Death Cloud (Sherlock Holmes: the Legend Begins)

By Andrew Lane
Rated 3 stars
Audiobook

This was simply an OK book.  Fortunately I didn't have enough invested in it to tick me off so I can simply shrug it off.

The problem for me with this one is that it was supposed to be about a young Sherlock Holmes and the author obviously had no feel what so ever as to the character of Sherlock Holmes.  This book could have been about any kid.  Any kid that is except Sherlock Holmes.

But to readers who are not long time Sherlock Holmes readers it probably worked for them.  But for long time Holmes fans and like I am that that are convinced that even as an infant he had a distinctive personality and his first words were probably uttered in a sarcastic tone the book fell utterly flat.  It's my opinion that the author should have used someone whose personality was not so distinctive  if they felt the need to use an established character to draw in readers.

Book Description

Release Date: October 25, 2011 | Series: Sherlock Holmes: the Legend Begins (Book 1)

It is the summer of 1868, and Sherlock Holmes is fourteen. On break from boarding school, he is staying with eccentric strangers—his uncle and aunt—in their vast house in Hampshire. When two local people die from symptoms that resemble the plague, Holmes begins to investigate what really killed them, helped by his new tutor, an American named Amyus Crowe. So begins Sherlock’s true education in detection, as he discovers the dastardly crimes of a brilliantly sinister villain of exquisitely malign intent.

30. Winter of the World: The Century Trilogy, Book 2

By:  Ken Follett
Rated 5 Stars
Audiobook

I love big, sweeping and complex stories and this one is all of those.  It is read by John Lee who is one of my favorite book readers.  He does such a beautiful job with accents and doesn't try to be all high pitched and cutesy when doing female voices for which I am truly grateful.

Publisher's Summary

Winter of the World picks up right where the first book, Fall of Giants left off, as its five interrelated families - American, German, Russian, English, Welsh - enter a time of enormous social, political, and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, up to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs.

Carla von Ulrich, born of German and English parents, finds her life engulfed by the Nazi tide until she commits a deed of great courage and heartbreak.... American brothers Woody and Chuck Dewar, each with a secret, take separate paths to momentous events, one in Washington, the other in the bloody jungles of the Pacific.... English student Lloyd Williams discovers in the crucible of the Spanish Civil War that he must fight Communism just as hard as Fascism.... Daisy Peshkov, a driven American social climber, cares only for popularity and the fast set, until the war transforms her life, not just once but twice, while her cousin Volodya carves out a position in Soviet intelligence that will affect not only this war - but the war to come.

These characters and many others find their lives inextricably entangled as their experiences illuminate the cataclysms that marked the century. From the drawing rooms of the rich to the blood and smoke of battle, their lives intertwine, propelling the reader into dramas of ever-increasing complexity.

29. Garment of Shadows

By:  Laurie L. King
Rated 4 1/2 Stars
Audio Book
Read by Jenny Stelin and some other dude*

I complained last time when she wrote the Pirate book, can't even remember the name of it now, and wrote a rather snippy review and posted it on both amazon and audible about how I thought it was all fluff and no bite.

Well folks, I guess the old adage "be careful what you wish for" is true because this one is certainly full of edges.  There is certainly a lot more Holmes in this one but the readers who are hoping for a heating up of the relationship between Holmes and Russell are still going to be disappointed.  Holmes does not wear his heart on his sleeve and neither does he allow readers to rummage through his private feelings to see if he has any.  If he does they are definitely private.  Actually I love this about him.  It's so true to the Holmes Canon.

Anyway, the book had so many edges, some of them convoluted  that it took me until the end of the book to really figure out was really going on and then I wasn't exactly sure I approved of them.  I got a real dose of middle eastern politics during 1924 and that helped me get a handle on some of what was going on.

I am going to give this book 4 1/2 stars in my journal not because I am downgrading the book it's self but because I'm not exactly sure that Holmes, Russell and the Hazar brothers should have been involved in this kind of "game".  Just me probably.

ps:  They have added some guy to read the Holmes voice!  What's with that?  This is the 12th book in the series for heaven's sake.  We don't need someone coming in and being a different voice for Holmes at this late date.  Bad idea whoever it was that had it.

