#author: jon krakauer

[haveyoureadthispoll]

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw away the maps. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.

[bibliophileiz]

2023 in Books, Part 2

(posting a day late, oops)

This was a pretty great literary year for me. Even the books at the end of this list I enjoyed reading. I left out an anthology I read for class (Peach Pit is ... interesting) and a book of poetry written by someone I know, just because I don't know anything about poetry and don't want my personal feelings about the poet (she's great) to muddle it even further. I also already posted a separate list ranking the six children's/YA books I read. That still leaves thirty-one books to rank, though.

As usual, this is based entirely on personal preference/enjoyment and not necessarily on quality of writing or story. I reserve the right to change my mind about this ranking as soon as I post it because I am fickle like that. (Although I don't think I'm going to change my mind about my number 1 choice.) Here ya go.

31. The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling Dates Read: Dec. 12-13 GoodReads Rating: Three stars Summary: A witch accidentally curses her ex-boyfriend, and by extension her small magical Georgia town. She and her ex have to lift the curse without falling in love (which of course they do anyway). One-sentence review: (directly from my GR review) Cute and witchy, just the thing to get you through finals week.

30. Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld Dates Read: April 28-May 7 GoodReads Rating: Three stars Summary: A musician and comedy writer seem to hit it off when the musician guest stars on the comedy writer’s late-night show, only for the writer to blow it by assuming the musician is a shallow womanizer. A few years later, they rekindle their connection during pandemic lockdowns. One-sentence review: I liked the characters, but as usual Sittenfeld is more interested in commenting on whatever she saw on Twitter while she was writing this then she was on, like, writing a dramatic plot.

29. The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray Dates Read: Aug. 19-27 GoodReads Rating: Three stars Summary: All of Jane Austen’s beloved couples (except the Tilneys), plus the Darcys’ son and the Tilneys’ daughter, attend a house party at the Knightleys’ where Mr. Wickham turns up and is immediately murdered. One-sentence review: This is what P.D. James’ Death Comes to Pemberley SHOULD have been.

28. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus Dates Read: May 24-27 GoodReads Rating: Three stars Summary: It’s the 1960s, and chemist Elizabeth Zott was kicked out of her Ph.D. program for reporting her supervisor for rape, and then loses her job after she becomes pregnant outside wedlock, and ends up starting her own STEM cooking show and some other stuff happens, look, I know you already read the reviews of this one. One-sentence review: It was fine, I just thought it was overrated.

27. The Paris Deception by Bryn Turnbull Dates Read: Aug. 23-Sept. 7 GoodReads Rating: Three stars Summary: Two women immersed in the French art world in the 1930s and ‘40s defy their German occupiers by hiding, documenting, and sometimes copying “degenerate” art to keep it from the hands of high-ranking Nazi officials and sympathizers, or to keep it from being destroyed. One-sentence review:  The main characters were great and I really like the focus on protecting art and culture from extermination, but the constant time jumps drove me nuts.

26. Forever, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid Dates Read: April 3-5 GoodReads Rating: Three stars Summary: Less than two weeks into her marriage, a young woman is widowed and only meets her mother-in-law at the hospital. The two strangers find a way to navigate their grief together. One-sentence review: While the grief could be gut-wrenching due to Reid’s fantastic writing, the characters were nothing spectacular.

25. Hell’s Half-Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, America’s First Serial Killer Family by Susan Jonusas Dates Read: Jan. 29-31 GoodReads Rating: Three stars Summary: The Benders were a creepy family in late 19th Century Kansas who murdered people who stayed at their boarding house and then disappeared before they could be arrested. One-sentence review: I’m not super into true crime—it has to be historical for me to even start it--but I did like the look at life in the Midwest.

24. Galatea by Madeline Miller Dates Read: Jan. 6 GoodReads Rating: Three stars Summary: Madeline Miller retells the Pygmalion myth in a way that doesn’t suck. One-sentence review: Miller smartly skips the gender misery by making this a short story and then delivers an extremely satisfying ending.

23. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite Dates Read: July 26 GoodReads Rating: Three stars Summary: Korede and Ayoola are sisters who fall for the same man. Ayoola is hot and a serial killer, and Korede is getting pretty tired of covering for her. One-sentence review: Despite (or perhaps because) all the characters are awful, this book STAYS with you, and I feel like it would be a blast to talk about in a drunken book club. Note: I listened to the audiobook and want to give narrator Adepero Oduye a shout out.

22. The Weaver and the Witch Queen by Genevieve Gornichec Dates Read: July 24-Aug. 17 GoodReads Rating: Three stars Summary: Three friends in Medieval Scandinavia find themselves in the middle of a Game of Thrones-esque rivalry for the crown and a deadly battle between supernatural forces. One-sentence review: Good story and I liked the characters, but it moved too slowly sometimes.

21. The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle by Jennifer Ryan Dates Read: May 7-10 GoodReads Rating: Four stars (I was feeling more generous about Grace marrying Hugh than I am right now) Summary: A sewing circle in a small English village in the 1940s decide to pool their talents and resources to help English brides wear the perfect white gown to their weddings, clothing rations be damned. One-sentence review: Ryan excels at writing about women and civilians in wartime, and I would have ranked this so much higher if it hadn’t ended with the best character marrying the worst one.

20. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid Dates Read: Jan. 31-Feb. 8 GoodReads Rating: Four stars Summary: Aging actress Evelyn Hugo (who is not Elizabeth Taylor, by which I mean she absolutely is Elizabeth Taylor) invites a young journalist to write her life story. One-sentence review: The plot was engaging and thought-provoking, but I never could decide how I felt about Evelyn.

19. A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher Dates Read: Oct. 28-Nov. 1 GoodReads Rating: Three stars Summary: An archaeologist visits her mother at the family home in North Carolina only to find that her grandmother’s ghost is haunting it. But how do you banish a ghost once you learn it’s keeping something far worse at bay? One-sentence review: Of all the haunted house books I read this year, this one was the worst, and yet it was still great.

19. To Swoon and to Spar by Martha Waters (That’s right, I ranked a trashy Regency romance above both Romantic Comedy AND Lessons in Chemistry) Dates Read: May 17-24 GoodReads Rating: Four stars (Objectively, this was too many, but I also don’t care.) Summary: When Viscount Penvale’s uncle promises to sell him back the family estate for a steal if Penvale marries his uncle’s ward Jane, Penvale reluctantly agrees. He and Jane make an agreement to leave each other alone, but Penvale didn’t expect to fall in love with her. Nor did he expect his family house to be haunted. One-sentence review: The Regency Vows series just keeps getting better, honestly.

17. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson Dates Read: Aug. 31-Oct. 13 GoodReads Rating: Four stars Summary: Humor writer Bill Bryson and his on-again-off-again friend Katz decide to hike the Appalachian Trail, and Bryson tells you all about its history and natural resources along the way. There are moose, but no (confirmed) bears. One-sentence review: This book got me really into nature and hiking again.

