June 2024 Book Reports

Watership Down by Richard Adams - I was surprised to learn the author created this story for his daughters. Not only are female rabbits missing entirely until after the wandering rabbits establish a new warren (how did they think that would work?), but when the female rabbits appear, they generally aren't worth talking about or emulating. Mostly I found this book slow going. I listened on audiobook and eventually sped up the recording to finish it more quickly. (Audible audiobook)

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro - I could read Ishiguro all day long. His ability to write so beautifully and yet with such dramatically different voices in all his novels amazes me. First Daughter bought this one for an honors level history course she took at a local university. They discussed it within their conversations about how not only to resolve violent conflicts in communities, but to live together peacefully after the conflict. What does forgiveness look like? How do people find a way forward without rewriting or erasing the past? (First Daughter's copy)

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson - A lonely woman writes to a prominent person at a museum. He has passed away, but a current employee responds. They soon begin a more intimate correspondence. I enjoyed it, but was disappointed in the portrayal of marriage. (purchased used)

Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi - This novel weaves together the stories of three generations of inter-related families in Oman. I really enjoyed an introduction to the history and culture of country previously unknown to me. (purchased used)

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard - I read this with my book club. I enjoyed it much more than I did just two years ago. You can read my original review here. (received from a fellow member of PaperBackSwap.com)

I have received nothing in exchange for this post. Links to Amazon and Bookshop are affiliate links.

March 2024 Book Reports

The Art of Conflict Management: Achieving Solutions for Life, Work, and Beyond by Michael Dues (Great Courses audio lecture series) - When First Daughter and I met for lunch with a local lawyer to learn about law school and law careers, the lawyer recommended learning conflict management skills. I found this series of recorded lectures from the Great Books program to add to her civics course. The 24 lectures cover a wide range of strategies for understanding conflict and communicating within relationships (or as a mediator) to find win-win solutions. I personally found it helpful in my own relationships and thought it was a great addition to the civics course. (purchased audiobook)

A Severe Mercy: A Story of Faith, Tragedy, and Triumph by Sheldon Vanauken - I read this with my book club. It was my second time reading the book, and I still didn't like it. Vanauken writes of the tragic loss of his young wife to illness after their conversion to Christianity, a conversion he didn't experience fully until after her death. More than anything, I think their love was flawed from the beginning when they decided children would come between them, so they wouldn't have any (though I acknowledge that decision might have changed after they became Christians if Davy hadn't already been suffering from her long illness). I guess it seems like the book is inward focused rather than other-focused, which is odd for me for such a *Christian* book. My favorite part is the afterward in which the author reveals Davy gave a baby up for adoption before their marriage. It completely changed my perspective on Davy and made me wish to understand her better from her own point of view, rather than her husband's. Overall, I think there are better books exploring the meaning of our faith in the face of suffering. (purchased copy) 

Two in the Far North by Margaret E. Murie - Murie was the first female graduate of the University of Alaska in 1924. She married a biologist, Olaus Murie, and together they worked and traveled in the wilds of Alaska. In later years, they traveled all over the world. In this book, she writes lovingly of their adventures in Alaska and the wilderness. Sometimes she and her husband traveled and worked alone; other times with colleagues and even their children. I am not an adventurous woman, but I love to read these kinds of adventures. Murie's describes the natural world with joy and a great thankfulness to be a part of it, even when they struggled. This is a classic of the conservation movement. (an older edition from PaperBackSwap.com)

What the River Knows by Isabel Ibanez - This historical fantasy romance was recommended in a local book group I follow just when I was looking for a light read for between book club books, so I requested it from the library. A young woman travels to Egypt after hearing of her parents' tragic deaths and ends up attacked by those who seek to pillage Egypt of its ancient treasures. Honestly, I found the writing painful, the plot convoluted, and the characters uneven. I suffered through the book to give myself closure, only to be disappointed because the author is planning a sequel (or a series). (library book)

Transforming Your Life through the Eucharist by John A. Kane - I have recommended this a number of times since I first read it. I didn't find it quite as striking the second time through, but it's still a good solid book on the Eucharist. (purchased copy)

I have received nothing in exchange for this post. Links to Amazon, Bookshop, and PaperBackSwap are affiliate links.

