Expeditions & Discoveries Books

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey

Candice Millard

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Broadway Amazon Marketplace: 68 new & used starting at $6.69

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Presidents & Heads of State
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> People, A-Z -> ( R ) -> Roosevelt, Theodore
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> South America -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 211 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.

The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranhas glide through its waters; boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron.

After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil’s most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemisphere forever.

Along the way, Roosevelt and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, losing their canoes and supplies to punishing whitewater rapids, and enduring starvation, Indian attack, disease, drowning, and a murder within their own ranks. Three men died, and Roosevelt was brought to the brink of suicide. The River of Doubt brings alive these extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived.

From the soaring beauty of the Amazon rain forest to the darkest night of Theodore Roosevelt’s life, here is Candice Millard’s dazzling debut.

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World

Tony Horwitz

Amazon Price: $18.15 List Price: $27.50 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Henry Holt and Co. Amazon Marketplace: 55 new & used starting at $12.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 41 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The bestselling author of Blue Latitudes takes us on a thrilling and eye-opening voyage to pre-Mayflower America

On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz realizes he’s mislaid more than a century of American history, from Columbus’s sail in 1492 to Jamestown’s founding in 16-oh-something. Did nothing happen in between? Determined to find out, he embarks on a journey of rediscovery, following in the footsteps of the many Europeans who preceded the Pilgrims to America.

An irresistible blend of history, myth, and misadventure, A Voyage Long and Strange captures the wonder and drama of first contact. Vikings, conquistadors, French voyageurs—these and many others roamed an unknown continent in quest of grapes, gold, converts, even a cure for syphilis. Though most failed, their remarkable exploits left an enduring mark on the land and people encountered by late-arriving English settlers.

Tracing this legacy with his own epic trek—from Florida’s Fountain of Youth to Plymouth’s sacred Rock, from desert pueblos to subarctic sweat lodges—Tony Horwitz explores the revealing gap between what we enshrine and what we forget. Displaying his trademark talent for humor, narrative, and historical insight, A Voyage Long and Strange allows us to rediscover the New World for ourselves.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective

Kate Summerscale

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Walker & Company Amazon Marketplace: 72 new & used starting at $7.10

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 51 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The dramatic story of the real-life murder that inspired the birth of modern detective fiction.

In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection, ironically destroying, in the process, the career of perhaps the greatest detective in the land.

At the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking, as Kate Summerscale relates in her scintillating new book, that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.

Whicher quickly believed the unbelievable—that someone within the family was responsible for the murder of young Saville Kent. Without sufficient evidence or a confession, though, his case was circumstantial and he returned to London a broken man. Though he would be vindicated five years later, the real legacy of Jonathan Whicher lives on in fiction: the tough, quirky, knowing, and all-seeing detective that we know and love today…from the cryptic Sgt. Cuff in Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone to Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher is a provocative work of nonfiction that reads like a Victorian thriller, and in it Kate Summerscale has fashioned a brilliant, multilayered narrative that is as cleverly constructed as it is beautifully written.

1421: The Year China Discovered America (P.S.)

Gavin Menzies

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harper Perennial Amazon Marketplace: 46 new & used starting at $8.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> China -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 257 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Excellent history 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

A must read and a corrective of the present history of the discovery of America by Columbus. The cruelness of the emperor and his vision of a great "market" and "friends" across the seas are truly fascinating and understandable, yet frightening. The "proofs" and evidence presented make this the most wonderfully believable part of history not yet exposed.

Editorial Review:

On March 8, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China to "proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas." When the fleet returned home in October 1423, the emperor had fallen, leaving China in political and economic chaos. The great ships were left to rot at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost in the long, self-imposed isolation that followed was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America seventy years before Columbus and had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. And they colonized America before the Europeans, transplanting the principal economic crops that have since fed and clothed the world.