16. The Shining by Stephen King Dates Read: Dec. 1-4 GoodReads Rating: Four stars Summary: I know you know what this book’s about. One-sentence review: Super tense, riveting look into the mind of a toxic, self-absorbed abuser who doesn’t need to be anywhere near blizzards, haunted houses, or children.

15. Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid Dates Read: July 12-23 GoodReads Rating: Five stars (Objectively, this book probably deserves that. Subjectively, I like Regency romances and journalists better than sports stars.) Summary: A retired tennis star full of rage and ambition makes a comeback to keep a younger player from breaking her record. One-sentence review: An absorbing, balanced take on the pressures women athletes face, plus a heart-warming father-daughter story, with some romance and female friendships to round it out.

14. Swamp Story by Dave Barry Dates Read: Dec. 30 GoodReads Rating: Four stars Summary: There is actually too much going on to summarize this book, but suffice to say it involves a desperate single mom, her shirtless fame-hounding ex-boyfriend, a failed journalist with a drinking problem, and a lot of people in the Florida Everglades looking for a cryptid OR Confederate gold OR pythons. One-sentence review: Dave Barry writes about Florida like it’s a drunk, eccentric relative who everyone hangs around at the family reunion even though he smells bad, because he has the best stories.

13. Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas Dates Read: Oct. 15-28 GoodReads Rating: Four stars Summary: During the Mexican-American War, a Wuthering Heights-esque couple learn their homeland is being stalked by vampires. One-sentence review: You root for the couple, you root for the Mexicans, you even root for the vampires once or twice, but you never root for the Texas Rangers. Note: The couple is Wuthering Heights-esque in the sense that he is poor, she is rich, they were childhood sweethearts, and then they were separated—not in the toxic incest way.

12. A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall Dates Read: July 12-23 GoodReads Rating: Four stars Summary: A trans woman believed to be dead at the Battle of Waterloo reinvents herself and returns home to England, only to find that her best friend has been consumed by grief over her death. As she helps him heal—and he slowly falls for her—she battles with whether to tell him who she really is. One-sentence review: I'm a sucker for love stories in which the couple are torn asunder, believe they will never see each other again, and then are reunited unexpectedly. Note: This actually would have ranked a lot higher if all the main couple’s angst wasn’t basically resolved in the first half. The second half is fine but not as good.

11. The Lover by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Dates Read: Dec. 26 GoodReads Rating: Four stars Summary: A young woman must choose between two potential “lovers” who come from the woods in this dark fairy tale novella. One-sentence review: Finally, a good werewolf book.

10. The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World by Shelley Puhak Dates Read: April 4-14 GoodReads Rating: Four stars Summary: Puhak writes about the feud between rival Merovingian queens Fredegund and Brunhild in sixth century western Europe. One-sentence review: It’s like Game of Thrones, but real, shorter, and with more women and less sexual assault.

9. Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell Dates Read: Dec. 14-25 GoodReads Rating: Four stars Summary: Vowell writes Lafayette’s biography, focusing on his and the larger French role in the American Revolution, all while musing on our country’s inability to agree on anything. One-sentence review: Vowell’s irreverent essay style is just the tone needed to tackle the oft-romanticized American Revolution.

8. The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas Dates Read: July 23-26 GoodReads Rating: Four stars Summary: In the aftermath of the Mexican War for Independence, a young bride moves to her landed husband’s country estate, only to find that the house is super haunted and her new in-laws super racist. One-sentence review: Your standard haunted house story, except the ghost is colonialism.

7. Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune Dates Read: Oct. 29-31 GoodReads Rating: Five stars (was probably generous, but the ending had just made me cry, so) Summary: When workaholic Wallace dies, his spirit is sent to a teashop for transition to the afterlife. But after a few weeks of hanging around teashop owner and “ferryman” Hugo, his reaper, and the ghosts of Hugo’s dog and grandfather, Wallace realizes he doesn’t want to leave what he’s coming to think of as his family. One-sentence review: A lovely mixture of funny and sad, this book is a nuanced look at death and found family.

6. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Dates Read: Nov. 1-6 GoodReads Rating: Four stars Summary: A debutante from Mexico City visits her cousin’s haunted house in the countryside where she’s pulled into a mystery surrounding her cousin’s eugenics-obsessed in-laws. One-sentence review: Noemi is a fantastic character, and the plot is engrossing, which is good because you will hate all the other characters.

5. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer Dates Read: Aug. 9-29 GoodReads Rating: Four stars Summary: In 1996, Outside magazine sent Jon Krakauer to cover the burgeoning commercialization of Mount Everest. When Krakauer climbed the mountain himself, he and his team got caught in a freak snowstorm that resulted in what was then the worst disaster in the history of the mountain. One-sentence review: Apart from being a really tense and riveting account of a brutal natural disaster in an already brutal environment, Krakauer’s account of the 1996 storm on Everest raises questions about who should be on the world’s highest mountain and whether money and fame have blinded guides and climbers to the risks of tackling the summit.

4. The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty Dates Read: Nov. 20-30 GoodReads Rating: Four stars Summary: Amina al-Sirafi, a retired smuggler and single mom on the Arabian peninsula, has to get her old band crew back together for the promise of more money than they’ve ever dreamed of when wealthy grandmother hires Amina to rescue her kidnapped granddaughter. But things go awry when the crew learns the girl is with an evil crusader with plans to unleash dark magic and monsters on the world. Inspired by the rich mythology, religions, and history of the Middle East, East Africa, and the Indian Ocean. One-sentence review:  I have not had so much fun reading a fantasy novel since I was a kid reading Harry Potter and I can’t wait for the sequel.

3. Lone Women by Victor LaValle Dates Read: Oct. 5-12 GoodReads Rating: Four stars Summary: In the early 1900s, a woman burns her parents’ mangled bodies in their California farmhouse and flees to Montana with a secret locked in a heavy trunk. One-sentence review: Frankenstein meets Calamity Jane in this horror Western about race and female friendships.

2. We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian Dates Read: Oct. 28-Nov. 9 GoodReads Rating: Five stars Summary: Two men reporting for a progressive newspaper in 1950s New York fall in love. One-sentence review: I mean, it’s journalists in love in the 1950s, and one of them is investigating police corruption and the other covered a Civil Rights meeting in DC, so of course I loved this book.

1. The Correspondents: Six Women Writers on the Front Lines of World War II by Judith Mackrell Dates Read: Nov. 27-Dec. 26 (during finals and holidays with family—I don’t think I could have finished the book if it wasn’t so good) GoodReads Rating: Five stars Summary: Mackrell covers the WWII careers of six journalists—a correspondent in Berlin who ingratiated herself in the Nazi Party to tell America about Hitler’s plans for world domination; a photojournalist for Vogue who took pictures from the Blitz to Dachau; a young American whose coverage of both sides of the Spanish Civil War catapulted her to journalistic stardom; Martha Gellhorn whose fury at her husband (you’ve heard of him) compelled her to illegally stow away on board a hospital ship and cover the invasion of Normandy from Omaha Beach while helping wounded soldiers; a rogue freelancer who broke the story of the invasion of Poland and whose thrill-chasing career took her from there to Greece to North Africa and beyond; and Helen Kirkpatrick, who covered the liberation of Paris while Hemingway was getting plastered at the Ritz.