April 2023 Book Reports

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines - This was one of my book club books, and one of my favorites for the year. It revealed a world I didn't know in a beautiful way. I would like to read more books by the author. (purchased used)

Winter Holiday by Arthur Ransome - This is the fourth book in the Swallows and Amazons series and my absolute favorite so far. The children from the first three books are joined by a Dorothea and Dick Callum, who blend right in with the world of adventure and imagination. They spend the whole winter vacation planning a race to the Pole. It's almost ruined by an extended illness, but instead ends with more excitement than anyone expected. I was delighted! (purchased copy)

Persuasion by Jane Austen - It had been years since I last read Persuasion, so I decided to join in when the Close Reads podcast read and discussed it, though of course I was still a few months behind. Anne Elliot is Austen's most mature protagonist, and one of my favorites. Her quiet consideration of others is an inspiration. Frederick Wentworth is a bit of a fool, but he's my favorite love-interest in Austen's books. He admits when he's wrong, and he's willing to do what is right even when it's hard. As a side note, I own and read the Clothbound Classic copy linked. It's gorgeous, but be warned that the design on the covers comes off when the books are handled. When, for example, you are reading them. I don't mind, because it shows they've been read and loved, but I wasn't prepared for it. (received as a gift)

The Doctor's Sweetheart and Other Stories by L.M. Montgomery - This was a continuation of my reading of books off my shelf that I thought would be light and enjoyable. (It was a tough spring.) I hadn't read this since I was very young. It was fun to revisit the stories, most of which I'd forgotten. (received from a member of PaperBackSwap)

What Are Christians For?: Life Together at the End of the World by Jake Meador - link to my post (purchased copy)

The Peacock Spring by Rumer Godden - This is another Godden book set in India, concerning a young woman who believes she finds love. It's a book of thwarted love, abandonment, and suffering, though beautifully written. Some older teens might appreciate it. (received from a member of PaperBackSwap)

Eragon by Christopher Paolini - Second Son chose this series for me when I asked him his favorite book. This is the first of four in a series (with a fifth recently added in a later story arc and another book of short stories). Eragon finds a dragon egg and is catapulted into the heart of his world's events. I enjoyed this book, but at one point I thought to myself, "It almost seems like a teenaged boy wrote this." Then I found out, a teenaged boy did write it. He benefited greatly from an editor after his family had first self-published it. (Later books in the series improved.) There are elements of all the great dragon and magical stories - Narnia and Lord of the Rings, for example - but Paolini creates characters that aren't always good, though they want to be, and who are willing to sacrifice their safety and happiness for the good of...Good. Read them all. (First Daughter's purchased copy)

The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat - This is a middle grade novel of mystery and adventure. A young girl must shape her own future and decide what she's willing to sacrifice for what she believes is right. Highly recommended. (library copy)

The Nursery by Szilvia Molnar - A new mother descends into post-partum depression and struggles to resurface. This book is disturbing in all the ways it should be and confusing for the reader (as it must be for a new mother in this situation). I'm not sure I enjoyed it exactly, but I think there are benefits to reading books like this, an important reminder to be compassionate and supportive for new families and new parents. Not recommended if you are currently pregnant or nursing a baby. (library copy)

I have received nothing in exchange for this post. Links to Amazon, Bookshop, and PaperBackSwap are affiliate links.

Navigating Life: The Sun Is a Compass

The Sun is a Compass: A 4,000-Mile Journey into the Alaskan Wilds 
by Caroline Van Hemert

Caroline Van Hemert is a scientist and adventurer. As she finished her doctoral dissertation, she and her husband planned a journey through the Alaskan wilderness. As she traveled, she hoped to rediscover her love of the natural world that first lured her into science and to envision the life she and her husband would create for themselves at this time of transition.

