A Hero Born
adventure
Master And Commander
A bit of an odd coincidence, I did not realize when reading His Majesty’s Dragon that it was basically just Master and Commander with dragons. And to be frank, I think the dragons did improve it a bit. I mean,...
Life Lived Wild
Rick Ridgeway’s writing has a bit of a rough-hewn, simple style that I don’t think will win many awards - and at first, that I didn’t think I liked that much. But there is also a deep, earnest sincerity to...
Into The Silence
Impressive, compelling and detailed story of a bunch of crazy Britishers, gallivanting through life, clinging to the glory of a bygone era, callously causing wanton death and performing feats of greatness. It is astonishing their arrogance, what they lived through,...
Treasure Island
For a boy named Hawkins growing up by the (fresh, decidedly not pirate-infested) water, Treasure Island was a formative and exciting read about a boy named Hawkins traveling the world, finding pirates and treasure and friends. Rereading it to get...
The Three Muskateers
I can’t really decide whether Dumas is great without being good, or instead good without being great - I suppose it depends on the point of view. He is unquestionably amazing, astonishing, a grandfather of Adventure as a genre. Sure...
The Memoirs Of Stockholm Sven
There is, for me, an undeniable allure in Svalbard and the Arctic (and Antarctic). Austere, windswept desolation, wide vistas, creatures eking out a living amongst the snow and ice - it is romantic. It feels so alien, so antithetical to...
Moby-Dick or, the Whale
I first read Moby Dick when I was around 12, enjoying the Adventure and Fun Names and Cool Whale Facts, struggling through the passages that I did not understand or were boring - in an attempt to prove to myself...
The Snow Leopard
Reading this brought to mind Susan Sontag’s On Photography, or at least what I remember of it/what I imagine it as saying, having read it a number of years ago. Not to say that they have anything in common or...
The Odyssey
My thoughts on the Odyssey are largely similar to my thoughts on The Iliad, in the extent to which this story told millenia ago about a people and a culture distant in all manors from mine remains engaging, entertaining, and...
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