Review: There is too much to say about this book. Mackrell did an incredible job. These journalists’ triumphs and tragedies play out alongside the triumphs and tragedies of the world’s biggest conflict. Each woman had different motivations and goals, from thrill-seeking to career-making, from spite to idealism to simply a love of journalism and dogged search for the truth. While Sigrid Schultz’s Chicago editor applauded Hitler’s control of Germany, Sigrid warned his readers of Hitler’s ambition. When the world turned a blind eye to Hitler’s military build-up and annexation of half of Europe, Virginia Cowles and Helen Kirkpatrick wrote furiously against Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement. And while the rest of the world celebrated the end of the war in Europe, Lee Miller swept through Dachau taking pictures and refusing to ignore the human cost of fascism and war.

All of this was at great personal risk. The Nazis tapped Sigrid’s phone and searched her house until she was finally forced to flee to America in the early 1940s (where her editor promptly benched her for three and a half years). Virginia dodged bombs in Madrid, and Helen dodged bullets in Paris. And Lee Miller defiantly washed off the stink of Dachau in Hitler’s own bath, which was immortalized in a photo her equally defiant boyfriend took in the days after the Fuhrer’s death. Mackrell’s prose also gets into the nitty gritty of correspondent life, how the reporters all camped out in hotels and spent their days chasing stories and their nights drinking whiskey. She discusses the friendships and rivalries—Marth and Virginia became great friends in Spain and eventually wrote a play together satirizing the misogyny they faced during the war. And while the stars are the six I mentioned above, cameos include Mary Welch (Hemingway’s wife after Martha), Dorothy Thompson, Vogue editor Audrey Withers, and “Maggie the indestructible” who convinced an American commander to let her go on a bombing mission over North Africa, paving the way for other women correspondents on the front line after the US entered the war. Plus there are appearances from Picasso, both Randolph and Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, David Lloyd George, the Duke of Windsor after he abdicated, Hemingway of course, and half the Nazi high command. Mackrell uses the women’s own words to describe the bombing of Madrid, the mass evacuation from Paris, the refugee crises in Eastern Europe, and the Night of Long Knives in Germany. Every moment is riveting as Mackrell and the women she writes about pull you into Europe of the 1940s.

[marinemas]

Reddit tier response

It’s simple, I go to the bookstore (or Amazon lately) and look under “adult fiction” and it’s almost entirely AI slop, smut, or AI smut. At least Wings of Fire doesn’t have an unnecessary sex scene in order to attract people who read for the “spice”.

No babe it’s so cool and hot that you always insist that fantasy books written to meet a 4th graders’ comprehension skills have more complex themes and a greater sense of praxis than anything written for adults

[thoughtportal]

This week, survival correspondent Blair Braverman tells Sarah the story of a Supertramp. In 1996, Jon Krakauer's book Into the Wild described a young man, Chris McCandless, who changed his name, walked into the Alaskan bush, and died after mistakenly eating a toxic plant. Or did he? Now, Sarah and Blair talk about the McCandless archive and its legacy in conversations around wilderness, Alaska, violence, and more.

[c-kiddo]

Read annihilation because of you, loved it!

Any more book recommendations?

aw glad you liked it :D

the rest of the series if you liked annihilation of course (tho its not quite as neatly well told they are good and i rly liked them as well. some rly rly good scenes especially the kind of whole run-up to the end of authority and a bunch of stuff in acceptance) . . others:

split tooth - tanya tagaq (heavy but very good, also nice illustration) into thin air & into the wild - jon krakauer (i liked both a lot) jonny appleseed - joshua whitehead (loved this sm) little blue encyclopedia (for vivian) - hazel jane plante (weird and lovely and caring. made me cry) underland - robert macfarlane (i feel like this goes with the weird fascination with abandoned and underground strange places thats in Annihilation but its nonfiction. instead of the tower its salt mines) comet in moominland - tove jansson (moominpappa at sea is one of my other favourites but this is the first novel. first book is technically moomins and the great flood but comet is rly good) the living mountain - nan shepherd (love anything appreciating mountains like this. i love the cairngorms too) our wives under the sea - julia armfield (this is pretty similar in vibes to annihilation, just the domestic came-home-wrong thing instead of travelling into the place that changes you, and the deep sea instead of swampland area x.. i have to assume the author read annihilation bc its v similar energy. i did like it a lot. leah is so me fr)

[jesslovesboats]

i love your Sad Boat Book guides and was wondering if you have any recommendations for Non-Boat Related Sad Journey books?? just curious as i read one about the donner party this year and i don't know much about other doomed or difficult journeys! (though i know im at The Boat Blog so fair if you don't have any 😂)

HELLO and thank you for the ask! I absolutely do have Sad Journey recommendations for you, in a variety of flavors!

The Donner Party is a spiritual companion to Sad Boat media because 1) cannibalism and 2) the same cold snap that trapped the Donner Party was also responsible for Terror and Erebus getting frozen in, so they're basically twin tragedies. My favorite Donner Party books are The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown, which focuses mostly on Sarah Graves, and The Hunger by Alma Katsu, a fiction book with a supernatural twist, but one that does a great job of capturing the true horror of what they endured!

Mountaineering is full of tragedy, and it has a lot of the same appeal factors as polar and nautical stories. The one everyone is most familiar with is Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, and with good reason! Krakauer is one of the most compelling authors of narrative nonfiction in the game, and you can safely pick up almost any of his books and encounter Men In Sad Situations. I am also partial to the story of the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition- the one where George Mallory and Sandy Irvine died. Into The Silence by Wade Davis and Last Climb by David Breashers and Audrey Salkeld both tell this incredible story.

In a similar vein, the story of the Uruguayan rugby players who crash landed in the Andes Mountains sounds like something you might enjoy! Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read is fascinating. Some of the survivors also wrote memoirs which I personally find more compelling, but I don't want to give away the names of the survivors- once you know, you can look them up, or message me and I'll send them to you. Once you know the story, check out Society of the Snow on Netflix- it's great!

Interested in Sad Journeys in warmer places? DEFINITELY check out The Lost City of Z by David Grann, another can't go wrong author of narrative nonfiction! This one follows the explorer Percy Fawcett as he travels into the jungles of the Amazon searching for the lost city of El Dorado. It... does not go well. There's also a cameo appearance from James Murray of Karluk fame (if you haven't read The Ice Master or Empire of Ice and Stone, please do, I am begging you!)

I also want to put in a plug for military nonfiction, which often scratches a similar itch for me. I'm currently reading Skies of Thunder by Caroline Alexander, about a completely insane WWII mission to fly needed supplies over the Himalayas. Also check out With The Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge. Talk about a devastating journey.

