2025 Reading Challenge discussion
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Kiwi’s 2016 challenges and book log
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233. This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart ***Romantic suspense. This classic of the genre is light read, with an intrepid heroine, some intense moments and gorgeous descriptions of Corfu. A good find, I will probably read another Mary Stewart’s novel.
234. The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock ***If you have any romantic notions about the good old days, this novel will knock them out of you.
From the early reviews, I knew this wasn’t going to be pretty and I knew that this wasn’t my kind of book, but I was curious and wanted to take a chance.
Once I accepted the author’s style, including the violence and lurid descriptions that Pollock delivers in abundant details, the story draw me in. I couldn’t stop reading because I wanted to know the fate awaiting the Jewett brothers and I was rewarded with a great ending.
The author writes really well, the tight plot is populated with all sorts of unsavoury characters that don’t fail to make an impression, the characterization is phenomenal, in a crude and gritty way of course. It’s is a typical Marmite book, definitely not for everyone.
I’d rate it 3.5 stars, I’m rounding it down for the moment (I felt the urge to take a shower more than once) but I might revise it to 4 stars after a cool-off period.
I don’t feel I can recommend this to my friends, unless you don’t mind a fair amount of violence, vulgarity, crude humor etc- You’ve been warned!
235. Fortune's Pawn by Rachel Bach ***This sci-fi novel has definitely a YA feel even if the heroine is no longer a teen, the romance did nothing for me, but overall I enjoyed it.
236. Gennaro's Italian Bakery by Gennaro Contaldo ***
237. Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer ****Patrick has Asperger’s, his father died when he was 8, and since then has been obsessed with the mysteries of death. Now Patrick studies anatomy in college (he’s been accepted as part of a disability quota). The curriculum requires his group of medical students to dissect #19, the cadaver of a man, to discover the cause of death. Patrick becomes convinced that the man did not die of natural causes, but instead he has been murdered.
The premises may sound gruesome but, although there are some macabre scene, they aren’t too bad, and I’m generally squeamish. Belinda Bauer delivers a brilliant and original mystery, with some unexpected twists at the end. Recommended.
catching up with the last reads in October:238. Damocles by S.G. Redling * (DNF)
239. The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult **
240. Eifelheim by Michael Flynn ***
241. I See You by Clare Mackintosh ***
242. Il fu Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello ***
October summary# Books read: 29
# Pages read: 8,947
Average Rating: 3.24
Best book of the month: Hiroshima (NF) /The long ships (F)
Best yield/payoff book: The wasp factory (3 challenges)
November reads:243. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving ****
244. Tales of Terror from the Black Ship by Chris Priestley *****
Another great collection of scary stories, this one has a nautical theme. Fantastic read for a Halloween read-aloud or listen to the audio version read by Bill Wallis. This series keeps getting better and better, I’m looking forward to reading the third book . 4.5 stars
quick update:245. A Cat, a Hat and a Piece of String by Joanne Harris ***
246. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ****
247. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R.R. Martin *****
248. The Black Death by Sean Martin *****
249. House of the Rising Sun by James Lee Burke ***
Well, that was … different.
I loved the language in this book, the descriptions of the landscape were exquisite. Mr Hackberry captivated me, he is an intriguing complex man, the author did and excellent job of exposing his troubled inner soul. But, what I liked most was the fact that James Lee Burke chose to include some tough women along with the ubiquitous tough guys: Maggie, Ruby and Ms. DeMolay. Another character that I liked was Andre, the Haitian driver, I wish the author would have spent more time on him. Too bad that the villain, Arnold Beckman, wasn’t as well executed, in my opinion, his role as the devil incarnate, isn’t as three dimensional as the others.
I don’t think that I have become a convert to the Western genre. I thought that the book was too long and convoluted ((view spoiler)), by the end, I had enough of violence and the protagonist justification of it by taking a higher-than-everyone-else moral ground. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the ride and I’ll probably read more of James Lee Burke’s work.
3.5 stars.
Fav quotes:
In the distance he could see the sky growing darker and a twister dropping out of a cloud and wobbling like a giant spring across the desert floor in sunlight that was as bright as gold. There was a fatal beauty at work in this cursed land that he would never be able to recapture or describe to others. Mexico was a necropolis where the quick and the dead were inextricably linked on opposite sides of the soil, one always aware of the other. It was a place where killing was lauded, and where peasants wore depressions with their knees in the stone steps of seventeenth-century cathedrals, and where the light was harsher and brighter than it should have been and the colors were so vivid they jittered when you looked at them too long.
