff pulls if off perfectly.
One of his fellow explorers, as they were searching for the plane in Greenland, would ask Zuckoff how the book would end. I'm not sure this book has a proper ending, and given the circumstances of what he was writing about, I think that's appropriate. I'm looking forward to discovering the end, when it happens.
I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read and review this book. Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.
The wonderful group at TLC Book Tours have generously offered my readers the chance to win a copy of this book for themselves. The giveaway will last until 11:59 pm, CST, on 5/10/13. You must be a resident of the United States to enter, and all you have to do is leave me a comment with your email address.
Did you know that ants teach, earthworms make decisions, rats love to be tickled, and chimps grieve? Did you know that some dogs have thousand-word vocabularies and that birds practice songs in their sleep? That crows improvise tools, blue jays plan ahead, and moths remember living as caterpillars? Animal Wise takes us on a dazzling odyssey into the inner world of animals, from ants, elephants, and wolves to sharp-shooting archerfish and pods of dolphins that rumble like rival street gangs. With thirty years of experience covering the sciences, Morell uses her formidable gifts as a storyteller to transport us to field sites and laboratories around the world, introducing us to pioneering animal-cognition researchers and their surprisingly intelligent and sensitive subjects. She explores how this rapidly evolving, controversial field has only recently overturned old notions about why animals behave as they do. She probes the moral and ethical dilemmas of recognizing that even "lesser animals" have cognitive abilities such as memory, feelings, and self-awareness - traits that many in the twentieth century felt were unique to humans. By standing behaviorism on its head, Morell brings the world of nature brilliantly alive in a nuanced, deeply felt appreciation of the human-animal bond, and shares her admiration for the men and women who have simultaneously chipped away at what we think makes us distinctive while offering a glimpse of where our own abilities come from.
I think I was in the 4th or 5th grade when I was first introduced to Koko, the "talking" gorilla, and forever more the idea that all animals where more intelligent than they were being given credit for, capable of feeling emotions, and worthy of respect was firmly cemented into my brain. And though this has nothing to do with what this book tries to answer, I'm one of those that has always believed animals posses a "soul" as well. To this day, I can not go hunting, and after reading this book, I'm not sure I can go fishing ever again either.
But even before my falling in love with Koko, everyone made fun of my sensitivity when it came to animals. I could not watch a movie in which an animal was hurt or killed, without crying my eyes out. Even during an episode of Silver Spoons, I cried when they shot a deer they were hunting. Even though the screen said no animal has been hurt in the filming of this episode, I balled. And don't get my started on Old Yeller, Bambi, Marley & Me, and even the Planet of the Apes movie where they are back in our time and are shot going onto a ship. I cried so hard when those baby apes fell into the water. Even the old fashioned, caged zoos where off limits to me as a kid. I could not look at the animals, housed in cages smaller than my living room, without getting so upset that we would have to leave. Even as an adult, I will have the occasional nightmare of being kept in one of those zoos.
With all of that, it could have been conceivable for me to dedicate my life to proving that animals have minds and emotions of their own, and for a while I did think of becoming an oceanographer. But life took me in another direction, but my love for creatures around us never went away. Sadly, I'm not even one of those that has followed animal research with any real consistency. I would, like most of us, be fascinated by a new paper being published about the way a certain animal is able to create and use tools, how another has enough self awareness to recognize themselves in a mirror, or how another uses sex for relaxation; all of which we humans do as well. And while those instances would stick in my mind as important, I was always too busy to look into the subject further. So when the opportunity to review Animal Wise by Virginia Morell came up, I took it and couldn't wait to get my hands on it.
It's not an overly long book, from introduction to epilogue, it's around 268 pages. But the information the author brings to her readers makes the book feel like it should have been denser and harder to read. She has done a wonderful job in keeping the chapters short and informative. She knows how to edit her words and has a wonderful ability to give her reader the information in such a way, that casual readers of science or general nonfiction won't feel as if they are being lectured too in a college biology class.
Each chapter introduces us to a animal or group of animals; ants, fish (mainly archerfish), birds (mainly parrots), rats, elephants, dolphins, chimps, dogs, and wolves. She then introduces us to the scientists and researches who have dedicated their lives to figuring out what animals know, how they learn, what they mentally process, and even how they feel about each other, and in some cases how they feel about us.
Some of the information was surprising to me, especially the idea that fish not only feel pain, but may be mentally processing it, the same way we do. Hence the reason I'm not sure fishing will be in my future anytime soon. And some of the information, especially concerning how certain animals are self aware enough to understand what they are looking at in a mirror, or that they can pick out individual humans, was old information to me but I learned so much more about it. It was fascinating to be given behind the scenes information on how the researchers set up the experiments, and how those experiments produce information that twenty years ago would have been scoffed at.
While Animal Wise didn't fundamentally change my views on the animal kingdom, it did give me the affirmation and knowledge to know that the way I have felt when I look into the eyes of any animal, is based on hard science, even if I didn't know it at the time.
The wonderful group at Crown Publishers have generously offered my readers the chance to win a hardcover copy of this book for themselves. The giveaway will last until 11:59 pm, CST, on 4/27/13. You must be a resident of the United States to enter, and all you have to do is leave me a comment with your email address.