A few more recommendations that aren't necessarily Sad Journeys, but they are definitely Sad and have similar vibes:

Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David von Drehle

The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough

There are many many more fantastic books that I couldn't include, but I hope this is enough to get you started! Thanks for a fun ask, and happy reading! <3

[blueiscoool]

100 Years Ago They Disappeared on Everest. But Did They Make it to the Summit?

It’s one of climbing’s greatest mysteries: was Everest really conquered for the first time in 1953, or did two mountaineers make it to the summit in 1924, before dying in mysterious circumstances?

British climbers George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine were last seen on June 8, 1924, 800 feet below the peak, before disappearing into clouds. They never reemerged.

When Mallory’s body was found in 1999, hopes were high that it might give a clue as to whether the pair reached the summit. But, tantalizingly, the camera he had been carrying – with which he would have documented the highest point they had reached – was not on the body. Irvine’s body has never been found.

But now, as the 100th anniversary of the mens’ disappearance approaches, one researcher believes that he has solved mountaineering’s greatest mystery.

By studying the expedition weather reports, author Graham Hoyland believes that he has worked out what happened to the pair – and whether they made it to the summit before they died.

Hoyland – a distant relative of another member of the expedition group, who has visited on Everest nine times searching for the remains – believes that the key to the mystery is air pressure.

His relative several times removed, Howard Somervell – another mountaineer, who had got within 1,000 feet of the summit on the same expedition before a lack of oxygen meant he had to retreat – was responsible for tracking the weather during the expedition.

The smoking gun?

The 1924 expedition, including Irvine and Mallory (top two left), aimed to be the first documented ascent of the mountain.

His records – which he submitted after the official report on the 1924 expedition was made, having returned to his job as a surgeon in India – show that the barometric pressure dropped between the morning of June 8 and June 9 at base camp, where Somervell was taking the readings.

Somervell recorded the pressure in inches of mercury, dropping from 16.25 to 15.98. Hoyland believes that these figures equate to a 10 millibar drop in pressure. Weather-related deaths on Everest are generally associated with a drop in barometric pressure at the summit.

A decrease of just 4 millibars can trigger hypoxia; a 6 millibar drop was enough to cause the incident in 1996 in which 20 people were trapped on the mountain, eight of whom died. That story is recounted in writer Jon Krakauer’s book “Into Thin Air.” The bad weather angle was also explored in a 2010 paper by experts from the University of Toronto, led by G.W. Kent Moore.

“They were climbing into an absolute s***storm – not only a blizzard but a sort of snow bomb,” Hoyland told CNN. Hoyland has experienced “snow bombs” himself on Everest. “It’s terrifying – the temperature drops hugely, you’re gasping for breath. There are winds of 100 knots. One guy I know was blown off the mountain, and ended up further up the mountain,” he said.

Effectively, the drop in air pressure meant that the mountain suddenly became higher – around 650 feet higher, to be precise. Hoyland calls it “an invisible death trap.”

The pair – who were ascending along the northwest ridge – were already climbing against the odds. Mallory wrote in a letter to his wife that he put his chances of making the summit at 50 to one. Hoyland thinks it was more like 20 to one. But, he thinks, they would have had no idea what was about to hit them.

“Mallory had seen Norton and Somervell get to to within 1000 feet of the top on 4 June using no oxygen equipment; it would have seemed reasonable to assume that it was possible to reach the summit with the apparatus,” he writes in a forthcoming book.

“What he didn’t know was that the rapidly falling air pressure was effectively making the mountain even higher.

What’s more, the storm and blizzard wouldn’t just have made a drop in air pressure. The pair were wearing layers of silk, cotton and wool. Hoyland – who had a similar made-to-measure outfit on an Everest trip – says that the clothes are exceptionally comfortable but wouldn’t have provided the warmth to survive a blizzard or an overnight.

Previously, it has been speculated that the pair had reached the summit before dying on the way down, something that Hoyland calls “wishful thinking.”

“I’d been trying to prove that Mallory had climbed Everest for years and years – I wanted to prove that I was the 16th Briton to climb it, not the 15th. But unfortunately when you read facts and they’re different, you have to change your mind. You can’t carry on being a wishful thinker,” he says.

Until Hoyland, nobody had closely studied at the weather reports, which were held at the Royal Geographical Society in London.

The summit was eventually reached by Edmund Hillary, a New Zealand mountaineer, in 1953 – the first documented ascent of the peak.

A century of speculation:

The mystery of Mallory and Irvine has intrigued adventurers for decades.

In 1933, another mountaineer, Percy Wyn-Harris found an ax near the summit. It was assumed to have belonged to Irvine.

In 1936, another mountaineer, Frank Smythe, believed he had seen two bodies in the distance. Using a telescope, he saw them at around 8,100 meters, or 26,575 feet.

And Chinese mountaineer Wang Hongbao believed he saw a body during his 1975 ascent.

Finally, an expedition in 1999, instigated by Hoyland, found Mallory’s body at 26,700 feet –2,335 below the summit.

Hoyland believes that the pair, tethered to each other, slipped while aborting the climb and returning to base camp. He thinks Mallory survived the initial fall, but took another, fatal plunge while staggering back to base camp. Irvine’s body has never been found.

Everest ‘Makes People Mad’:

While some of Mallory’s possessions were still to be found on his body, including a pair of goggles in his pocket – which suggests he was either in darkness or poor visibility – there was no sign of the photo of his wife which he had brought, planning to leave it on the summit.

For decades, researchers have posited that, in lieu of more precise evidence, the lack of photo suggests the pair might have reached the summit and fallen while returning.

However, having reviewed the new evidence, Hoyland believes this is not the case. Expedition reports noted a blizzard hitting the mountain at 2 p.m., he says – long before they could have reached the summit. The lack of photo, he thinks, means nothing. Mallory often forgot stuff, he notes.

In his last letter to his wife – digitized to mark the centenary of his ascent – on May 27, Mallory wrote of “looking out of a tent door onto a world of snow and vanishing hopes: and described it as “a bad time altogether.” Both he and Irvine were unwell, and he wrote that “I’m quite doubtful if I shall be fit enough.”

For Hoyland, who is taking part in an event at the Royal Geographical Society about the centenary, “Everest makes people mad.”

“Mallory became obsessed with the desire to conquer Everest – it would have made him somebody,” he said.

Mallory was a teacher, but moved on the fringes of the Bloomsbury set, a group of British intellectuals, artists and thinkers centered on London in the early 20th century.

“Everyone he knew was a famous novelist or a Nobel prizewinner, and he got captivated by it [the idea of Everest],” he said.

“There’s a dangerous thing called ‘summit fever’ – you see the summit, and you think, ‘Right, it’s death or glory.’ You don’t care if you die.

“I know that feeling. You get completely possessed by this mountain. Mallory was possessed by Everest and it killed him.”

Hoyland, who has since swapped mountaineering for extreme sailing, says that Everest has become “a non-mountaineer’s mountain.”

“There are rich men climbing it as a trophy. I wish it wasn’t the highest,” he said.

“Quite honestly I think the best thing to happen would be if the top 800 feet fell off.

