Daren

From the end of the Preface I thought the humour in this book would fit me perfectly.

"My immediate relations have been of enormous assistance in compiling this volume; without their help it would probably have been published six months sooner."

Also worth mentioning from the Preface is a note as follows: "I am not an authority of anything. This little book is not the history of a life-work in Africa, not is it the diary of an expensive shooting expedition. It is just a simple record of things that actually happened to a casual young man who absentmindedly wandered into Central Africa, travelling very much 'on the cheap' unhampered by friends 'influence,' or letter of introduction."

And the first 20-30 pages of the book lives up to this. Mason is self deprecating and amusing. He is no glory seeker, or seeker of trophies. I marked a few more quotes in the first 20 or so pages - some examples:

P10 "It was very hot, both on body and feet. We walked many miles, but made no secret of preferring to ride. George, in mistaken compassion for his small donkey, used to get off its back and cadge rides on my camel. I would wait until he was out of sight, and, bestriding the pampered moke, smite it firmly down the girth with the ropes end; realising that it must make the best of things, the foxy little brute would trot merrily along with no signs of tiring under my fourteen stone odd, though it had drooped and stumbled beneath George's twelve stone of misguided sympathy."

P18 "Some people will wait till they have measured the horns of some slaughtered creature and compared them to the record book before they decide they have enjoyed their day. The difficulties surmounted, the craft brought into play, the wariness and beauty of the quarry, the long waits while it feeds and moves about unaware of danger - surely these things are worth more than the triumph of its being an inch larger in size than the one killed by So-and-so."

P20 "That country is full of the giant baobab trees... One of these struct me as unusually large, so I measured its girth scientifically. I was checking my result by pacing around its bole when I stepped in a nest of furious wild bees... Wishing to photograph it, I told Ibrahim to go and stand against the trunk to make a contrast. He objected that he would be stung by the bees. In a foolish moment I said, "Very well, Ibrahim, I will give you one piastre for every sting you get." The words were barely out of my mouth before he rushed at the tree and , leaping in the middle of the bees did his upmost to provoke their wrath by stirring them up with both his feet and a spear handle. When I had taken the picture I had to call him away twice, and he came up, covered in stings and smiles to collect about seven shillings for what, I really believe, afforded him no physical discomfort whatever."

But it wasn't too long before the amusing asides fell away and the casual racism (typical of the era) came to the fore. Mason repeats his view that negroes are lesser beings, lack intelligence etc etc. I can separate the views of the time from the author, but this is very repetitive. That aside, the book rolls out to describe his time in Africa (Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika (Tanzania now)) undertaking general travel and hunting expeditions. For the Sudanese journey he accompanies a Colonel he meets by chance on a train, in other places he hunts alone or joins up with other white men he encounters.

He shares an interpretation of the different tribes, some of their cultural beliefs and way of life. He explains about the animals he tracks and often shoots, but not always, sometimes being content to stalk and just watch, or take photographs, which is not so common of the era.

Mason is quick to shares his errors and faults, but also equally quick to expose others mistakes, but not in a vindictive way, just to move the narrative along.

The casual racism did drop away about 2/3 of the way through, but the humour didn't really return. In the end I did enjoy the read as a detailed description of his travels and hunting, he told interesting asides and anecdotes about animals and African tribes, taking in a wide array of detail. Overall the rating was tainted by the unnecessary repetition of some of the generalisations and comments on Africans.

There were plenty of decent (for the time) black and white photographs throughout the book. There was also a pocket for a large map, which sadly was missing in my copy. The appendices contained an explanation of the Rift Valley and Volcanoes; a detailed comparative table for the native languages the author collected (very impressive to me at least); and a list of points for others to consider with regard to equipment to take or not take to Africa!

3.5 stars.

Short fiction - categorised as dark fiction, but I am not so sure.

A guys dog dies, and this story is him telling his friends a story about how it lost it's leg in a fight with another dog while he was fishing for catfish at night. This other dog was thought to be an urban myth, but it was real enough when it attacked Dave and his dog after it ate his rotting chicken liver baits. But was it just a dog, or was it more?

A story about a story. It was ok, but didn't send me out looking for more by this author.

Free on TOR.com (now Reactormag.com).

2.5 stars

I am probably guilty of not having read more of Maugham's work - I have read only one other - a novella called Up at the Villa, which I liked well enough.

This collection of short stories all take place in the British colonies of Malaya, Burma (now Myanmar), Kuching (now Malaysian Borneo), Singapore, Indonesia, or on the voyage to or from these places to Britain. While this collection was published in this form in 1993, the stories are presumably much older and appear to be set in the 1930's.

