Gail Pool's Blog, page 4

Review: Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins

Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins

By Gavin Francis.  Counterpoint, 2013, 260 pp.

 

Emperor penguins are extraordinary animals, the only species to hatch their eggs on the sea ice of Antarctica.  Images of male penguins huddled together, incubating their eggs in the harsh winter—protecting them in their brood pouches, balancing them on their feet as they shuffle about in their huddle, rotating to the warmer spots in the middle—are unforgettable.

 

It was a fascination with...

Review: Venice is a fish

Venice is a fish: A sensual guide

By Tiziano Scarpa.  Translated by Shaun Whiteside.  Gotham Books, 2008, 160 pp.

 

Is there any city more written about than Venice?  The city is "encrusted with imagination" writes Tiziano Scarpa.  "There isn't another place in the world that could bear all that visionary tonnage on its shoulders."  Venice, he says, "will sink under the weight of all the visions, fantasies, stories, characters and daydreams it has inspired."

 

Scarpa nonetheless seems quite h...

Review: Don't Make Me Pull Over!

Don't Make Me Pull Over: An Informal History of the Family Road Trip

By Richard Ratay.  Scribner, 2018, 288 pp.

 

Most of us who took family road trips as children will instantly recognize Richard Ratay's title and the car scenario he describes: parents up front, kids squabbling in the back, Dad, who is driving, reaching back with one hand to grab a misbehaving youngster while yelling, "Don't make me pull over!"—and nearly taking the car off the road.

 

It's amazing we survived.

 

In this ent...

The Fate of Books

My letter in the New York Times

Review: A Florida Sketch-Book

A Florida Sketch-Book By Bradford Torrey. Houghton, Mifflin, 1894. Project Gutenberg. I was drawn to Bradford Torrey�s account of a ramble in east Florida in 1894 because I now spend nearly half the year in Florida myself�though in the west�and I was curious to see what I might glean about the state of the state more than a century ago. I had never heard of Torrey, but an article by Kevin E. O�Donnell that appeared in Early American Nature Writers, which I found online, provided a thorough an...

Review: By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy

By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy By George Gissing. Project Gutenberg. First published, 1901. In the late 1890s, the writer George Gissing set off on a trip to Southern Italy, an intensely personal journey into Magna Graecia with its ancient Greek ruins. �The names of Greece and Italy draw me as no others;� he writes; �they make me young again, and restore the keen impressions of that time when every new page of Greek or Latin was a new perception of things beautiful.� N...

Review: Off The Leash: Subversive Journeys Around Vermont

Off the Leash: Subversive Journeys Around Vermont
By Helen Husher. Countryman Press, 1999, 206 pp.

The title of this book suggests that we may be in for some wild rides, but this is misleading. In twelve essays, Helen Husher gives us an untouristic (though not especially subversive) tour of her home state of Vermont. The metaphorical dog off the leash here isn’t snarling or on the attack: she’s quietly wandering, exploring, digging up the forgotten stories of places that are too often passed by...

Review: Off The Leash: Subversive Journeys Around Vermont

Off the Leash: Subversive Journeys Around Vermont By Helen Husher. Countryman Press, 1999, 206 pp. The title of this book suggests that we may be in for some wild rides, but this is misleading. In twelve essays, Helen Husher gives us an untouristic (though not especially subversive) tour of her home state of Vermont. The metaphorical dog off the leash here isn�t snarling or on the attack: she�s quietly wandering, exploring, digging up the forgotten stories of places that are too often passed...

Review: Ice Blink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Franklin's Lost Polar Expedition

Ice Blink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Franklin’s Lost Polar Expedition
By Scott Cookman. John Wiley & Sons, 2000, 244 pp.

In 1845, Sir John Franklin set out to lead England’s greatest effort to find the Northwest Passage. His expedition included two well-equipped ships, several years’ worth of provisions, and 128 officers and men. All vanished in the Arctic.

What happened? The lack of diaries, log books, and other original source material has made it impossible to know, but people have been...

Review: Ice Blink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Franklin's Lost Polar Expedition

Ice Blink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Franklin�s Lost Polar Expedition By Scott Cookman. John Wiley & Sons, 2000, 244 pp. In 1845, Sir John Franklin set out to lead England�s greatest effort to find the Northwest Passage. His expedition included two well-equipped ships, several years� worth of provisions, and 128 officers and men. All vanished in the Arctic. What happened? The lack of diaries, log books, and other original source material has made it impossible to know, but people have been...