Seaworthy

Adrift with William Willis in the Golden Age of Rafting
by T.R. Pearson

I thought this book looked interesting because it's about a man who followed close on the heels of the Kon-Tiki expedition. Twenty years after Heyerdahl's famous voyage, William Willis, a part-time sailor and aspiring author, decided to attempt his own ocean crossing on a raft. There were several stark differences in this trip, namely that Willis designed the raft himself (and not very well), went solo (unless you count the cat and parrot) and was sixty years old. He wasn't out to prove any points about navigation or history, but to seek an experience, to test himself against the elements in the most extreme way possible (rather like Into the Wild, I thought). He deliberately skimped on some planning and supplies, ate a very restricted diet (of mainly rye flour, raw sugar and fish) and was full of a ludicrously optimistic attitude, in spite of his journey being a series of disasters. It's a miracle he made it across alive. I kept thinking, this guy is asking for hardship: why? By the end of the book I was no closer to an explanation- he had a decidedly different outlook on life, and a nearly insane desire to continue doing ocean crossings on cheaply built, poorly designed rafts.

Seaworthy wasn't quite what I expected. In the first place, it's not- as both the back cover copy and flyleaf claim- just about Willis, but also spotlights several other men who made similar hairbrained attempts to raft across the ocean, with various degrees of success. One man went in a small rubber boat, seeking to create shipwreck conditions and prove what man could survive. Other trips were organized with more proper crews- four or five men- and better-built rafts, but with crazy ideas of what they were trying to prove, with poor supplies, with mutiny on board. Along the way they're all compared to the more successful and well-known Kon-Tiki. And then Willis himself made four more attempts, the last one when he was seventy-four! I could not believe the depravation and suffering this man intentionally put himself through. He drank salt water. He fought off sharks. He had two hernias and went on voyages anyways, refusing medical treatment. There was no end of astonishments in this book for me.

Another one for the Non-Fiction Five challenge.

Rating: 3/5 ....... 280 pages, 2006

Meme: Unread

from Booking Through Thursday:

So here today I present to you an Unread Books Challenge. Give me the list or take a picture of all the books you have stacked on your bedside table, hidden under the bed or standing in your shelf – the books you have not read, but keep meaning to. The books that begin to weigh on your mind. The books that make you cover your ears in conversation and say, ‘No! Don’t give me another book to read! I can’t finish the ones I have!’

You must have read my mind, BTT. I really wasn't going to post again today, but I was already planning to take stock of the remaining piles after my challenge-progress evaluation earlier this morning. I rearranged all my books so that the unread ones are in, on or around my bedside shelf. It's overwhelming! The ones I'm planning on reading next, for various current and upcoming challenges, are stacked on top. I have 132 total unread books, and if you want to see what they all are, the list is on Library Thing. Hm, even though I feel I've read a lot of books since the last post, I don't feel like I've made much progress... somehow more books come in than go out...

challenges...

It's time to take stock of my reading challenges- this is the first year I've participated in any, and I've really been enjoying it. I've been feeling a lot more motivated to read through my TBR piles (which means, sadly, less visits to the public library right now, but I know I'll be haunting stacks there again sooner or later).

Well, about five months ago I signed up for three challenges. I won't list all the titles here, because I'm going to do a wrap-up post when I finish each one, but here's a little note on my progress:

9 for '09 Challenge- I only have one book left to read for this- the long one. I gave up on Quicksilver, but am going to attempt to read America's Women (556 pages) and if I can't make it through that one, Irving Stone's The Origin (765 pages). The Stone book may look more daunting because it's longer- but it might be an easier read, being fiction.

Non-Fiction Five Challenge- I read four of my original picks, and gave up on one. That leaves me with one more book to choose, but I realized recently that I actually started too early- the challenge began in May but I read The Other End of the Leash in April. So maybe I'll pick two more. On my shelf I have Seaworthy, a book about another guy who tried to duplicate the Kon-Tiki adventure -only solo- across the ocean, and Splendid Solution, about the discovery of the polio vaccine. They both look really interesting.

2009 TBR Challenge- I've read eight off my original list, gave up on three and am slowly getting through Living to Tell the Tale right now. Not sure I'm going to finish that one; so I have some from my alternate list ready at hand: The Burn Journals, Dust Bowl Diary, And Then We Came to the End, Maggie-Now, The Horse's Mouth, Of Human Bondage...