Seeing a gray-headed chickadee is special not because its feathers shimmer with iridescence of because it has just arrived from Polynesia but because almost nothing is known about these tiny birds. If I hadn't been paying attention, if I hadn't tuned my ears to the patter of wings and the echo of silence, I would have missed it entirely. (p. 14)

Dr. Van Hemert mentioned studying writing before beginning her biology graduate work, and her words are often thrilling and enthralling. She writes of her first introduction to fieldwork in Alaska.

They flew so close to one another that, for a moment, I couldn't see the sky above me. As they came directly overhead, I ducked. When I looked up again, the palette of colors--white wings against blue sky, ray rock against green water--left me gasping for breath. (p. 26)

Though her parents had spent years sending their children outside, camping, skiing, and exploring their home state of Alaska, her field work transformed her attitude.

For the first time, I saw the natural world not through textbooks but through my own eyes. I began to understand how ecological questions I'd learned about in school were embedded in the muddy, messy realities of fieldwork, and I loved it. (p. 27)

Cue poetic knowledge, though most of us probably don't imagine tents, camp stoves, rain, snow, and lots of guano when we think of the term. A recurring theme in the book is the contrast between fieldwork and laboratory work in modern science. Time in the laboratory is the norm for scientists, but Dr. Van Hemert obviously has fallen in love with the natural world, not with the laboratory. She writes of the early naturalist and indigenous people who learned to observe the natural world, that by watching and listening, they were able to learn about the seasons, plants, animals, and birds. Today's scientist, however, uses more equipment and laboratory tests than observation to advance knowledge.

Science has gone the way of most other things in our digital world. High-tech, computer-centric, and data-hungry. As a result, we know much more than we used to. But we also spend much less time as observers. Wandering through the woods with only a backpack, a notebook, and a pair of binoculars has become a novelty, rather than a necessity, for many biologists. (pp. 125-126) 

This book reminded me of the generous gift we provide in nature study, the habit of walking through the natural world and paying attention to it. Dr. Van Hemert fell in love with birds and being outside with them. Her love of them led to advanced study in biology, because she wanted to understand and protect them, but that very study pulled her away from time immersed in their wild world. It's a tension every biologist and naturalist will recognize.

We tend to think the days of crossing the arctic on skis are over, but they're not! Few make the attempt, and it's no less difficult than in early days of exploring.

In this transition zone, where spring is nudging out winter, there is no perfect way to travel--too much snow for hiking and too little for skiing. The river flows through a narrow slot canyon choked with ice, making paddling impossible. We clamber over logs and across fields of pine needles and crispy brown ferns, skis dangling from our feet like useless appendages. Sweating and straining, we cover less than a mile in two hours.

If you're traveling by ski and boat, you run many great risks, even with air-dropped supplies. More than once, they escape real danger or barely avoid starvation. There are many times they escape death through quick action or luck. The water, the mountains, the bears, the hunger...they all present very real dangers.

As a mother with daughters, I paid close attention to Dr. Van Hemert's conversations with herself about the possibility of having children. A baby would limit their freedom to explore, but her sister and others reveal some of the great joys of children.

If parenthood inspires the sort of bond I feel with them [her parents] right now, even from a distance, maybe my sister is right. Maybe having a child matters more than battling brush and postholing through last season's snow. Maybe family trumps wilderness. Or perhaps these pieces--made of illness and love and birth and death--are inextricably linked, tangled and messy like the green stalks of alder that grow on every hillside. (p. 155)

The book itself doesn't give a final answer except in the epilogue, which describes their first backpacking trip with a ten week old son. It's different, but enchanting.