By Julia Buckley.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

Christopher McCandless, The Man who Hiked to Death

Born February 12th 1968, in Inglewood, California, Christopher McCandless was immediately plunged into a chaotic family. His sister, Carine McCandless, documented in her book ‘The Wild Truth’ that they shared their home with six half-siblings. Carine also alleged that her parents were abusive, both physically and verbally, toward the McCandless children. She documented how her father was an alcoholic, and their mother often fed off his evil energy, inflicting her own abuse upon them.

The McCandless never stayed in one place for long as Walt McCandless worked for NASA as a rocket scientist, taking him across the U.S. Eventually, the family settled in Virginia long enough for Christopher and Carine to graduate.

Following his graduation from university, Christopher knew he needed to travel. He had spent much of his childhood moving from town to town, state to state, and this had a profound impact on his outlook on life.

He only stayed in one place for a short time, seeing the beauty in exploring the world. In mid-1990, Christopher left Virginia for new pastures and began driving West. He stopped in towns and cities along the way, picking up odd jobs to make ends meet.  By April of 1992, Christopher was itching for another adventure, and that is when he decided to make his way to Alaska, the final frontier of the U.S. 

Incredibly, Christopher managed to hitchhike from Carthage, South Dakota, to Fairbanks, Alaska, a whopping 3,000+ miles through Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and Yukon, Canada. Eventually, he arrived, and he began planning his largest expedition yet. He wanted to hike through the Denali National Park. The park covers over 6,000,000 acres in the middle of Alaska. Communities are few and far between, with many Alaskans congregating near large towns and cities.

Despite the harsh weather conditions of Alaska, Christopher McCandless seemed ill-prepared. Fellow hikers and locals recalled seeing Christopher arrive in Fairbanks carrying only a backpack. He also stood out for his ‘Hippie-like’ appearance, choosing to remain unkempt and dirty. April 28th 1992, would mark the last day that Christopher McCandless would ever see the seeds of civilisation. 

That day, Jim Gallien was flagged down by Christopher, who was looking for a ride to the Stampede Trail in the Denali National Park. Gallien later told author Jon Krakauer that he had doubts about the 24-year-old’s survival from the start. When he got into his car, Christopher had minimal clothing and a backpack. Christopher explained that he was carrying a 10 lb bag of rice, a Remmington semi-automatic rifle and a pair of Wellington boots inside his bag.  Gallien was, in fact, so concerned that he offered to drive Christopher to Anchorage so that he could purchase the necessary equipment for him. He knew how harsh and unforgiving the Alaskan landscape could be, and per population, it has an alarmingly high missing persons rate. Throughout their drive, Christopher assured Gallien that he would be fine and had hiked many times before. 

It wasn’t until months later that Gallien learned Christopher’s real name, as when he had picked him up, he had simply given the name ‘Alexander Supertramp’. The only item that Christopher accepted from Gallien was a map. Before leaving, Christopher asked Gallien to snap a picture of him at the Stampede Trail, making this one of the last photographs ever taken of Christopher McCandless.

For two days, Christopher hiked the Alaskan wilderness, soaking in the beauty of the Denali National Park. After a gruelling march, Christopher made it to an abandoned blue and white bus. Whilst the exterior was rusted and hadn’t been loved for some time, Christopher recognised it was the perfect shelter and base camp. He wasted no time setting up his gear and prepping his new home.

The blue and white bus that would become a notorious tourist hotspot was not Christopher’s intended finish line. According to his diary, which was later discovered with his body, Christopher had planned to hike through the park and to the Bering Sea. Christopher remained at the blue and white bus for two months, eagerly journaling every step. Christopher wrote in his diary that he had begun consuming the roots of the Hedysarum Alpinum plant.  Christopher also detailed in his diary how he had trapped and hunted small game and wildlife. He had successfully hunted a moose/caribou with his rifle. However, the meat was rotten by the time he came to consume it. With just 10 lbs of rice and foraged plants, Christopher rapidly began losing weight. 

The lack of food and people was beginning to get to Christopher, who heavily documented his trip via his journal and camera. On July 3rd 1992, Christopher packed up his things, leaving the blue and white bus behind.

With a map in hand, Christopher hoped to reach civilisation once more, but the landscape had changed and he became distressed and returned to the blue and white bus to wait out the days until the river froze over once more. 

On July 14th, he also began to incorporate the seeds of the Hedysarum Alpinum plant into his diet, as was documented in his diary. The meagre diet of plant material and small animals was nowhere near enough to sustain Christopher, who continued to waste away. As he continued to weaken, he lost his energy and ability to forage further afield for plants and fruits. 

Christopher McCandless made his final diary entry on what he noted as ‘Day 107’. The entry simply reads, “Beautiful blue berries.” Author Krakauer noted that days 108 through 112 had / (slashes) but no words, and after Day 113, no more entries were made. Sometime around these final diary entries, Christopher wrote, “I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye, and may God bless all.” It is clear Christopher knew his end was coming, and he had made his final preparations and peace with his fate. 

 It wasn’t until September 6th 1992 that the grizzly truth would be revealed.

That day, hikers in the Denali National Park came across the blue and white rusted van that Christopher had once called home. 

These hikers had the same idea as Christopher and were eager to use the bus as shelter.

When they approached the bus, they found a note taped to the door which read “Attention possible visitors. S.O.S. I need your help; I am injured, near death and too weak to hike out. I am all alone; this is no joke. In the name of God, please remain to save me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you, Chris McCandless, August.” 

As they moved through the bus, they saw the familiar outline of a human in a sleeping bag. After reading the note, they hoped that Chris had managed to survive, but all hopes were dashed when the stench of decay overcame them. The hikers took a closer look, and their worst suspicions were confirmed. Christopher McCandless was deceased, his body decaying in a sleeping bag in the back of a rusted-out bus. 

Alaska State Troopers and Denali Park staff were summoned to the bus where Christopher’s body was recovered. His family were notified of the terrible news, and preparations for his body to be returned to Virginia were made.

Christopher’s passing marked a turning point in the culture surrounding hiking and travelling. He had wilted away in the wilderness when a bridge and cabin were within a few miles of his location. 

[quaranmine]

pick a book for me to take on work travel

Ends of the World by Peter Brannen - nonfiction geology book about earth's previous mass extinction events. The author is also the writer of one of my favorite climate history Atlantic articles I read for a college assignments.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer - nonfiction true story of Chris Mccandless, who decided to leave society to live in the Alaskan wilderness and was later found dead. I want to read Into Thin Air too but I don't have a copy (my mom probably does but that won't help me for this trip)

Dune by Frank Herbert - do i have to describe what Dune is about at this point? I've never read it and I also refused to see the movies 'caues I wanted to read the book before doing so

A Song for the River by Philip Connors - nonfiction/memoir by the same author who wrote my beloved fire lookout book Fire Season. This book also has to do that, as well as a massive fire he witnessed in his national forest, but I think it's a lot more about grief and death.