Maugham paints a detailed picture of life in the outposts of the empire, but more they capture the aspects of human nature and the way of life in these places. Particularly it shows the way behaviour's differ in the colonies from the homeland, and how the acceptability of actions and behaviour's differ also.

Footprints in the Jungle - told in the first person, a newcomer to Tanah Merah (in Malaya) meets the locals, and learns the back story of a planter and his wife - that the wife had a previous marriage where her husband was brutally murdered in the jungle under strange circumstances.

Mabel - A very short story about a woman on her way from Britain to join her fiancé after several years apart, although both harbour fears that their partners will have changed.

P. & O. - Set on the P&O liner returning to Britain, Mrs Hamlyn and Mr Gallagher are the main characters who both have different reasons for returning home, and their stories are told during the journey.

The Door of Opportunity - Anne and her husband Alban have just landed in London, having departed from Malaya where Alban was a District Officer in fictional Sondurah. The reason for their departure is the heart or this story and examines Alban's character and behaviour during an uprising in his district.

The Buried Talent - When Convers arrives in Penang on route to his new job in Bangkok he receives a note from a women from the past who was close friend of his girlfriend from long ago, who hopes to meet up with him. This he does and they recount the story of Convers' girlfriend and what happened to her.

Before the Party - Set in the UK, a family about to attend a memorial for Millicent's husband, who died in Malaysian Borneo, where he was the Resident at Kuala Solor (a fictional town). Millicent's sister, mother and father are the only characters in this story and they tease out the story of Harold's death, but end up wishing they had not!

Mr. Know-All - Another ocean liner-set story, in this case told in the first person by a man returning home whose cabin-mate is known on the ship a Mr. Know-all, not well liked as he is a self professed expert at all things. Over the authenticity of pearls, he ends in an argument.

Neil MacAdam - A young Scotsman (Neil) arrives to assist a scientist researching insects and is invited to life with the scientist and his wife. When Neil hears rumours being spread about the wife he defends her, but later discovers that he may have been on the wrong side of the argument and if forced to take steps to extract himself.

The End of the Flight - A new arrival accepts a bed at the Resident's bungalow, and despite being very tired and just wanting to go to sleep is told a story about the last man who stayed with the Resident!

The Force of Circumstance - Newly married and returning to a post he has held for the previous 10 years Guy and Doris are settling into life in a far-flung corner of the empire (Sembulu in Indonesian Kalimantan) when Doris notices some light coloured children in the Kampang. There is also a young Indonesian woman hanging about with a young baby. Finding out about Guy's history doesn't go down so well with Doris.

All of these stories are depicted with the background settings fully intact. With tennis rackets, Gin Pahits and Singapore Slings, an administrators overview and natives needing to be kept in line.

I have heard from others than Maugham's short stories are more favourable than his longer works, but I am still game to try a longer novel if they come close to the amusement value of these stories as I enjoyed these short stories more than I might have expected.

4 stars.

The form of this novel is a series of interconnected short stories from three generations of an Afghan family, plus some bystanders! Separated at a young age brother and sister Abdullah and Pari go on to live very different lives, and their stories are told in both their own sections of the book and those of others.

Each of the stories have overlapping timelines, flashbacks and some non-linear sections. They vary slightly within their format for each character, but are largely able to be followed as one section leads to the next. The author does have some fun with starting a section vague and not sharing who the character is for the first few pages.

Based initially in Afghanistan, the story is sad and often the circumstances grim. Later the story moves to other settings, Paris, the Greek island of Tinos and San Francisco.

Hosseini is a great storyteller, but the multiple point of view format didn't work as well as the dual narrative in his earlier books. It was still an enjoyable enough read, but on the basis it was just less satisfying that his others, this sits at 3.5 stars.

Idriess states in his author's note "For long I have wanted to write whatever comes into my head. And here it is. I have written on man, woman, insect and diprotodon, stories, incidents, articles....". Published in 1954 it focuses on stories from Western Australia's north, but does dip briefly in to New Guinea.

I don't think I am being unfair or inaccurate when I say this book is a bit of a muddle - less organised and less structured than this authors other works. I found the fragmentation disengaging, where normally this author is very engaging. It felt clearly like he had lots of fragments of stories he couldn't work into real pieces and perhaps that had been edited from other works as they weren't quite right. There were pages in here with only semi-related stories each of a paragraph, that didn't carry the narrative for me. Seldom are eh chapters directly related, so really this is a collection of short stories, non-fiction of course.

There were also other more focused chapters which did measure up to Idriess's other works, so it is not that this book has nothing to offer, but if this was your first book by this author, it may not encourage you back.