He wanted to shed his life as a snake sheds its skin. Of all the iniquity of which human beings were capable, was not betrayal the one hardest to undo?
Our destiny didn’t lie in the stars, he told himself, or even in our mettle. It lay in our ability to recognize a gift when it was placed in your hands.
250. Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World by Bill Nye ****251. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett **
I had high expectations for this book after loving Bel Canto, alas this was a big disappointment for me. Lovely writing, but the story fail to capture me, it felt like rambling and the ending? (view spoiler).
252. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls ***
Currently reading Umbria, Happiness Now!: Timeless Wisdom for Feeling Good FAST, and looking for a bio/memoir for tow of my challenges
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson RawlsI'm not big on hunting. 2.5 stars
Happiness Now!: Timeless Wisdom for Feeling Good FAST by Robert Holden
In this book there are some good points on judgement and acceptance that resonated with me, but I’m not sold on laughter clinics and overall I found this book too new-age for me. 2.5 stars
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
Girl power! The adventurous tale of two courageous girls, cousins, contending with a wicked governess. Their home is Willoughby Chase, a stately mansion with a big estate infested by hungry wolves. There are secret passages and spyholes perfect for overhearing people’s conversations! Alas, poor Bonny and Sylvia will be evicted and sent into a dreadful school.
It’s a lovely imaginary tale, the truth is stretched a few times (view spoiler) nonetheless it is an enjoyable children read. 3.5 stars
Umbria by Jonathan Keates, 3.5 starsArmchair travel. The book is comprised of six itineraries in one of the most charming and understated regions of Italy (sadly some of the ancient buildings have been recently damaged by the 2016 earthquake), with delightful de-tours and interesting commentaries about local places and history, with its saints, martyrs and many legends.
Too bad that the number of pictures included in this volume is woefully inadequate, I strongly invite the reader to use the internet to fully appreciate the artwork descriptions (Google is your friend :), for a curious site look up vicolo baciadonne – “kiss-the-women-lane” located in Citta’ della Pieve, there is hardly room to walk, hence the kissing).
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, 3.5 stars
The meek shall inherit the earth” meant nothing to me. The meek were battered in West Baltimore, stomped out at Walbrook Junction, bashed up on Park Heights, and raped in the showers of the city jail. My understanding of the universe was physical, and its moral arc bent toward chaos then concluded in a box.
Hate gives identity. The nigger, the fag, the bitch illuminate the border, illuminate what we ostensibly are not, illuminate the Dream of being white, of being a Man. We name the hated strangers and are thus confirmed in the tribe. But my tribe was shattering and reforming around me. I saw these people often, because they were family to someone whom I loved. Their ordinary moments—answering the door, cooking in the kitchen, dancing to Adina Howard—assaulted me and expanded my notion of the human spectrum.
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, 4 starsThis was an unsettling read, in a good way.
The usual SF themes of space exploration and alien encounters are left alone, Bacigalupi suggests a near future where the problems that the human race faces are on our planet and worse of all, they are of our doing.
This bleak dystopian world features big and greedy multinationals with enormous political influence, ecological and environmental disasters causing global famine (calories are the new currency). In Thailand, the strict quarantine and embargo rules enforced by environmental squads (white shirts) clash with the needs for foreign commerce. The influx of refugees, endemic poverty, fanatical religious fervour fuel social unrest and racial tensions while the constant threat of plague due to genetic engineering failures adds to the explosive mix. Bacigalupi’s world is so frightening because it doesn’t require big stretches of imagination, it make sense and feels very plausible.
Among books featuring humanoids or androids, The Windup girl is among of the best I read. The eponymous girl, Emiko, is a New Person, she has been genetically engineered to be a Japanese adult toy. Although beautiful, the Thais are repulsed by her kind; to them she is no more than an animal, she lacks an important human distinguishing feature: a soul.
After her patron, a Japanese businessman, left her behind in Bangkok, the only life left to Emiko is one of daily abuse as a novelty in second-rate brothel. Her plight is disturbing because her feelings are unquestionably human.
