The Mapmaker's Wife

The Mapmaker's Wife; A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon, by Robert Whitaker. Basic Books, 2004.

I found this book one of those lists of best biographies--some list I can't locate now, of course. It is the story of, among other things, a woman's journey across the Andes and down the Amazon in 1769. However, it veers off into a great many other subjects, a little like the way the Internet zooms you from one thing to another with just a click.

A reading of this book will help you understand about the place of women in early South American society, the exploration of the continent by European interests, and the history of early attempts to map out the whole earth. Along the way, you might learn a bit, as I did, about math and physics, nature, early medicine, and the way early scientists learned about gravity.

There is a web site for the book that gives you a further look at some of the documents cited, and which contains some additional photos.

This House of Sky

This is a wonderful, wonderful book; and it is Ivan Doig's first published work. In it, he describes his upbringing by his father, Charlie, and his grandmother, Bessie Ringer, out on the wilderness ranches of Montana. I am glad that I read it after having read Dancing at the Rascal Fair and The Whistling Season, because I could recognize in his early life the sources of so many of the stories in these later works of fiction.

I read the 15th anniversary edition of the book, which has a preface by the author that I found fascinating, telling as it does the story of the writing of the book and how it came to be published.

Here are a couple of quotes from the book, just to give you a bit of the flavor.

And childhood is a most queer flame-lit and shadow-chilled time. Think once more how the world wavers and intones above us then. Parents behave down toward us as if they are tribal gods, as old and unarguable and almighty as thunder. Other figures loom in from next door and the schoolyard and a thousand lanes of encounter, count coup on us with whatever lessons of life they brandish, then ghost off.

[On going to school for the first time]: ...I was unimpressed with lessons, which seemed to be school's way of finicking around with things I could do quicker on my own.

In the night, in mid-dream, people who are entire strangers to one another will sometimes congregate atop my pillow. They file into my sleeping skull in perplexing medleys. A face from grade school may be twinned with one met a week ago on a rain-forest trail in the Olympic Mountains. A pair of friends I joked with yesterday now drift in arguing with an editor I worked for more than a thousand miles from here. How thin the brainwalls must be, so easily can acquaintanceships be struck up among these random residents of the dark.

Memory, the near-neighborhood of dream, is almost as casual in its hospitality.

***

This House of Sky; Landscapes of a Western Mind, by Ivan Doig. Originally published in 1978; 15th anniversary edition with a preface by Ivan Doig. Harcourt, 1992.

This I Believe

This I Believe; The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women (Holt, 2006) is a collection of very short essays by the famous and the not-so-famous; some from the Edward R. Murrow radio series in the 1950s and some from the National Public Radio series that has just been completed. 

Each person has expressed a core belief that is central to his life and the result is inspiring and thought provoking. How would you express your own belief--your own personal values--while avoiding "religious dogma, preaching, or editorializing?"

Here are a few quotes from the book:

I believe that my own good fortune brings with it a responsibility to give back to the world.   ~Bill Gates

I believe in the connection between strangers when they reach out to each other.   ~Miles Goodwin

I now again believe there is more good than evil; more of those who create, or wish to create, than those who destroy; more of those who love than those who hate.   ~Maximilian Hodder (1950 series)

I believe in cultivating hidden talents, buried and unrelated to what we do for a living.   ~Mel Rusnov

I believe in getting up in the morning with a serene mind and a heart holding many hopes.   ~Carl Sandburg (1950s series)

To imagine that one's own church, civilization, nation, or family is the chosen people is, I believe, as wrong as it would be for me to imagine that I myself am God.    ~Arnold Toynbee (1950s series)

...I believe that if enough ordinary people back up our desire for a better world with action, we can, in fact, accomplish absolutely extraordinary things.   ~Jody Williams, founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, whose interest in advocacy began with a leaflet on global activism handed to her outside a subway station.

You can read the essays published in the book and many more, and browse the archives of the 1950s series at This I Believe.org, "a public dialogue about belief, one essay at a time." You can also contribute an essay--guidelines are given--and find out how to use these essays in your home, your school, and in your community.

The Whistling Season

Thank you, Linda, of the 7MSN Ranch, for suggesting The Whistling Season to me in a comment on a recent post about another book that I had read. I love to discover a new author, and can't wait to start reading more of Doig's books. 