And when those are all done, I think I'm going to sign up for the What An Animal II challenge, because you know me, I always love reading animal books!

Celebrating the Wild Mushroom

A Passionate Quest
by Sara Ann Friedman

This book is just what it says: a celebration of wild mushrooms. Its author describes in easy, flowing prose how she gradually became more and more fascinated with wild mushrooms- searching for them, collecting them, studying them and eating them. She describes various hunts for mushrooms in all different seasons, across the country, alone, in small groups of friends or in large organized forays. I never thought about mushroom-lovers having conventions, but they do! Friedman attends as an amateur and passionate mushroom hunter, rubbing shoulders with college professors who specialize in mushrooms, and eager students constantly asking "what's this one?" People who just want to paint mushrooms, or photograph them. People who are interested in wild mushrooms as culinary art, others who are fascinated by the puzzle of identifying them- there are thousands of species, and apparently no two books or field guides agree on their taxonomy or nomenclature. And of course, people who are interested in their hallucinogenic properties. Celebrating the Wild Mushroom explores all aspects of the fungi- how it has been alternately feared, loathed or practically worshiped in times past. The mysteries of its growth, the puzzles of its properties. Did you know that some mushrooms taste like chicken, or fruit? That some smell like cholorine, or burnt rubber, or fish? From the accounts of a few people who tried to subsist on mushrooms alone for a period of days, Friedman learned that mushrooms have little nutritional value- yet their flavors and textures can be delectable. Personally I like mushrooms, but I'm not crazy about them. Even though she gives a little mini field guide (with recipes) in the back of the book, I'd never be bold enough to try and eat a fungus picked off my neighbor's lawn, or dug from the leaves under a tree. But this book is so intriguing, because mushrooms are curious and fantastic things- not plant, not animal, but an entity all their own.

The only other place I've read about mushrooms before was in The Omnivore's Dilemma, but it only gets a small section there. I read this book as part of the TBR Challenge.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 265 pages, 1986

wondrous words

for this week, my new words came from reading Living to Tell the Tale:

Rarefy- "He had a power of evocation so intense that each thing he recounted seemed to become visible in the room rarefied by heat."
Definition: to purify or refine

Tutelary- "The two tutelary almond trees that for years had been an unequivocal sign of identity had been cut down to the roots and the house left exposed to the elements."
Definition: one that serves as guardian or protector

Shirred- "Recent generations do not seem moved by that princess with the shirred skirts, little white boots, and a braid hanging down to her waist..."
Definition: cloth gathered into decorative rows by parallel stitches

Tertian- "She had spent an uncertain childhood plagued by tertian fevers..."
Definition: recurring every other day, or every third day

Parvenu- "The majority of adults, however, viewed Luisa Santiaga as the precious jewel of a rich and powerful family whom a parvenu telegraph operator was courting not for love but self-interest."
Definition: a person newly risen to a higher social position who is lacks the culture or education of that status

Obdurate- "... he expressed his heartfelt certainty that there was no human power capable of overcoming this obdurate love."
Definition: obstinate, hardhearted

and from Celebrating the Wild Mushroom:

Mycologist- "The squadron leader is Kent McKnight, a highly respected professional mycologist who works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture."
Definition: a botanist who specializes in the study of fungi

Umbonate, Fibrillose- "I knew immediately when a cap was striated or fibrillose, whether it was bell-shaped or umbonate."
U: having a knob or knob-like protuberance
F: covered evenly with small, threadlike fibers

Glabrous, Viscid- "Is it glabrous or viscid?"
G: smooth, having no hairs or projections
V: having a sticky or clammy coating

Amyloid- "They are all pale yellow- to brown-capped, are amyloid, and posses a ring and a bulbous base."
Definition: a starchlike substance

Balkanized- "Even within the genera, rules change from year to year, as old characteristics are reevaluated and new ones discovered; whole groups of mushrooms are balkanized while others are unified."
Definition: a territory or region divided into small, hostile states

Mycophogist- "For mycophagists, they are a pleasant dream, and it matters not at all what they are called."
Definition: a person (or animal) who eats fungi

Tomentose- "He goes outside and returns with his tennis racket covered with a magnificent array of chestnut-capped boletes in perfect condition, their pale pink pores firm, their thick, white, slightly tomentose stipes solid enough to walk on."
Definition: covered with short, dense matted hairs

