At the Edge: A life in search of challenge By Stephen J. Trafton Amazon Digital Services LLC, $37.50 paperback, $7.49 eBook Reviewed by Regina Koellner To say Stephen Trafton led an interesting life would be an understatement. His achievements are many and versatile. Climbing Boulder Peak in Washington State, at the age of twelve led to an impressive career in mountain climbing, with numerous first ascents and subsequent leadership in mountain rescue. A college job in a bank became a professional career which peaked in taking the US government to court and so saving what became Citibank. Later in life, he discovered a passion for car racing, and there he also excelled. He set the Ferrari land speed record in a car that he restored himself, and had an impressive racing career including an unsuccessful attempt to complete the Peking to Paris Rally. His passion for exploring led him across the USA on solo hikes and by kayak and on eleven expeditions to the High Arctic. His interest i...
The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage By Anthony Brandt Alfred A. Knopf, 28.95 Reviewed by Russell A. Potter Do we really need another recounting of the quest for the Northwest Passage? After all, the task has been assayed a number of times in recent years, by the likes of James Delgado, Ann Savours, and Martin Sandler; just last year, it was given a magisterial overview by Glyn Williams. It was with this doubt in my mind that, somewhat wearily, I opened Anthony Brandt's The Man Who Ate His Boots , and found that the answer, after all, was a resounding "Yes." Brandt has certainly done his homework, and yet his writing is anything but a term paper; by turns lively, mischievous, and dryly ironic, his prose is an adventure in itself, and deeply satisfying fare for either the neophyte or the traveler who thinks he has been there before. Even Sir John Franklin -- who, as the title implies, provides the dramatic continuity of...
American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett Narrator Graham Winton Publishing information: Audio Book Publisher: Orbit; 12 Feb 2013 ISBN: 978-0316200202 ASIN: B00E3PGCTG Standalone Copy: Out of Pocket Reviewer: Tyson Amazon Synopsis: "Some places are too good to be true. Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map. In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things. After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother's home in Wink, New Mexico. And the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different ... From one of our most talented and original new literary voices comes the next great American supernatural novel: a work that explores the dark dimensions of the hometowns and the neighbors we thought we knew." This book has been on my radar for quite some time, Good friend, Seak (AKA Bryc...
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