Publisher Summary

Laurie R. King’s New York Times bestselling novels of suspense featuring Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, comprise one of today’s most acclaimed mystery series. Now, in their newest and most thrilling adventure, the couple is separated by a shocking circumstance in a perilous part of the world, each racing against time to prevent an explosive catastrophe that could clothe them both in shrouds. In a strange room in Morocco, Mary Russell is trying to solve a pressing mystery: Who am I? She has awakened with shadows in her mind, blood on her hands, and soldiers pounding on the door. Out in the hivelike streets, she discovers herself strangely adept in the skills of the underworld, escaping through alleys and rooftops, picking pockets and locks. She is clothed like a man, and armed only with her wits and a scrap of paper containing a mysterious Arabic phrase. Overhead, warplanes pass ominously north. Meanwhile, Holmes is pulled by two old friends and a distant relation into the growing war between France, Spain, and the Rif Revolt led by Emir Abd el-Krim—who may be a Robin Hood or a power mad tribesman. The shadows of war are drawing over the ancient city of Fez, and Holmes badly wants the wisdom and courage of his wife, whom he’s learned, to his horror, has gone missing. As Holmes searches for her, and Russell searches for herself, each tries to crack deadly parallel puzzles before it’s too late for them, for Africa, and for the peace of Europe. With the dazzling mix of period detail and contemporary pace that is her hallmark, Laurie R. King continues the stunningly suspenseful series that Lee Child called “the most sustained feat of imagination in mystery fiction today.”

28. Once and Future King

By:  T. H. White
Rated 5+ so far. (In progress)
Audiobook
Read by: Neville Jason

I am through the first two book of Once and Future King,The Sword in the Stone (1938), The Queen of Air and Darkness--first published as The Witch in the Wood (1939),The Ill-Made Knight (1940), and The Candle in the Wind (published in the composite volume, 1958)  There is a 6th book involved that was added later on, The Death of Merlin (1988) which, according to a reviewer is regarded as an "anti-war rant."  This is OK with me because I do a pretty good anti-war rant myself.

I am loving this book and wondering why I have never read it before.  Probably because it's fantasy and I am very much a fantasy lite reader.  But once in a while one comes along that really grabs me.  I am not so sure I would be enjoying this one as much if I were reading it from the printed page as the reader Neville Jason is giving an absolutely brilliant performance of reading it in the gently ironic, tongue in cheek style that the Brits are so good at.

I am having to take it in small bites though.  While tempted to "start at the beginning and go straight through until the end" I start experiencing sensory overload after about 3/4 of one book.  So this one is going to take me a while.

Publisher's Summary

The complete "box set" of T. H. White's epic fantasy novel of the Arthurian legend. The novel is made up of five parts: "The Sword in the Stone", "The Witch in the Wood", "The Ill-Made Knight", "The Candle in the Wind", and "The Book of Merlyn".

Merlyn instructs the Wart (Arthur) and his brother, Sir Kay, in the ways of the world. One of them will need it: the king has died, leaving no heir, and a rightful one must be found by pulling a sword from an anvil resting on a stone. In the second and third parts of the novel, Arthur has become king and the kingdom is threatened from the north. In the final two books, the ageing king faces his greatest challenge, when his own son threatens to overthrow him. In "The Book of Merlyn", Arthur's tutor Merlyn reappears and teaches him that, even in the face of apparent ruin, there is hope.

Public Domain (P)2008 Naxos Audiobooks

27. Not My Blood

By:  Barbara Cleverly
Rated 4 Stars
Kindle Book



This is the 10th book in Cleverly's Joe Sandiland's detective series set in the 1920's and 30's. I ended up giving it a 4 of 5 stars in my reading journal. I have been waiting for this book since the first book "The Last Kashmiri Rose" was released in 2001. I always felt that it was inevitable that a follow up to that book would be written and sure enough, here it is. And I only had to wait for eleven years.