As usual it outlines quirks in Aboriginal culture, introduces dozens of real characters, Aboriginal a white living and working in remote desert country, their experiences, some stories and plenty of oddities. There ae numerous pages of photographs (black and white) of average quality for the era, mostly illustrating the story but not necessarily directly.

Three stars.

A longer than usual novel from Mickey Spillane - a stand alone story, published in 1972. In 1964 Spillane published a short story "The Bastard Bannerman", contained within a slender book with two novella called Return of the Hood. This is a longer version of that story where 'Cat Cay Bannerman' becomes 'Dogeron Kelly', obviously referred to as 'Dog'. Both were bastards and had come home to deal with family business. There were a lot of similarities, but this novel was a lot more complex.

It felt like Spillane shoehorned a few extra storylines in to this one, padding it out to over 300 pages. He does have a good thing going where he gives Dogeron a backstory without the actual detail, and doesn't share the details until right at the end which was pretty successful. It is also the most sexually explicit of the Spillane stories I have read, there is plenty of sex and a lot of inner monologue about sex (the inner monologues felt a bit of a lazy information dumping writing technique to be honest).

I also can't not mention the cover Spillane chose for this book - his wife (or wife at the time, who knows) nude and reclining with a leg in the air, and the awful title (which has no practical link with the story other than there is a film set involved) which combine to make this book one that can't be read in public.

Plenty of tough guy action, fighting, shooting etc etc, entertaining enough at a basic level. This achieved the usual 3 stars I end up with for most Spillane works!

3 stars.

A three page story, sent out with an author's newsletter - a part of Aaronovich's Rivers of London series, although this is the only one I have read. Thanks to Maureen for sharing the temporary link: https://mailchi.mp/3f573405ff0d/winte...Set in Pitlochry, Scotland-a man wakes up from a coma after a near drowning in a river. Initially, he says he fell in, but soon admits he waded in to help another. The narrative features an interview between this man interviewed by a Detective Chief Inspector from the Metropolitan Police.Too short for more, or spoilers!3 stars

I bought this on the basis of good reviews and it sounding pretty interesting. Both proved out in what was a great book. Although not very clear from the blurb, this book is partly about one of many cities founded by Alexander the Great on his rampage around the world - he had a thing for naming cities after himself- thus Alexandria. The one in Egypt is the one which hung around. Most of the others (historian consider there were a dozen or so) fell to ruin or were overtaken by other cities. Most have not been discovered.

The Alexandria in this case was known as Alexandria under the Mountain, its re-discovery by Charles Masson, in Afghanistan, is the primary topic of this book. Or is it? This book resolves the question of who exactly Charles Masson is. The events of this book take place from 1827 to 1853. Events I learned about from Flashman (volume 1) and Dalrymple's Return of a King, amongst others.

I liked this quote from early on in the book, P2 of my edition. Given it is page 2, I am not giving anything away when I say Masson at this time was known as Lewis - his real name, Private James Lewis, and his 'walking away from Agra' was him deserting from the British East India Company Army.

As he left Agra behind, he had no way of knowing that he was walking into one of history's most incredible stories. He would beg by the roadside and take tea with kings. He would travel with holy men and become the master of a hundred disguises. He would see things that no westerner had ever seen before, and few have glimpsed since. And, little by little, he would transform himself from an ordinary soldier into one of the greatest archeologists of the age. He would devote his life to a quest for Alexander the Great.

And so Edmund Richardson unpicks a complicated story, breathtaking in parts and heartbreaking in others, particularly the way Masson was manipulated by the British East India Company, and taken advantage of by others.

This really was excellent reading.

I also earmarked this quote, from right at the end: P258 of my edition.

How does history get written? Look closely and you will realise something important. Often it's not because of a professor sitting in a library, but because of someone like Masson: a strange and wonderful character fighting through the snows, chasing an impossible dream. Knowledge, as we hold it in our hands today, is formed not just from scholarship and experiments, facts and equations. It is also made of stories.

The reference to stories ties back in to some of Masson's experiences explained in the book.

I could write a load more, but will resist. Highly recommended if this is in your wheelhouse.

5 stars.

Having read Simon Winchester's ‘Pacific' I had expected this book to follow a similar format, but it doesn't. Pacific was a series on unconnected stories from locations in the Pacific Ocean. This book does contain various stories from locations within the Atlantic, but it is far more heavily invested in an overall narrative (or more accurately several narratives).

For a framework Winchester has divided the book into sections paralleling the 7 stages of man, as listed in Shakespeare's As You Like It which seems somewhat arbitrary, but does sort of work as the life of an ocean - starting with ancient history and discovery and ended with environmental change and what mankind is doing to the ocean.

