August 2016 - Journeys

Sorry this wasn't up by June 1st. I've been dealing with medical issues. I think August would be a great time for all of us to get away and go on some journeys. I'd like the books read for this month to cover fictional or nonfictional journeys taken by people in history.

For example, some fictional journeys -

Christie, Agatha Murder on the Orient Express
Dunn, Carola To Davy Jones Below
Melville, Herman Moby Dick
Verne, Jules Around the World in Eighty Days

and many others...

Some nonfictional journeys -

Ambrose, Stephen Undaunted Courage
Heyerdahl, Thor Kon-Tiki
Lord, Walter A Night to Remember
Steinbeck, John Travels with Charley

also, many others...

Happy Travels!

I like the sound of this one Carla. Some of my favourite historical fictions have featured journeys.

I love this theme! I am already planning on reading Agatha Christie's The Mystery of the Blue Train as well as A Far Off Place by Laurens van der Post, about two children who, fleeing a massacre, cross the Kalahari Desert on foot. I have a few more in my TBR that are tempting me, The Revenant by Michael Punke about Hugh Glass and his amazing journey across the wilderness, The March by E.L. Doctorow about Sherman's March during the American Civil War and True Sisters by Sandra Dallas about a Mormon trek to Utah. My only problem is that I won't be able to fit them all in!

Whew. In just a quick and very partial skim of my unread or "to be reread" accumulations (and thus all ROOTs eligible), I've currently got a list of some thirty-three possibilities with everything from Jack Kerouac to The Canterbury Tales to Watership Down. And in honor of ALL VIRAGO - ALL AUGUST, I've even got Roughing It in the Bush or Life in Canada by Susanna Moodie. Great topic, Carla!

I'll plan on The Bafut Beagles by Gerald Durrell.

I just read Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome and then realized that it would fit the theme of Journeys as the main characters travel up the Thames on a boating trip. I loved this book and found the humor still fresh today.

>6 DeltaQueen50: I'm goin to join you with that one instead of my originally planned book. I just read Gerald Durrell in June and I'm not ready for another one just yet.

By the way, has anyone claimed September yet? I don't see a thread for September, but maybe I'm overlooking it.

According to the schedule set up at the beginning of the year, it's Rosalita. Has she been around lately?

I'll send Julia (Rosalita) a private message to remind her that she's up for September.

I decided to read Three Men in a Boat a couple of months ago because I kept coming across references to it, including one of Connie Willis' time travel books. Delightful!!

>11 cfk: A friend has recommended that since I have read Three Men in a Boat that I now read Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog so I have added it to my next month pile.

My first, Susanna Moodie (intro Margaret Atwood), Roughing It in the Bush, a memoir of British (Scottish) emigrants to the backwoods of Upper Canada in the 1830s. Also satisfies All Virago/All August.

Good choice!

I have finished A Far Off Place by Laurens van der Post and I really enjoyed this exciting adventure story as four young people are forced into the Kalahari Desert after a massacre, they journey across Africa to reach safety.

I finished The adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the first time I read this in English. I was surprised to find that I remembered nearly all of it. And how I longed to box Tom Sawyer's ears for unnecessarily complicating things!

I just finished Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad (3***), from Mark Twain: A Tramp Abroad, Following the Equator, & Other Travels (Library of America). This month's theme of "Journeys" gives me an opportunity to complete an entire LoA volume, but I may only finish the first book, A Tramp Abroad, considering that this is also All Virago/All August month and that I also have some other "Journeys" I'd like to get read – in particular, a couple by a childhood favorite of mine, Marion Garthwaite, as well as Thoreau's The Maine Woods.

Any "Journeys" that I have that involve water, though, I'm saving for the September theme.

I started reading Circling the Sun for this theme, but I'm 100 pages in and Beryl hasn't gone very far yet.

ETA: she did go to India, so I guess that's a start.

I have completed The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie and found it a very satisfying mystery.

I have also completed True Sisters by Sandra Dallas. I found this story about the Mormon treks in 1856 and the hardships they encountered to be a moving and fascinating story.

Marion Garthwaite's Coarse Gold Gulch (4****), a middle-reader novel from 1956 about two children, 14yo Jonathan and his kid sister Madie, who travel on foot across California from San Francisco to the gold-mining town of Coarse Gold Gulch to find their father. Garthwaite was the author of the middle-reader Holdup on Bootjack Hill (1962) which I read in its children's version as a five-part serial in Jack and Jill Magazine, July through November 1959. Holdup was one of my favorite childhood stories and I've been reading other Garthwaite novels in the past several years.

