Some books that describe a particular place in vivid detail make you really want to visit that place. This is not one of those books. The lush descriptions of the deadly flora and fauna of the rainforest made me perfectly happy to enjoy it all from a distance. But the same descriptions make Roosevelt and his fellow explorers very real, and gave me a good appreciation for the dangers they faced and the risks they took. ( )

Another book I was surprised to enjoy as much as I did! I generally don't care for non-fiction; to me, it's often very dry and dull. Not so, this book—I nearly read it in one sitting! More than anything else, it was a great adventure story. I knew next to nothing about Roosevelt before I read this, and what little I knew about the Amazon came from elementary school and trips to the Omaha zoo. I thought Millard did a great job utilizing dialogue from letters; it broke up the mostly straight, historical narrative and always felt natural and authentic. The short chapters were great, too; everything moved along at a quick pace, and it didn't feel like reading a textbook. I LOVED the descriptions of the jungle! It felt like I was there! (But I'm so glad I wasn't—no thank you to fish who can swim up your urethra!) Highly recommended, even for people who think they don't like non-fiction, like me. :) ( )

Great adventure story with Theodore Roosevelt in the Amazon.

"One of the greatest frustrations that the men of the expedition faced on the River of Doubt was that they were descending a river crowded with fish that they could not catch. Those same fish, however, were easy prey for the Cinta Larga. The Indians made up for their lack of poles, lines, or hooks with the fishing basket that Rondon had found. More important, they had timbó. This milky liquid, which the Cinta Larga extracted from a vine by pounding it with a rock, stuns—or, depending on the quantity, kills—fish by paralyzing their gills. Used in slow-moving inlets and pools, timbó allowed the Indians to spear or scoop up the fish as they floated to the river’s surface."

Endurance (Tom Crean’s) Pale Ale
Guiness Extra Stout

An in-depth account of the journey taken by Theodore Roosevelt and his son down an uncharted river in the Amazon. Excellent reading. ( )

Subtitled Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, this tells the story of Roosevelt's trip into South America to map an unknown Amazon tributary after his defeat for a third Presidency. Equal parts true life adventure story, biographical portrait of a larger than life politician, and South American history, this is a generally interesting, sometimes gripping story I had never heard before. I will admit that my knowledge of long dead presidents is fairly sketchy and generally limited at best to their major accomplishments (or failures) in office, but I did have some inkling of the adventure-junky aspect of Roosevelt's character. After all, which school child hasn't heard about the hunting trip that resulted in the naming of the teddy bear or about his African safaris or about his Rough Riders? But about the expedition down an uncharted tributary of the Amazon, nothing.

After his final defeat, Roosevelt obviously needed something to take his mind off the political failure and to test him physically, despite suffering from numerous ailments that would have kept a less determined man from the hardship and danger that faced him in the Amazonian jungle. The South American officer leading the expedition wanted to chart the course of the the River of Doubt. The museum naturalists accompanying the former president wanted to catalog new species of plant and animal. The Catholic father who had been the originator of the plan wanted a South American adventure. Kermit Roosevelt was along to make sure no ill came to his father. And the local men were there to paddle the inadequate log boats and do most of the hardest work of the journey. Like all good adventure stories, this has murder and hardship and ultimate survival only by the skin of the men's teeth. It has inadequate knowledge coupled with appalling risks and near starvation. And it has the larger than life figure of Theodore Roosevelt. Even with all of this, there are still times when Millard's narrative bogs down in details. The journey took far longer than anyone had anticipated and perhaps drawing the narrative out was intended to mimic the increasingly desperate slog down the river in a race against time but the end especially really dragged until the men emerge from the renamed Roosevelt River. Once the objective of conquering the river has been met, Millard speeds the narrative on, giving a quick overview of what happened to all the notable (or traceable) men of the party.

I didn't originally want to read this book when it was chosen by my bookclub but it certainly turned out to be more interesting that I had suspected. Ultimately I ended up liking it but I can see my friend's argument that it was dry. I will pass it along to my husband as he's a history buff for whom I suspect it will be a perfect read. ( )