The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition

Caroline Alexander

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Knopf Amazon Marketplace: 185 new & used starting at $2.11

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Ethnic & National -> Irish
Subjects -> History -> Australia & Oceania -> Polar Regions
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Ireland -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 161 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Melding superb research and the extraordinary expedition photography of Frank Hurley, The Endurance by Caroline Alexander is a stunning work of history, adventure, and art which chronicles "one of the greatest epics of survival in the annals of exploration." Setting sail as World War I broke out in Europe, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, led by renowned polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, hoped to become the first to cross the Antarctic continent. But their ship, Endurance, was trapped in the drifting pack ice, eventually to splinter, leaving the expedition stranded on floes--a situation that seemed "not merely desperate but impossible."

Most skillfully Alexander constructs the expedition's character through its personalities--the cast of veteran explorers, scientists, and crew--with aid from many previously unavailable journals and documents. We learn, for instance, that carpenter and shipwright Henry McNish, or "Chippy," was "neither sweet-tempered nor tolerant," and that Mrs. Chippy, his cat, was "full of character." Such firsthand descriptions, paired with 170 of Frank Hurley's intimate photographs, which are comprehensively assembled here for the first time, penetrate the hulls of the Endurance and these tough men. The account successfully reveals the seldom-seen domestic world of expedition life--the singsongs, feasts, lectures, camaraderie--so that when the hardships set in, we know these people beyond the stereotypical guise of mere explorers and long for their safety.

Alexander reveals Shackleton as an inspiring optimist, "a leader who put his men first." Throughout the grueling ordeal, Shackleton and his men show what endurance and greatness are all about. The Endurance is a most intimate portrait of an expedition and of survival. Readers will possess a newfound respect for these daring souls, know better their unthinkable toil and half-forgotten realm of glory. --Byron Ricks

Big Book of Breasts

Dian Hanson

Amazon Price: $43.79 List Price: $59.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Taschen Amazon Marketplace: 46 new & used starting at $34.89

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> Collections, Catalogues & Exhibitions
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> Erotic Photography
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> Photo Essays

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Massive Collection of Great Photos! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is the ultimate coffee table book! A big, beautiful book of big, beautiful, all-natural breasts. This giant collection of nudes (420 pages!!!) runs the gamut from 1940's cheesecake to 1980's glamour. And every model is all-natural and silicone-free. This book is an unabashed celebration of curvaceous beauty that almost anyone will enjoy, but connoisseurs of well endowed women will absolutely love. Fans of historical erotica and vintage photography will also love this collection. But do not think that this is just for old-timers. The high quality images and beautiful women that are featured here will astound both young and old alike.

Editorial Review:

Say no to silicone: The greatest natural breasts of our times

Some call it the American obsession, but men everywhere recognize the hypnotic allure of a large and shapely breast. In The Big Book of Breasts, Dian Hanson explores the origins of mammary madness through three decades of natural big-breasted nudes. Starting with the World War II Bosom-Mania that spawned Russ Meyer, Howard Hughes’s The Outlaw and Frederick’s of Hollywood, Dian guides you over, around, and in between the dangerous curves of infamous models including Michelle Angelo, Candy Barr, Virginia Bell, Joan Brinkman, Lorraine Burnett, Lisa De Leeuw, Uschi Digard, Candye Kane, Jennie Lee, Sylvia McFarland, Margaret Middleton, Paula Page, June Palmer, Roberta Pedon, Rosina Revelle, Candy Samples, Tempest Storm, Linda West, June Wilkinson, Julie Wills, and dozens more, including Guinness World Record holder Norma Stitz, possessor of the World’s Largest Natural Breasts.

They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America

Ivan Van Sertima

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Trade Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $9.09

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> World -> Expeditions & Discoveries

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 71 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Well-Written Obligatory History Science Revealing Amazing Facts 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 11 people found this review helpful.