 It was written in her usual twisty style and I thought a couple of times I had it figured out but the solution slipped out of my grasp each time. I like a mystery that keeps me guessing until the end.

 I downgraded it slightly because I felt that the author had unnecessarily trashed one of the secondary characters at the end. I felt like it should have been left up to the reader to pass judgement on this character's actions based on their behavior in the first book. Perhaps the author though that not many of her readers would remember that far back but I did and I did not draw the same conclusions. Part of the fun of reading is placing ones own interpretations on events.

 I get enough of people trying to tell me how to think by what little notice I take of the MSM and RW pundits.

Publisher Summary

Scotland Yard Detective Joe Sandilands is caught off guard one night in 1933 by a phone call from a distressed boy named Jackie Drummond, who just might be the illegitimate son Joe never knew he had. Jackie is in trouble at his Sussex boarding school, where a teacher has been murdered. When Joe gets himself assigned to the investigation, he learns the boarding school case is more complicated than it appears: A frightening number of boys, all from wealthy families, have gone missing over the school’s history, and by some coincidence none of the families have followed up on their sons' whereabouts.

26. For Fukui's Sake

By:  Sam Baldwin

Rated 5 star
Kindle

This book was a free Kindle download.  I really don't understand the rational amazon uses on making some books available for free but in this case it turned out to be a treasure.

I enjoyed this authors writing and story telling style very much.  I highly recommend this book to all the armchair travelers who, like me, enjoying visiting interesting places with interesting people.  




Unhappily employed in the UK, Sam Baldwin decides to make a big change. Saying sayonara to laboratory life, he takes a job as an English teacher in a small, rural Japanese town that no one – the Japanese included – has ever heard of.

Arriving in Fukui, where there’s ‘little reason to linger’ according to the guidebook, at first he wonders why he left England. But as he slowly settles in to his unfamiliar new home, Sam befriends a colourful cast of locals and begins to discover the secrets of this little known region.

Helped by headmasters, housewives and Himalayan mountain climbers, he immerses himself in a Japan still clutching its pastoral past and uncovers a landscape of lonely lakes, rice fields and lush mountain forests. Joining a master drummer’s taiko class, skiing over paddies and learning how to sharpen samurai swords, along the way Sam encounters farmers, fishermen and foreigners behaving badly.

Exploring Japan’s culture and cuisine, as well as its wild places and wildlife, For Fukui’s Sake is an adventurous, humorous and sometimes poignant insight into the frustrations and fascinations that face an outsider living in small town, backcountry Japan.

25. Operation Mincemeat

By:  Ben MacIntyre
Rated:  5 Stars 
Audio Book

I stayed up all night listening to this book.! It's been many, many years since I've done that. I'm going to be as grouchy as an old bear by this afternoon.  I haven't seen this much daring-do and skull duggery since I worked for a lobbyist with machiavellian tendencies.  Well maybe not the daring-do but certainly the skull duggery. :)  The reader is John Lee and he has become my favorite reader of audio books.

The action in this book is primarily set in Spain.  Because Spain remained officially neutral in WW2 it is often not written about and I knew nothing about what went on there at that time  until read this book.  It was a virtual hot-bed of activity with spies so numerous they must have been tripping over each other.

The overall message that this book repeated over and over is that people can make themselves believe any thing,  no matter how improbable or insane if they really want to believe it. That's what the intelligence communities and propagandists count on and something those of us who follow politics see proof of every day.   

Publisher's Description:


As plans got under way for the Allied invasion of Sicily in June 1943, British counter-intelligence agent Ewen Montagu masterminded a scheme to mislead the Germans into thinking the next landing would occur in Greece. The innovative plot was so successful that the Germans moved some of their forces away from Sicily, and two weeks into the real invasion still expected an attack in Greece.

This extraordinary operation called for a dead body, dressed as a Royal Marine officer and carrying false information about a pending Allied invasion of Greece, to wash up on a Spanish shore near the town of a known Nazi agent.

