Summer Reading

[chanrider]

OK, I know it’s windy but I’m stuck in the office and trying to get ready for a family vacation next week where there is zero possibility of wind sports. It’s a man-made lake in the Ozark Mountains so the shoreline is steep hills everywhere and it’s very long, winding and narrow… basically a flooded river in the mountains. Great for wakeboarding and laying around on the dock… need some reading material beyond magazines though.

I really enjoyed John Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air” this winter so my plan is to continue along the line of man vs nature/adventure/survival type stuff. Here’s what I got for starters…

• Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage- Alfred Lansing
• No Shortcuts to the Top- Ed Visteurs
• Into the Wild- John Krakauer

Also considering these…
• Chasing the Wind- Steve Fossett
• The Perfect Storm- Sebastian Junger
• In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex- Nathaniel Philbrick
• Black Hawk Down- Mark Bowden
• The Bounty Trilogy- James Hall & Charles Nordhoff

Some of these are movies I’ve seen and enjoyed, but why not read the original? Any recommendations? Thanks!

[MK]

Didn't want to see you skunked on your post. Don't want anyone to think we kiters ain't got litry skillz.

I'll throw out some authors I've succeeded with recently. Some of them are part of the pop culture so you may find you've already read them or know someone who has.

Dan Brown - The Davinci Code (still worth the hype in print) and Angels and Deamons. He's made a hit with his Code's and Symbols and it was really hard to put the book down. You may find a persuing interest in The Knights Templar after reading his boods.

Khaled Housseini - The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Truth is The Kite Runner kept me up at night after grinding through several pages in the beginning and I left A Thousand Splendid Suns in Padre (accidentally; Brad's wife had some time on the flats with us and I handed it to her then forgot about it...aahhh, Padre).

In reviewing your picks above and my "taste" in books I think anything by Vince Flynn would be in your field of interest. Memorial Day comes to mind but he has about 8-9 books out. He's a local UST boy mid to late 30's who has made some pretty good press and gained favorable reviews. He has a central character, Mitch Rapp, who is a "super agent." I didn't realize until I read a few of his books that I liked that genre but he's a real page turner.

There we go. I put out some choices to either be heckled by other viewers or heralded.

[chanrider]

Thanks Michael, one of the guys I work with has been after me to read Vince Flynn, so I'll have check that out fur sure. I used to read books for a bit then fell out of the habit for some time. I stumbled across and read "The Beach" by Alex Garland at a friend's cabin which is sort of a pop culture version of Lord of the Flies and as I learned later yet another movie. But it was decent enough it piqued my interest again (although I am not recommending this book or the movie for that matter). There is a lot to be avoided out there (for me anyway) so recommendations always help!

[jeffengel]

If you liked "into thin air" and like mountianeering books - "Touching the Void" by Joe Simpson is a must read.

[Death Roll]

If you're looking for good quick "survival" books consider:

Adrift---guys stays alive for 60s on raft without food water

Man's Search for meaning-Vitok Frankle ( read fist half only)--about
Nazi concentration camps

One Day in the Life on Ivan Disonvich --about Russian concentration camps

Marriage Obedience (Beware this one is too way scary to read!!!!)

good luck -adam

[Paul F]

Rich Hunter gave me The Perfect Storm back when we were camping in the Gorge. It is much much better than the movie because of all of the technical details about storms and waves. The stories about the Coast Guard rescue guys were incredible.

[steveb]

Sir Alec Rose, Around the World, documents his single handed trip, well written and entertaining.
Rowing to Latitude, Jill Fredston, about distance rowing in Alaska and Canada, well written ,entertaining.
Chey Blythe, has a couple of books about single handed and regular sailing crossings, I forget their titles but good all the same.
Anything by Bernard Cornwell, historical novels one of my favs, biggest complaint is he hasn't written anything for a little while and I've read all his books, most upsetting.Especially as I've read a lot them twice already.
Patrick Obrian ,Post captain, Master and Commander etc.etc.
Anything by Jack Whyte.

[chanrider]

Thanks for the ideas, there are some good ones here!

A few comments on Adam’s recommendations…

Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea by Steve Callahan- In addition to great story also supposed to have some practical observations and insights.

Viktor Frankl and the Ivan Desinovich book by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn… I’m familiar with these and really should read them all the though some time… a little too introspective and heavy for summer dock reading for me though.

Also, I actually just finished “Into the Wild” by Krakauer. Once I started I couldn’t put it down and read it through over the last two nights. What a crazy (and tragic) story. Among other things, deals with themes of self-reliance and interacting with nature which may resonate with some of the LAKAWA crowd. Not heavy and a very fast read. Krakauer writes like a journalist (he’s also a magazine writer) and I like his style. I am going to try and avoid the movie for a while… I don’t trust Hollywood to translate this story for me just yet. Need to let it sink in for a while.