Winchester uses plenty of sources in history and science, but also manages to include in his narrative plenty of travels - whether that this the explorers of old or drawing from his own travels from the 1960s until now. He also writes of literary figures and their inspiration from and writing about the Atlantic, stories of overfishing and ocean management, pollution and climate change. Naval battles, shipwrecks, plate tectonics and vulcanology,

I certainly didn't read this book quickly. I found a couple of sections at a time was enough before I needed something else - reading 3 books between starting and finishing Winchester's offering. It isn't that it wasn't interesting and appealing, or even overly long at under 500 pages, it was just that it was a slow read. Even the action sections were slow, but then, he had a long history to cover.

There are a couple of decent maps, lots of small photographs and drawings which were ok, but don't make up for the lack of colour plates.

4 stars

A short story from Stephen Graham Jones, published by Tor.Com and available free.

Set in the future when time travel is available, but set up in a way that the traveller can't alter the past. People are using it to go back in time and reap vengeance, killing people they have grudge against, but because it happens in a different reality stream it is real, but doesn't effect reality.

When the protagonist goes back he is surprised what he discovers - but it is a short story so no more plot outlining.

Very quick and fairly simple, a basic 3 star read.

#5 in the Graff series by author Carrie Vaughn. This is a backstory filler, taking us back to Graff on his home planet as a teenager, and then out into the world where he is placed in a space port with a mentor from home to help him transition into him under-cover duties and life off-planet, before commencing his placement at the Trade Guild Military Academy.

This short story sets out another part of the origin story of Graff, who we have come to know from the other four parts released by Vaughn.

There are some lessons learned, and at the end the first link with a character from Sinew and Steel which was the original short story (albeit second in publication, as a prequel was published second in order!).

This was a quick and enjoyable read, for me it sat around the middle of the series for quality - not quite the best, but better than the weakest, so a return to 4 stars.

The third of the Border Trilogy - to bring together the main characters from book one (All the Pretty Horses) and book two (The Crossing). John Grady Cole from the former, Billy Parham from the latter.

I was surprised to be thrown straight into the story - they are both working on a ranch together. No explanation of how either got there from the ends of their previous stories - I must admit, I expected it to loop back at some point... spoiler - it doesn't.

In reality this is John Grady Cole's story - the story of his falling in love (with a prostitute) and his unwavering ambition to free her from her bonds and marry her. I won't outline more of the story, but much of the book is other people (especially Billy Parham) trying to turn him from his goal, given the lack of sense Cole was making.

I will come out and say it was an unsatisfying conclusion. I enjoyed this far less than the other two books, and while it gave closure in some sense it was far from satisfying. Perhaps I should have expected that in a McCarthy novel - but I didn't need a nice ending, just a resolution more defined than I got.

Those familiar with McCarthy's writing will be unsurprised. The sparse conversations, the lack of punctuation, the irritation (for me at least) Spanish dialogue, the graphic violence. At least this one avoided the long detailed side stories of little relevance (for the most part).

I gave the first book 5 stars; the second four. I am generously giving this one three!

***

This is the second non-fiction book I have read by Adrian Conan Doyle, youngest son of Sir Arthur. This is the first in published order (1952) with Lone Dhow, which was perhaps a little better than this one, likely because this is his first book.

It outlines the journey of the author and his wife Anna as they leave Morocco for something more interesting - to seek out big fish (mostly seeking game fish, but also sharks, rays etc) among the islands and along the coast of Tanzania. They buy a small launch and establish a small crew comprising an engineer who is constantly fixing the engine which breaks down with painful regularity) and a supposed navigator (they have several of these, of wildly varying expertise).

There are multiple tales of various big fish - barracouda, sharks, skip jacks, jew fish, dorado (he caught the world record dorado on this journey), kingfish, cavalli jack; also rays of all types - manta, eagle, death, torpedo and leopard as well as small fish - stone fish, horned trunk fish, garfish, grunter and other things such as sea snakes, sea scorpions & sea slugs.

There is an interlude where they seek out overgrown ruins on the island of Songa Manara, which Wikipedia tells me was excavated and researched in the 2000s. The author also regularly takes to the inland with his rifle in search of game (the all-fish diet wearing thin) and meat for bai, but is largely unsuccessful in this.

There are various black and white photographs, the quality matching the era, so not great, but interesting still. A map of the Tanzania (Tanganyika & Zanzibar at the time) coastline, while small scale is helpful for placing their movements up and down the coast.

In case you are wondering, I am not sure of the meaning of the title - perhaps I missed the key phrase in the narrative that links this!

4 stars.

For $2NZ I picked this up in a small town second hand shop - a surprising find, a book I have been looking for for a number of years.