I knew a baby would change our lives. What I hadn't realized is that this doesn't mean we must let go of what we love. Only now do I see that my worries about losing myself, or us, or our desire for adventure, were misplaced...We will continue to navigate by the only means we know: one stroke, one footfall, one moment at a time. (p. 293)

If you're interested in dangerous adventures like hiking through the Arctic, this book will give you an excellent idea of what that will be like, and perhaps some tips on the planning and preparation. If you know me in real life, you know this is far more ambitious than anything I'd even consider. It doesn't sound fun or worthwhile in the least. But I love reading about adventures like this one. I'm completely content to live vicariously through Caroline Van Hemert and others who share their tales in books I can drink while sipping tea at my kitchen table.

This book is about a crazy journey through Alaskan wilderness, but it is also about finding wonder in the natural world, balancing self and others, and learning how to make a life as a family.

I will include this in our list of possible high school North American geography books. It's definitely best for a more mature reader as the author writes about traveling and living with her husband before they were married, even as the author asks herself what their future as a couple will be. She also occasionally mentions times when they are intimate. These instances are sometimes a little more descriptive than I may prefer for my teenagers, but there's nothing explicit.

I have received nothing in exchange for this post. Links to Amazon and Bookshop are affiliate links. I checked this book out from our library.

Africa from Above: West with the Night

West with the Night

by Beryl Markham

Beryl Markharm moved to Africa with her father when she was very young. Her memoir, West with the Night, is centered on her experiences as a pilot, one of the first in Africa, let alone one of the first female ones. The book is episodic, sharing memories of flying as a young woman, hunting as a young girl, training horses at the racetrack. Hers was an unconventional life.

The writing is magnificent. Of Africa, she wrote:

It is still the host of all my darkest fears, the cradle of all mysteries always intriguing, but never wholly solved. It is the remembrance of sunlight and green hills, cool water and the yellow warmth of bright mornings. It is as ruthless as any sea, more uncompromising than its own deserts. It is without temperance in its harshness or in its favours. It yields nothing, offering much to men of all races.

While once visiting a neighbor, she was attacked by their pet lion.

The sound of Paddy's roar in my ears will only be duplicated, I think, when the doors of hell slip their wobbly hinges, one day, and give voice and authenticity to the whole panorama of Dante's poetic nightmares. It was an immense roar that encompassed the world and dissolved me in it.

While some readers may be disturbed by the story, Beryl seems to have forgiven the lion.

Beryl speaks eloquently and, compared to many of her British contemporaries in Africa, respectfully of the Africans. She describes a Kikuyu dance:

They sang in voices that were so much a part of Africa, so quick to blend with the night and the tranquil veldt and the labyrinths of forest that made their background, that the music seemed without sound. It was like a voice upon another voice, each of the same timbre.

She scouted for elephants by plane for people who wanted to hunt them. In the book, she never directly addresses the morality of elephant hunting, which of course was legal in her time. She does hint at it's foolishness.

The essence of elephant-hunting is discomfort in such lavish proportions that only the wealthy can afford it. 

The writing blends humor amongst the beauty. For example, she relates how she and a friend were waylaid by Italian officials on a flight from East Africa to England, back at a time when frequent stops were required and you couldn't just avoid troublesome areas.

Minutes had begun to accumulate into an hour before still another machine arrived, complete with side-car, and out of which popped an officer draped in a long blue cloak that bore enough medals to afford about the same protection, during the heat of battle, as a bullet-proof vest. 

The book isn't a biography; it's a meandering memoir that touches only on the aspects Beryl wanted to share. The lack of personal details is an advantage for those of us who might be interested in a book set in Africa for high schoolers as her personal life was...let's say a bit shocking. It's rambling nature centers mostly on Africa and flying in Africa, but her transatlantic flight is the culmination though without a strong connection to the rest of the book.