Agent Montagu tells the story as only an insider could, offering fascinating details of the difficulties involved - especially in creating a persona for a man who never was - and of his profession as a spy and the risks involved in mounting such a complex operation. Failure could have had devastating results. Success, however, brought a decided change in the course of the war.

23. Game of Kings

By Dorothy Dunnett
Rated 5 Stars
Format:  Audio Book
In Progress

Book One of The Lymond Chronicles

I am re-reading (listening) to this book along with members of my on-line reading group.  These are the ladies who patiently held my hand through my first attempts to read The Lymond Chronicles 12 years ago. They are wonderful books but not a very easy read.  



The setting is 1547, in Edinborough, Scotland. Francis Crawford of Lymond returns to the country despite the charge of treason hanging over his head. Set on redeeming his reputation, He leads a company of outlaws against England as he fights for the country he loves so dearly. Dangerous, quick-witted, and utterly irresistible, Lymond is pure pleasure to watch as he traverses 16th-century Scotland in search of freedom.

26. The Proposal

By:  Mary Balogh
Rated 4 Stars
Audio Book

I have been a little off Mary Balogh lately.  I really didn't care that much about her last series.  However with this book she went back to one of her older series, the books that began with Slightly and  featured her of her secondary characters Gwen, Lady Muir.  It's not a great book but it's not bad either.  I enjoyed the change of pace from the other books I have been reading.  I need the balance. :)

Book Description:

After her husband dies in a freak accident, Lady Gwendoline Muir never dreams she'll love again. So when soldier-turned-nobleman Lord Hugo Trentham stirs feelings in her that have lain dormant for years, she can't help but imagine his strong embrace. Hugo finds himself drawn to Gwen, but he's never courted a woman before. Can he muster the right words to make Gwen open her heart and love once more?

22. Singled Out

How Two Million British Women Survived Without Men After The First World War

By:  Virginia Nicholson
Rated:  In Progress
Format:  Paperback


I am still reading this book and it's going to take me a while as I have other books and a quilting project going on.  But from what I've read so far it's going to be a very interesting read.

Book Description:

Publication Date: October 29, 2008
Almost three-quarters of a million British soldiers lost their lives during the First World War, and many more were incapacitated by their wounds, leaving behind a generation of women who, raised to see marriage as "the crown and joy of woman's life," suddenly discovered that they were left without an escort to life's great feast.
Drawing upon a wealth of moving memoirs, Singled Out tells the inspiring stories of these women: the student weeping for a lost world as the Armistice bells pealed, the socialite who dedicated her life to resurrecting the ancient past after her soldier love was killed, the Bradford mill girl whose campaign to better the lot of the "War spinsters" was to make her a public figure--and many others who, deprived of their traditional roles, reinvented themselves into something better. Tracing their fates, Nicholson shows that these women did indeed harbor secret sadness, and many of them yearned for the comforts forever denied them--physical intimacy, the closeness of a loving relationship, and children. Some just endured, but others challenged the conventions, fought the system, and found fulfillment outside of marriage. From the mill-girl turned activist to the debutante turned archeologist, from the first woman stockbroker to the "business girls" and the Miss Jean Brodies, this book memorializes a generation of young women who were forced, by four of the bloodiest years in human history, to stop depending on men for their income, their identity, and their future happiness. Indeed, Singled Out pays homage to this remarkable generation of women who, changed by war, in turn would change society.

21. No End Save Victory

Perspectives on World War II

By:  Stpehen E. Ambrose, Caleb Carr, John Keegam, William Manchester
Rated:  In Progress
Format:  Paperback
From:  My Friend Connie

I am still slowly reading this book.  It's wonderful

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2002

Robert Cowley and the editors of Military History Quarterly present a fascinating anthology of World War II essays from some of the world's most eminent historians. 

19. The Wittness

By:  Nora Roberts
Rated 4.5 Stars
Audio Book

I thought that this is probably the best book Nora Roberts has written in quite a while.  