I was surprised by this book -to find a young Richard Halliburton vagabonding around the world when I am more used to his travelling in style or at least sparing no expense. Writing articles for newspapers as he goes, picking up the royalty cheques in the next major city is a fine way to meet ongoing costs, but Halliburton appears almost allergic to money - no sooner does he receive a windfall than he heads to a casino to blow the majority, leaving him just enough to move on.

Jumping trains, stowing away on ships and most often buying the cheapest ticket available (third in the case of trains or deck / steerage depending on the ship) and sneaking or talking his way into first class. From time to time he is indulged by high society, lent clothes and attends parties, but for he main he is vagabonding with others. He pairs up with companions and for periods they travel together, but never for very long. He also pairs up with ladies (the romance of the title) but is very discrete if there is anything more than companionship.

Page 2/3

"A wave of exultation swept over me. Youth - nothing else worth having in the world... and I had youth, the transitory, the fugitive, now, completely and abundantly. Yest what was I to do with it? [...] I wanted freedom, freedom to search the farthermost corners of the earth for the beautiful, the joyous and the romantic.

The romantic 0 that was what I wanted. I hungered for the romance of the sea, the foreign ports, and foreign smiles. I wanted to follow the prow of a ship, any ship, and sail away, perhaps to China, perhaps to Spain, perhaps to the South Sea Isles, there to do nothing all day but lie on a surf-swept beach and fling monkeys at coconuts.

I hungered for the romance of great mountains. From childhood I dreamed of climbing Fujiyama and the Matterhorn [...] I wanted to swim the Hellespont where Lord Byron swam, float down the Nile in a butterfly boat, make love to a pale Kashmiri maiden beside the Shalimar, dance to the castanets of Granada gypsies, commune in solitude with the Taj Mahal, hunt tigers in the Bengal jungle - try everything once. I wanted to realize my youth while I had it, and yield to temptation before increasing years and responsibilities robbed me of courage."

Published in 1926, the 600 day journey beginning and ending in America covers a lot of ground. With a penchant for mountain climbing, he tackles the Matterhorn, the rock of Gibraltar (and is promptly prosecuted for taking photographs in a military zone), Kheop' pyramid and Mount Fuji. He is also not shy of a long trek when required, travelling overland from Myanmar into Thailand through a rough and overgrown trail (a route not unlike other vagabonding books I have read).

Roughly his journey takes him from the USA to Europe - Switzerland, France, Andorra, Spain, Gibraltar, Monaco to Egypt, on to India up through Kashmir and very close to Afghanistan, to Pakistan, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, China, Russia and Japan, before returning to the USA.

4.5 stars, rounded up

In this book Jacki Hill-Murphy describes a journey undertaken by each of three female explorers (well two, as the first journey was out of need rather than exploration) and then re-creates those journeys in modern times. Within the book the author states her criteria for selecting a journey to recreate are 1- no war zones, 2- a clear beginning and end, and 3- a means of travel close to the original explorer. Modern equipment is used, and transport to the commencement of the journey is modern.

The recounting of these journeys was good, but where the author could draw the parallels of her own journey with the 18th & 19th century added another dimension. Following the original route wasn't always possible of course, and she was aided by the forming of new roads and better access in many cases.

The first (and only one I was not aware of) was a journey by Isabella Godin, who is recognised as he first woman to travel the length of the Amazon River in 1769. Born in a part of Peru that is now in Ecuador, married to a Frenchman, she travelled from Ecuador to he mouth of the Amazon to be reunited with him. Hers was a tale of hardship and determination, and she succeeded while those who set out to assist and accompany her inevitably lost their lives on the way. The author undertakes a journey with three female companions (and guides and drivers of boats etc).

The second part covers her climb up Mount Cameroon to retrace British explorer, Mary Kingsley's journey in 1885. At thirty years old, with her parents both passed, she set out to explore West Africa. Mount Cameroon was one of her various achievements. Kingsley put many of her contemporary male explorers to shame with their enormous entourages, she sets off with a guide and a few assistants. On this repeat journey, Hill-Murphy is joined by five women, who, as part of the agreement must bring a Victorian dress in which to complete the last stage of the summiting.

Interesting to note here that those who accompany the author are in a couple of cases friends, but in most people who have responded to an advertisement. The book gains a few paragraphs on how sometimes they are not the most appropriate people. This doesn't differ in the third journey, other than the author no longer has an all-female team.

The final part retraces the journey of Isabella Bird over the Digar pass in the Indian Himalaya in 1890. Bird is another British Victorian explorer. Often of ill health early in her life she is miraculously cured when travelling the world, exploring (I wish I could have convinced someone to finance my life spent travelling). Extensively travelled in her life, this small journey in the Indian Himalaya is recreated by Hill-Murphy accompanied by an English ex-soldier who loved trekking, and Muslim Egyptian academic who had never been trekking and an Indian living in England who convinced himself he was a trekker, but wasn't.