What the Eyes Don't See by Mona Hanna-Attisha - nonfiction/memoir by one of the doctors who discovered the Flint water crisis. I'm actually already 90 pages into it but got distracted and haven't picked it up for like a year. It's very good and highly relevant to my work (though I don't do lead in tap water but you know it's great information to have)

[jokerislandgirl32]

Favorite books??

(I mean everyone in your little family + you) 😇😇

Helloooo! Thank you for this ask! We have decided to list favorite books by ages for everyone below the cut! So, all of our favorite books as children, our favorite books as tweens, and our favorite books teens and adults!

And yes, each family member is responding to this ask!

Please note there is mention of Harry Potter, I (JIG) know the author/books are triggering to some, so please do not take offense to this, I just feel like the books would have been some read by one family member in particular wayyyyy before all the unsavory details came out.

Also, a lot of these books are my personal favorites, or they are books I actually dislike immensely…so my selfship kids liking them makes me laugh 😂.

Zach: As a child I was always partial to The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams and the Peter Rabbit books by Beatrix Potter. I also loved How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss. As a tween/teenager, I liked the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling, the Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Ender’s Game Saga by Orson Scott Card. Now that I’m an adult, I’d have to say The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and 1984 by George Orwell are probably my favorite novels. 

Violet/JIG: As a little girl my favorite book was The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss, there was just something about the “here comes pig feet” line that cracked me up, I also adored Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco. As a tween I loved Grandpa’s Mountain by Carolyn Reeder and the American Girls Books. As a teen and adult I’d say my favorite books were/are Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls, The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter (the best nonfiction book I’ve ever read), Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, The Fear Street Series by RL Stine, and anything by Mary Downing Hahn.

Varina: As a child my favorite books were Winnie-the-Pooh stories, my mom had an entire collection her parents collected for her and she read them to me and all my siblings! I also loved A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon, the Mr. Putter and Tabby books by Cynthia Rylant, and the Amelia Bedelia books by Peggy Parish. As a tween I enjoyed The Tale of Despereaux and the American Girls books. As an adult/teen my favorite books were/are Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, The Magic of Ordinary Days by Ann Howard Creel, and I adore any romance novel by Nicholas Sparks. 

Vera: When I was a little girl I loved the Fancy Nancy books by Jane O'Connor, any and all princess books, the Biscuit books by Alyssa Satin Capucilli, and the Junie B. Jones Books by Barbara Park. As a tween I read the American Girl books, but only I enjoyed a few of the series, Samantha was my absolute favorite! I also loved The Secret Garden and A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and The Wish by Gail Carsen Levine. My favorite books during my teenage years, and as an adult, are The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, any of William Shakespeare’s plays (Romeo and Juliet is my favorite), and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. 

Victor: When I was little my favorite book was Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, my favorite book series was Curious George by Margret and H. A. Rey. During my tween years I read any Goosebumps book by RL Stein I could get my hands on, I also read all The Chronicles of Narnia books by C.S. Lewis, and A Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket.  My favorite book as a teenager was The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton, and my favorite book series as a teenager were Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs and the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. My all time favorite book as an adult is Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer.

Vallen: The Wonky Donkey by Craig Smith was my favorite book as a kid, it was freaking hilarious, and the sequel was almost as good. I also loved the Clifford books by Norman Bridwell as a kid, and the No David books by David Shannon. As a tween I read a bunch of the Goosebumps books by RL Stine. Victor and I were in competition to see who could read the most, he won of course, the dedicated bookworm. In my teenage years and into adulthood my favorites have become The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, The Giver Quartet by Lois Lowry, and The Wayward Pines Trilogy by Blake Crouch.

Victoria: When I was a little girl I loved all of the Eric Carle books, The Very Hungry Caterpillar being my favorite! I also loved all the Little Golden Books, I think my favorite one was My Little Golden Book About God by Jane Werner Watson. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, Each Little Bird that Sings by Deborah Wiles, and the Little House on the Prairie Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder were my favorite books during my tween years. As a teenager I enjoyed reading the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children book series by Ransom Riggs and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. As an adult I’d say my favorite books are Wish You Well by David Baldacci or Go Down the Mountain by Meredith Battle. 

[missyourflight]

some stuff i read and watched in december:

the buccanneers: never really hit the heights i wanted it to and most of the cast was not great! but kristine froseth is always watchable and kate winslet's daughter is darling, most importantly scotland doubling for cornwall was beaut. as ever god bless apple for spending money on nonsense

slow horses (s3): i don't know when river cartwright became my shit friend i'm unreasonably fond of but here we are! jack lowden v funny this season and i don't think it's just because i've decided he should be lymond in the billion dollar apple tv series that isn't happening and probably shouldn't bc who else is even blonde (harris dickinson?? i haven't seen the iron claw yet)

monarch: legacy of monsters: i started this and then due to my bad personality decided i had to watch all of the ~monsterverse for context, therefore godzilla december. strong threesome energy in the flashbacks, can't argue with wyatt and kurt russell playing the same character decades apart etc, love a disaster lesbian in crisis etc

~monsterverse interlude: most of these were silly, godzilla: king of the monsters was actively bad, godzilla vs. kong somehow my favourite due to the askars/rebecca hall (long beloved) combo plus all the neon. hollow earth let's go baby!

tokyo godfathers: loved this! love miracles in the city during the holiday season, love to listen to three different podcasts talking about the nuances of trans rep in subtitle translation etc

godzilla minus one: godzilla december! this one made me cryyy, the godzilla theme goes so unbelievably hard, cutest sweetest baby in the world, was incredibly happy to be emotionally manipulated by the endings etc

not going to get into all the christmas film rewatches but: coward's edit of the family stone (repeat the sounding joy!), crying at both little women 94 and little women 19 as per, moonstruck forever, bridget jones' diary colin firth the most sexually appealing colin firth 2 me etc

the wind rises: catching up with miyazaki before the boy and the heron and straight into my ghibli top 3, the love story stuff absolutely floored me

how to have sex: absolutely devastating god

the boy and the heron: very weird and beautiful and sad - saw the dub (robert pattinson you wonderful freak), seeing again with subs this week

jon krakauer, into thin air: a personal account of the everest disaster: i got about halfway through the first chapter and had to stop and ask my dad what the hell he was up to trekking to base camp on his own in the seventies. gripping, chilling, tragic

rose lerner, sailor's delight: rose lerner one of my favourite romance authors (true pretenses i love you forever etc), m/m age of sail romance set around the jewish high holidays with SO much longing and yearning my god

lizzie huxley-jones, make you mine this christmas: fun christmas romance - fake dating but she falls in love with the guy's sister! - that made me burst into tears like five pages in for reasons entirely unrelated to romance or christmas. a 2024 project for soph etc

barbra streisand, my name is barbra: did the audio version so even sped up i reckon i spent at least a full day and a half with barbra. as ever the parts about making things and artistic choices were the best parts, i respect her energy re: including every nice letter or compliment she ever received (my version of this would be reproducing nice ao3 comments etc). wild to me that she spent like 3 decades beefing with larry kramer trying to adapt the normal heart (with bradley cooper at one point lol) but i have to disagree with her impulse to tone down the gay sex to avoid alienating straight people!!