Saprophyte- "There are still thousands of varieties out there doing their job, acting as saprophytes or trading nutrients with trees and shrubs."
Definition: a living organism that absorbs its nourishment from dead organic matter

Duxelle- "... with a little care you will have a full winter supply of ingredients for stews and ragouts, quiches, duxelles and omelettes."
Definition: a finely chopped mix of mushrooms, shallots, herbs and onions sauteed in wine

Duff- "As with so many other mushrooms, the first one is the hardest to spot, and more often than not a little digging among the pine duff will produce more..."
Definition: decaying leaves and branches on the forest floor

Find more wondrous words at the host of this meme, Bermudaonion's Weblog

bookmark giveaway!

Winner of the giraffe bookmark is: Lezlie from one of my favorite blogs, Books 'n Border Collies. Hey, Lezlie, email me your address and I'll mail you a giraffe!

Next giveaway is for this rooster bookmark, edged with a bold green ribbon. It's a bit smaller than the others, 2 x 6", not counting the tassel. If you'd like to enter to win, just leave your name in the comments! Contest closes next tuesday, 7/14.

Gentle Gorilla

The Story of Patty Cake
by Susan Green

I've read many books over the years on great apes- chimpanzees and gorillas- marveling at their social intelligence and abilities. This is the book that began it all, back one day as a teen browsing the public library. I'd never had much interest in gorillas before, and didn't know much about them. I saw this title and stopped short. I thought gentle? How could a gorilla be gentle? So I read the book. And read it again. Probably four times over the years. It's an interesting, thoughtful and touching story.

Gentle Gorilla began as an artist's journal. Susan Green visited the Central Park Zoo daily to sketch the animals, and one of her favorite places was in the Lion House, where the gorillas were. She was such a regular visitor the animals came to accept her, and the keepers permitted her to stay when other zoo-goers were denied admittance. Green was present when the female gorilla Lulu surprised everyone with the birth of a baby, named Patty Cake. She spent hours at the zoo watching the gorilla family- Lulu, Patty Cake and the father, Kongo- observing their interactions, feeling part of their joys and sorrows. This was back in the seventies, when the animals still lived in bare, concrete cages. One of the things that I liked most about the story was seeing how the animals would express their curiosity or find things to entertain themselves with, even in a rather barren environment. I remember one scene in particular where Lulu had a bunch of beets and instead of eating them, rubbed them against the floor to leave red marks... It's a lovely book, and if you haven't read anything about gorillas, I'd recommend this as a start.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 303 pages, 1978

Beast

by Donna Jo Napoli

This is Beauty and the Beast retold from the Beast's point of view. In Napoli's story, the Beast was originally a Muslim prince from Persia, who angered a fairy when he failed to make a ritual sacrifice properly. As punishment, he was turned into a lion, one of several recently brought from India so that his father the King could hunt and kill a lion the next day. The prince-turned-lion fled for his life, traveling through the wilds back to the lion's home in India, and then into France where he sought to lift the curse by making a woman fall in love with him. My favorite part of this book was the middle, which describes his efforts to live as a lion, fighting the bestial instincts of his new body, struggling to reconcile what he must do to survive- hunt and kill- with the tenants of his Islamic faith. The first part of the story, seeped in details of Persian culture (and full of unfamiliar words), just wasn't as interesting. And the final part of the book- when the Beast settled in France, built a rose garden, and wooed Beauty- felt too abrupt. I understand that the main focus of the story was how the prince overcame the lion's bestial nature to feel and act like a man again- and that when he had redeemed himself by gaining Beauty's love thus the story was over- but I didn't get any sense of a real relationship being formed between them, and wished there had been more depth about that part of the story. If you like original retellings of fairy tales, you should certainly read Beast, it's very different. Some of the parts about his life as a lion are rather brutal (not just killing, but also mating scenes of the lions are described), so it might not appeal to all readers.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 272 pages, 2000

More opinions at:
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Literate Concepts