This is a book that has a certain level of violence and it will not suit everyone, but it makes you think. IMO, Bacigalupi is one of the masters of modern SF and I’d highly recommend him to fans of dark/gritty SF. If you liked Blade Runner, there’s a good chance you’ll like this novel.
Fav. quotes:
Evolve or die. It has always been nature's guiding principle
“We have released demons upon the world, and your walls are only as good as my intellect. Nature has become something new. It is ours now, truly. And if our creation devours us, how poetic will that be?"
"Kamma," she murmurs.
"Precisely."
Where Am I Now? by Mara WilsonI picked this book for a challenge and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. A well-written, surprisingly funny, intimate and candid memoir. Mara is a great storyteller.
3.5 stars
ATM I'm continuing You Can't Ruin My Day: 52 Wake-Up Calls to Turn Any Situation Around and I've just started The Complaints
259. The Complaints by Ian Rankin ***260. I giorni dell'abbandono by Elena Ferrante **
I wanted to read a book by Elena Ferrante, her Neapolitan trilogy is well liked but I was looking for something shorter and self-contained, this novel seemed a good fit.
At the beginning I was wowed by the author ability to express the unfiltered raw emotions of a wounded woman (the protagonist, Olga, is abandoned by her husband for a younger woman) and some of the passages were painfully beautiful. On the other hand, Olga’s vulgar fantasies and her obscene language was a big turn-off. I found it hard to continue reading, especially when (view spoiler), the dark cloud of despair was contagious, it put me in a bad mood, I was very tempted to leave this book unfinished.
Although I acknowledge the author writing abilities, it was not a good reading experience for me.
2.5 stars
Now here’s my dilemma, should I try My Brilliant Friend or leave it alone?
261. You Can't Ruin My Day: 52 Wake-Up Calls to Turn Any Situation Around by Allen Klein ***
Now that the 2017 Popsugar reading challenge has been released, I'd better finishing up my remaining challenges :DAnyone started their 2017 reading plans yet?
262. The Universe of Us by Lang Leav1.5 stars
I'm surprised this book is in the final round of this year GR best of poetry.
263. Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy ***
264. Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Echoes of Jurassic Park. There’s a monster on the loose in NY museum!
A bit dated and smart mouthed, but a fast paced and fun read. I enjoyed reading it. 3 stars
265. The Faithful Dead by Alys Clare
A light mystery read, but I was hoping for something better. The period of the second Crusades has been dealt with in a superficial manner and due to the presence of several magical elements (view spoiler) it seemed more a fairy tale than a work of historical fiction.
2.5 stars.
266. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō When we have visitors, they often comment that my house looks tidy. This is because, when hubby and I renovated it only a few years ago, we got rid of 20+ years of accumulated clutter, and what a relief that was! Since then we are careful with what we bring in the house, the rule being that before something comes in, the used/broken item must be thrown out.
Even so, I spent a good part of my last weekend tidying up my wardrobe and ended up filling a full garden bag of clothes! Evidently there is room for improvement, books are up next and I already know there are a couple of messy drawers (ahem, my stationery and electronics) that I will need to tackle asap.
Even if Kondo seems a bit strange (see below), I was inspired by her system, her enthusiasm is infectious. Proof is that after I showed a couple of her Youtube videos to my teen daughter, an inveterate messy person, she started cleaning up her room on her own accord, me and hubby were impressed with the results. It was close to a miracle, let’s hope it lasts.
Full disclosure: the males in the house are yet to be inspired, sigh.
I have now adopted her folding method (which is the same that mum taught me, thanks mum! except for rolling and standing the clothes upright) and her approach to tidying by category rather than by room seems to be working so far.
Marie insists in talking to the items about to be discarded, thanking them for their service. She also urges her clients to have a loving relationship with their possessions:
Open the drawer and run your hands over the contents. Let them know you care and look forward to wearing them when they are next in season. This kind of “communication” helps your clothes stay vibrant and keeps your relationship with them alive longer.
Believing that inanimate objects would respond to human emotions might be a Japanese thing, I found this odd and endearing at the same time, but I can’t bring myself to do it.
The idea that the house feels for its occupants (you should greet it, ask for advice of where to put things etc.), is also a “creepy” concept for me.
The other thing that I refuse to do is her way to deal with books that you don’t intend to re-read or keep but you love some of the writing, she writes:
I finally decided to rip the relevant page out of the book. Pasting pages into a notebook was also a pain, so I simplified the process by slipping them into a file instead. This only took five minutes per book and I managed to get rid of forty books and keep the words that I liked.