For our Africa study in tenth grade (Level 5 Year 2 in the Mater Amabilis™ curriculum), I assigned Four Years in Paradise as our travel/adventure book. Then I gave First Son some options for his supplemental geography reading. For the first time, he could choose between:

• The Flame Trees of Thika
• Out of Africa
• In Ethiopia with a Mule

I will add West with the Night to that list for First Daughter. I think she'd find this book more adventurous than the first two and more light-hearted than the third. (Second term reading is Things Fall Apart; third term is Cry, the Beloved Country.)

I have received nothing in exchange for this honest post. The Amazon links are affiliate links. I first checked this book out from the library and then requested a copy of our own from PaperBackSwap.com (affiliate link).

Beauty, Adventure, and a Connection to Kansas: Four Years in Paradise

Four Years in Paradise

by Osa Johnson

Osa Johnson is one of my personal heroes. Kansas Dad finds this enormously amusing since (as he says) the only thing we have in common is that we are both white women who lived in Kansas. She married Martin Johnson and travelled the wild Pacific Southwest islands and Africa in the 1930s. She and her husband were photography and videography pioneers. Among other accomplishments, they created the first silent films of the wildlife on the plains of the African Serengeti. Spoiled by modern documentaries, it's impossible for us to imagine how people felt watching herds of elephants, giraffes, and antelopes leaping across a screen. There is a small but fantastic museum dedicated to Martin and Osa Johnson in her hometown of Chanute, Kansas.

This coming school year, First Son will be exploring Africa in his tenth grade geography course. The high school beta plans from Mater Amabilis™ recommend The Flame Trees of Thika for the Travel/Adventure book of Africa, which I read earlier this year. It was lovely and there wasn't really a reason to choose anything else...except...I kept feeling like it wasn't exactly what I wanted. After a while, I realized what I wanted was a book about the Johnsons. I glanced through the options from our library and then read Four Years in Paradise. In it, Osa describes, in a wandering kind of manner, their experiences living in Kenya, near what they called Lake Paradise, filming and photographing the life of Africa.

We were attempting what all but a few regarded as fantastic and impossible, to make an authentic film record of vanishing wild life as it existed in its last and greatest stronghold. And if in some over-civilized future, cities should crowd out the elephants and wars should bomb the giraffes from the plains and the baboons from the treetops, our films would stand--a record for posterity.

Like every European or American in Africa in the 1920s and 1930s, Osa and Martin Johnson brought their own prejudices. Throughout the book, they refer to the African men who worked for them as "boys." Mrs. Johnson often writes disparagingly of their work ethic, though it's clear she respected some of them tremendously. She also sometimes writes about the Africans' natural "savage" state and compares them to children. These kinds of attitudes are pervasive and simply have to be addressed.

Over the years, Mrs. Johnson built a home in the forest complete with garden and multi-course meals every evening. But she also fished and hunted for their meals and protected her husband by covering fire when necessary as he filmed the more dangerous wildlife like lions, elephants, and rhinos.

Below us stood a big bull elephant, knee deep in a pool. He was the very picture of drowsy contentment. Save for the slow swinging of his trunk and the languid fanning of his huge ears, he was almost motionless. His bath was built of great rocks, covered over with beautiful lichen and mosses, green and gray and rusty-red. Floating on the water were large blue and white water lilies. The pool was shaded by magnificent trees festooned with silvery moss. Thousands of butterflies--blue, yellow and white--fluttered around the animal.

First Son will probably not be very interested in the handful of recipes included in the book, but there are plenty of exciting and fascinating stories, revealing the richness of the Johnsons' lives in Africa.

"Life is just too short," Martin went on. "It's a pity we can't live five hundred years with so much beauty to enjoy and so much work to accomplish."

I first borrowed this book from the library. I tried to find a copy to purchase like theirs, in hardcover with photographs, but ended up with one on slightly thinner paper. I hope it lasts through all the kids reading it. As a bonus, it is autographed by Osa Johnson. I linked to a recent paperback version above, but I am not sure it includes the photographs which are a wonderful addition to the text.