Enjoyable for the most part, but I found the start of the first journey quite hard to get through, so glad I persisted.

3.5 stars.

In 1956 Richard Pape published Boldness be my Friend, a memoir of his time as a POW and escaped POW in the Netherlands and Germany in World War II. It was a complex explanation of his time with many people who aided him, and much went on unknown to him with those people after he has passed them by. For others he was not aware of their identity.

And so to this book - published in 1959, three years later - Pape's goal was to seek out information about the many people who helped him, visit hose who were still alive, or the families of those who were not and to share a little about their histories. There are many photographs throughout the book - some of the war years some of his visits to these people post-war.

There are many interesting stories about people here, although there are some where Pape spread the goodness on a bit thick. In his travels he revisited the UK, Netherlands and Germany, but also Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

Of most interest to me was his visit to Christchurch, NZ where he met the man he swapped identity with in order to confuse the Gestapo - they both went on to swap identities again with other prisoners and make a real tangled web for the Gestapo to try and unravel. Of course this is not a travel book, so there was little about his journeying, but is all about the people.

Pape gives an outline of his previous story to link the narratives of the people, so it can be read standa alone, but really it would be best read shortly after the first book (as opposed to around 5 years after, as I did!)

An interesting book, 3 stars.

This is Ranulph Fiennes description of a journey in British Columbia's Rocky Mountain Trench between the Yukon border and the Pacific Coast at Vancouver. The journey (or series of journeys more accurately) took place in 1971. Over 900 miles of travel by RDF boats (a brand of outboard motor propelled 13 foot long inflatable boats) - they took two and for parts of the journey a C-Craft boat (another brand - they were rewarding their sponsors by referring to all their equipment by brand, I guess).

Accompanied (at various times) by 3 men from the Royal Scots Greys (the three chosen were Joe Skibinski, Jack McConnell and Stanley Cribbett); a photographer from The Observer Bryn Campbell; and three BBC men tasked with filming the journey; plus Fiennes wife Ginnie and a army engineer who would both drive support vehicles where the route was near a road.

The first objective was to reach Virginia Falls, twice the height of Niagara. Their route from Fort Nelson took them up the Fort Nelson River to Fort Liard; the Liard River to Nahanni Butte and then the Nahanni River through the Headless Canyon (so named for the burned and headless corpses of a dozen gold prospectors and trappers found there, a series of unsolved mysteries over the century).

The river was tough, with high flows, dangerous rapids and the like - an adventure story for sure. Add to this a huge forest fire and log jambs and semi-submerged forest creating a flooded lake.

The second leg of the journey was from the Yukon border to Wiliston Lake. It gets a bit hard to follow here, and having not taken notes I am winging it a bit. With the drew walking wounded, and many parts of the journey not navigable in boats there were many miles of walking. Fiennes was turned back several times due to those accompanying him becoming injured and needing to return. He also ran out of food, and being unsure oh his route, returned to his start point and eventually needed to set off alone as all others needed recovery time. Reckless for sure, but Fiennes is a determined man.

Eventually he found his way (much of the advice about the tracks turned out to be just plainly incorrect, and he spent far too long on the incorrect side of the river with the track being on the other!). He re met up with the rest of the crew, and set off again in boats. There was more navigable river, before they ended up dragging boats a long way and then portaging the Stifton Pass and in to the Fraser River, which had taken the lives of most who has tried to pass down it before.

Next was The Rocky Mountain Trench, from Fort Ware to Fort George on the Findlay River; and then from Prince George to Vancouver just above the US border.

There was action all the way, but there are only some many descriptions of rapids the reader needs, and I was very ready for the journey to end. It is only a 220 page book, but for a reader there was a lot of repetition in the daily events. Tough to hold interest in such a long journey I guess.

Not my favourite of Ranulph Fiennes books, but it was interesting to a point, and certainly reinforces the mans ability to push himself.

3 stars

It seems that different editions of this book have different stories, and some in a different order.

My edition, Hodder & Stoughton from 1911 contains the following stories as retold by Laurence Housman: Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves; The Story of the Wicked Half-Brothers; The Story of the Princess of Deryabar; The Story of the Magic Horse; The Fisherman and the Genie; The Story of the King of the Ebony Isles.

Contained within are twenty four color illustrations by Edmund Dulac. The illustrations are very well executed, of a style I guess is art nouveau, but show the Persian characters with big noses and mean expressions; the women thin, with all similar faces - perhaps recognised as beautiful at the time.