What?!? ripping up pages of book in order to keep only the sections that “spark joy” TM :), I was horrified! I rather donate my books, never seeing them again and knowing they are whole rather than butcher them! Besides wouldn’t it contradict the love and respect due to your possessions, i.e. if you loved and cared for a book how can you rip it apart?
In the last few years, I have come to love my Kindle for reading fiction, it has the added bonus of resolving much of my book storage problems (plus it is so much easier to search inside e-books).
My approach is to only keep physical books that I either intend to re-read, are non-fiction reference books (like history or cooking books) or have a sentimental value for me. TBR is another area that I try to beep to a minimum, Marie agrees with me:
The moment you first encounter a particular book is the right time to read it. To avoid missing that moment, I recommend that you keep your collection small.
All in all, I really enjoyed the book and found it inspiring, so, if you feel the need for some order in your house you might want to give the KonMari method a go. 3 stars
267. The Ballroom by Anna HopeWhat a great read this was. The ballroom in the title is the room where inmates in a mental hospital socialize on Friday nights, for the rest of the week men and women inmates are kept separated. Some of the men work in grounds of the asylum that also function as a self sufficient farm. The women, though, are not allowed outside, they work within the building, in the laundry or cleaning.
Ella is a recent arrival to the hospital. She is suffering a nervous breakdown probably caused by hard labour in a textile-mill. While trying to escape her confinement, she meets John, an Irish ex-farmer with a tragic past. John and Ella start a tender relationship though Clem, Ella’s friend. Since Ella is illiterate, Clam reads John’s letters and writes him replies becoming an essential and willing go-between. These letters are Ella’s window to the outside world; he describes the changing of the seasons and adds a few tokens for her, a flower, a swallow’s feather, an oak leaf.
The third narrator is Charles, an ambitious doctor, he is using music as a therapeutic medium in the asylum. He is also planning to write a paper on eugenics, the forced sterilization of the mentally ill, at a time when, in England, Churchill was asking for expert advice for his “feeble minded bill”.
This is a story about freedom, to say more would spoil the plot.
The author’s writing rhythm is calm and soothing. I loved how the author described the passing of time by the changing of the seasons, the arrival and departure of migratory birds, the growing of crops, the work of the men, the animals in the woods and fields. The little community felt remote and isolated from society. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Daniel Weyman, who reads really well, although his pauses last a bit too long for me.
This is superb story-telling, I plan read Anne Hope's previous novel Wake while waiting for her next book.
4 stars
November summary# Books read: 27
# Pages read: 7,744
Average Rating: 3.15
Best book of the month: The black death (NF) /Tales of Terror from the Black Ship (F)
Best yield/payoff book: Where am I now? (3 challenges)
Challenge completed:
• Challenge Family Reading Bingo: 25/25 on 30 Nov
The Trespasser, 3.5 starsI liked the protagonist even her paranoia and abrasiveness had a charm for me, the language was a bit of a challenge, many slang words that I had to look up or infer. The story has so many twists and turns to make your head spin, perhaps a bit too many?
I’ll definitely read more of this series.
Fav Quote:
I don’t get rescued. I’ll take help, no problem, just like I took it off Gary and off Fleas. Rescue – where you’re sinking for the third time, you’ve tried everything you’ve got and none of it’s enough – rescue is different. If someone rescues you, they own you.
Not because you owe them – you can sort that, with enough good favours or bottles of booze dressed up in ribbons. They own you because you’re not the lead in your story any more.
You’re the poor struggling loser/helpless damsel/plucky sidekick who was saved from danger/dishonour/humiliation by the brilliant brave compassionate hero/heroine, and they get to decide which, because you’re not the one running this story, not any more.
I also finished Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable, cute, 3 stars and with it my Popsugar Fall reading challenge is complete.
One more to go: monthly genre, with I will finish soon as I have just started my holiday reads with Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Joy of Christmas: 101 Holiday Tales of Inspiration, Love and Wonder.
The Christmas tree went up last weekend, 2016 is winding up and I’ve done a clear-out of my shelves in preparation for 2017.I realised that quite a few of the books that have been sitting on my TBR for a long time didn’t interest me anymore, my tastes have changed overtime. I want my TBR to include only books that I genuinely excited to read, therefore some books have been downgraded to maybe, others discarded altogether. I’ve upgraded some maybe books to TBR, and now the list is relatively small.