The Edge of Day

by Laurie Lee

Another book I usually wouldn't mention, since I never got totally invested in reading it. But it was for the TBR Challenge, so I feel I ought to say something about it. I've actually had two different copies of The Edge of Day in my library- before we moved across the country I had an old trade paperback copy with a stiff cover. I dipped into it a few times, curious and intrigued by the descriptions from a toddler's perspective in the first few pages, walking through an overgrown garden that was like an infested jungle to him, full of buzzing insects and fears... I never read any more, and it got weeded out when I had to downsize my library for moving. Just a few months ago I found it again, at a discard sale- different binding and cover art, but instantly recognized it as a book I'd once owned and lost- so I couldn't help picking it up again. But these past few days my time spent reading it has been rather dull. The Edge of Day (also published under the title Cider with Rosie) is a quiet, musing kind of book. It describes the author's youth in a small English village, being tended by his many older sisters, going to a one-room schoolhouse... I've liked other books about boyhood experiences (Call It Sleep) or even rural schoolhouses (The Thread That Runs So True) but this one just wasn't grabbing my attention. So again, I'm moving on.

This book was in my list for the TBR Challenge. I've completed eight, given up on two, and have two more to read before I start picking through my alternate stack.

Abandoned .... 0/5 .... 276 pages, 1959

Invincible

by Vince Papale

I feel like this book shouldn't even the mention of a post, because I didn't get very far in it- about twenty five pages, and I wasn't really interested for most of that time. It's a decent book, and fairly well-written, but the subject matter was boring me. I was curious to read about one man's experience playing football simply because my husband loves the sport- but Invincible doesn't have the individual perspective I'm looking for. It is about an individual, and his rise from a poor boy in the projects to a professional football player- but it was just not speaking to me. I felt like I was reading more about who he admired as a child, a litany of names and teams and plays, instead of what it felt like to play, or how he learned to play... Anyway, there's another football book on the shelf here that I might try soon- Paper Lion. I picked it up idly at a library sale, not really knowing what it was about, and when I brought it home my husband yelped in amazement- a noise I often make at surprise finds among book stacks, but Id never heard him utter before. He says this one is the best book ever about football, and it's not about some star player either, just an ordinary guy- but that it's very well written. I have high hopes again. For a football experience in the pages.

Invincible was the last book on my list to read for the Non-Fiction Five challenge, so now I have to pick out another title...

Abandoned ... 0/5... 212 pages, 2006

Lessons in Stalking

by Dena Harris

Anyone who's ever been owned by a cat will find this book laugh-out-loud hilarious. It's a collection of twenty short stories about the quirks of sharing your home with a feline. Their inscrutable behavior. Their demands, their charms. My favorite was the one about when her cats refused to let the bathroom door stay closed. And I could sympathize perfectly with the frustrations of a cat who deliberately wakes you before the alarm clock, or refuses to play with the expensive toys you buy but has a blast with some ordinary household item you drop on the floor. Lessons in Stalking is cute and funny, but I kept wishing the stories were longer, or a bit more detailed, or that there were more of them. If you enjoy reading tidbits of tales like those Chicken Soup books, or are any kind of cat person, this one's just right for you.

This book was sent to me by the author.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 128 pages, 2005

wondrous words

New to me from Edward Abbey! These words are from my reading of Desert Solitaire:

Usufructary- "Within this vast perimeter... are the 33,000 acres of Arches National Monument of which I am now sole inhabitant, usufructary, observer and custodian."
Definition: one who holds the right to use or enjoy profits from something belonging to another, as long as it is not damaged or altered

Potable- "I dip my hands into the water and sample some. Pretty bad, neither potable nor palatable."
Definition: fit to drink

Pismire- "Neurotic little pismires."
Definition: an ant

Vinegaroon, Solpugid- "Watch out for rattlesnakes, coral snakes, whip snakes, vinegaroons, centipedes... kissing bugs, solpugids, tarantulas, horned toads, gila monsters, red ants, fire ants, jeruslaem crickets, chinch bugs and giant hairy desert scorpions before being seated."
V: the whip scorpion
S: a family of arachnids with large, powerful fangs and segmented abdomens

Tularemia- "...the flesh is probably infected with tularemia."
Definition: an infectious disease found in rodents, transferable to man

Mucilaginous- "He particularly enjoyed the mucilaginous green pods of the okra..."
Definition: moist and sticky

Spalled- "... slabs of sandstone shook free of their ancient fastenings, spalled from the cliffs and crashed with a sound like thunder into the heave and roar of the flood."
Definition: broken into chips or fragments

Syllogism- "To me death was little more than a fascinating abstraction, the conclusion to a syllogism or the denouement of a stage drama."
Definition: a form of deductive reasoning moving from the general to the specific