I had to stifle the urge to nit pick a little since it is set in Arkansas and I didn't recognize a lot of the accents the reader affected.  But then the book is set in North West Arkansas and those people up there are a culture apart from the rest of the state.  For example, Wal Mart is based there as the Waltons come from that area as do the Duggars.  Enough said? :) 

Publisher Summary

Having had a traumatic experience twelve years prior, Abigail Lowery lives in a remote area in a house with high-tech security measures, but this only serves to further intrigue police chief Brooks Gleason, who aims to protect Abigail.

20. Tolkien and the Great War

by John Garth
 Rated 4 Stars
 Audio Book

Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth" by John Garth is not a full-scale biography of Tolkien, it is rather an examination of his experiences during World War One and the influence of those experiences upon the development of his writing and concepts behind Middle Earth.

 I thought this book was very interesting.  But while I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan I never got into any of his other books.  I tried the Similarian once but I'm just not enough of a fantasy reader to get into it.   I think that I found a lot to interest me in this book because I was not being required to actually really read any of his other stuff but got more of an overview.  Kind of an abridged version of a Readers Digest condensed book.

It was also interesting to me to see how his writing  evolved.  I  found it fascinating to follow him and his coterie of friends from boyhood through The Great War. Tolkien's relationships with a close-knit group of school-friends known as the "TCBS" -- The Tea Club and Barrovian Society, originating as a cluster of like-minded youths at King Edward's School in Birmingham, youths with lofty artistic ambitions and a belief that destiny would indeed carry them to artistic heights.

But Lord, for a group that was founded on humor and snappy repartee these young men certainly ended up taking themselves seriously.  But then WWI was pretty serious.

So to sum up my total reaction - While liked this book and I greatly admire him and his work, I will never be tempted to try to read any other of his books.

18. The Eye of Jade

By Diane Wei Liang
Rated 4 Stars
Audio Book

This is a pretty  a good  book but I had to adjust my expectations in order to enjoy it.  I was expecting a mystery, and it is that, but only sort of.  But he whole mystery thing is not developed very well.  What interested me about the book was place and people.  I enjoy arm chair traveling and this book did a pretty good job with time-and-place.  It says this book is the first book in a series that the author is planning and I think she was laying a lot of background introductions to the characters and Mei's family situation.  If there is a book two I plan to give it a try.  There was just enough in this book to like that I will give this author another chance.  But if she doesn't get a handle on the mystery thing then Ms. Wei Liang and I will part company.

Here is a link to this book on amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Eye-Jade-Mystery-Mysteries/dp/1416549560

11. The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British

By:  Sarah Lyall
Rated 4.5
Audio Book


Publisher's Description


Sarah Lyall, a reporter for the New York Times, moved to London in the mid-1990s and soon became known for her amusing and incisive dispatches on her adopted country. As she came to terms with its eccentric inhabitants (the English husband who never turned on the lights, the legislators who behaved like drunken frat boys, the hedgehog lovers, the people who extracted their own teeth), she found that she had a ringside seat at a singular transitional era in British life. The roller-coaster decade of Tony Blair's New Labor government was an increasingly materialistic time when old-world symbols of aristocratic privilege and stiff-upper-lip sensibility collided with modern consumerism, overwrought emotion, and a new (but still unsuccessful) effort to make the trains run on time. Appearing a half-century after Nancy Mitford's classic Noblesse Oblige, Lyall's book is a brilliantly witty account of twenty-first-century Britain that will be recognized as a contemporary classic.

17. Elegy for Eddie

By:  Jacqueline Winspeare
Rated 4 Stars
Audio Book

 I ended up kind of conflicted about this after I finished it.  On one hand I liked it very much but there were a couple of things that bugged me.  One of them was that some of the character's started taking pot shots at Maisie regarding the way she was handling her new found wealth.  They were telling her that trying to help some of the people she cared about was putting them under an obligation to her that was not a good thing.  Not a word about how Maurice, Lady Compton and Priscilla did the same thing for her. 

As a result I thought that then Maisie over reacted with what seemed to me with teenage angst (and believe I have seen enough teen age angst to recognize it when I see it) and started clutching her working class background like a hair shirt she was afraid to take off for fear she wouldn't be normal anymore unless she was itching. 

