Saturday, October 4, 2014

The 100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time - read these books, please

This post is about 105 books.  It is about a list.  How we all love lists.  This one is among my very favorites.  It is the list of The 100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time as assembled by National Geographic (five extra books were tacked on as lagniappe).

The list is apparently the result of a poll, with scores based on “the book's pure literary merit; its ‘adrenaline factor,’ or the level of excitement they felt reading it; and its impact on our history and culture.”  My experience is that the scoring system worked – ever book I have read from the list, several of which have been featured here at Wuthering Expectations, have defensible is rarely first-rate literary value, and there are specific passages or even moments in which the level of excitement is as high as I am likely to find in literature.

As I mentioned with Nansen’s Farthest North (#11), a great deal of the matter in any book of exploration is inevitably tedious.  The chronicle of any expedition across an icesheet, desert, or ocean is filled with many changeless days.  The great challenge is simply endurance; the reader is privileged to share the slog.

In others the excitement lies in discovery, as with Charles Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle (1839, #23) or Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843, #60), in which the author, “the father of American archaeology,” discovers the lost cities of the Mayans.

Many of the books on the list are about disasters, including the winner, if that is the right word, Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s The Worst Journey in the World (1922), an account by a survivor of the Scott Antarctic expedition, and a good pick to win a poll of the 100 Greatest Titles of All Time.  Owen Chase’s Shipwreck of the Whaleship Essex (1821, #61) is not a great piece of literature, however important it is as a source for Moby-Dick, yet the scene early on when the whale turns on the whaling ship, rams it, and then comes back to finish the job, is thrilling and unimprovable. 

Or think of the desert plane crash in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Wind, Sand & Stars (1940, #3).  The excitement is unvitiated by the evidence that Saint-Exupéry will survive the crash – that crash, at least – the evidence of the book itself, I mean.  There is inevitably some survivor’s bias.  These are the books of people who made went out and made it back in, this time.

Then there’s a book like Murray’s Adventures in the Wilderness (1869, #87), where the excitement comes from chasing a trout or shooting a rapids.  Not exactly getting staved in by a whale.  But the list has a great deal of variety, with settings in caves and outer space as well as both poles and every major mountain range and desert, times ranging from Marco Polo (#10) in 1298 to the present.

There is maybe too much mountain climbing for my tastes, although when I line up the mountaineering books a miniature history of human ambition, or folly, is outlined.  I suspect the mountaineering  books would by themselves make a fine course of reading.

I have an ulterior motive in writing a post about this list, which is that I wish more people would read the books on it – any of them – and then tell me about them.  I have read only 24 of the 105 books, and since I read only about two or three travel books of any sort per year, I will likely never finish them all.  I’ve covered disproportionately more of the books about the American West than the poles, about sailing rather than mountain climbing, and about the 19th century rather than the 20th, so, although I recommend for one reason or another all of the 24 I have tried, I would appreciate hearing about the oddballs I have not tried – Osa Johnson’s I Married Adventure (1940, #95), about life with a wildlife photographer (“She tells their story in straight-on American gee-whiz style”) or Tracks (1980, #70) by Robyn Davidson, who travels “alone across 1,700 miles (2,735 km) of Australian outback on wild camels that she herself had trained.”  How can those not be good books?

49 comments:

  1. With no Journey Without Return by Raymond Maufrais, one of the most shocking and depressing adventure journals, this list is definitely incomplete.

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  2. Only read one of the top ten myself ,have another the Herzog book I brought secondhand a few years ago an interesting list

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  3. The funniest thing is that The Long Walk by Rawicz is on the list. This book is a literary hoax and the authors's compilation of several real and invented stories. However, the meeting with the yeti is a real gem and and apogee of this fictitious walk.

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  4. It's not surprising, but it's always disappointing that no Portuguese explorer or pioneer is on that list: no Fernão Mendes Pinto, no Serpa Pinto, no D. João de Castro, no Raposo Tavares.

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  5. And the first book on the list is: The Worst Journey in the World. An interesting list, though.

    I can see how reading about these 'adventures' may appeal, but I always steer away from the madness involving animals. Ok, so some crazy/ambitious humans may want to risk their lives but when they end up clubbing baby seals or eating their sled dogs, my interest ends.

    I heard that Into Thin Air was a good read, but I never relate to this sort of craziness/"extreme adventure" for wealthy bored people who take entirely too many risks than is healthy.

