Category: Non-Fiction

Book Review: A Walk in the Woods by Bryson (3 Stars)

A Walk in the Woods WalkInWoodsBrysonby Bill Bryson

3 out of 5 stars

Read in August 2013 for the Stranger than Fiction book club sponsored by the Kansas City Public Library

Brief Summary:  Stretching from Georgia to Maine, the Appalachian Trail offers some of America’s most breathtaking scenery. After living for many years in England, Bill Bryson moved back to the United States and decided to reacquaint himself with his country by taking to this uninterrupted “hiker’s highway.” Before long, Bryson and his infamous walking companion, Stephen Katz, are stocking up on insulated long johns, noodles and manuals for avoiding bear attacks as they prepare to set off on a walk that is both amusingly ill-conceived and surprisingly adventurous. John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, and Peter Jenkins never took a hike like this. A Walk in the Woods showcases Bryson at the height of his comic powers. Meeting up with characters such as Beulah and her fearsome husband, “Bubba T. Flubba,” readers risk snakebite and hantavirus to trudge through swollen rivers, traipse up mountain steps, and develop a new reverence for cream sodas and hot showers. But Bryson also uses his acute powers of observation to conjure a poignant backdrop of silent forests and sparkling lakes, thereby making a gentle but unforgettable plea for the ecological treasures we are in danger of losing. Fresh, illuminating, and uproariously funny, A Walk in the Woods is travel writing at its very best.

Notes from Discussion Group:

Our leader, Richard, began our discussion by noting Bryson’s book made a good summer read and was definitely lighter than last month’s tome on Lewis and Clark’s expedition.  His first question asked if any of us had read any other book by Bryson.  None of us had, so Richard assured us that many of Bryson’s books are humorous.

His next question asked us if any of us had ever hiked before.  Richard had and at least one or two other people had hiked.  One reader even brought photos from their hike on the Appalachian Trail (AT).  We observed that deciding to hike the AT was a major undertaking for an amateur hiker.  We were curious if Bryson received a grant or other remuneration as an incentive to hike the trail.  The author is quite a prolific write, so it’s not inconceivable.  Richard mentioned that after A Walk in the Woods was published, Bryson received some criticism because he did not finish hiking the trail.

How did their treatment of Mary Ellen make you feel?

  • Many of us didn’t think they should have left her like they did
  • The talkative third wheel
  • Could have left her in a more populated area
  • She was an adult and knew the risks of hiking alone

We discussed the criticisms of Bryson’s depiction of southerners, specifically mentioning the incident with the Trans Am and 3/4 empty bottle of Wild Turkey.  One reader spent much of the hour searching for a paragraph that denigrated Georgia or Georgians, but she never did locate it.  I didn’t have an ebook edition so I couldn’t do a search through the text.  Bryson also poked (or slammed) Thoreau, which seems harsh coming from an author and a New Englander.

Why did Katz join the hike?

  • desperate
  • Running from life/debts

Did you like the style, where the author provides non-narrative bits?

  • history
  • conservation
  • research
  • roads built by the Forestry Department

I liked the non-narrative bits and noted to the group that this seems to be a ‘trend’ in non-fiction, at least all the non-fiction I’ve been reading and/or listening to for the last year or so.

Bryson wasn’t your typical hiker.  He didn’t really appreciate nature.  From comments from other hikers in the group, most hikers hike to experience the beauty of nature and wildlife.  Bryson, on the other hand, seemed to approach hiking the AT as something to check off a list.  Our leader read this section out loud to the group as an example:

Life takes on a neat simplicity, too. Time ceases to have any meaning. When it is dark, you go to bed, and when it is light again you get up, and everything in between is just in between. It’s quite wonderful, really.

You have no engagements, commitments, obligations, or duties; no special ambitions and only the smallest, least complicated of wants; you exist in a tranquil tedium, serenely beyond the reach of exasperation, “far removed from the seats of strife,” as the early explorer and botanist William Bartram put it. All that is required of you is a willingness to trudge.

Tranquil tedium quote.

Somewhat of a conflicted statement.  Yet, Bryson and Katz had their ‘Come to Jesus’ moment in Maine when they decided to ‘stop pretending we are mountain men when we are not.’