I also thought  her willingness to swan around in Priscilla's cast off's and her reluctance to buy herself new clothes or even, for heaven's sake pay to have her car tuned up went beyond thriftiness and bordered on parsimony.  If I'm going to continue this series Masie is going to have to do a little growing up and moving on.

But on a positive note II thought the mystery was good and I could see the basis for some darn good stories in the future.  And as ever, Windspeare does a stellar job of nailing the time and place.  She obviously is as fascinated with that era as I am.

Product Description:

Early April 1933. To the costermongers of Covent Garden—sellers of fruit and vegetables on the streets of London—Eddie Pettit was a gentle soul with a near-magical gift for working with horses. When Eddie is killed in a violent accident, the grieving costers are deeply skeptical about the cause of his death. Who would want to kill Eddie—and why?

Maisie Dobbs' father, Frankie, had been a costermonger, so she had known the men since childhood. She remembers Eddie fondly and is determined to offer her help. But it soon becomes clear that powerful political and financial forces are equally determined to prevent her from learning the truth behind Eddie's death. Plunging into the investigation, Maisie begins her search for answers on the working-class streets of Lambeth where Eddie had lived and where she had grown up. The inquiry quickly leads her to a callous press baron; a has-been politician named Winston Churchill, lingering in the hinterlands of power; and, most surprisingly, to Douglas Partridge, the husband of her dearest friend, Priscilla. As Maisie uncovers lies and manipulation on a national scale, she must decide whether to risk it all to see justice done.

The story of a London affected by the march to another war years before the first shot is fired and of an innocent victim caught in the crossfire,Elegy for Eddie is Jacqueline Winspear's most poignant and powerful novel yet.

16. Bridge to Happiness

By:  Jill Barnett
Rated 3.5 Stars
Kindle Book

This was one of the el cheapo kindle deal books and I was looking for a change of pace book.  It wasn't bad but just let me say that it was marked way down for a reason.

Publisher's Description

rom the luxury of San Francisco's famous hills to the wild freedom of the majestic snow-covered Sierra Mountains, BRIDGE TO HAPPINESS is the intensely dramatic story of one woman's life, the idyllic moments, her humanity, her love, and finally, the difficult road she must walk alone...to discover the strong woman she is destined to become. When March Randolph meets Mike Cantrell, she has no idea how her life will change, and how time will change her. For over three decades she and Mike forge a marriage, a family and a business together, helping to make snowboarding into a popular, worldwide winter sport, and raising four strong-willed and independent children into a adulthood, never once fearing the future won't be as golden as their past. In a heartbeat everything changes, and March and her family suffer a tragic change, one that drives a schism into her once perfect life, and will test the bonds of love and family far beyond any definition of recovery. Suddenly March is stuck in the past, unable to move forward, and only if she, alone, finds the strength and will to move on, can any of the Cantrells have a single, glimmer of hope at a new life of happiness. "Bridge To Happiness is a beautiful and poignant exploration of loss, love and unexpected opportunities. This book is for any woman who has ever loved and lost and dared to reach for happiness." Kristin Hannah, New York Times Bestselling Author of Winter Garden

8. Death of Kings

By:  Bernard Cornwall
Rated 4 Stars
Audiobook

By Bernard Cornwell
Rated:  Currently Reading
Audio Book

Publisher's Summary

The fate of a new nation rests in the hands of a reluctant warrior in this thrilling sixth volume in the acclaimed New York Times best-selling Saxon Tales series.

As the ninth century wanes, Alfred the Great lies dying, his dream of a unified England in danger and his kingdom on the brink of chaos. While his son, Edward, has been named his successor, there are other Saxon claimants to the throne - as well as ambitious pagan Vikings to the north.