Steve, thanks for sailing titles, I was wondering if there were some good ones out there and now we know!

And for those of you with little kids, I also picked a classic book I remember from my childhood and our 2.5 year old loves it. And it’s also a sailing book… featuring Scuppers, The Sailor Dog. $3. Highly recommended.

[steveb]

Duh...forgot an obvious one. It's not about the bike, Lance Armstrong.
As the title says it's not about the bike, it's a record of his fight with cancer but it's not mushy and self serving. Lot's of observations about life and people. A really good,easy reading and surprisingly interesting book.

[Nancy]

Fastnet Force 10!!! Sorry don't remember author's name. Worth finding, tho.

I'm glad Into the Wild is on your list...very moving, a young man in pursuit of purification, and chanrider, the movie wasn't so bad! I didn't even know it was made into a movie til I saw a show about Sean Penn & the McCandless family making the movie. They worked hard to try to make it real.

Mystery writer Ridley Pearson, especially Undercurrents because it involves a windsurfer!!

[Nancy]

BTW, Fastnet Force 10 is about a sailing race between England & Ireland that went very bad with some freak weather conditions. Fascinating from a meteorologic perspective and riveting from a survival perspective. More evidence for Murphy's Law!! You won't be able to put it down. Enjoy!

[Paul F]

Mystery writer Ridley Pearson, especially Undercurrents because it involves a windsurfer!!

Thanks. I read mostly mysteries. I have been looking for a new author and I don't know how I missed this guy. G. M. Ford, one of the authors I read is also from Seattle. I wonder if Ridley Pearson windsurfs the Gorge.

Kind of back on topic: Ridley Pearson recommends Patrick Obrian historical sailing novels in this interview. Powells is a book store that occupies a full city block out here in Portland.

[Judd or Dianne]

I read alot of the books in this post but I really liked all the books from Bernard Cornwell that Steve talked about. Judd read them and couldn't put them down, Steve lent them to us ( we haven't forgot Steve, just haven't seen you).

Dianne

[Reel Nomad]

Lots of good recommendations here. I think I'll have to pick up a couple of them over the summer.

[steveb]

I have to really back up Nancys Fastnet force 10. This is a superb book about an awful tragedy. The Fastnet is a sailboat race from Cowes in Southern England to the Fastnet lighthouse rock, a little past Ireland.
This year the weather gods mixed it up to conjure some unexpected hurricanes producing huge waves and wind. Obviously the book is a history of the various boats and people, the RNLI ( royal national lifeboat assoc, English coast guard) and all of their horrible and heart warming heroic experiences. I don't remember the exact #'s but something like 30 people lost their lives in this storm. Imagine the same result for the Milley Crossing, same kind of community as us devastated.
If you can find it in the library or bookshop it's well worth the time.

[chanrider]

Just finished Touching the Void by Joe Simpson during our recent Padre excursion. This is a GREAT book! I had tears welling up on the plane ride home as I got through the part where Joe is crawling back to base camp (after crawling down a mountain for 3 and half days with a severely broken leg) and can't find the tents in the dark. Really well written in first person narrative by Mr. Simpson who has an uncanny knack for relating details in a way that engages you fully. Thanks again for the recommendations here, there are some great titles!

[Chummers]

Mark,

I make this suggestion because I am almost finished with what may be the most enjoyable non-fiction book I have ever read: The Black Swan - The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It really is a combination of philosophy and well placed comedy (with subchapter titles like, "how not to be a sucker".

Here's the wikipedia link and a blurb about sales:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_ ... aleb_book)

The Black Swan sold (according to Slate), as of March 2009, close to 1.5 million copies [1]. It also spent 17 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list [2] and was translated into 27 languages.[2] The impressive sales of Taleb's first two books garnered an advance of $4 million for a follow-up, tentatively titled "Tinkering."[2]

Here's a portion of a review from Amazon:

If, as Socrates would have it, the only true knowledge is knowledge of one's own ignorance, then Nassim Nicholas Taleb is the world's greatest living teacher. In The Black Swan, Taleb's second book for laypeople, he gives a full treatment to concepts briefly explored in his first book "Fooled by Randomness." The Black Swan is basically a sequel to that book, but much more focused, detailed and scholarly. This is a book of serious philosophy that reads like a stand-up comedy routine. (Think Larry David...)

[JRN]

WOW, I had no idea we run with such a literate crowd. I'm going to print this entire posting, take it to the bookstore, & score some vacation reading material. Ditto on Vince Flynn, as I've heard Joe Soucheray & others rave about him for years, but haven't followed through. I guess he uses familiar TC locations to make it more poiniant for us locals. My problem, like song lyrics, is remembering titles & authors a month later. Thanks for the recommendations!