The Whistling Season introduces us to Oliver Milliron, a recent widower with three sons. The Milliron family is living on a dryland farming homestead in Montana in 1909. In the first chapter, Oliver discovers an ad in the local newspaper that reads as follows: 

Can't Cook But Doesn't Bite: Housekeeping position sought by widow. Sound morals, exceptional disposition. No culinary skills, but A-1 in all other household tasks. Salary negotiable, but must include railroad fare to Montana locality; first year of peerless care for your home thereby guaranteed. Respond to Boxholder, Box 19, Lowry Hill Postal Station, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

That's all I'm going to tell you about the book, but I should think that it is enough to have you hooked. It certainly grabbed me from the first page. 

Ivan Doig, author of The Whistling Season, has a website that includes the following sections: 

* Reader's guides to some of his books; 

* An audio book section that includes links to Doig's recorded books, read by himself and by others, as well as a link to Doig's recording of Norman Mailer's A River Runs Through It;

* Ivan's Notes, which contain information about the man and his writing.

Here is a quote from the reader's guide to This House of Sky: 

Ivan Doig grew up along the rugged rims of the Rocky Mountains in Montana with his father, Charlie, and his grandmother, Bessie Ringer. His life was formed among the sheepherders and characters of small-town saloons and valley ranches as he wandered beside his restless father. ... What Doig deciphers from his past is not only a sense of the land and how it shapes us, but also of our inextricable connection to those who shape our values in the search for intimacy, independence, love and family.

Escape, by Carolyn Jessop

Judy mentioned reading this book and said that she couldn't put it down. (Thanks to Beth for reminding me where I read Judy's comment).  My experience was the same. 

Carolyn Jessop was raised in a fundamentalist cult community, the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), which is a radical polygamist offshoot of the Mormon Church that is housed in small communities in Arizona and Utah. Her book takes us deep into the daily life experienced by the members--the power of some, and the helplessness of others. Reading this book made me realize that we have our own form of the Taliban right here in America. 

Carolyn was forced into an arranged marriage to a total stranger at the age of 18, then gave birth to 8 children in 15 years. She and her children were abused physically and emotionally. She was rightfully afraid that when her children were out of her sight they were in danger of being beaten by her sister wives. 

From the book flap: Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created by religious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive their followers of the right to make choices, force women to be totally subservient to men, and brainwash children in church-run schools. Against this background, Carolyn Jessop's flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did she manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest of its notorious leader, Warren Jeffs. 

If you have ever watched HBO's Big Love, this book will make you understand the accuracy of the show's portrayal of a modern cult in America. 

For more information:

NPR: Warren Jeffs and the FLDS

CNN: Polygamist "Prophet" to Serve at Least 10 Years in Prison

A video of Warren Jeffs instructing child brides in marriage

A video of Carolyn Jessop talking about her life and her book

Some Armchair Traveling

Image from PaulTheroux.com

Riding the Iron Rooster; By Train Through China, by Paul Theroux (1988).

I am so grateful to Paul Theroux for taking this journey, as I am sure that I never would undertake anything like it. He describes 22 different train trips through a China that few of us might ever see.

He shares his sleeping compartment, as is the custom in this overcrowded land, with a variety of travelers--even some honeymooners. When he offers to leave the compartment so that they can have some privacy, they cheerfully reply that they will have privacy in the upper bunk. Indeed, in a place where every room of every home features at least one bed, privacy is a state of mind.

He describes a country where almost every natural feature has been reworked by the hand of man--mountains that have been carved into steps for growing crops, rivers that have been swallowed up, and valleys that have been dug over, inch by inch--and where wild animals are almost non-existent and seen always as something to be eaten.

I was fascinated and appalled to read about the effects of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), which the country was recovering from during Theroux's railroad trip. "It was a mistake," most Chinese told him. [While reading the book, I even dreamed that I was working at a school during a cultural revolution, and found that my library was being used for calisthenics, and that I was expected to deliver books to classrooms on a cart, but the cart was in a closet and needed to be put together before I could use it, and the schedule for visiting the classrooms was secret, and, oh, yes, I looked just like Ugly Betty, which had nothing to do with anything].

This was a nice, long (480 p.), and very satisfying read. I really didn't want to put it down, and I read it while drinking cup after cup of tea, of course!

Obamanos*

When I started reading Dreams From My Father; A Story of Race and Inheritance, by Barack Obama, the author was wrapping up his long campaign for President of the U.S. Just a week later as I was reading the last part of the book, he had become our President-Elect.

The book is divided into three parts: Origins (early days and family); Chicago (what it means to be an organizer on the South Side of Chicago); and Kenya (traveling around the country, meeting his relatives and finding out about African life and culture). I would go from reading about "Barry," as his Kenyan relatives call him, drinking tea outside his grandmother's hut, to watching the excitement on Election Night as the newly elected President-to-be greeted adoring crowds in Chicago and around the world. I couldn't help wondering what that far-flung family was feeling about their boy.