Uhtred, the Saxon-born, Viking-raised warrior, whose life seems to shadow the making of England itself, is torn between his vows to Alfred and his desire to reclaim his long-lost ancestral lands and castle in the north. As the king’s warrior, he is duty-bound, but Alfred’s reign is nearing its end, and Uhtred has sworn no oath to the crown prince. Despite his long years of service, Uhtred is still loath to commit to the old king’s Saxon cause of a united and Christian England. Now he must make a momentous decision, one that will forever transform his life... and the course of history: take up arms - and Alfred’s mantle - or lay down his sword and allow the dream of a unified kingdom to fall into oblivion.

©2011 Bernard Cornwell (P)2011 HarperCollinsPublishers

9. In a Sunburned Country

By Bill Bryson
Rated 5 Stars
Kindle Format

I recently became very curious about Australia after reading a book about Australian Pioneer Women.  And for me, who better to turn to than Bill Bryson who is my very favorite travel writer in the world.  In fact, I admire him so much as a writer that I am making plans to be just like him in my next life.  I have, unfortunately, left it a little late for this one. ;)

But the description below is right about it being a dangerous place.  Australia is one tough country. Aside from having one of  some of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet it also has an awful lot of scary critters running around loose.

The upside is that if the people I know from that part of the world are typical then some of the nicest people in the world live there.  Australia, New Zealand (They Have Hobbits!) and Tasmania are high on my places to visit in my next life.

What, they don't really have Hobbits?  Darn!!!

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2001

Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out. His previous excursion along the Appalachian Trail resulted in the sublime national bestseller A Walk in the Woods. In A Sunburned Countryis his report on what he found in an entirely different place: Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest, driest weather, and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife to be found on the planet. The result is a deliciously funny, fact-filled, and adventurous performance by a writer who combines humor, wonder, and unflagging curiousity.

Despite the fact that Australia harbors more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than anywhere else, including sharks, crocodiles, snakes, even riptides and deserts, Bill Bryson adores the place, and he takes his readers on a rollicking ride far beyond that beaten tourist path. Wherever he goes he finds Australians who are cheerful, extroverted, and unfailingly obliging, and these beaming products of land with clean, safe cities, cold beer, and constant sunshine fill the pages of this wonderful book. Australia is an immense and fortunate land, and it has found in Bill Bryson its perfect guide.

---

7. Great Pioneer Women of the Outback

By: Suzanna De Vris
Rated 5 Star
Audio Book

While browsing through a book list the other day I noticed this book "Great Pioneer Women of the Outback," and because I now know a few people from this part of the world I thought I would give it a try. I have read my fair share of books featuring our American pioneer women riding west in covered wagons, fighting off indians, living in sod houses and fighting off spiders, enduring dust storms, etc. etc.

But while I have the greatest respect for them and their ability to endure hardships I think that at the end of the day their lives were much easier than the lives of the women who braved the Australian Outback. What really stunned me about Australia was the sheer size of the place.  If you whacked off Alaska Australia is bigger than the US and our Southwest could be tucked away neatly into a corner of your outback.

It's now obvious to me that this is a very interesting country that I would like to know more about.  And because I am a person who likes to learn things the easy way I am off to the library to find Bill Bryson's book "In a Sunburned Country"  In my next life I am going to be a travel writer and be able to write just like him.  That will be OK because he will be off doing something else leaving the field clear for me. :) I would like to add that I ended the book very angry about the way Georgiana Molloy (1805-1843) was treated during her life time by . . . . well . . . . by the men in her life.  It's reading about women like her that has given me definite feminist tendencies.

Publisher's Summary:

From the 1800's to the onset of World War I, pioneers making their homes in outback Australia were joined by their wives, many of whom had no idea of the difficulties and dangers ahead. These women encountered conditions which would test their resilience and resourcefulness to the utmost: relentless heat, dust and isolation; hostile wildlife; no medical facilities; and never-ending, backbreaking work. Great Pioneer Women of the Outback profiles 10 female pioneers, from Jeannie Gunn, author of We of the Never Never, to equally remarkable but lesser known women, such as Emma Withnell in Western Australia and Evelyn Maunsell in Queensland. Building on the women's records and her own knowledge of Australian history, Susanna de Vries documents the grit and determination it took to build what many today would consider an extraordinary life.