I can now start the planning for next year, I’ll be adding books based on the challenges I intend to do in 2017. I want to join the 2017 Pospsugar challenge and probably the Bookriot one (yet to be released), I’ll definitely redo some of my 2016 personal challenges and maybe join a few others that are going around …we’ll see.
It took me a while but I have finished A Short History of Nearly Everything, 4 starsThis book would benefit from an update (e.g. ban of CFC and Higgs bosom discovery at CERN in 2012). Overall, it is a clear and as easy to follow popular science book and quite entertaining too. I loved the funny little anecdotes from the lives of eccentric scientists. Recommended.
Fav. Quotes:
Matters in physics have now reached such a pitch that, as Paul Davies noted in Nature , it is “almost impossible for the non-scientist to discriminate between the legitimately weird and the outright crackpot.”
Perforated eardrums were quite common, but, as Haldane reassuringly noted in one of his essays, “the drum generally heals up; and if a hole remains in it, although one is somewhat deaf, one can blow tobacco smoke out of the ear in question, which is a social accomplishment.”
Every living thing is an elaboration on a single original plan. As humans we are mere increments; each of us a musty archive of adjustments, adaptations, modifications, and providential tinkerings stretching back 3.8 billion years. Remarkably, we are even quite closely related to fruit and vegetables. About half the chemical functions that take place in a banana are fundamentally the same as the chemical functions that take place in you. It cannot be said too often: all life is one. That is, and I suspect will forever prove to be, the most profound true statement there is.
Absolute brain size does not tell you everything-or possibly sometimes even much. Elephants and whales both have brains larger than ours, but you wouldn’t have much trouble outwitting them in contract negotiations. It is relative size that matters, a point that is often overlooked.
273. A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny ***274. The Snowman by Jo Nesbo ****
275. Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Joy of Christmas: 101 Holiday Tales of Inspiration, Love and Wonder by Amy Newmark **
276. Afternoon of the Elves by Janet Taylor Lisle ***
277. A Doll's House by Ibsen, Henrik ***
278. Catholicism Today: An Introduction to the Contemporary Catholic Church by Evyatar Marienberg ****
279. The Broken Sword by Paul Anderson ****You can be sure there’ll be plenty of violence and tragedy when Vikings are involved. This novel was written in 1954, the presence of interesting female characters (Leea is my favorite), makes it quite modern compared to other fantasy book of the period. Even if Norse mythology has been heavily manipulated, the characters in this fast paced epic adventure are well defined and three dimensional. I am glad to have finally read this novel, which well deserves to be amongst the classics of the fantasy genre.
Fav quote:
‘Better a life like a falling star, brief and bright across the dark, than the long, long waiting of the immortals, loveless and cheerlessly wise.’
280. The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens This book had a YA feeling for me, which I wasn’t expecting. I did enjoy the first part, reading about Joe’s family dynamics, much more than the second part, when it turned into an average thriller complete with (view spoiler). 2.5 stars
281. Christmas Tales of Terror by Chris Priestley **282. A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King ***
283. Home by Harlan Coben ***
currently reading The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror and Jamie Oliver's Christmas Cookbook
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror, 4 starsA scatterbrain angel on a mission drops into the little community of Pine Cove while they are busy preparing for the Lonesome Christmas party. I loved the characters in this novel, even the animals, Skinner the dog and the unforgettable Roberto (the bat with the Ray-Bans sunglasses).
Funny, hilarious at times (in a coarse way), a different Christmas read for sure.
Fav Quotes:
She's six, wearing a fluffy pink dress and patent-leather shoes. She couldn't be any cuter, with her long black hair tied up into ponytails with red ribbons and flying out behind her like silk comet tails as she pursues the pinata. She's blindfolded, and her mouth is wide open, letting forth a burst of that high, little-girl laugh that sounds like joy itself, because she's just made solid contact with the stick and she's sure that she has released candy, and toys, and noisemakers for all the children.
What she has, in fact, done, has solidly smacked her uncle Octavio in the cojones.
Uncle Octavio is caught in a magic moment of transition, his face changing from joy to surprise to pain, all at once. Lena is still adorable and sweet and unsullied by the disaster she has wrought. Feliz Navidad!