In the meanwhile (from the book's 1st publishing in 1976) it has become widely accepted that the Vikings preceded Columbus in the Americas considerably. It is also popularly known today that Columbus never set foot on American mainland soil personally on any of his travels. Yet, it is still argued by many African Americans that Black Africans arrived in the Americas simultaneously with the very first "Columbian-European" ships onwards - as slaves - and therefore are as naturally or not "Americans" as the Euro Americans today. Why so shy? Ivan Van Sertima proves neatly that Black Africans preceded Columbus in the Americas in at least half a dozen eras, some of those even preceding the Vikings considerably. In fact, that the Americas never have been as completely isolated from Africasia (including Europe) as commonly believed, with accidental driftings from e.g. Japan, Oceania, Europe and Africa all along - even vice versa. Most fascinating are the PLANNED travels by Black Africans to the Americas, ranging from the Egyptian-Phoenician joint (ad)ventures, via the (Black) Mali Empire of 1310/11 and the Moorish-Arabs. While some of these didn't leave that many traces in the Americas, some introduced botanical revolutions in the "Old World" upon return, others caused considerable influences in the famous civilisations of the Americas, such as the Olmecs, Mayas, Aztecs, socalled Incas and many others.

If that sounds unbelievable, you will know for sure after reading this book. I have reviewed parts (!) of other revealing books as a bit of a fishing, theories in need of scientific validation (The Africans Who Wrote the Bible); as maybe flawed proofs for general truths to be enhanced by more modern reasonings (Stolen Legacy); as less than circumstantial evidence (AFRICAN ORIGINS OF FREEMASONRY: Treatise of the Ancient Grand Lodge of Khamet). This book, however, in all parts manages to convince with overwhelming scientific hard evidence, simply un-disprovable. To quote the book's conclusion: "The African [pre-Columbian] presence is proven by stone heads, terra-cottas, skeletons, artifacts, techniques and inscriptions, by oral traditions and documented history, by botanical, linguistic and cultural data." Astounding to read today that Columbus himself was very much aware of African contact with the Americas preceding him, in fact this being the reason to pursue those travel( route)s in the first place. That the nautical skills of most of the preceding Africans by far outmatched those of Columbus - even up to the Europeans till the 18th century. That the king Abubakari himself of the Mali empire, which dwarfed the Roman empire, crossed the Atlantic on a first contact mission very daringly. Not to mention the very specific and very complex parallels between several ancient American and African cultures.

After reading this book, what strikes me as more amazing than the facts revealed, is my previous vague might-or-maybe-belief of them, as I had basically heard of the respective "theory" of the book's title, but without any proven specifics. Being fairly educated on this for my interest in Africa I did know before that it is accepted facts that the ancient Egyptians dug a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea and successfully sent a shipping expedition around Africa. That the Phoenicians became a sea travelling people. That the Egyptians knew that the world was ball-shaped and were masters of astronomy. That they were master-precision builders geometrically and astronomically. That the Polynesians were able to travel to and settle on Hawaii, Easter Island, New Zealand and Madagascar with ships not even resulting from an extraordinary megacity building society. More recently I had learned that the Egyptians and Phoenicians travelled to the British Isles by ship, even into the Baltic Sea. That the East Africans sent ships to India, even China, transporting gifts for the emperors such as elephants and giraffes. And so on and so forth. How was it possible not to automatically assume, Africans could and would send ships to the Americas?! Only because the white-skinned Europeans (largely) wouldn't and couldn't?

The latter fact isn't that surprising either. East Africa is the cradle of humanity, (lighter) black the first skin color. White is one of the last phenotypes emerging so far, for one of the last inhabitations was Europe (having been under ice a lot). Everybody knows that at the time of the pyramids getting built (no matter in which time line version), nothing of the sort happened in Northern, Central, not even in Southern Europe. And after the Greco-Roman cultural collapse, Europe was plunged - on purpose by the religious rulers - into the Dark Ages of mis-education or rather no-education. Sciences and (e.g. nautical) skills were re-introduced by the (largely Black) Moorish-Arab empire(s), stretching into Iberia. It is also no surprise that we have been misinformed on Africa. In order to sell mass-enslavement (again originally in order to demolish the rivaling Egyptian Black Isis religion, spreading in Europe) of the once venerated Black Africans to their European (Christian) subjects, the white rulers had to invent the propaganda that Blacks wouldn't even be humans, but wild apes. In those three lights this book's content appears very natural and not at all like a "controversial theory". The latter is one of the reactions I got for reading this book (publicly, silently by myself). Another reaction was that this is a typically (19)70s book: "Stuff like that was written back then.", ending the interest in this book. Knowledge isn't a fashion! It has to be enhanced by constantly building up on itself. If you never keep up, the gap will only widen. Someone third had never heard about this and couldn't believe it, as he has been misinformed that no pre-colonial civilisation existed in (supposedly) landlocked (Black) Africa. (For this specific purpose of balancing this lack of information I advise to read When We Ruled: The Ancient and Medieval History of Black Civilisations as a preparation for this book.) But then again, during the last couple of (publicly reading) weeks I was approached three times by strangers, commenting their amazement that I could read (as a RastafarI), and IF I could that I indeed would chose to do so. Two of them in all seriousness suggesting, I would only pretend (being able) to read to falsely impress people. Which reminds me of Ivan Van Sertima's words in this book: Racist conditioned people are rather willing to believe the absolutely absurd - Erich von Däniken's science fiction that aliens from outer space built the African and American pyramids - than accepting the most obvious, easily provable reality that it was Black Africans (in combination with the Native Americans).

The elapsed time from 1976 hasn't only given us a much better overstanding of the ancient American cultures, but has confirmed Ivan Van Sertima by disconfirming him, which should be taken into consideration: Ancient North Africans from the Egyptians via the Pheonicians (including Carthage) to the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula once had been black/much more black than described in this book. It is also known today that the ocean traveling East African Swahili culture became much less Arab influenced and that much later on than previously averred. It has been revealed that Egyptian history has been enviously faked to appear much younger by an initial Berlin Egyptologist, whose "findings" got copied ever since. Thus, the 1st dynasty didn't start some time in the late 4th millennia B.C., but in the early 6th millennia B.C. The first known mummification isn't anymore from Fezzan, "3,500 B.C.", but Uan Muhuggiag in (Black) Libya, ca. 7,500 B.C. Chemical analyses of Egyptian mummies have further proven American contact: Residues of cocaine. (Plus of Australian eucalyptus, by the way.) Most certainly, genetics have advanced in quantum leaps, yet I am not aware of any studies looking into the pre-Colombian African connection. In other words: Even where since 1976 Ivan Van Sertima has been overtaken by ever fresher knowledge (human knowledge currently doubles every 5 years), his statements get confirmed ever more. If the next print of this book fails to include an update, after well more than 30 years, indeed a rating star may be subtracted then.)