Garthwaite was a children's-librarian-turned-children's-author who lived in California, and most but not all of her books are historical novels of California's early-statehood years.

I think that "Lusitania: an Epic Tragedy" actually qualifies for this category, so....

"Lusitania" was heavy on research and background material which made it slow going. I learned way more about the history and development of submarines and torpedoes than I cared to know. Preston's development of characters was excellent, as was her descriptions of the sinking and the aftermath for the survivors.

The stupidity of the cruise line and captain were appalling. They seemed to have learned nothing from the sinking of the Titanic and assumed that their ship was too fast to be hit and, if hit, would be slow in sinking, allowing everyone to be evacuated. There were no realistic drills for the crew and none at all for the passengers. Consequently, their inability to successfully lower the life boats was complicated by the ship's list and continuing speed.

Marion Garthwaite, Mario: A Mexican Boy's Adventure, a middle-reader book from 1960. A Mexican boy is lured across the border by a smuggler, is forced to pick cotton, and struggles to return home. Not bad, but not Garthwaite at her best.

Well I finished Circling the Sun, it is a great book but I wouldn't say the main theme is about a journey. It is more about Beryl's journey through life. Unfortunately I don't think it really qualifies here. Never mind, at least I got to read a book I enjoyed.

I read Royal Escape which is about the long and convoluted journey that Charles II took to escape from England after his defeat at Worcester in 1651. Cromwell was eager to catch him and there was a great price on Charles' head but loyal subjects were found who helped to hide him and arrange passage to France. There were obstacles in the way and it was a journey that took over a month as he wended his way from place to place seeking a way out of England.

I've been enjoying checking in and seeing what people have been reading for this category. Before the month ends, I have reports on two books to add:

1. Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck and his dog, Charley, made a big journey circling around the United States in 1960. We get talk of small issues, such as what's involved in finding a place to park a makeshift trailer for the night, and much larger issues, such as the integration of elementary schools in New Orleans. Enjoyed this one. The feeling of a journey came through and I must say I found Charley, the poodle, a welcome addition.

2. The Path to Rome by Hilaire Belloc
This was a report of a pilgrimage made by Mr. Belloc, pretty much all on foot, from France through the Alps and on to Rome. I loved the way Belloc, like Steinbeck, gave the reader the sense of being on a journey.
He communicates to us about the towns he passed through and the people he met and sometimes even gives us songs and passages concerning conversations with himself on the journey. Also enjoyed this one. It, and Steinbeck's book above, exceeded my expectations.

Anyone interested in volunteering to host either October or December? Please check Here

The Exiles and The Settlers by William Stuart Long to fulfill my "book set in Australia" category.

The first book details (and I mean DETAILS) the story of a young girl and her mother who are driven to desperate straits in the grungy underground of London and sentenced for thievery to be transported to the newly claimed land of Australia. They, along with thousands of other convicts, are meant to start carving out habitable area along the coast, developing what eventually becomes the city of Sydney. This book is slow to get going, and there are a lot of characters to keep track of.

The second book has better pacing. The city is gaining ground, although the outlying farms are suffering greatly from antagonism from the indigenous tribes, who are of course loath to give up prime hunting land and water sources. The main character is now almost twenty, and determined to succeed in this new land.

The positive aspects of this series: the setting is fascinating, with lots of well-researched details.

The negatives: the characters aren't too badly fashioned, but sometimes they do things that are out-of-character to advance a plot point, which I find distracting.

There are about a dozen books in this series, and I doubt if I will seriously pursue them but might pick up the next one if I run across it.

>28 Darth-Heather: Welcome to the Reading Through Time Challenge, Darth-Heather.

>29 DeltaQueen50: thank you for the welcome. I am usually terrible at keeping up with challenges, but in this case it was a happy coincidence that these books apply to the "journey" theme. I hope to be able to join in a few other challenges, or at least to add to my TBR based on the reviews posted here :)

No pressure on the challenges here, if you skip a month or so - no problem. :)

My reads for the Journeys month:

A Room with a View, E.M. Forster (touring Italy)
Above All Things, Tanis Rideout (journeying from England to Himalayas & up Mt. Everest)
Whistling Past the Graveyard, Susan Crandall (9 y.o.’s running away from home journey from MS to TN)
The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf, Gerald Morris (knight on a quest)