    I'd probably opt more for Isabella Bird's book--as long as she doesn't start shooting the bears. That's the thing with these nature books. You never know when this stuff is going to pop out of the woodwork. Couldn't stomach Isak Dinesen's stuff for the same reason.

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  6. Well, the list is interesting. I have lately become somewhat "burned out" on prose fiction. Perhaps I need to take a break by reading some of the (so-called) non-fiction on the list. I call it "so-called non-fiction" because of the ways in which creativity (and fictions) always creep into non-fiction. It is human nature. Writers cannot help themselves. Either consciously or unconsciously, writers of nonfiction alter realities. The entertainment for the reader comes with the "detective work" -- separating the facts from exaggeration and prevarication.

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  7. Wow, what a great list! Despite the complaints from some of the readers above, the approximately 15 or so titles from the list I've read comprise a group--a pitifully small group, I'm aware--containing no duds at all. The Cherry-Garrard is one of my all-time faves, the Cabeza de Vaca is an incredibly wild and woolly tale, the Redmond O'Hanlon is a book I'd read again in a minute, and a couple of more are purchases that I just need to make time to read. If you do an "adventure book" project in 2015 employing the infamous Scottish challenge rules, I'll gladly challenge you to read one or more of these titles with me. Failing that, I think I'll prioritize reading some of these titles solo. That's pretty adventurous for a mere armchair blogger, isn't it?

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    1. 1) What are the infamous Scottish challenge rules?
      2) Can anyone sign up?

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    2. The Scottish rules:

      Part II. The host (me), will:

      i) Read the book you are reading, unless
      ii) I have already read it, although I'll reread it if I like.

      Part III. Write something

      In other words, I read my books for the Challenge, and also your books. So then I can promise, or threaten, conversation about the book no matter what.

      I ran the Scottish, Portuguese, and Austrian reading challenges with the same rules, and the soon-to-be exhausted Scandinavian thing, too, really, although I did not puff about it so much. The important thing is that there was a challenge for me.

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  8. Ooo, that looks like a fun list to keep on hand. I have read some of them, but not as many as I wish. West With the Night is wonderful. Full Tilt was a lot of fun. I read Into Thin Air and Wind, Sand, and Stars, but so has everybody. :) I own Two Years Before the Mast, maybe I should read it!

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    1. Oops, I missed you in my omnibus comment. I'll say that Two Years before the Mast, which I have read twice, is a masterpiece.

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  9. My other alternative motive is to see what additional books people suggest. The National Geographic voters, whoever they were, seem like a knowledgeable crowd, but they have limits.

    That Maufrais book, for example, sounds great. I mean, it sounds like an utter nightmare, but a good book.

    Guy Savage, I think you want to avoid that one - the dog - and any book involving the poles in any way. Anything with mountain men or early exploration of the Rockies. Isabella Bird won't shoot any bears, but her guide Mountain Jim will. I see your point, is what I am saying. The dogs in Nansen's book fare badly, and what is worse, he is an avid dog-lover, so he openly writes about how bad he feels just before he kills a dog for one reason or another.

    Poking around, I now think that the main revelations about the Rawicz book came out after the 2004 poll. Apparently the book to read on the subject is Looking for Mr. Smith (2010) by Linda Willis.

    The Portuguese writers seem to be unknown in the English world, even though there are some translations. The list does have a presentist bias, with only four books, I think, from before the mid-18th century, so the Portuguese explorers may have had a tough time regardless.
    Stu, the Herzog book is a perfect example of one I will probably never read but would be happy to read about.

    RT, the rhetorical range of the list is wide, from no-nonsense journals (Lewis and Clark, say) to outright mystification (Mark Twain). You will find a lot to enjoy here.

    An adventure book (or travel, or nature writing) project or challenge is a good idea. I swear I have never seen such a thing on a book blog, which is bizarre. There are so many curious and surprising adventure books.

    More recommendations, alternatives, and challenges, please – these are terrific comments.

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    1. As I tell people, all those bloody nature programmes turn into snuff films.

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  10. Lewis and Clark might be "no-nonsense," but I think the writing is not at all free of distortions and inventions. In recent years -- in the last 25 years -- a new term has crept into the academic literary world: creative nonfiction. I love the oxymoron that is implied in the term. And I would argue (again) that most nonfiction writing includes plenty of creativity, including what we used to call "poetic license." Think, for example, of the selection process for the L&C journals. Emphasize this. Minimize this. Ignore that. Add something else to that over there. Change the description a bit (i.e., after all, we want to impress our sponsor). But I have gone on far too long. I think I will spend some time with Twain. No one ever accused him of being accurate, objective, and honest. Then I will travel with Dana. After that . . . well, who knows . . .