One of our readers vacationed on the beach and would often laugh out loud while reading.  Her friends insisted that she share what was so funny, so she ended up reading nearly the entire book out loud while sunning near the surf.

Did it bother you that they only completed 870 miles (39%) of the AT?

That distance is equivalent to walking from the Country Club Plaza to Buffalo, New York!  Still, it bothered me, and my husband, that he didn’t finish the trail.

Would you read more of Bryson’s books?

Our general consensus was yes.  Suggested readings included A Short History of the Earth and At Home, a history of the rooms in your house.

Interesting Tidbits for Further Reading or Viewing:

Reader’s Favorite Outtakes:

Our leader’s favorite bit involved the shoe lace incident with the yuppy campers.

Another reader or two got a kick out of the author poking fun at southerners.

My favorite bit was when Katz drug his bulk and baggage upstairs the night before they embarked and Bryson looked at his wife and says ‘Don’t say anything.’

My husband thought the author’s obsession with all that could go wrong on the trail in the first part of the book provided the most laughs.

Personal Observations:

Neither my husband nor I thought this was a great book.  Yes, it had it’s moments, but I consider it a weaker non-fiction offering than what we’ve read as a group so far this year.  I’m also a bit perturbed in that I prefer to listen to non-fiction, rather than reading it (either printed or via ereader) and the audiobook I checked out from the library happened to be an abridged edition read by the author.  I detest abridgments and I’m not overly fond of authors reading their own work.  Bryson didn’t do a bad job of narration and could import appropriate dramatic and humorous overtones, but a professional voice actor he is not.  I guess that’s less important in the non-fiction world, but diction and elocution are still a plus.  My husband did not care for his voice at all, often characterizing it as a bit whiny.

The best parts of the book turned out to be the first and last sections, where both the author and Katz hiked together.  The middle section drug on, almost torturing us, like that section of the AT in Pennsylvania.  The last part, where Katz went missing, I felt, was very well written.  Bryson almost had me convinced that Katz had committed suicide, but thankfully I was proved wrong.

I’m not sure I could recommend this book to other readers.  As I’ve said before, non-fiction is not my normal reading experience.  I joined this group to broaden my reading horizons.  This venture down the AT with Bill Bryson wandered a bit, sometimes stumbled, but did shine occasionally.  Hence, my three star rating.  It was a good read, but not a great one.

Next Up for Stranger Than Fiction:

AboutThisLifecoverAbout This Life: journeys on the threshold of memory by Barry Lopez

Stranger Than Fiction

Sometimes humorous. Sometimes serious. Always nonfiction.

When: Every Fourth Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Where: Plaza Branch
Contact: Dick Henderson at 816.701.3481

Book Review: Undaunted Courage by Ambrose (4 Stars)

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose

4 out of 5 stars

Read in July 2013

Large, thick books do not scare me.  If you’ve delved into my blog here at all, you’ll quickly learn that I read constantly and I read epic fantasy for fun.  The longer, the better.  The more characters and plot lines, even better.  With one exception, or wait, two exceptions.  I tried but didn’t like G.R.R. Martin‘s Game of Thrones series and Steven Erikson‘s Malazan Book of the Fallen.  Not my cup of tea.

So when July rolled around and saddled me with the 521 page Undaunted Courage by Ambrose, I barely batted an eye.  I even took a stab at actually reading the print edition our Stranger Than Fiction discussion leader handed out to us last month when we turned in our Unbroken copies.  I think I made it a couple of hundred pages before I decided listening to the audiobook would be faster (and less painful on the eyes grammatically).  I checked out the audiobook on CD from the Kansas City Public Library.  One thick 521 page paperback translates roughly to twenty-one hours and twenty-seven minutes (21 hr 27 mins) of narration.  While technically, I could have completed listening to this audiobook in less than one day, practically and physically, I can only handle about two to three hours a day of listening, with long breaks between to give my poor eardrums a rest.    The disadvantages to listening include the absence of 1) maps, 2) illustrations and photographs, 3) footnotes, 4) end notes  and 5) the bibliography.  The greatest advantage to listening to the audiobook was not having to learn how to properly pronounce the names of less commonly known objects, tools and places.  Luckily, I had the best of both worlds at my fingertips.

I learned an incredible amount about Lewis, Clark, Thomas Jefferson, the Louisiana Purchase and the Corps of Discovery Expedition to find a water route to the Pacific Ocean via the Missouri River.  Since I grew up within twenty miles of that river, I also grew up with the names “Lewis & Clark” plastered on various road signs and parks.  While I had some idea of the adventures of those early trailblazing frontiersmen, Ambrose provided me with an incredible wealth of detail and anecdotal gems to keep me forging ahead.  One of my favorite moments involved a nearly indestructible grizzly bear and four members of the Expedition.

I finished listening to the audiobook edition with just 26 hours to spare.  After a full day of work in the same building, I arrived just a few minutes past seven o’clock to a nearly full meeting room.  A couple of the usual suspects were missing, but I thought nothing of it since it’s summer time and many normal people take vacations.  I arrived in the middle of a conversation involving the August 2013 edition of Car & Driver, specifically the review of the 2013 supercharged Land Rover Range Rover, which was tested in the Bitterroot Valley in Montana and specifically mentioned the Lewis & Clark expedition.

Our discussion leader soon roped us back into discussing Undaunted Courage by relating a hand-written note he received from one disgruntled Stranger Than Fiction reader.  That person only made it to page 28, where they couldn’t stomach the ‘run on sentences’ and ‘sixteen adjectives for the same word’ or the fact that it appeared the author was being ‘paid by the word’ to write.  ‘Life was too short and there are too many good books to waste time with such poor writing.’  I made the comment that long sentences were the norm for early 19th century writing, but apparently Ambrose was being accused of this egregious error.  Our leader did confirm that he found a sentence written by Ambrose that surpassed one and a half pages.

We moved on from that dead-end when one of the readers mentioned that they watched all four hours of the Ken Burns’ documentary of Lewis & Clark, which our local PBS station, KCPT, conveniently re-aired in mid-July.

At least one reader struggled with this book, commenting it felt too much like being in a history class.  She half-expected to see questions at the end of each chapter.

Our leader began posing questions to spark discussion, one of the first being on our definition of “discovery.”  Only to the Western World (aka Europeans) could any of these plants, animals, rivers, mountains, etc. be considered “discoveries.”  To the Native Americans, none of it was new or unknown.  He also asked or mentioned a scenario wherein Native Americans hopped on a boat and visited Europe, is it still considered a “discovery” because all of that would be new to them?

We also discussed Sacagawea and the plight of Native American women.  Are they just footnotes in history?  Were most of them little better off than slaves, doing the majority of hard labor for their communities?

And speaking of slaves, how about poor old York?  He had a good sense of humor, but was mistreated and not freed upon his return.

With respect to Manifest Destiny, the Corp of Discovery Expedition was just the first phase (and the origin of the phrase).  There was a religious aspect – God deemed Europeans should have the North American Continent from short to shore.  Our leader asked us if this was similar to eminent domain today? Or was it just theft?

We discussed Jefferson, and by extension, Lewis’ policy towards the Native Americans.  Their vision of an American Trade empire and the integration of the Native Americans proved an impossible mountain to scale.  The ‘civilizing’ of the Indian Nations by forcing them to become peaceful among themselves and then ultimately wholly dependent upon America was either naiveté or hubris or both.  With the exception of the Mandans and the Nez Perce, the Expeditions’ interactions with the Indian Nations were strained at best and left a legacy of lies and distrust that resulted in even worse relations for generations to come.

Does man ever progress without harm?

At this point, our leader recommended another book by Ambrose entitled Nothing Like It In The World about the transcontinental railroad.

On a lighter note, one of the readers related that her favorite story from Undaunted Courage involved the collapsible boat.  Recently, some archeologists believe they have found it near Great Falls, Montana.

I related that my favorite story involved the grizzly bear that refused to die and jumped after two of the Expedition’s men from a twenty-foot high bluff into the Missouri after being shot eight times.

We returned to the more depressing tale of Lewis’ death.  Our leader asked us if we believed it was murder?  We all agreed it was not murder, unless you consider suicide self-murder.  Some contributing factors could have included the amount of mercury consumed by Lewis (and the rest of the Expedition).  One of the readers noted that archeologists today have no trouble tracing the Lewis and Clark expedition because of the incredible amounts of mercury still present at their campsites.  Other contributing factors includes Lewis’ alcoholism, use of opiates, lead poisoning (from being shot), he could have been bipolar and/or recurrence of malaria.

Suggested field trips included the Lewis & Clark museum in Nebraska City and Ft. Osage in Missouri.

After some more tangential and heated discussions on right and wrong, good and evil, our leader brought us back down to Earth and distributed next month’s book of a much lighter fair:  A Walk in the Woods by Billy Bryson

Looks like next month I may get to encounter bears … again.

Book Review: Unbroken by Hillenbrand (4 Stars)

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

4 out of 5 stars

Read in June 2013

Unbroken was the May (and unexpectedly June) 2013 selection for Stranger Than Fiction book discussion group sponsored by the Kansas City Public Library. I covered all the bases on this one, trying to get my husband to read along with me, but alas his health took a turn for the worse during this time, so the hardcover edition I checked out from the library for him sat gathering dust.  Meanwhile, I alternated between the ebook edition, checked out through the library’s Overdrive app on my Android smartphone, and the audiobook on CD (also checked out from the library).  I much prefer listening to non-fiction than reading it.  Nothing puts me to sleep faster than non-fiction, but I  soon became ensnared by the riveting, nearly unbelievable facts, told in Unbroken.

Earlier this year, I joined the Stranger Than Fiction book group because I felt I needed to expand my reading horizons.  I often find myself in a repetitive reading rut, gorging on epic fantasy or the occasional fun space opera, but nothing much else of substance.  The only non-fiction I regularly imbibe in are technical manuals for the software I support at work.  I’ve read so many of those, I think I could do technical writing in my sleep.

Unbroken often made me wince, and cry, and despair for an end to the torture and cruelty.   I learned things about the Pacific conflict during World War II that I did not learn in school, nor from countless war movies I’ve watched over the last three decades.  On the one hand, I’m appalled at the treatment of our POWs by the Japanese.  On the other, I’m disappointed in our education system for focusing too much time on the European theater (because we have a collective societal racial bias towards the Western World?).

Some of the discussion questions from our group meeting follow:

What made it so Louie could survive?

One reader began discussing something he’d read about varying levels of testosterone.   We discussed Mac’s panicky eating of all the chocolate, where one of us quipped ‘death by chocolate’ and immediately retracted by stating ‘How dare I?’ because none of us knows how we would react in a similar situation.

What did you find most remarkable about three survivors on the ocean?

Our discussion leader’s immediate answer was ‘not eating Mac.’  Forty-seven days on a raft, half of their body weight lost, he asked us if we would consider cannibalism?  He further went on to define two different types of cannibalism: necro and homicidal.  I jumped in to this discussion, stating that after reading The Terror by Dan Simmons, I’d never, ever resort to cannibalism.  Some discussion resulted in the medical research and reasoning for why it is never a good idea to eat your fellow-man.

In the 30s and 40s, were Germany and Japan’s acts of mass atrocities the worst in history? What causes a society to stoop to this? Do we all carry this capacity for cruelty around inside of us?

Discussion resulted about authoritarian or totalitarian regimes and people being like sheep (even today) and preferring to be led around and told what to do.  Our leader provided a quote from Conservatives Without Conscience by John Dean.  I don’t have the exact words from my notes, but something about they ‘like being in charge’ and the ‘followers like feeling safe.’  One reader talked about sociopaths and psychopaths making up 20% of the population (now and then).  Another reader mentioned an experiment conducted in the 60s or 70s where a group of people were divided up in to prisoners and guards and another study about blue and brown-eyed people.

Louie appeared to be the beneficiary of several miracles: his escape from the plane; the bullets missing all occupants of the raft during several strafing runs; and, singing angels in the clouds overhead.  Someone made mention of the Best Years of Our Lives movie.

Would Louie have been justified in plotting to kill the Bird?  Would that have been moral? Would he have felt better had he returned to Japan?

His anger is justifiable and understandable, a normal reaction to being wronged.  Our discussion leader quoted several passages from a Guideposts article written by the author: “The Power of Forgiveness”  Another reader compared Unbroken to the movies “The Grey” and “Life of Pi.”

