Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz
In Blue Latitudes journalist Tony Horwitz follows in the footsteps of Captain Cook, beginning with a week working as a member of the crew on board a replica of Cook’s ship Endeavor. I’d always thought of Cook as this stereotypical British officer, all his buttons properly polished and looking down a very long nose at all these dreadful loincloth-clad natives. In fact, Cook was born in a pigsty, was subject in his youth to a strong Quaker influence, and worked his way up from shoveling coal to captain in the British Navy. He wrote about the aboriginal people he met with respect and admiration. His name is now a bad word all over the Pacific, but in truth Cook was the best white man they’d ever meet. This already lively narrative is made more so by Horwitz’ travelling buddy Roger, one of the funniest, most cynical guys ever to walk through the pages of a book.
# Permanent link to Cook’s name is now a bad word all over the Pacific
The Better Part of Valor by Tanya Huff
Even better than the first in the series (Valor's Choice). Torin Kerr and her three-species space-going marines lead a team of civilian scientists and a pain-in-the-ass reporter into an enormous alien vessel they call Big Yellow. Their only handicaps are a glory-hound commanding officer the brass want to shine so as to placate his species' representatives in the galactic Parliament, and, uh, oh yes, the enemy ship that unexpectedly shows up, loaded and ready for bear. Turns out they've got people on board Big Yellow, too. It's like a haunted house story, only, you know, on a big, sentient banana with transmogriphic powers, with nothing but the cheery presence of absolute zero and fighters exchanging missile fire on the other side of the hatch.
# Permanent link to Spreadable Broccoli
The Stone War by Madeleine E. Robins
A spooky book. In the unfortunately not too distant future, architect John Tietjen lives in and loves New York City, in spite of the homeless on every street, and the gangs on every other street, and the security guards on every street corner. Then things really go to the dogs. When John is out of town on a job, some mysterious force unleashes true evil on the city by way of earthquakes, flooding, and an horrific force creating monsters of many of the few people left living. John makes his way back to help the survivors take back their city. Dystopian, horror, fantasy, mystery, noir, there are too many labels to choose from, but here's another one for you: Mesmerizing.
Also, spooky. Did I say?
# Permanent link to A spooky book.
Since the year 27 B.C., when Octavianus became Augustus Caesar, the Empire of the Romans had flourished...the Mediterranean had become a Roman lake ringed by Roman provinces and territories...cleared of pirates, and coasting trade was brisk. In fact travel, either for business or pleasure, was safer in that region than it ever was again until the introduction of steam navigation.
# Permanent link to “The world has been mapped, after a fashion…”
Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor
What, you thought napalm was a new thing? This book will disabuse your mind of that notion pronto. According to Mayor, mankind has been thinking up new and more horrible ways to spread terror and kill more people faster since before Alexander. Beehive bombs. Snake bombs. Poisonous spider bombs. Naphtha bombs. Arrows poisoned with snake venom or tipped with burning pitch to set the besieged city on fire. Catapulting the plague dead over the castle walls. There is no end, and, evidently, a very early beginning to mankind's ingenuity and bloodthirstiness.
Did you know rhododendrons were poisonous? And did you know that if bees fed on rhododendron nectar, that if you ate the honey they produced that it would kill you? It's how Colchis defeated Xenophon in 401 BC.
# Permanent link to Snake bombs. That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.
Shakespeare's Rebel by C.C. Humphreys
I'm sort of surprised I finished this book, as I am not a fan of the Earl of Essex, and I almost put it down anyway when the story opens with the hero coming off a month-long drunk. Yawn.
But I persevered, and John Lawley is a fun character to follow around, in spite of all the insane and oftentimes suicidal decisions he makes. The author does a good job with the place and the time, London circa 1599 and all the attendant paranoia that consumed the population at that time. Elizabeth is robust, Robert Cecil weasely, and the ensemble cast whether real or fictional strut and fret their hour upon the stage with vigor.
Recommended for anyone who likes historical novels, Shakespeare, or swordfighting. You'll even find out what a swashbuckle is.
# Permanent link to Shakespeare and swordfighting. Also whiskey. A lot of whiskey.
In 1390, however, Sultan Bayezid began his conquests in Asia Minor. His Muslim troops were unwilling to fight their co-religionists, whom, anyway, they could not loot with a clear conscience...
# Permanent link to Altogether the most efficient account of a six-hundred year empire I’ve ever read.
In the Morning I'll be Gone by Adrian McKinty
The third in McKinty's trilogy (following The Cold Cold Ground and I Hear the Sirens in the Street) featuring peeler (aka Royal Ulster Constabulary police detective) Sean Duffy in Northern Ireland in the early '80s, a fraught and dangerous time of Maze Prison hunger strikes and IRA bombings and then, of course, the murder cases Sean must work and solve. None of them ends very satisfyingly for him but this is a three-book flash photo of the time that you will not be able to forget, with walk-ons by historical figures like Gerry Adams, Ian Paisley, John Delorean, JFK's nephew Joe Kennedy and even Margaret Thatcher.
This book builds the trilogy to a big finish, in which Sean is required to solve a cold case murder to stop an IRA assassination. The most horrifying moment is reserved for a quiet conversation at the end that makes you realize how bittersweet the title really is. Well worth reading.
# Permanent link to How hard could it be to police Northern Ireland during the Troubles? Answer: Pretty hard.
Luristan is still an enchanted name. Its streams are dotted blue lines on the map and the position of its hills a matter of taste...I spent a fortnight in that part of the country where one is less frequently murdered...
# Permanent link to “…that part of the country where one is less frequently murdered…”
Mr. Stackpool was a stout, cheerful, talkative solicitor. He wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses which were so thick and heavy that they constantly threatened to pull his face down into his collar. Mrs. Stackpool was smaller all round. She had a worried expression. it could easily have been caused by her husband's bidding and play.
# Permanent link to “This is not a B.B.C. television program.”