Biographies

[msta999]

Anyone read any good Autobiographies? Mainly dealing with trips to different wilderness places. I read a couple a few years ago about a two people who were taking 2 and 3 month long hikes or Kayak trips in Alaska. It was real good reading and I'd like to find some more.

[lsg]

Have you read the series of books by Dave Pelzer. *The first one is A Child Called It. *It is the story of a young boy growing up under tremendous abuse and neglect. *It is also the story of the man who overcame this abusive past to bring hope and spiritual help to others. *Great reads, but can be heart rending also.

[bee_pipes]

"Paddling the Tennessee River: A Voyage on Easy Water" by Kim Trevathan (ISBN 1572331437) is about a fellow paddling the Tennessee river by canoe. A good read, though the author gets to be a bit of a tree-hugger at times. Was the most painless intoduction to regional history and culture I've ever read. "The Unlikely Voyage of Jack De Crow: A Mirror Odyssey from North Wales to the Black Sea" by A. J. Mackinnon (ISBN 1574091522) is about a fellow that traveled on a dingy - rowboat - with a sail. Pretty entertaining reading and gives you an appreciation for the canal systems of Britain and Europe, and the difficulties of the British tides. "Five Fair Rivers: Sailing the James, York, Rappahanock, Potomac, and Patuxent" by Robert De Gast. Sailed the rivers of the western shore of the Chesapeake in a Dovekie, one of the most interesting sailboats ever made. There are also some great travel logs on the web:

http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Forest/2727/

There are books about sailing and kayaking the Mississippi, can't recall the names and they didn't do that much for me. I enjoy this sort of reading and had plans for this when I retired. My wife and I used to do quite a bit of paddling. We have a Folbot, a 17 foot kayak that folds into two bags and fits in the closet. We traveled around Tennessee quite a bit and made it to the Everglades. I got a real travling jones from being in the military. We even bought a Dovekie (it's for sale if you're interested) because it was large enough to sleep me, my wife and our two dogs comfortably and small enough to pull around with a 4-cylinder Honda.
(Mozilla/FireFox users right-click View Image for larger picture)
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/BuffaloRiver.jpg
Now we have a place and I'm more interested in seeing what I can do with the homestead. Guess I finally settled down and have become a homebody.

Regards,
Pat

[TheUnboundOne]

Dear msta999,

My favorite autobiography is: My Bondage and My Freedom, one of the autobiographies of Frederick Douglass, former slave who freed himself, made a living up North as a jack-of-all-trades, and became an eloquent speaker and writer for the Abolitionist movement, an advocate of women's rights, and later U.S. Ambassador to Haiti. *A great American hero!

The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill is another great autobiographical WWII work about Allied (mostly Australian, but some Brit and American) pilot POWs imprisoned by the Germans in Stalag Luft III and how they dug three tunnels in several bids to escape. *The resourcefulness of these men in making tools and implements and in concealing their work is by itself worth the time to read the book. *This book, of course, was the basis for the movie The Great Escape. *Eric Williams also wrote about the experiences of some of these men in The Wooden Horse.

Starting Over by Robert L. Williams is a great autobiographical work about how the Williams family's home was destroyed in a tornado and how the Williams family dug out on their own and built their home again with their tools and their bare hands. *It also portrays criminals and governments at their worst in times of disaster, as well as upstanding citizens at their most heroic. *Most helpful of all, the Appendix includes lists of things to expect, have, and do before, during, and after a disaster, applicable to tornados as well as many other disasters. * This book has been sold by Backwoods Home in the past and is well worth reading. *You can get it on Half.com and probably other rare, small-press book sources as well.

The book MIG Pilot by John Barron is a great biography of former Soviet pilot Lt. Viktor Belenko, a Communist pilot who defected with his plane to Japan and then the United States. *To read of how he was flying low enough to clip the masts off of fishing boats to make his escape is simply jaw-dropping!

There are many others I like, but those are what come to mind most. *I'll try to think of some more.

[TheUnboundOne]

Dear msta999,

My apologies. I only read the first sentence of your post and got carried away. ;D

Since you're looking for wilderness-related books, Robert L. Williams also writes a lot of NC travel guide-type books. *Two on the North Carolina mountains are: 50 Hikes in the Mountains of North Carolina (written with others) and 55 Favorite Family North Carolina Mountains Hikes
. *You can find them here:

Outdoor Paths Map Store
http://www.outdoorpaths.com/bookstore/recmapsbooks.htm

[Deberosa]

I liked Blue Highways many years ago when I read it while doing my own Blue Highways summer living out of the back of a Ford F250 pickup. Put 10,000 miles on the truck that summer - I would have to take out a mortgage now a days but that trip helped me to "reset" my life and prepare to start over.

I reread the book recently when I found it in a used book store and found it to be a bit pompous now. I guess timing is a big part of that.


Blue Highways is about a guy who was getting divorced and is sick of his job so he quits it all and takes off in a van around the country. William Least Heat Moon is the author.

[msta999]

Thanks everyone. Looks like I have some choices. Thank god for online libraries and book stores! :)

[bee_pipes]

... reread the book recently when I found it in a used book store and found it to be a bit pompous now. I guess timing is a big part of that....


Yeah. Michener's "The Drifters" really wowed me when I was 17, but had trouble feeling sympathetic for the characters a few years later.

Regards,
Pat

[msta999]

Thanks all. I started checking out the books reccomended and one of the books that came up in the seaches is: Alaska Bound: A Life of Travel and Adventure in the Far North. This is the one I purchased. When I start looking for another, I'll come back to this thread and continue the search.