A note on the one-star populists on this review site: There are tons of them. None of them, I repeat: not a single one of them even attempts to disprove any of Van Sertima's proofs. (One corrects a bit, but of irrelevant specifics not concerned with the major question.) All they do is to hurl statements of disbelief, based on nothing else but layperson opinions, at the potential buyers of this book. With the only intent to prevent as many people as possible to read this book. Because they are not reasoning with the other reviewers, as the former do not argue as if having read the book and/or as if attempting to convince the other reviewers. The focus is solely on the potential new readers. Superficially, they seem all logical. But all, I repeat, ALL of their arguments are dismissable with ease. That's what I have done a lot in my comments of such populist reviews. I will give one example. Early on in the debate several reviewers claim, because close-by Madagascar is populated by Polynesians, not Africans, no Africans by all logic could have travelled to distant America. Sounds sensible? Well: Van Sertima makes proof of the Egyptians, largely in connection with the Phoenicians as well as the Mali empire travelled to America. Not the East Africans off the coast of Madagascar. Take a look at a globe or a Peter's Map: America is four times closer to Mali than Madagascar (by sea route). Additionally, a map of currents and winds provided in the book shows perfectly that Africans from the ancient Mali empire (i.e. the Senegalese/The Gambian coast) are able to basically float to America without trying, while having to counter winds and currents to get to Madagascar. At the time of the ancient Egyptian canal non-existant, the Egyptian-Phoenician ships would have to have travelled almost completely around Africa to get to Madagascar, even much further away than from Mali. And when they had the canal, they travelled around Africa the other direction. Also: It is historic fact that Vasco da Gama "discovered" India for one reason only: Hiring a Black Swahili sea guide showing him the way. Also: It is even false that no Africans populated Madagascar. It was only that the Polynesians had a much bigger overpopulation problem on their largely small islands, causing much greater emigration pressure, i.e. they quickly outnumbered the Black Africans on Madagascar. Yet, the populists' argument even supports Van Sertima: The Polynesians are/were still largely black, supposedly posessing inferior to white European civilisation. Yet they are by far the most spread out people the world has ever seen - all by ocean travel (with no original ship surviving till today). Last not least the Arabs came into contact with Black, Polynesian, Chinese, Viking and Greco-Roman ship-building knowledge and nautical skills. Why wouldn't they be able to reach the Americas?

Editorial Review:

This controversial book by Ivan Van Sertima, the Guyanese historian, linguist, and anthropologist, claims that Africans had been to the New World centuries before Columbus arrived there in 1492. Citing--among other things--the huge Negroid-looking Olmec heads of Central Mexico and the similarities between the Aztec and Egyptian calendars and pyramid structures, Van Sertima pieces together a hidden history of pre-Columbian contact between Africans and Native Americans. He also puts forth the possibility that Columbus may have already known about a route to the Americas from his years in Africa as a trader in Guinea. The ideas in this book have been debated and discussed since its first publication in 1976; even those who choose not to believe Van Sertima's theories should take his argument seriously. --Eugene Holley, Jr.

National Geographic Society Exploration Experience: The Heroic Exploits of the World's Greatest Explorers

Beau Riffenburgh

Amazon Price: $31.50 List Price: $50.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: National Geographic Amazon Marketplace: 35 new & used starting at $30.72

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> World -> Expeditions & Discoveries
Subjects -> History -> World -> General
Subjects -> History -> World -> General AAS

Editorial Review:

Filled with names that made and changed the course of history, National Geographic Society Exploration Experience takes readers on a thrilling voyage of discovery—in a fun and dynamic format that’s unique in today’s reference market. From the travels of Erik the Red through the journeys of Marco Polo to the heroic attempts of Livingstone and Scott, vivid text and rich illustrations tell the story of how intrepid explorers have expanded our knowledge of the world. Throughout the book, more than 30 rare and newly reproduced removable documents put history directly into readers’ hands: Hernán Cortés’s hand-drawn map of Tenochtitlan, David Livingstone’s watercolor of Victoria Falls, a dinner menu featuring Ernest Shackleton’s sketch of his planned trip to Antarctica, and many more. A wealth of photographs, maps, artifacts, and portraits enhance Beau Riffenburgh’s fascinating text as it covers the exploration of all seven continents. Sidebars delve into everything from navigational instruments to terminology to biographies. The book’s organization invites readers to "dip in" to any page and find a fascinating story, or read from start to finish. With a handsome slipcase and more than 200 color photographs packed into 80 pages, Exploration Experience engages both the eye and the mind. An exploration in itself, this lavish book creates a unique history adventure for both armchair and "on-the-ground" explorers of every age.

In the Footsteps of Marco Polo: A Companion to the Public Television Film

Denis Belliveau, Francis O'Donnell

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 46 new & used starting at $14.83

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> World -> Expeditions & Discoveries
Subjects -> History -> World -> General
Subjects -> History -> World -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

It's THE travel/expedition/adventure book of the decade 5 out of 5 stars.
17 of 18 people found this review helpful.