i am not here really but i was proud i managed to keep these little roundups going through the year so. happy new year friends

[lauvra]

When my parents talk about their adventures as kids, I feel so distant from their experience. While I know latch-key kids still exist, they were probably the last generation whose parents were so broadly and unapologetically ignorant of all the things they did. Dad talks about vandalising council sites, setting off detonators, being threatened by gun-wielding security guards, juvi and how kids would break the bristles off standard-issue combs to thread through their earlobes. He's asked me on several occasions whether I ever catch buses, trams or trains to the end of the line just to explore what's on the other side. Typically I roll my eyes and say I should but or don't because -- but today was his last full day in town, so we looked at a map of train lines and picked one free of disruptions and set off to discover anything. Between stops, he said he used to make green ants fight to pass the time (what?), he said the trick was to pick two, gently roll them together between forefinger and thumb, set them down and watch them separate then attack one another. I said, Boys are... so weird. Then I remembered the metallic green beetles that bred heavily over Christmas time on the school grounds -- how we'd catch them in our hands, trap them inside Tic Tac containers to display on our desks. I never wanted to hurt them, just attempting to trap beauty but destroying it in the process. We took a few detours, but eventually reached the end of the line (cue Tron soundtrack) in a town decorated by fake yellow flowers and rifled through a second-hand store. I found a silver iPod nano just like mine from eighth grade for $15, prayed the data hadn't been cleared and hoped to have unearthed a modern time-capsule. I found a paperback copy of Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air; one of the best adventure autobiographies ever written, made more jarring by the author expressing repeatedly over the years how he wishes he could take back his experience on Everest to never had to have written about it. He's the only repentant author I've heard from but in reading that book, you almost believe him. For 50c, a popular James Joyce novel and for $2, yet another alternate translation of The Plague, by Albert Camus and a Peter-Pan collared dress. We swelled up on pastry and complimentary sugar donuts with the purchase of our coffees then travelled home to organise dinner. Almost forgot to mention the super-high guy serenading our carriage with his guitar on the return journey, yikes, luckily he jumped off before my bitten lip smirk transformed into full-body convulsions. Back home, with some minor adjustments by Jack's careful hands, the Apple logo glowed, the thing switched on and all the music on the iPod appeared. When I say time-capsule, I mean this thing contains over four-hundred of the most obnoxious pop songs from the early 2000's -- and I couldn't be more ecstatic: I'm not sure I'll ever clear it. My dad has imbibed me with adventurous spirit, and I'll definitely report back from the end of more lines, in time. Stirring from the daze of a pretty simple but wholesome adventure; and you were there, and you were there...

[streetkid-named-desire]

🥤📚🍦

writer truth or dare

i answered the cup here

BUT lemme give you some more recs:

@bearhugsandshrugs writes some absolutely incredible smut

this chapter of Sweetening the Deal was one of the best Haarlep-taking-Tav's-form smut I've ever read

here some other book recs

Her Body and Other Parties - Carmen Maria Machado

Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir (made my cry, SO good)

Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I recommended Grady Hendrix in the last post but here are some specific books: How to Sell a Haunted House, My Best Friend's Exorcism, Horrorstor

The Loop - Jeremy Robert Johnson, it's technically YA but it's horror and is really great. The teenagers feel actually realistic.

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre - Max Brooks, when I first read this...my god. I felt so many things: horror, grossed out, anxiety, stress. It is SO good.

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith - Jon Krakauer (also Into Thin Air by him), this is about an FLDS sect and also dives into the history of Mormonism and it is really good. I was Mormon up until I was 13 and was allowed to stay home by myself. But I became totally disillusioned of it all when I was like 10 and we were learning about the planets shit. I distinctly remember having this self-awareness breakthrough, a "what the fuck" moment. It was so validating and cathartic to read.

📚 ⇢ what's the last thing you wrote down in your notes app?

I don't really use a notes app. My Tumblr(s) are basically my notes apps. Though, it's not like ever go back and reference it lol I think the last thing I wrote down in Google Keep was the prior authorization number for my fuckin Concerta

🍦 ⇢ name three good things about a character you hate

oh this is SO good

Kurt Hansen: excellent voice acting, excellent character design he is truly intimidating

[kittyit]

READING ROUNDUP 2022: nonfiction edition ending nurse-to-nurse hostility: why nurses eat their young and each other by kathleen bartholomew (gr) incredibly practical and compassionate approach to horizontal hostility in the field of nursing. if you’re in healthcare, please check it out! the author comes and helps hospitals. she is dedicated to improving quality of life for nurses

nightwork: sexuality, pleasure, and corporate masculinity in a tokyo hostess club by anne allison (gr) really approachable and informative exploration of host clubs and their cultural role at the time of its writing (80s). learned a lot VERY quickly. also very interested if anyone has scholarly recs for the host industry 90s, 00s, 10s b/c it’s clearly changed a LOT.

under the banner of heaven: a story of violent faith by jon krakauer (gr) excellent comprehensive crash course to mormon doctrine & mormon fundamentalism. kind of shocked and horrified they made a miniseries of the book...?

my guantanamo diary the detainees and the stories they told me by rukhsana mahvish khan (gr) the oddly chipper tone of this book dealing with an extremely important and serious subject matter is hard to describe. worth a read!

the premonition: a pandemic story by michael lewis (gr) pretty cool there's a bunch of eccentric moral extremist pandemic fan scientists and civic servants out their busting their asses. thanks guys

sex science self: a social history of estrogen, testosterone, and identity by bob ostertag (gr) excellent entry point for pro-gay criticisms of transitional medicine. very far-reaching. hidden gem by a gay scholar!

toms and dees: transgender identity and female same-sex relationships in thailand by meghan j. sinnott (gr) we are everywhere :) lesbians are like watch this. 

we both laughed in pleasure: the selected diaries of lou sullivan (gr) the og heterosexual autoandrophile. cannot overstate the shock value. you really can’t miss it.

[thundercrack]

ok joining the club... February reading report! I'm mostly just mouthing off... Read at your own risk!

Dune by Frank Herbert

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

Look, I'm a sucker for a classic. I'd been vaguely meaning to read this since I saw the Timmy Chalemet movie...and I generally have a tolerance for fairly long scifi/fantasy. I enjoyed the first maybe third of this book...and then I got bored (needless to say I will not be reading the next four Dune books although I did finish). Don't get me wrong -- I'm glad I read it. In many ways, Dune still culturally relevant, both within the world of genre fiction, and (especially because of the new film) in debates about orientalism, the Cold War, humanity, etc, etc. I found Herbert's explorations on this future version of Islam and future version of Arabic pretty interesting, but by the end of the book, I was really annoyed by the main character. There's a lot of really interesting discussion and criticism around this book, so I'm glad to be able to understand a little more of those conversations as well. Also, now I retrospectively sort of know what was happening in the movie!