I recently had two giveaways, and I am delinquent in drawing the winners. I have no excuses, so all you will get are apologies. So with no further ado, the winners are.....
The winner of a hardcover copy of Born on a Mountaintop: On the Road With Davy Crockett and the Ghosts of the Wild Frontier is..... Emma of Words and Peace!
Pioneer. Congressman. Martyr of the Alamo. King of the Wild Frontier. As with all great legends, Davy Crockett's has been retold many times. Over the years, he has been repeatedly reinvented by historians and popular storytellers. In fact, one could argue that there are three distinct Crocketts: the real David as he was before he became famous; the celebrity politician whose backwoods image Crockett himself created, then lost control of; and the mythic Davy we know today. In the road-trip tradition of Sarah Vowell and Tony Horwitz, Bob Thompson follows Crockett's footsteps from his birthplace in east Tennessee; to Washington, where he served three terms in Congress; and on to Texas and the gates of the Alamo, seeking out those who know, love, and are still willing to fight over Davy's life and legacy.
I came to know and love Davy Crockett in about the same manner as everyone else my age, or even thirty years older than me. It was watching Fess Parker play Davy Crockett for Disney, that made me fall in love with the adventures he had, and the kind of man he was. Parker's Davy was daring, generous, fearless, and about every other positive adjective I can think of. I wanted to go on his adventures and grow into the man he was. He was almost godlike to me as a kid, and all I wanted was that damn coonskin cap. I don't think I ever got that hat, but I never lost that feeling of adventure and awe that Davy, through Parker, instilled in me.
I was such a huge fan that when I finally had enough points with the Disney Movie Rewards program, the very first thing I ordered was the Davy Crockett Two Movie Set on DVD. At that point in time, my son had never seen anything about or knew who Davy Crockett was. When we got it in the mail, we fired it up, and I introduced my son to one of my childhood heroes. There is just something so magical about the way Fess Parker played him, because it got my son hooked on him and he wanted to know all about Davy, Colonel Travis, Jim Bowie, and all the rest of the heroes who died in the Alamo. I actually had to explain to him that Davy, though he is single handily fighting off the Mexican soldiers at the end of the movie, died. My son though he lived and prevailed since the image faded to black. He couldn't believe that this man, who he had just met, could die. This was a few years ago, and while my son isn't as fascinated by him as he was then, he will occasionally put the movie in, and relive the adventures all over again.
For me, watching them with my son, it brought back all the magic. I fell in love all over again. Now my love for Davy has never made me go out and do my own research into his life. I did buy a few children's books for my son after we had watched the movies for the first time, but I was never compelled to go out and read about the man himself. I think part of me was scared that if I got to know the real Davy Crockett, that some of the magic would go away. Even as a kid, I understood that the Davy I knew, was more myth like than real. That he had been built up into some sort of a demigod; much like Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, Johnny Appleseed, or John Henry. He was a creation of fact and fiction, and I was worried that some of the fact would overshadow that myth.
It's that separation that Bob Thompson was trying to do in his book, Born on a Mountaintop: One the Road with Davy Crockett and the Ghosts of the Wild Frontier. Much like myself, he first discovered Davy through Fess Parker and Disney and rediscovered him through his kids. Unlike myself, he was curious enough to set out on a journey to try and discover the real Davy Crockett, who the man was behind the myth. What he found out is that sometimes, it's very hard to figure that out.
Our history books are not only full of facts and dates, but they include a fair amount of guesswork, myth building, and a even a tiny bit of fiction. Those boundaries seem to be even further blurred when is comes to Davy Crockett. So much of what we know, or think we know, is myth and reality combined into a rather tangled skein, difficult to comb out. Thompson, through interviews, talking with Davy addicted historians, visiting site and landmarks important to the life of Davy Crockett, and investigation some of the source material himself, tries to do some combing on his own. Oftentimes he discovers enough to make a solid decision on whether something is fact, fiction, or a blending of the two. Other times, he is left with having to make an educated assumption, understanding he may have it wrong.
I'm not sure we will ever know the complete factual details of Davy Crockett's life, nor do I think we need to. We need our heroes, our demigods, almost as much as the Greeks and Romans did. We need men and women to elevate to a higher plane, people we can look up to and celebrate. I'm not sure how much can actually be accomplished if we were able to bring them back down to Earth. I think it's best they are left up in the stratosphere, it gives us, and future generations an example of how to live our lives.
Born on a Mountaintop: On the Road with Davy Crockett and the Ghosts of the Wild Frontier gives us some of those missing facts, dispels some of the myths, but keeps the magic intact. Bob Thompson was able to create this wonderful balancing act of finding out the truth, what he could anyway, and keeping the myth whole. He didn't hurt the legend of Davy Crockett through this book, he made it stronger and brought more color to it. He kept Davy Crockett magical for me, but gave me more information about who the man actually was.
The wonderful group at Crown Publishers have generously offered my readers the chance to win a hardcover copy of this book for themselves. The giveaway will last until 11:59 pm, CST, on 4/11/13. You must be a resident of the United States to enter, and all you have to do is leave me a comment with your email address.
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