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  11. Recommendations: You might want to consider anything written by David McCullough. No, he is not writing first-hand accounts, but his narratives are compelling. Start with Brave Companions. The brief essays on some remarkable people will whet your appetite for more McCullough. Then consider his work on the Johnstown flood, the Panama Canal, and the Brooklyn Bridge. And his biographies of Adams, Roosevelt, and Truman are also superb. Again, these are not high-adventure tales, but they are damned good narrative history.

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  12. "Creativity," that is a separate concept from fiction, nonsense, etc. Of course this is all creative to some degree or another. It is writing.

    By no-nonsense regarding Lewis and Clark, I just mean that the publication is of their at-the-time journal. No later mistaken memories or second thoughts. But still plenty of room for other kinds of distortions - "don't put that in, President Jefferson won't like it."

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  13. So is this on for 2015? And if so do I tell you my choices?

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  14. I agree with Hemingway, West with the Night is brilliant and beautifully written. If you can find it, there's an illustrated version with amazing photos published by Stewart, Tabori and Chang. It's out of print but used copies are definitely worth seeking out. I've seen copies for as little as $5 online.

    I also own I Married Adventure, which I bought, oddly enough, at a gift shop at Disneyworld. I haven't read it yet but I hope to get to it someday.

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  15. For 2015, ha ha ha, no, no. I'm not gonna let Richard push me around like that! Two reasons, 1) I don't read travel books quickly. I have an idea that the natural rhythm of reading them is somehow related to to the time covered. Every day of my time I read a week of the book's time. For example. Anyways, it would be a tough adjustment to read these books like challenge books. 2) 2015 is Italian literature year. I've already decided that.

    Someone ought to run a travel / adventure / nature writing challenge, though, even without my rules (but even better, with).

    Meine Frau is a big fan of West with the Night, but for no good reason I have not read it. I don't think we have that nice edition, though.

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  16. So it's Italian lit year all year in 2015? Any special events planned (no strong-arm tactics involved)

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  17. I have read and posted on Robyn Davidson's book on camel traveling through the outback. It is a very well done adventure story and you will close feeling you know as much as you want to about camels .

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  18. I've read precisely one of these books, which is Mark Twain's Roughing It; but intend soon for research purposes to read all the early African exploration books (I've already in a desultory way started on the Mary Kingsley); but first I really, really must read Doughty's mad Arabia Deserta, though only in the much abridged 600-page version I possess.

    I was intending to have an Italian literature month, maybe in November (I wasn't going to invite anyone), but perhaps could stretch it into a year instead. Italian literature feels a bit neglected to me (in a way Spanish literature use to but doesn't any more); I always feel that averaged per book I prefer Italian literature to any other language, and I've got a lot of interesting ones lying about to read.

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    1. I read the abridged version because it was the only copy I could find. It wasn't nearly as mad as I'd been promised. I don't know if that was the abridgment's fault or if I had been imagining unreasonably high standards of madness.
      As for "more people would read the books:" I've read Thesiger, Matthiessen, Stark and one or two others, as well as the abridged Doughty. Stark and Thesiger are more likely to see the eccentrics and isolates around them where Matthiessen will notice unison. "[W]henever we act like social animals, the impulse has brought luck.” The universe wants him to know that it likes him. “Dolma is the great 'Protectress' of Tibet, and so I am pleased to find her on my wall.” Very cuddly adventure for Matthiessen.

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    2. According to T.E. Lawrence, Doughty went to Arabia to save the English language so we really ought to get on with his enormous epic poems like The Dawn in Britain (which lurks on my shelves in several reproachful green volumes) or The Cliffs.
      By "we", of course, I mean Amateur Reader. If Axel's servants could do the living for him, Amateur Reader can read the big books for us.

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    3. I have wondered, since I first read about Doughty years ago, how much of his eccentric reputation comes from content, how much from style, and how much just from bulk. If the latter, than any abridgment is really damaging. But who is more mad, the author of the 1,400 pages of Arabia Deserta, or the reader?

      Henry Green liked Doughty. I wonder how much of those other books, of any of it, he had read?