Originally cast as one of the three kings, Theo is now dressed as a camel. His ears are the only parts of his body that are in proportion, and he looks very much like a camel fashioned out of wire by Salvador Dalн. His chance to play Balthazar, the Ethiopian king, was lost when he announced that the Magi had arrived bearing gold, Frankenstein, and myrrh. Later, he, the two other camels, and a sheep will be suspended for smoking the myrrh.
Theo looked over at Gabe's ex-girlfriend, considered the heels, the stockings, the makeup, the hair, the lines of her suit, her nose, her hips, and felt like he was looking at a sports car that he could not afford, would not know how to drive, and he could only envision himself entangled in the wreckage of, wrapped around a telephone pole.
285. The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell ***I enjoyed reading the story of this dysfunctional family. Told by alternating narrators, it spans several years with the memories of how the Birds spent their Easter holidays. It’s a story of loss, mental illness, intricate relationships, family secrets and bonds. The author is certainly a talented writer, every character is carefully drawn and the reader cannot but feel sympathy for each them, even the unlikable ones.
I thought that the book was a tad too long, some editing here and there, reducing the page count by 100 or so pages may have tightened up the plot a bit. 3.5 stars
286. Where It Hurts by Reed Farrel Coleman ***287. Jamie Oliver's Christmas Cookbook by Jamie Oliver ***
Jungle of Stone: The True Story of Two Men, Their Extraordinary Journey, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya by William Carlsen The fascinating story of the two explorers Stephens and Catherwood, who embarked in two expedition in 1839 and 1841 to Central America and their findings at several ancient Maya sites.
Stephens documented their arduous journeys in dangerous Mesoamerica, where he and his companion had to overcome physical obstacles, illnesses and threats of violence by bands of hostile revolutionaries. Stephens published his travel memoirs including many of Catherwood’s stunning illustrations in two books: Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan in 1841 and Incidents of Travel in Yucatán in 1843. These publications proved extremely popular, Edgar Allen Poe described the first as “perhaps the most interesting book of travel ever published”, sparking interest and appreciation for Mayan civilization.
Now the books have been digitazed and are publicly available via Internet Archive
From the original Stephens diaries:
We could not see ten yards before us, and never knew what we should stumble upon next. At one time we stopped to cut away the branches and vines which concealed the face of a monument, and then to dig around and bring to light a fragment, a sculpted corner of which protruded from the earth. I leaned over with breathless anxiety while the Indians worked and an eye, an ear, a foot, or a hand was disentombed. The beauty of the sculpture, the solemn stillness of the woods, disturbed only by the scrambling of monkeys and the chattering of parrots, the desolation of the city, and the mystery that hung over it, all created an interest higher, if possible, than I had ever felt among the ruins of the Old World.
Lithograph from an original drawing by Frederick Catherwood, of Stela at the Mayan site of Copán
The adventures of the two explorers described in Carlsen’s book are exciting, but the author goes on tangents giving detailed accounts of the lives of other characters or episodes in early Central America history, that often distract the reader from the main subject of the book: the discoveries of the Mayan ruins.
The author presents a sobering perspective about the consequences of arrival of Europeans to the region:
They now calculate that up to 100 million “Amerindian” peoples lived throughout the Western Hemisphere, though an accurate count will never be known. If true, this upper range means that the population of the Americas equaled or exceeded Europe’s at the time of Columbus’s first voyage. Yet by 1650, only 160 years later, the Indian population had plummeted to no more than six million, a decline of as much as 95 percent.
Although the initial population figures and the amount of the decline are still debated, most scholars now agree that Europe’s discovery of America almost certainly resulted in the greatest demographic calamity in human history.
The passages describing the Maya sites, convey the excitement and awe of their discoveries. As an example, this extract well describes the explorers’ wonder at the Copan ruins:
A huge sculpted head, embedded in the steps, stared at them from across the plaza. They crossed toward it, climbed the steps to a long, narrow terrace, and found themselves looking down at the river more than a hundred feet below. They had come to the crest of the wall they had viewed hours before from across the river. Above them, looming over the amphitheater, were two giant ceiba trees, their smooth gray trunks as much as twenty feet in circumference, their buttressed roots stretching out for hundreds of feet like the tentacles of an octopus holding down mounds of stones in its tight grip. The two men, emotionally and physically exhausted, sat down on the edge of the plaza and tried to comprehend what they had just found.