∞ ∞ ∞

Next month we read Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose.

Dew-Wop Star Hop

ASKC June star partyFriday turned into a very long day indeed.  I took the afternoon off to accompany my husband to a doctor’s visit to discuss the next steps in managing his condition.  That appointment went better than I thought it would and I’m grateful for the information and the prospects.  We will persevere.

We got back home with just thirty minutes to spare before venturing out again, this time a couple of miles west of us (on the other side of Lansing) to attend the grand opening of a new farmer’s market.  We’ve known the family that owns the farm for years, and we love to buy locally grown produce.  We didn’t stay long as I needed to research and prep for the star party at Powell.

I received the ‘all clear’ or ‘go ahead’ e-mail from the ASKC star party coordinator earlier in the afternoon.  I called my dad to see if he wanted to join me.  He had a conflict so I asked my husband.  He preferred to stay home.  So I was on my own.

First thing I needed to do was dust off the 8-inch Dob.  Then I attempted to collimate it.  Then I dialed in the finder scope.  I didn’t remember until later that I’d purchased, back in October, a new finder scope, so I missed the opportunity to try it out.  The weather forecast for the rest of the weekend doesn’t look good for more testing opportunities.

Next, I found my Astro Quest Observing checklist and started planning my overly ambitious observing list for Friday night’s star party.  I’ve been working on this observing award for nearly two years now.  I really need to step it up and get it done!  I got a bit distracted when I realized I hadn’t recorded some of the observations I made last fall and winter.  Eventually, I returned to those items I’ve yet to observe that would be the best candidates for an early June dark-of-the-moon night sky.  I used my Pocket Sky Atlas and the Android App SkySafari Plus on my Samsung Galaxy Note II to select twenty items.  I added these targets to a list in the app:

  • R CrB
  • R Leo
  • 48 Librae
  • Thuban (in Draco)
  • Adhafera (in Leo)
  • Sarin (in Hercules)
  • Owl Nebula (M 97)
  • Blinking Planetary Nebula
  • Ghost of Jupiter Nebula
  • Cat’s Eye Nebula
  • Sombrero Galaxy
  • Black Eye Galaxy
  • M 86 (in Virgo)
  • M 81 aka Bode’s Nebula
  • M 22 (in Sagittarius)
  • M 5
  • M 7 (aka Ptolemy’s Cluster)
  • IC 4665
  • NGC 6231
  • NGC 6210

I partially disassembled the Dob for transport, placing the tube in its carrying case.  I had some concern that the base would not fit in the trunk of my car, but it did, barely.  I discovered my portable emergency red light battery needed charging so I plugged it in a couple of hours before I needed to leave.  I found a lawn chair and a table I could take.  I forgot two items that in hindsight I should have brought with me:  1) the monopod for my binoculars (to reduce shaking while observing) and 2) Deep Woods Off or some other Deet laden bug spray.  I got everything into the car, except the charging battery, and watched the clock tick down to 7:30 p.m.

ASKC June star party at Powell ObservatoryThe drive to Powell Observatory near Louisburg took an hour, but I enjoyed listening to my audiobook and dodging Johnson County drivers.  I arrived to a gorgeous sunset (see photos above and at right).  I also noticed a baseball game in progress to the northwest of the observing field (you can see the field lights already on in the photo above).  These lights became an annoyance for the next two hours.

I opted to park in the parking light north of the observatory and across the street.  Several ASKC members were already setting up their telescopes east of the dome.  The parking lot to the west of the dome was filled with what I assumed to be a private party that had reserved the dome facilities for the evening.  It took me three trips to get the telescope and accessories from the car to the observing field.  While I made these trips, the star party coordinator informed me I could have driven my car around the dome onto the observing field to make my life easier.  But I excel at doing things the hard way.  Maybe next month I’ll be lazier.

I put the scope back together and checked the alignment of the finder scope.  Then I settled into my lawn chair to wait for darker skies.  Eventually, around 9:30 p.m., I got my binoculars out and waited for Venus, Mercury and Saturn to pop out in the twilight.  I observed all three of these planets with binoculars and with the 8-inch Dob.  I could clearly see that Mercury was half full (or is that more properly referred to as quarter illuminated?).