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  19. Here is mel's post on Robyn Davidson and her camels, which is embarrassingly, from this year, which means I read it and completely forgot it. Which proves my point, that more people should read these books, including multiple readers on the same book, to help me remember them.

    The important thing is to take all information and twist it so that it proves my point.

    If I do an Italian thing, I am going to try to do it on a smaller scale than some of the recent projects. And even with those, a "year" usually turned out to mean more like 9 months before I was sick of the whole thing. I paced myself well with Scandinavian literature - 10 months in and I am only almost sick of it.

    I have some of obooki's feeling, that much of the Italian fiction I have read has been disproportionately rewarding. And then about a third of my motivation is to finally read Grazia Deledda.

    I guess I have just read two books by the African explorers, Park and Burton. I loved Mungo Park's book. But I have crossed paths with him, so to speak, which heightened my interest.

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    1. Italians for 2015. I am intrigued. Umberto Eco comes to mind in an instant. My shallow knowledge of Italian literature is the reason for the instant and limited recall. However, I wonder if Roman counts as Italian. I wonder.

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    2. Eco will be way, way, way to contemporary. Forbidden under the Challenge rules. I cut the Scots off at 1914, the Austrians and Portuguese at 1920 or so. Except for poetry, which is a harmless concession, since almost no one remaining on Earth is interested in reading poetry of any sort. You other folks can read those new-fangled books. I'm sticking with the rusty old fangles.

      I'll have a start date, too, to keep out the Italian Renaissance, a whole 'nother subject, so in effect almost no books anyone cares about will qualify. The perfect Reading Challenge!

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    3. The capricious singularity amuses me. I will give the challenge some thought. Perhaps I will browse the university library's Italian literature shelf (not shelves). Something should jump out at me. I will find a cover or title that appeals to me. That should be enough of a qualifier as long as I stay within the appropriate time range.

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    4. "I cut the Scots off at 1914"...which means you miss two candidates for the role of Great Scottish Novel: Lewis Grassic Gibbon's A Scots Quair and Alasdair Gray's Lanark, unless you allow a little leeway.

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    5. That's right - the entire Scottish revival sparked by The House with the Green Shutters was cut off, excepting that novel. The bets candidate for Great Scottish Novel I have actually read was easily The Entail by John Galt.

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    6. The Entail is a leading candidate for the Great Scottish Novel if sanity is a requirement. Its mad rival is . Hogg's Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

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    7. A couple of us had a fine, fine time with the Hogg novel.

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  20. Who's on the docket? Will you wrestle with the fearsome D'Annunzio? Don't neglect Collodi: there's a lot to say about "Pinocchio," especially if you find a translation that doesn't bleach out all the Catholicism.

    For a travel book, I'll break what is probably an unwritten law, and recommend a book written by a friend (now gone): "Jadoo," by John Keel (i957). Keel, fresh out of the army, blunders his way through the East, charming cobras, playing Russian roulette with desperadoes, chasing the Yeti, and sending his stories back to men's magazines in the US. It's a blast, and it's up to you to figure out how reliable a narrator he was.

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  21. Some of Goldoni's comedies, Alfieri's Autobiography, Leopardi's Zibaldone and his Canti, Pirandello's The late Mattia Pascal and his Short Stories for One Year are among the best books I've read and I recommend them fanboy-ishly. As for children's books, I second the Pinocchio's recommendation (with Coover's Pinocchio in Venice as a chaser) and toss in De Amicis' Cuore: how many tears that little book has jerked!

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  22. D'Annunzio is a real headache. So many books in English, since he was once a best-selling author. But so little idea what is in them, since his reputation has crashed. Which are literature, and which are curiosities - although who am I to complain, since right now I'm reading To Damscus.

    Collodi is one I look forward to, after last reading it thirty years ago, maybe longer.

    Other writers I am sure I want to read or revisit: Leopardi, Verga, Deledda, and some of the early 20th century poets.

    Thanks for the Keel recommendation - what a hoot!

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    1. Joyce championed D'Annunzio, which has puzzled many Joyce fans. What did he see in him? I have to admit I have a few volumes on my shelves, which I still haven't read.

      I know appallingly little about 19th century Italian literature; I've been stuck on the medieval and Renaissance writers, because there are so many good ones. I'll look forward to your investigations.

      I don't know if Calvino is beyond your cutoff, but you might consider his collection of folktales, for the light they may shed on the other stuff.