I enjoyed the stories, having read the Thousand Nights and the One Night. As others observe, not all stories reward the honest, and so are not moral guides, but then that would be disinteresting wouldn't it?

5 stars

Bond #9.

I went in with low expectations - in 2026 general consensus is that Fleming's Bond has not aged well.

With expectations set low, and having only seen movies, never read a Bond novel, i came out in an ok place. There was plenty of action, and more explanation and background to the story than I had expected. Yes Bond bedded one woman too many than a modern story would sustain, but that was not unexpected.

Before the story really starts, Bond is sent by M to a wellness retreat, where dieting and exercise replace drinking and smoking. This is an amusing interlude, and while technically related to the main storyline is somehow not proven to be by 007.

The first of the Bond novels to feature SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) the global terrorist organisation. In this case they have stolen a plane with two atomic bombs, which they use to blackmail the US and UK governments to giving them one hundred million pounds (in gold).

M, on a hunch based on some flight data speculates that the stolen plane in in the Bahamas, which is where Bond is sent to snoop around. A millionaire with a hydrofoil boat, who claims to be a treasure hunter raises some suspicion in 007, and his 'niece' Dominetta Vitali who raises er, more than suspicion.

An amusing read that in no way puts me off reading more Bond.

3.5 stars.

Susan Graham was a well known journalist and author from the 50s & 60s era. She is very well travelled, and here she tells of a round the world trip taken in order to reach South America (back in the day there was no routing from New Zealand to South America, and it was necessary to fly to North America - the basis of her book is if you are flying all that way you may as well stop as often as you can and see lots of places! This book was published in 1963.

The first few chapters are basic travel preparation advice for those who have never travelled - it is a bit patronising, but to be fair in NZ back in the 60's there was the Kiwi backpacker who packs up and travels the world for a few years before returning home to get on with settling down, but there were plenty of people who had no idea how to get started, so perhaps these were helpful chapters!

It doesn't stop there, there is plenty of advice through out the book, but all given in a genuine and probably helpful way. The author makes a lot of stops, and we get around 3 pages for each stop she discusses. In the book she mentions that in her four month travels she visited 'over forty countries' whereas she mentions *only* about twenty one.

Her travels are almost exclusively city based (when you only have a few days in each country it makes sense), but she gets a little further afield in South America. You can check out the shelves I associated with this review if you are interested, but there is little to be gained from a few short pages other than a basic highlights reel.

This was amusing enough, in an easy to read format.

3 stars.

I didn't go into the reading of this book with particularly high expectations - I read a lot of mountaineering books (for some reason), but most involve the Himalaya, or South America. Few of interest have been in the Alps of Europe.

Published in 1946 it is (as the author says) "an account, not primarily of climbs, but of climbing holidays in the Highlands and the Alps. It records no great feats of mountaineering, no striking new ascents - a few new routes there were, indeed, but some of these were made by accident. Our aim was not to establish records, but to enjoy ourselves; and the book too was written for pleasure, to recall the enjoyment of days on mountains as well known as the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc, as little know as the minor peaks of the Haute Maurienne or Wester Ross."

So the Scottish highlands and Italian Alps are the primary locations, the French Alps also.

We are introduced to various climbing partners, guides and local personalities. The climbs are described, often in detail, but there are much wider ranging descriptions of meals and conversations, of accommodation and villages. It was a snapshot in time looking at mountaineering gear, travel and costs.

It had a certain charm to it, but honestly it was not a very exciting read. It had brief moments of excitement but they were few are far between, and it was not enough for me.

2 stars.

Less well known that its predecessor, Guns of Navarone this sequel starts off as the main characters reach the ship having left he fictional island. They are bundled off to Italy for a meeting with Jensen, who briefs them on their next mission - heading into Yugoslavia.

And so Mallory, Miller and Andrea are to parachute in to rescue a division of partisans who the Germans have trapped. Going with them are three younger marine commandos who somewhat predictably are the sacrificial lambs of this story.

This team are not the first to have been sent into Yugoslavia to help the Partisans, but somehow the Germans know when each team will arrive and have intercepted them, so these men are heading in knowing they will likely be captured.

Throughout the book the reader is left (much like the three marine commandos) at a disadvantage, where Mallory keeps much of the knowledge of the mission to himself. He knows more than we are all told and as such there is plenty of play on him making strange arbitrary looking decisions.

He is not the only one, as the Germans also know more about the team than they show, so there is lots of second guessing and moves, especially with the central characters in Bosnia of Maria a double agent and her blind singer brother whom she guides about for the entire book.