It's a fascinating book, written while he was still a law student, that will give you an idea of the background and character development of the man we will be getting to know even better. You will be there when he meets Reverend Jeremiah Wright and hears his first Wright sermon, entitled "The Audacity of Hope." That is also the title of the next Obama book that I'll be reading.

*****

*seen on a New Mexican bumper sticker shortly before the election. It would translate into something like "let's go for Obama."

Three Cups of Tea

I've just finished reading Three Cups of Tea; One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace...One School At A Time, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Viking Hardcover 2006 / Penguin Paperback 2007). This is the remarkable story of a remarkable man, Greg Mortenson. Through a series of mishaps and a failure, he ended up in a little village in northern Pakistan. When he saw the children of the village holding school without a teacher, sitting on the ground and writing in the dirt with sticks, his life changed. He promised to return and build a school.

The book is the story of the fulfillment of that promise and the dedication of one man's life to providing education for children in Pakistan, especially the girls, and eventually for children in Afghanistan as well. It's a description of the way a single American won "hearts and minds," as we so often hear our government say it wants to do. It's a book that had me waking in the night to read just a little more.

Please find a copy of this book and read it--or better still, buy a copy here so that 7% of the purchase price will be donated to Mortenson's projects. Then tell other people about it, blog about it, and share your feelings about it. You can click on these links to find out more about Mortenson's Central Asia Institute and its Pennies for Peace school program that teaches American schoolchildren how they can have a positive impact on the world. There are lots more reviews here, just in case I haven't convinced you to read this book.

Designing Pragmatic Desert Built Environments

Isn't that a catchy title for this post? It comes from a chapter in the book, Canyon Gardens; The Ancient Pueblo Landscapes of the American Southwest, edited by V.B. Price and Baker H. Morrow, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006. This isn't the usual sort of book you'll find me reading but I have to tell you, I was absolutely captivated by this collection of essays.

Yes, this is serious stuff, written by university researchers. Yes, the facts are often couched in that academic language we all learn in graduate school. But if you persevere, as I did, you will find yourself surrounded by the ancient Puebloan peoples, admiring their survival methods. You will start to see how they could have lived in the harsh desert climate for millennia by using a pragmatic, low-risk approach to siting their buildings and growing their crops, and by seeing themselves as part of the land and the landscape, as opposed to the way we tend to impose ourselves on the land as something apart. You might be surprised to read of the wide variety of crops that were either raised (corn, beans, squash); encouraged--Indian ricegrass and sand dropseed, amaranth and goosefoot species; and gathered--Cholla fruit, the seeds of fourwind saltbush, juniper and algerita berries, piñon nuts, watercress, and the fruit and fiber of the yucca.

You will encounter some unexpectedly lovely writing, as in the essay on "Zuni Maize," by Mary Beath, and you might be greatly touched by Rina Swentzell's piece on "Conflicting Landscape Values: The Santa Clara Pueblo and Day School," which recounts the experiences of children leaving the nurturing shelter of pueblo life to go to a school where they were surrounded by a loss of trust and lack of respect.

In addition to an examination of ancient survival techniques, you will also find a discussion of how we might use some of this ancient wisdom in choosing home sites and in gardening in this desert land. You might just find yourself looking at the land, and your relationship to it, in a new way.

A "Few" Good Books; Our Mass Collaboration

I admit it--I'm compulsive, or I wouldn't be a librarian. I couldn't leave well enough alone and just had to go through your comments on the Looking for a Few Good Books post and put everything in alphabetical order. Here they are--all 68 titles (so far) that we recommended to each other. If you want to read the original comment, I have included the name of the person who recommended the book. Just go to Looking for a Few Good Books and scroll down to the comments section.

-Baker: Mezzanine (Benjamin)
-Barry: History of the Millennium (So Far) (brassring)

-Beyond Brokeback; the Impact of a Film (j)

-The Bible (j)

-Bin Laden: Inside the Kingdom (photokeeper)

-Blight: A Slave No More; Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation (Anonymous/JL)

-Boonshaft: Teaching Music with Passion (brassring)

-Box: Books featuring the character Joe Pickett [Savage Run, Trophy Hunt, for example] (photokeeper)

-Brashares: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (jacksonrnnr)

-Brown: I'm Just Here for the Food (Benjamin)

-Colbert: I am America (and So Can You) (clairz)

-Counselor: Wild, Woolly, and Wonderful (lin)--This book is out of print. Ask your librarian for a copy. Note: Lin originally posted the title for this book over on La Casa de Towanda. Because she is living off the grid and has electricity for just a short time each day, I was glad to copy and paste it here for her.