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  23. This thread has taken a funny turn, hasn't it? We will revisit the subject in January, I promise, with all of these good idea incorporated. So RT, save your library find!

    The Pirandello fiction is very tempting. I love Goldoni - more of him is a certainty. More Leopardi, too, although I will have to forbid that giant Zibaldone translation on logistical grounds. The Alfieri is a great idea - FM Ford's bit from it in The March of Literature is hilarious. The Edmondo de Amici is a great idea, too.

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    1. Threads do that, don't they? Just ask the sisters of Fate in ancient Greece. In any case, I am jumping the gun a bit by considering Giovanni Verga. Since D. H. Lawrence thought enough to translate some Verga, perhaps I can summon up the interest to find out why Lawrence was so interested. However, if Verga violates your timeline restrictions, I will return to the shelves.

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    2. Verga is a writer of high interest. I hope to read several of his books next year. Lawrence's translation of Verga's Little Novels of Sicily, while not the most accurate translation available, is a work of art in its own right.

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  24. Unless Vergil counts, two books by Leonardo Sciascia are the only Italian novels I've read in living memory. But I have read a pretty good chunk of the book on the "adventure" list. I'm annoyed that the Shackleton and Worsley books are on the list, but there is no Shipton. Shackleton was a big dope; Shipton was cool. There are better Reihold Messner titles out there, too. What else is on there? Oh, Conquistadors of the Useless is a great book. The Worst Journey in the World is a great book. Everyone should read Kon-Tiki. The David Roberts books are good. Everest: The West Ridge is a fabulous book, and Tom Hornbein is a remarkable guy, even at the age of 80 or whatever he is now. I want to read all of the English explorers' books on Africa.

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  25. I've had problems taking mountaineering books seriously since I read The Ascent of Rum Doodle by WE Bowman.

    Nicholas Tomalin & Ron Hall: The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst. is a study of a man who set off to race round the world but didn't with extracts from his diaries. A lot of the travel is inside the mind.

    ...

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    1. Some day the world will marvel at my account of this spring's thrilling summit of Mt Finlayson. No Sherpas, no fixed ropes, no supplementary oxygen. We did pause briefly for lunch on the West Face.

      I'd forgotten all about Rum Doodle. What a great book.

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  26. Kon-Tiki is actually the logical followup to Nansen, since the Fram and the Kon-Tiki are in museums adjacent to each other in Oslo.

    Rum Doodle is a good reminder that these true accounts are literature, for better or worse. They get encrusted with cliches of their own.

    The Crowhurst story is terribly sad. More great recommendations - thanks Roger, thanks Scott.

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  27. I listened to Into Thin Air on audio read by the author, it was a good nail biter especially since I listened to it in winter, often while it was snowing out. Hubris and bad decisions do not produce good results. My husband has read Sailing Alone Around the World and really liked it but I've not gotten around to it yet.

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  28. I'm nearing the end of Conquest of the Useless by Werner Herzog, a sort-of-account of the filming of Fitzcarraldo in the Peruvian Amazon. Mostly it is about Herzog's unceasing marvel at the meterological and insect horrors he confronts daily. He has funny little asides describing Kinski's unhinged rants. And snakes. Lots of snakes.

    You don't tend to think of film-making as a constant battle with the clear and imminent possibility of violent death, but that is what Herzog lays out, in a wry and contemplative tone. How he kept going through the floods, accidents, injuries, ambushes, infections, drunkennes etc is one to ponder.

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  29. Stefanie - the Slocum book is one I do plan to read - more of my bias for sailing books. I do not, myself, sail or particularly enjoy sailing. Curious how irrelevant that is in this context. I prefer climbing mountains, at least mountains like Mt. Finlayson.

    Film-making as an adventure has become a genuine documentary genre - Herzog, Apocalypse Now, that Terry Gilliam Don Quixote. Maybe that's all of them. Three is enough to make a genre.

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  30. I've read eleven of those, most of them Arctic- or Antarctic-related. All the Shackleton/Scott/ Byrd/Cherry-Garrard/ Worsley ones, and then a sprinkle of the others. If I pick some of these up (and I'm likely to, it's a genre I enjoy) I'll let you know. I can really recommend the Fleming.

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  31. Oh good, I knew you had read all or most of the polar books, and was wondering what you might say. I remember you writing about Robert Byrd's book.

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