I have received nothing in exchange for this post. All opinions are my own. I borrowed this book from the library and then purchased a used copy online. Links above to Amazon are affiliate links.

Adventure and Archaeology: Turn Right at Machu Picchu

Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time 

by Mark Adams

After spending half a career editing travel and adventure articles, Adams quits his job and spends months hiking around Peru guided by an Australian remarkably like Crocodile Dundee. Those of us more confined to the States can travel along with this marvelous memoir. Archaeology, history, culture, nature...all humorously intertwined. If I were looking for a book on Incas and Peru for South American geography for a high school aged-son (as I will in a few years), this is perfect. It's on our list.

Peru's borders contain some of the world's most varied topography and climate. Measured in square miles, the country is not especially large. on a globe it looks like a swollen California. Within that space, though, are twenty-thousand-foot peaks, the world's deepest canyon (twice as deep as the Grand Canyon), unmapped Amazon jungle and the driest desert on earth....Scientists have calculated that there are thirty-four types of climatic zones on the face of the earth. Peru has twenty of them.

One of my goals for our high school geography course is to present my students with books and articles that challenge a Eurocentric viewpoint (which we cultivate in our history studies), reveal current life in non-Western countries, and explore the relationship between the past and the present in a way that allows them to appreciate God's presence in lives around the world and throughout time. While probably impossible to do perfectly, the attempt is worthwhile. Adams's book captures much of the attitude I am seeking. While respectful of Incan heritage, Adams presents a balanced view.

Today, perhaps because Machu Picchu is so popular among the spiritually inclined, the Incas are sometimes portrayed as a peaceful race who graciously invited neighboring tribes to join their thriving territorial conglomerate. In reality, they could be as brutal as the conquistadors.

Because Adams shapes his journeys around those of Hiram Bingham III, the relationship between Incas and those who came after (whether from Europe or America) is woven throughout the book. Adams respects the skills of the Incas, both those of the architects and those of the builders.

Up to now I had been thinking of these places as Bingham had when first starting out, as self-contained lost cities and holy sites, akin to abandoned medieval villages and churches. Trails were just lines on a map connecting the dots. But if John was right, the Incas had seen things very differently. These sites and trails were more like organs and vessels, the circulatory system in a living body.

Later:

The stonework at Machu Picchu is just the most conspicuous aspects of its brilliance. The citadel is also, in the words of the hydrologist Kenneth Wright, "a civil engineering marvel." Someone had to have made the climb up to the ridge around 1450 A.D. -- historians' best guess -- and decided that this remote saddle between two jagged peaks, with dizzying drops on two sides, could be cleared, leveled and made suitable for habitation and agriculture.

Be aware there are mentions of coca use, overindulgence in alcohol, and some swearing.

Adams appears to be a fallen-away Catholic, not denouncing the faith, but seemingly disregarding it. There are a few shocking revelations that may surprise young Catholics.

(Colonial fun fact: after Columbus returned home to report his discovery, Pope Alexander VI briefly set aside fathering children with his various mistresses to issue a papal bull dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal--which is one reason that most South Americans speak Spanish, but Brazilians speak Portuguese.)

This sort of flippancy is not false, but would need to be placed within the context of a study of church history (something Mater Amabilis™ does well). There are similar comments about the missionary family which raised Hiram Bingham III.

There's little flowery language here. When Adams wants to describe a natural scene of tremendous beauty, he uses a superlative adjective and moves on.

In Kant's epistemology, it means something limitless, an aesthetically pleasing entity so huge that it made the perceiver's head hurt. Machu Picchu isn't just beautiful, it's sublime.

What he lacks in poetics, he balances in sensible assessments of history, his own humility, and respect for the relationships between people and the environment. His experiences also encourage us to take time to really explore our world.

I have received nothing for this post; all opinions are my own. I checked this book out from the library. Amazon links above are affiliate links.