The book has lots of impossible odds, heroics, sacrifices and action throughout. While some distance from believable, it makes for an amusing enough read, despite it not really being my chosen genre. ( I was away and finished the book I had taken with me, so was reliant on finding something to read in a charity shop book selection.)

I did feel the plot was unnecessarily complicated, with perhaps a bit much suspension of belief as to the very long odds that aways came through.

3 stars

Set in the Indian Rebellion / Sepoy Mutiny of 1854 in India, Bond presents this story as a tale he recalls being told by his father. His father was born in Shahjahanpur, where the story takes place.

After a brief introduction, he hands over to Ruth Labadoor to tell the story - her story of a British family and their survival in the Rebellion.

It begins the day that Shahjahanpur was taken in rebellion, where she and her father were attending church, and her father was slain. Running home to her mother, she finds the house in the cantonment already in flames. She is intercepted by a neighbour and reunited with her mother, grandmother and cousin, her mothers half brother, his mother and their servants. They were in a neighbours house, being protected from the rioters, looters and those seeking blood - whether innocent or not.

An so Ruth tells the story of their time through the rebellion, and how they were abducted from the safety of their neighbours house by a Pathan leader who was aroused by Ruth, despite her big only thirteen, and wanted her for a second wife. As such they were brought to his house, and kept in protection there, although Ruth's mother evaded giving permission, stalls for time.

As so we are shown how the wife of Javed Khan (the Pathan) extends sympathy to he family and how his wife, Khan's aunt and Khan's wife's sister, both of who take turns at having the family stay with them. All are sympathetic, and none with for Ruth's mother to give in to Javed Khan.

I won't spoil the story, but this was a short novel, and easily read. Different to the previously Ruskin Bond novels I have read, but good none the less.

4 stars.

Begg is a well travelled New Zealand born doctor who at the time of writing was living in South Africa. This book describes his travels in South America over a four month period with his daughter Mary (also a doctor) in 1967.

They zig-zag through the continent, like any good Kiwi traveller they are budget conscious, and regularly pass by fancy hotels in favour of modest guest houses. Where they don't scrimp however is when they take internal flights that save them time that would otherwise be spent on road or rail. They also splashed out on some scenic flights to view South America's waterfalls - albeit the first two waterfall visits are failures due to cloud and fog.

They cover plenty of ground in their four months, taking in Guyana before flying to Trinidad & Tobago en route to Venezuela (no direct flights), then Colombia, Ecuador with a side trip to the Galapagos Islands, then to the Peruvian Amazon, Brasil, Paraguay, Argentina & Chile.

Highlights of their trip as a reader were probably some of the places I enjoyed visiting myself, such as Iguassu Falls (at the borders of Brasil, Paraguay & Argentina), Asuncion on a raining Sunday, the cities of Santiago and Buenas Aires.

Also places I didn't get to visit including the Galapagos, but strangely they also visited the island of Floreana and were hosted by Margaret Whittmer who by this time was living on the island with her sister. (The Wittmer's were central to bizzare goings on on the island in the years prior and central to much speculation of murder and coverups among the German people (and an Austrian) who chose to live on the island (Review of Wittmer's book Floreana; I also read another on this topic, but did not review it).

At the conclusion of his journey they had reached the most southern point they could - having first reached Rio Gallegos in Argentina (I got to here) they continued to Ushuaia right on the Beagle Channel and then on to Puerto Williams over the channel in Chile.

Overall it was a fairly vanilla summary of their travels, and was written at a steady pace without much threat of getting over excited.

3 stars

Well travelled family, but despite the blurb, they travel for the most part in this book without their young children, who join Myrtle near the end of the journey.

Essentially, Myrtle and husband Hugh, joined by Bill an Roger - all with experience as skiing, climbing and adventure generally, cross Greenland from east to west on foot towing sledges! The journey is largely through uninhabited land (other than at the beginning and the end (other than the American base, which being secret is not acknowledged by the authorities, but they are welcomed nevertheless!) As they reach the west coast, they are met by their children, brought over by a friend who is to stay with Mrytle for a few weeks while Hugh and the others take canoes and complete a further leg of the journey.

The book begins with their preparations, touches on earlier explorers journeys in Greenland, explains the approvals they cannot obtain from Denmark (but go anyway) and then crack on to the journey itself. The author does a good job of carrying the story without excessive repetition. A chapter near the end is written by Hugh, covering the canoe journey, and an appendix contains an article about his medical research undertaken on the journey, which is only briefly touched on in the narrative (research in to adrenaline).

I am not sure if other editions contain photos, but my copy (Travel Book Club edition) had no photos at all, which was disappointing. The two maps were also of poor quality, offering little explanation as to the journey. Notwithstanding these faults, the book is readable and interesting.

3 stars