Denis and Fran live the French proverb: "leap, and the net will appear."

And so they begin...in the spring of 1993 when the friends were both 30, with a dash of reckless bravado and a lot of testosterone, they read The Travels of Marco Polo -- finding his descriptions come to life for them, literally jumping off the pages of his book. I suggest now that they have done for modern readers what hasn't been done in the over 700 years since Polo put pen to paper.

In writing about their own travels, Denis and Fran bring to life for us contemporary readers a world only Marco Polo knew. But since we can't all travel to such exotic and distant places -- it's all the more important that their book delivers on the insights of their two years abroad. That "travel is the enemy of bigotry," that this book will easily help teach our children: "intolerance just doesn't make any sense," as Fran says.

This book is for you...if you follow your bliss, and if you can live vicariously through our dynamic duo, achieving something most of us couldn't even dream up. Hey, 1,000 people have climbed Everest. Only 2 have done what these guys did.

You'll discover that the book works on 3 levels:

1. The authors effortlessly weave exciting historical passages from Marco Polo's diaries (exciting? history? really!). Their first person narrative is the truest form of storytelling, unfolding more like Indiana Jones, then any boring History 101 class. You can almost hear the Harrison Ford voiceover as they blend their own "in the moment" thoughts with text lifted directly from Polo's journals.

2. To anchor the reader, in context, they connect their wacked, Dali-like travels to their normal lives back in NYC. This ebb and flow, is exceptionally effective to help us internalize adventures we couldn't possibly fathom -- delivered through the eyes of two ardent travelers.

3. And, at 50, I appreciate the simple fact they've used large type, lots of white space, short chapters, stunning photos, all making the book readable in small chunks.

It's all so seamless. Making it...THE travel/expedition/adventure book of the decade.

A couple of themes flow constantly throughout. The pair suggest often that they couldn't seem to conquer the biggest barrier of all, bureaucracy. Learning that all visa officers are the same everywhere, liars, "...you have my word." Ha! And it seems that in every chapter I read their same one line, "it was over[sigh]." Every chapter. Patently false. These guys slid in and out of borders, with stealth. Some passages read right out of a 007 novel. As with their clandestine flight from NYC to DC (page 2), to meet with the mysterious "Mr. K." Landing in DC, quickly ducking inside a phone booth, and calling a number scribbled on a scrap of paper, from their "source." We move from Bond, to a scene from Die Hard 3, where the pair bolt from location to location, reaching just in time to make the next call, only to be given more instructions. If they don't get there in 15 minutes, the deal is off. No Mr. K. So, its taxi, hotel, phone call...rinse, then repeat.

Or, describing how a KGB agent masquerading as a bureaucrat questioned them (p 33). How they indignantly grabbed their passports back, before he could ascertain that their visas were actually forged. How dare he?! Jeez, Marco Polo never needed to forge a visa. But the real Bond cliche is their "letters of transit," given to them by Mr. K, addressed to various warlords along the dangerous Afghanistan route -- these letters were sewn into their clothes...no kidding. Also, describing one of many near-death experiences (p 46). Staring down the muzzle of a Kalashnikov, held by a small child. On their knees, in the dirt, in a land the US long abandoned, thinking "this is it, my life's over, done, I'm dead."

I gotta admit that although I'm staunchly American, by page 70, as the pair marches through Afghanistan, Denis and Fran describe firsthand the destruction of these people. Giving the reader some understanding of the effect our US has on this world. That with such great power, comes great responsibility. It's thought-provoking.