During this time (after sunset but before the ball field lights were extinguished), we saw the ISS pass over in the northern part of the sky.

I used my binoculars to locate M13 in Hercules and I used the scope to find M4 in Scorpius.  I roamed around the sky with my binoculars, relaxing in my lawn chair, getting increasingly annoyed by the brightness of the ball field lights.  I also started to notice an accumulation of dew on just about everything.  When I would pick up my binoculars and look through them, often I would see bright halos instead of pin pricks of starlight.  Any printouts I had sitting on my table quickly became sodden and unusable.

The ballgame finally wrapped up a few minutes before 10:30 p.m.  We all cheered when the lights finally died and we could let our eyes adjust to the dark.  Within fifteen minutes, I had found the Sombrero Galaxy (aka M 104) in the constellation Virgo.  This was my first chance to really field test using SkySafari Plus on my smartphone, using the night vision setting (red display) and the ability to zoom-in to match the field-of-view I saw through my scope’s eyepiece.  Made star hopping easier.  No more juggling my reading glasses, a red light flashlight and my Pocket Star Atlas.  To find the galaxy, I actually came up from the constellation Corvus (see chart above).

I had to abandon searching for dim nebula and the harder to find variable stars on my observing list because of the persistent haze that hung over the sky.  While I was grateful for the lack of wind, this also resulted in no movement of the thin clouds.  I had to focus on brighter objects.  I did observe, in my binoculars, the stars Thuban, Adhafera and Sarin, but I did not attempt R CrB or 48 Librae, which require better seeing conditions to locate via star hopping.

During the eleven o’clock hour, I set my sights on locating M5, a globular cluster, found in the constellation Serpens.  I’ve tried a couple of times in the past to locate this cluster, but there are no bright stars near it to guide you to it.  Since I’m trying to perfect my star hopping abilities (and didn’t bring my “goto” telescope with me), I again used the SkySafari Plus, zoomed in to with in a couple of degrees of the cluster, to find a suitable path among the faint stars.  At first I attempted from the east (my left) using some stars in the Serpens constellation, but I kept getting lost (or nowhere), so I changed tactics and thought I’d try coming ‘up’ from Libra.  No luck there either.

Finally, I moved to the west, to the right leg of the constellation Virgo, and used stars tau and 109 to draw a line due east (to the left) directly to M5.  Huzzah!  I found it at 11:30 p.m.  I observed the cluster, as best I could with the less than stellar seeing conditions, and sat savoring the triumph of finally locating this illusive globular cluster.

Several other star party attendees had started packing up their equipment, probably because of the dew and the haze.  I wanted to stick it out, at least until midnight, so I quickly scanned through my observing list and decided to investigate the 13th constellation in the Zodiac (or rather, one of the thirteen constellations that cross the ecliptic) and find an open cluster, IC 4665.  It should have been visible with binoculars, but I had little hope of that.  Ophiuchus, also known as the Serpent Bearer, is a large constellation between Sagittarius and Scorpius.  I used the nu and tau stars to guide me to the open cluster.  I could see it well (although it barely fit in the field of view) via the scope, but could not discern it through my binoculars, which kept fogging over and became more and more useless as the night progressed.

I still had a few minutes to go before tomorrow arrived, so I turned the scope northward, to Ursa Major, hoping to find the Owl Nebula. Unfortunately, looking north from Powell Observatory means looking back through the entirety of Kansas City and all its glorious star-obscuring light pollution.  I made a half-hearted attempt to locate the nebula and decided enough was enough.

I switched on my portable battery and it’s ’emergency’ red light (in non-flashing mode) so I could see my observing site well enough to start packing up the equipment.  Everything was soaked in dew.  Thank goodness my Pocket Sky Atlas is designed for moisture-laden environments.  The paper it’s printed on isn’t traditional paper.  I suspect a high content of plastic.

Three trips later, I had everything back in the car.  I pulled out of the parking lot at six minutes past midnight and pulled into my driveway an hour later.  I went straight to bed.

Final thoughts?  I was able to check off three of the twenty items from my observing target list.  Not nearly as many as I had hoped to find, but given the conditions, I’m satisfied with the results.  I’ll give it another go next month and as I can from my backyard, weather permitting.