-Crystal: Seven Hundred Sundays (ameriaussie)

-Dante: The Divine Comedy (brassring)
-Denton (editor) : Plays and Playwrights 2006 (Benjamin)
-Diaz: Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (clairz)
-Dyer: Real Magic (brassring)

-Enright: The Gathering (clairz)

-Esquith: Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire (This title was recommended twice--by Anonymous/jl and clairz)

-Feinstein: Winter Games (b)

-Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love (Anonymous/JL)

-Greenlaw: Slipknot (brassring)

-Gruen: Water for Elephants (ameriaussie)

-Horgan: Rational Mysticism, Spirituality Meets Science in the Search for Enlightenment (j)

-Hosseini: A Thousand Splendid Suns (clairz)

-Iggulden: Dangerous Book for Boys (clairz)

-IIibagiza: Left to Tell; Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan (Anonymous/jl )

-Joyce: Ulysses (b)

-Junge: Until the Final Hour (jacksonrnnr)

-Kakalios: Physics of Superheroes (Benjamin)
-King: Cell (brassring)

-King: Lisey's Story (brassring)

-Kitchell: Coyote Speaks (j)

-Kitchell: Get a God (j)

-Kitchell: God's (j)

-Kline: Shock Doctrine (S)

-The Koran (j)
-Kuo: Tempting Faith, An Inside Story of Political Seduction (j)

-Lao Tsu: Tao Te Ching [available online] (brassring)

-Mabry: Twice as Good: Condoleeza Rice and Her Path to Power (b)

-Mahoney: Down the Nile; Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff (Anonymous/jl)

-McCarthy: No Country for Old Men (b)

-McKay: Saffy's Angel (brassring)

-Miller: The Crucible (j)

-Montgomery: The Good, Good Pig (photokeeper)

-Moore: Lamb (S)

-Obeidi: The Bomb in My Garden (photokeeper)

-Ohler: What Next (ridin' geeky)

-Oliver: Why I Wake Early (j)

-Pica: Jump into Literacy (ameriaussie)

-Pratt: Radical Hospitality; Benedict's Way of Love (j)

-Preston: The Wild Trees; a Story of Passion and Daring (Anonymous/jl)

-Pullman: Golden Compass (jacksonrnnr)

-Saunders: The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (jacksonrnnr)

-Schultz: 1000 Places to See Before You Die (jacksonrnnr)

-Sedaris: Me Talk Pretty Some Day (Benjamin)

-Sedaris: Naked (Benjamin)

-Taleb: Black Swan;Impact of the Highly Improbable (clairz)

-Tapscott: Wikinomics; How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (clairz)

-Tolstoy: War and Peace (brassring)

-Toole: Confederacy of Dunces (ridin' geeky)

-Tracy: Eat That Frog (Anonymous/jl)

-Troost: The Sex Lives of Cannibals (jacksonrnnr)

-Tsukiyama: The Street of a Thousand Blossoms (ameriaussie)

-Twitchell: Shopping for God; How Christianity Went from in Your Heart to in Your Face (b)

-Ung: First They Killed My Father (jacksonrnnr)

-Walter: The Zero (ridin' geeky)

-Weiner: Legacy of Ashes; the History of the CIA (b)

Looking for a Few Good Books: A Challenge

I read a lot. There are certain authors that I follow, and I always want to read both fiction and nonfiction about New Mexico and the rest of the Southwest. However, I would like to challenge myself to read some books that are a bit different from what I usually seek out, so I have compiled a list of books I’d like to read over the next few months. My friend Sonja in New Hampshire used to let me know about great reads but alas, there is no Sonja here in New Mexico, so I’ve picked these ten titles from a variety of award-winning and “best” lists. I’ve linked the titles to reviews and/or additional information from resources like The New York Times Book Review and National Public Radio.

Now, here is where you can help. As the Wikinomics subtitle (below) says, “mass collaboration changes everything,” so I’d like to see the list of books you’d like to read. If we share, we can broaden our horizons. Please send a comment that includes your list. Thank you for collaborating.

My Challenge List:

I Am America (And So Can You!), by Stephen Colbert.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz.

The Gathering, by Anne Enright.

Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire; The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56, by Rafe Esquith.

A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini.

The Dangerous Book for Boys, by Conn and Hal Iggulden.

The God of Animals, by Aryn Kyle.

Black Swan; the Impact of the Highly Improbable, by N.N Taleb.

Born on a Blue Day; Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant, by Daniel Tammet.

Wikinomics; How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott.