No comments about Cathlamet on the Columbia: Recollections of the Indian people and short stories of early pioneer days in the valley of the lower Columbia River.

2 comments about Hangar Flying with Grandpa: Flight and Adventure Stories for my Grandchildren.

1. This book is a great look at what life was like as a career military pilot from the beginning of WWII to the end of the Vietnaum conflict. Lots of good insights into what it was like to live in post-war Germany.



2. This book is an amazing read. We are lucky to have Wilbert Turk put this down in writing. A man who joined the civilian Air corp, which became the Army Air Corp, which became the Air Force. This guy tells a story that starts with the birth of aviation and his early life fascination with it, through the formation of America's Air Force and his life and detailed battle accounts through World War II, Korea, other Cold War Efforts, and Vietnam.
   
   It is true that a lot has been said about the Greatest Generation, but I will tell you that there is more to be found and more to be learned. Untold amounts of detail and truth are found in personal histories such as this. This is a very important and a life changing book. Mr. Turk wrote this book for his grandchildren, but I believe it is a great resource to all of us.
   
   It goes without saying that I am enjoying this book.

No comments about A Spartan's Journey.

3 comments about Isabella Lucy Bird's "a Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains": An Annotated Text.

1. The book was an interesting account of Bird's travels through the Rocky Mountains, but as I read it, I kept wondering why, why, why? Why would a 41-year old woman travel through the Rockies on horseback in winter? Living in the area where she traveled, I appreciate the descriptions of the mountains and the awesomeness of nature which she elegantly describes. The book is an interesting travel log of her journey and adventures in 1873.



2. After 125-plus years, Isabella Bird comes across as a formidable, judgmental, frumpy and brave (if not foolhardy) woman who saw parts of Colorado at a time and in a condition that a lot of us wish we could have seen it. Her standard for measuring anything human (character, behavior, diet, education, etc.) can pretty much be summed up in the formula "English and Christian, good; everything else, bad."

   She was keenly observant, although her writing style seems overwrought, romantic and sentimental (I'm trying not to say "cheesy") by our standards.

   Most remarkable, though, is her bravery and her (apparent) charisma. By her account, she was welcomed wherever she went, and even the grotesquely grizzled recluse Jim Nugent fell for her -- she hints that he proposed marriage. And she went places alone, in winter, that you are more likely to read about these days in cautionary tales from the Colorado State Patrol or a search and rescue unit, where the protaganist ends up in a coffin.

   Was she telling the truth? Maybe. Probably. Better-educated people than I seem to take her at her word. And the detail in her stories has the ring of authenticity. So, OK, let's take her at her word.

   As a witness to a pre-sprawl, pre-Vail, pre-John Denver period of the Colorado Rockies, she is fairly readable and considerably entertaining. And her precise and photographic descriptions of the people and landscape are invaluable. You just have to keep in mind that she's looking (which is to say, judging everything) through the lens of a smug 19th century Englishwoman.




3. "It is hard to recall another woman in any age or country who traveled as widely, saw so much, and who left so perceptive a record of what she saw," says Daniel Boorstin who wrote an introduction to an edition of "A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains."
   
   The daughter of a respectable English clergyman, Isabella Bird was a short, dumpy, 41-year old spinster in 1873 when she visited Colorado. She found there a bunch of people she mostly disliked, but a place -- Estes Park -- on which she lavished pages of Wordsworthian nature worship. She climbed Long's Peak -- no small feat of physical endurance -- described Denver, Colorado Springs, and other Colorado cities, and lived briefly the life of a pioneer ranchwoman in a mountain wilderness.
   
   The reader should be aware of a romantic subtext not fully described in "A Lady's Life." Isabella met "Rocky Mountain Jim" Nugent, a famous desperado who she described as an
   "awful looking a ruffian as one could see." Jim became her guide and companion in Estes Park, but she only hints in her book at a romantic attachment. In letters to her sister in Scotland, she tells much more of the relationship and of Jim's ardour and his marriage proposal. Was she fantasizing? Was Jim, known as a ladies man, putting out a lot of Irish blarney to this less-than-glamorous gentlewoman? Or was his infatuation with her real? The relationship between the two is explored in several biographies of Bird. In any case, Isabella left Jim behind and headed back to Scotland after a couple of months. Jim was killed in a gunfight a few months later by another man Isabella had known. A romantic triangle? Who knows?
   
   With a story like this -- and a backstory of frustated love and gunfights -- "A Ladies Life in the Rocky Mountains" can hardly fail to be fascinating. This edition has an introduction, illustrations, and a map of Isabella's travels plus footnotes that complement her text. Isabella Bird was quite a woman.
   
   Smallchief

2 comments about Hermann Buhl: Climbing Without Compromise.

1. Hermann Buhl was one of the greatest mountain climbers of the last century and this book consists primarily of excerpts from his climbing diaries, starting from his earliest climbs as a teenager in the Dolomites, continuing through his major triumphs, including, of course, the conquest of Nanga Parbat that made him world famous, and ending with his ill-fated attempt on Chogolisa. There are also several biographical essays, including contributions by his daughter and a long-time climbing friend, and many of the diary excerpts are accompanied by further editorial details about the circumstances of the climbs. The ugly politics that were involved in the Nanga Parbat climb and their effect on Buhl are also discussed in the commentaries.

   Although it is not as detailed an account of Buhl's climbing life as "Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage", this newer book has several advantages over Buhl's autobiography. The perspectives offered by the third-party commentators are very useful. There is a full description of Buhl's final climbs and untimely death. "Climbing Without Compromise" is nicely illustrated with black-and-white and color photographs that make a great contribution (although the story would be easier to follow in places with the addition of some maps). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, one gets to read Buhl's story in his own words. According to the editors Messner and Höfler, Kurt Maix, the editor of "Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage", re-wrote considerable portions of Buhl's text using far more flowery and poetic language than Buhl himself would have chosen. In any event, the two books, while overlapping to a degree, do complement each other as well. (And where there is repetition, the English-language reader will benefit from having access to two translations.)




2. Hermann Buhl: Climbing Without Compromise does a great job of engaging the reader on several levels. Firstly, the photos are absolutely stunning. I've seen books with only photos, not as good as those included here, that retail for more than this book. The second way this book engages readers is through the well-told story of one of the most interesting characters in mountaineering history. Finally, and perhaps best of all, by using extensive source material from Hermann Buhl directly, this book actually comes across as a personal introduction to the legend, Hermann Buhl, himself.

No comments about Adventures of a Common Man: The Life of Rodney Anderson.

No comments about Tony.

No comments about Explorations into the World of Lewis and Clark.

No comments about Voyages Of Samuel De Champlain.

No comments about In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies (Mountain Classics Collection).