Basque- "Three of us, Roy, his Basque hired man Viviano Jacquez, and myself."
Definition: person from an area of the western Pyrenees in France and Spain

Strontium-"We think we have forgotten but we cannot forget- the knowledge is lodged like strontium in the marrow of our bones..."
Definition: soft, silvery metallic element used in making fireworks and signal flares

Chert- "... you may find chipping grounds scattered with hundreds of fragments of flint or chert where the Anasazi hunters worked their arrowpoints."
Definition: a hard, brittle sedimentary rock consisting of microcrystalline quartz

Pecuniary- "And whether good or bad in strictly pecuniary terms, industrial tourism exacts a spiritual price from those dependent upon it for their livelihood."
Definition: relating to money

Pellucid- "The desert storm is over and through the pure sweet pellucid air the cliff swallows and the nighthawks plunge and swerve..."
Definition: transparent or translucent, allowing light to pass through

Estivation- "This little animal lives through dry spells in a state of estivation under the dried-up sediment in the bottom of a hole."
Definition: an inactive state of dormancy through which some animals pass the heat of summer

Couloir- "The mountains are almost bare of snow except for patches within the couloirs on the northern slopes."
Definition: a deep mountainside gorge

Panegyric- "... he would write of the canyon as a whole in panegyric accent."
Definition: formal speech or writing that praises a person, or an event

Alluvium- "I find what looks like a deerpath leading up over an alluvium hill..."
Definition: sand, silt, clay, gravel, or other sediment deposited by flowing water

Sachem- "... we float on our backs in the still water, squat on the cool sand under the sheltering cottonwoods and smoke like sachems."
Definition: chief of a Native American tribe or confederation

Insouciant- "... back to the greater world of Glen Canyon and the steady, powerful, unhurried, insouciant Colorado."
Definition: carefree, unconcerned

Defenestration- "No man could have asked for a lovelier defenestration."
Definition: throwing something (particularly a person) out of a window

Febrile- "Deliberately I compose my mind, quiet the febrile buzzing of the cells and circuits..."
Definition: active and nervous, or feverish

Emunction- "... with their sanctified ritual for nasal emunction: only one nostril may be discharged at a time, etc."
Definition: removing an obstruction from a body passage

these words from The Journey Home:

Scoriation- "The bright enamel finish was scarred and scoriated, dulled by a film of dust."
Definition: a loosely cut groove or furrow characterized by the presence of material from what cut it

Camber- "The car clanked forward on an oblique axis, crabwise, humping up and down on the eccentric camber of the flat."
Definition: a slightly arched surface

Panicle- "The bear grass, with its showy panicle of flowers on a two- or three-foot stalk, is the most striking flower in the Glacier."
Definition: a loosely branched cluster of flowers

Ersatz- "And what a terrible price most of us have to pay for... the luxuriously packaged ersatz food in the supermarkets..."
Definition: an artificial imitation or substitute

I also came across azimuth again, which I remember finding in Quicksilver. I recognized it right away, glad that it stuck! It was used here thus: "When the lookout spots a fire, he aims this device at the center of the smoke... and obtains an azimuth reading from the fixed base of the fire finder."

Visit Bermudaonion's Weblog for more wondrous words.

bookmark giveaway!

My daughter picked a name this morning. The winner of the zebra bookmark is Cath of Read Warbler. Send me your postal address, Cath, and I'll mail you a zebra!

I've been thinking about this, and decided that until future notice, my giveaways are going to be of just bookmarks. Several reasons. Economical: I can afford to mail bookmarks more often than I can mail books. Every week! I can also send them overseas, so my giveaways won't be limited geographically anymore. Creative: I'm making the bookmarks myself, (some from my own artwork, more from my scrap file) which I really enjoy doing (especially since I'm not painting anymore). The only funny thing is, I don't use bookmarks myself. (But I love making them!) And I wonder how many other people do, since I don't get as many entries for these giveaways. Is there just more interest in free books than free bookmarks? I could go back to doing book giveaways, but they'd be far less frequent, perhaps just one a month... any kind of input appreciated, here. Let me know! You're the recipients!

Well, for now, the next giveaway features this handpainted, ribbon-edged giraffe bookmark. Do you like giraffes? Leave a comment for a chance to win, by tuesday July 7th. Happy reading!