The lads struggle in a way sometimes painful to read. Day after day of bureaucracy, boredom, hunger and danger, on-and-on. But then they bring the reader back to why we travel in the first place. Like on page 116 when Denis is feeling sorry for himself that today's breakfast doesn't include Eggs Benedict, hash browns, and the smell of bacon. On the other hand, he posits, "I was on THE Silk Road, on the outskirts of the largest desert in the world, in China, a place I've always dreamed of going...I shouted over to Fran, "there will be no Eggs Benedict or coffee today..." Obviously, Fran shrugs, looking perplexed at his travel mate. Both of them couldn't think of a better place to be -- amen, brother.

Similarly, when Fran throws his arm over Denis' shoulder, proclaiming "I don't want to leave. I could see myself getting a Mongol princess and settling down... Xanadu is really here... These people are really living! I just don't know if I'll be able to fit back into my old life after being here." To which Denis cautiously offers, "I don't blame you for wanting to stay, but if you do...I'll have to kill you, pack you up in salted pork, and ship you back to Venice with me." I bet the typical Condé Nast traveler never gets to utter words like that?

This book is...more than just Denis' National Geographic quality photographs. More than just an adventure novel, of the first order. More than just an expedition travelogue.

IT'S A GIFT.

It's easily a gift from a parent or grandparent to spend a little time reading to a child. Some history here, funny passages there, imagery everywhere, all laid out in an easy-to-read format. The imagery reminds me of the scene in the movie Forrest Gump, where he's sitting by the bedside of his long love, as she's dying of AIDS. He describes to her, in vivid word pictures, the things that he's done, and the sites that he's seen. In a weak voice, she says "...I wish I'd been there with you." And, you just know it's so authentic when Forrest says to her... "you were." This book does that for the reader. Don't buy this book for yourself. Gift it, by reading it aloud this Christmas, to someone you care for.

Finally, know that their writing style runs from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (dude, lots of "dude"), all the way to Mary Poppins -- as on page 135, where they launch into a singsong babble when a Chinese cop demands their passports. "...no no, don't you agree, Fran?" "Oh yes, yes, we couldn't do that, no, no, that wouldn't be appropriate....no, you should always keep your passport..." LOL.

"I haven't told you half of what I've seen." -- Marco Polo.

I'm so jealous.

Editorial Review:

Ardent explorers and adventurers Denis Belliveau and Francis O'Donnell followed Marco Polo's route from beginning to end-starting in Venice and trekking through Central Asia, Afghanistan, and ultimately China-traveling 33,000 miles through 20 countries over two years; in jeeps, trains and rickshaws; astride horses and camel; and on foot. The authors artfully weave their own adventures with Marco Polo's descriptions and experiences. Richly illustrated with Belliveau's award-winning color photography, this compelling book documents two journeys of a lifetime, undertaken centuries apart, yet joined by unbreakable bonds of shared experience.

Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before

Tony Horwitz

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Picador Amazon Marketplace: 166 new & used starting at $0.21

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Australia & Oceania -> General
Subjects -> History -> Australia & Oceania -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> World -> 17th Century

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 93 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Captain James Cook's three epic 18th-century explorations of the Pacific Ocean were the last of their kind, literally completing the map of the world. Yet despite his monumental discoveries, principally in the South Pacific, Cook the man has remained an enigma. In retracing key legs of the circumnavigator's journey, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz chronicles the cultural and environmental havoc wrought by the captain's opening of the unspoiled Pacific to the West, as well as the alternately indifferent and passionate reactions Cook's name evokes during the writer's journeys through Polynesia, Australia, the Aleutians, and the explorer's native England. Horwitz skillfully weaves a biography and travel narrative with warm humor that is natural and human-scale, and his restless inquisitiveness quickly infects the reader. While striking dichotomies abound throughout that journey--Maori toughs who adopt Nazi imagery to symbolize their own fight against white domination, millennia-old Polynesian sexual mores that would shame the Reeperbahn, a sense that Christianity decimated native cultures at least as effectively as Western venereal diseases did--few are more poignant than the ones that abound in Cook's own life. This fine work is an adventurous reminder that answers to historical riddles are elusive at best--and seldom as compelling as the myriad new questions they pose. --Jerry McCulley