I was too young to read this book. It was good; it was not for me. Revisit in thirty-five years.

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell

Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders

Why did I read this? I've never read any other David Mitchell. This book was an exercise in 1960s musical fantasy, where nothing goes wrong and the truest joy is from celebrity encounters, powered by the author's love for the era, rather than having anything to say. This was a book about a rock band going straight to the top, without any real interrogation into the cultural forces and pitfalls of the 1960s, weak characterization, random tie-ins with his larger universe, and next to no tension. I'll probably still read Cloud Atlas at some point, but this one is a hard pass.

This was one of my old roommates favorite books that I gave another go after DNFing in maybe, 2018? Again, I think this might be a book I'd like more if I were older. I thought the structure and format was well-done (I especially liked the history excerpts, of course); the story itself, I was maybe luke-warm on. I thought the prose was good (especially the dialogue) and the characters were interesting. I'm not entirely sure what's making me luke-warm on it, but I liked it enough to be glad I read it.

Human Acts by Han Kang (trans. Deborah Smith)

This was the best book I read this month, hands down. Maybe this year as well. Kang masterfully weaves together a number of stories around the Gwangju massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators. This book was at times, extremely brutal to read (and I would say I have a fairly high tolerance in text). It was clearly well-researched, well-lived, and well-considered. The topics it tackled were both grains of sand and the meaning of humanity itself. I really, really, enjoyed this book; I highly recommend it, and I definitely look forward to reading The Vegetarian in the future. Bonus reading: Han Kang and the Complexity of Translation

All The President's Men by Woodward and Bernstein

I constantly get this one mixed up with All The Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren (also good). One of my college friends had just read this and sent me a number of random updates throughout their reading, mostly focused on Woodward and Bernstein's....tense relationship. Like most Americans, I've been vaguely aware of Watergate my whole life (I even saw that movie The Post!), and I think this book really did a good job laying out the reveal of the story as well as sort of the in-house tensions that were going on. My copy (from the library) was the original 1974 edition, and I sort of wish that I had a more recent version with a little bit more distance on the events, but it's kind of fun to have been "right in there." I generally do like this style of expanded-reportage book (see Ronan Farrow's books, or in another genre, Jon Krakauer), and Watergate still looms so large in the American political imagination, so I'm glad I read this one too.

Beyond Babylon by Igiaba Scego (trans. Aaron Robertson)

This is a book I would have really liked to enjoy. I didn't. I kept saying to myself -- well, maybe it's just the translation that didn't work for me (the whole book was a bit clunky to read). There are a lot of really interesting themes in this novel (fluid identity, colonization, language, coincidence, politics, choice and nature, etc), interesting characters, play with language, a sweep of history that could have been fascinating. However, in practice, it didn't work for me. The different storylines sometimes were confusing, the plot at times eluding me, seemingly unnecessary tangents taking me nowhere. It was a slow read. There was just a lot here (and maybe it's just through my background that I was missing pieces)...and none of it quite fit together.

Murder by the Book by Claire Harman

Totally random book I picked up at the library. It's not really a topic or like...an era (the metropolitan center of Victorian Britain??) that I care about, but I was like, hey, cool cover, I want an easy read this week, etc. I thought it was well written and well researched, and I definitely learned some stuff about the literary scene of the era. It was also amusing how some of the debates around "base literature" are...pretty much the same today as they were in the 1830s.

Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim

Look, you ever read a book and you can just tell it was written by a Harvard/Yale/Princeton grad? Well, this was one. This book was extremely readable. It's got decent characters who are fairly easy to get invested in and a structure that pulls you through the text, all while set across a complex, divided, and rapidly changing backdrop of early 20th-c Korea. However, the narrative itself rung flat, and the book's promised complexity disappeared before I got through the second chapter -- it's almost a completely sanitized view of two very complex worlds: that of high-class courtesans, and that of orphans/gangs who become politically involved. Narratively things go wrong, but it's almost never because the characters make bad decisions -- except perhaps in love -- which collapses the once-promising characters. Also, it jumps from 1945 to 1964 at the end...not very successfully (the opening/closing of the book was extremely trite and not terribly well-done). This book was almost disappointing because it promised more than it could deliver, falling straight into the chasm of mediocre novels by diverse graduates of elite institutions. I didn't do it any favors by reading it so soon after Human Acts either, although they're very different novels.

The Thousand Crimes of Ming by Tsu Tom Lin

The advertising around this book does it poorly (do not go in expecting anything Cormac McCarthy-like LOL). Don't get me wrong, I liked this book -- I do enjoy a modern Western and I think Lin does a great job highlighting the role of Chinese workers on the expansion of the railroad, as well as the curiosities of the era through a fantastical magic troupe. The NPR review of this book highlights how each character plays with genre, which was true and definitely one interesting part of the novel. Thematically, I thought this book was interesting if a bit restrained, and the characters were neat. Unfortunately, though I enjoyed giving this one a read, at the end of the day, it's all a bit forgettable.

Dumb Luck by Vu Trong Phung (trans. Nyuyen Nguyet Cam and Peter Zinoman)

Tumblr bookclub read! Like I said to A and Rhu, I found the introduction "Vu Trong Phung's Dumb Luck and the Nature of Vietnamese Modernism" by Peter Zinoman more interesting than the text itself, but overall, I'm glad I read the book. It's always really interesting to read these sort of big, foundational texts -- even in fairly recent translation. I haven't read a lot of satire and really don't know that much about Vietnam before American involvement, but the thrust of the text was definitely quite interesting (and brutal -- one review described all the characters as antagonists) even if I didn't fully understand all the conversations, it was taking part in.

Heart of Darkness (3rd Norton Critical Edition) by Joseph Conrad (ed. Robert Kimbrough)

Confession: I think I'd read this before and almost entirely forgotten it. I didn't particularly enjoy the book and literarily, I'm not sure that I got what quality elevates it to a "great novel." I especially enjoyed the back-and-forth among several scholars (especially around Achebe) about its relationship to colonialism, inclusion in the canon, and European self-definition against Africa as a "primitive other." I'm glad I read it mostly because I feel like it gives me a better sense of the larger conversation around Leopold in the Congo and the literary/related discourses around the scramble for Africa. So, thematically, glad I read it; literarily, whatever.

The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden

The end :) maybe I'll do this again someday!

Another confession: I pick a lot of books by wandering around the library and just grabbing one that looked interesting. I did read Heart of Darkness before this for a reason. I quite liked reading this one -- I thought the narration was really interesting and the narrator's complicity in the brutality of Idi Amin's rule was neat. Certain scenes were very brutal (and the book was certainly well-researched). I felt like at times, the time-skips didn't quite work, but the general disconnect between Garrigan, his identity, and what was happening around him was interesting. I think I had to watch the film that was a loose adaptation of the book in class in high school. I think I could probably have some more interesting thematic and political comments on this one if I sat on it a little longer, but I'm kind of getting tired of writing this and also I finished it like, twelve and a half hours ago or something.