On the perils of the jungle at Palenque, where Stephens’ foot got infected:
Like Caddy before him, he fell victim to an insect the Indians called a nigua. This tiny tick, according to Stephens, ate its way into the flesh and deposited its eggs, which quickly hatched and multiplied. He carried one in his foot for several days, not knowing what was wrong. Finally Pawling tried to pick it out with a penknife, leaving a large hole. Soon the foot swelled to the point that Stephens had to sit for a day with his foot up. It was attacked by a swarm of small black flies, which inflicted hundreds of punctures. The swelling increased such that on his tenth day at the ruins, Stephens decided he had to return to the village. The foot was too swollen to fit in the stirrup and he could not let it hang down without feeling that his pulsating blood would burst through his skin. Resting it on a pillow over the pommel of the saddle, he managed to make his way slowly down through the forest to Santo Domingo.
The book is thoroughly researched and extremely interesting, though I would have liked the section on Maya civilization (history, their religion and social costumes) to be more comprehensive.
Personally, I found the last part of the book, with Stephens working for the Panama Railroad Company interesting but less compelling, instead the last years of Catherwood, investing in the goldfields of California and the SS Artic tragedy, were fascinating.
The audio version is generally enjoyable, but is not without small annoyances, e.g. the narrator’s fake accents (e.g. French) may be fine in a novel but sound ridiculous and are unnecessary in a non-fiction book.
3.5 stars
289. The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm by Norman Hunter **currently reading: The Novice's Tale and Find Her
Today is new Year's eve and looks like The Novice's Tale is my last book for the year, v. predictable only 2 stars.I've read 290 books in total, my PB! Yay!
I'll do a year summary shortly.
I'm really happy with my read this (or rather last :) year, I've added the year summary at the beginning of this thread.and here are my awards:
Best Mystery / Thriller: Shutter Island
Runners up: The Snowman, Rubbernecker, Rain Dogs, The Lewis Man, Bruno, Chief of Police, Confessions
Best Historical Fiction: Suite Française
Runners up: An Officer and a Spy, The Denniston Rose, The Long Ships, City of Thieves, Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims, Orhan's Inheritance, The Tigress of Forlì
Best Fantasy: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Runners up: The Serpent, American Gods, The Last Wish, The Broken Sword
Best Sci-fi: Pump Six and Other Stories
Runners up: Beacon 23: The Complete Novel, The Windup Girl, Alas, Babylon, Join
Best Children: Tales of Terror from the Black Ship
Runners up: Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror, Heidi, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, All-of-a-Kind Family
Other top fiction reads (in no particular order):
• Middlesex
• Bel Canto
• I Know This Much Is True
• Cold Mountain
• The Bartender's Tale
• The Pecan Man
• The Other Side of the Bridge
• The Lock Artist
• Our Souls at Night
• Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore
• One Foot in Eden
• Heft
Best Memoir/Autobiography: The Glass Castle
Runners ups: You're Never Weird on the Internet, Just Mercy, Tender at the Bone, Born Standing Up, A Child al Confino, Screw You Dolores
Best History & Biography: Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman
Runner ups: Julius Caesar, The Sea Wolves, Venice: A New History, Life in a Medieval City, Sparta: The Warrior State of Ancient Greece, The Rush, The Black Death
Best Science and Technology: Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World
Runner up: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Other top non-fiction reads (in no particular order):
• Hiroshima
• Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)
• We Should All Be Feminists
• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
• Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World
• Stai zitta e va' in cucina
• Pompeii: The History, Life and Art of the Buried City
Best 2017 Release: The Ballroom
Runners up: The Trespasser, The Couple Next Door, Join, What Was Mine, Home, Jungle of Stone
I sincerely thank my GR friends and the wider community for the time spent on writing insightful reviews, they provide much needed inspiration and food for thought. Even if we disagree on the rating, reading a different point of view fosters understanding and opens minds.
Best wishes for the holidays and happy New Year to all. Here’s to 2017, let it be full of wonderful books!
2025 Reading Challenge
Books mentioned in this topic
The Lewis Man (other topics)Jungle of Stone: The True Story of Two Men, Their Extraordinary Journey, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya (other topics)
Rain Dogs (other topics)
Rubbernecker (other topics)
Shutter Island (other topics)
More...
This Rough Magic, The Heavenly Table and Gennaro's Italian Bakery