Here are some books I read along the road. I don’t know how you have it but I hardly find time – or more truly, I don’t take the time – to read a books while I’m at home. The fact that you probably also have more time will you are traveling makes it easier to grab once in a while a book and lay some were – lets say in a hammock on the beach – and read a book.

More for me, so I can remember the books I read, I make this list but you are more then welcome to have a look and maybe get inspired to read one or an other. I’m also more then pleased to get inputs from you about books you enjoyed to read. Who knows I might find the time – taking the time – to read them. If you like to do so pleas send my a mail to [email protected]

by Christopher Robbins, read in Alaska, Juni 2003

The book tells the story of the CIA owned airline Air America which was at its height the biggest airline in the world. Air America main operation base was Asia and the airline flow everything from food supplies from aid-organizations over troops in the war of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to rescue operation.

The book is interesting to read but did not tell the expected stories about what the Americans really did during the war in that region of the world.

Play it again SPAM

by Tamar Myers, read in Alaska, June/July 2003

I picked this book up in the hut at the Summit of the Haines Highway and started to read it while I was waiting in the hut till the rain had passed.

The book tells the story of a lady how owns a home-stay somewhere in the middle of the USA. Because here place was recommended in jet-set magazine, the fames and rich were staying at here place, this till the place burned down. After reopening the fames and rich have moved to other places and the home-stay was running less then more well. One weekend veterans stayed at the home-stay and one of them went missing and so the story goes.

It was fun to read this book since the lady that owned the home-stay was a impudent one and had always a good saying on here lips – I often had to laugh as I was reading the book.

Into the Wild

by Jon Krakauer, read in Alaska, July 2003

From the Internet:
After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, where he went to live in the wilderness. Four months later, he turned up dead. His diary, letters and two notes found at a remote campsite tell of his desperate effort to survive, apparently stranded by an injury and slowly starving. They also reflect the posturing of a confused young man, raised in affluent Annandale, Va., who self-consciously adopted a Tolstoyan renunciation of wealth and return to nature. Krakauer, a contributing editor to Outside and Men’s Journal, retraces McCandless’s ill-fated antagonism toward his father, Walt, an eminent aerospace engineer. Krakauer also draws parallels to his own reckless youthful exploit in 1977 when he climbed Devils Thumb, a mountain on the Alaska-British Columbia border, partly as a symbolic act of rebellion against his autocratic father. In a moving narrative, Krakauer probes the mystery of McCandless’s death, which he attributes to logistical blunders and to accidental poisoning from eating toxic seed pods

Temple

by Matthew Reilly, read in Alaska, July/August 2003

Actually, Maya picked this book up in Thailand but somehow it ended up I my backpack and so I brought it to Alaska. The book tells the story of a search of a lost Inca temple in Peru. The temple is thought to be the resting place of a Inca idol made of a special material. The material was needed to build a super bombe which would hade been able to blow up 1/3 of the earth. Because this would be the first bomb capable to actually destroy the earth, different groups are after the Idol and they are not nice to each other.

I found it a gripping book to read though in some parts it is a very bloody. The book tells also the story of an Inca Prince how tries to save the Idol from the grippes of the Spanish conquistadores.

Into thin Air

by Jon Krakauer, read in Alaska, September 2003

From the Internet:
Into Thin Air is a riveting first-hand account of a catastrophic expedition up Mount Everest. In March 1996, Outside magazine sent veteran journalist and seasoned climber Jon Krakauer on an expedition led by celebrated Everest guide Rob Hall. Despite the expertise of Hall and the other leaders, by the end of summit day eight people were dead. Krakauer’s book is at once the story of the ill-fated adventure and an analysis of the factors leading up to its tragic end. Written within months of the events it chronicles, Into Thin Air clearly evokes the majestic Everest landscape. As the journey up the mountain progresses, Krakauer puts it in context by recalling the triumphs and perils of other Everest trips throughout history. The author’s own anguish over what happened on the mountain is palpable as he leads readers to ponder timeless questions.

The Climb

by Anatoli Boukreev, read in Whitehorse, Canada, September 2003

From the Internet:
The Climb is Russian mountaineer Anatoli Boukreev’s account of the harrowing May 1996 Mount Everest attempt, a tragedy that resulted in the deaths of eight people. The book is also Boukreev’s rebuttal to accusations from fellow climber and author Jon Krakauer, who, in his bestselling memoir, Into Thin Air, suggests that Boukreev forfeited the safety of his clients to achieve his own climbing goals. Investigative writer and Climb coauthor G. Weston DeWalt uses taped statements from the surviving climbers and translated interviews from Boukreev to piece together the events and prove to the reader that Boukreev’s role was heroic, not opportunistic. Boukreev refers to the actions of expedition leader Scott Fischer throughout the ascent, implying that factors other than the fierce snowstorm may have caused this disaster. This new account sparks debate among both mountaineers and those who have followed the story through the media and Krakauer’s book. Readers can decide for themselves whether Boukreev presents a laudable defense or merely assuages his own bruised ego.

Great short work

by Jack London, read in read in USA, October 2003

Containing :

Batard
Batard tells the story of an evil dog and evil man they attached to each other by there hatred. Offer a period of time they have smaller and bigger fights – knowing that in the end just one will survive.

The call of the wild
Call if the wiled tell the story of Buck who lift a comfortable and easy in sunny and warm California. One day he found himself sold to a dealer and brought up to the north were the Gold rush demanded a lot of dogs. The story goes of what Buck the dog experiences up in the north and how the wiled is calling him.

White Fang
White Fang is an other story about a dog – actually about a wolf-dog. The story tells the experience White Fang makes in the wild and with men This is probably the one of the pest stories Jack London wrote.

To build a fire
A man that is new to the north land goes out into the cold – the extreme cold – on his own to explore places for logging in the summer. Even he was told never to go into the extreme cold on his own, he walked along the frozen river alone and then it happened …..

In a far country
Many men went to the north, following the call of the gold. Not all the men did exactly know what to expect. Percy Cuthfert and Carter Weatherbee such two men’s but they joined a group to go to the gold fields at the Yukon. In the middle of nowhere the group cam across an abandoned longhouse and because the two men thought it is to hard to travel in the winter, they decided to stay in the house in and await spring while the rest of the group went on. Cuthfert and Weatherbee weren’t meant to see the spring.

The law of live
There was a famine in the north and the Indians didn’t have enough to eat. To increase the chances of surviving for the whole tribe, the old man left behind. There the old was sitting on the fire some baskets wrapped around him and some firewood at the side, awaiting death – that is the law of live.

Love of live
Cold, pain and famine was normal for the men livening in the North. It might was not that normal that your comrade just left you behind when you were insured but this happened to this man. He tried to flow his comrade but he was long gone as he reached to top of the little hill. It fooled a journey thru unfamiliar country and the probability of dying of starvation came everyday closer. Then the man saw a ship on the horizon but he was not sure whether it was real or just his mind playing with him. As he got closer He realized …..

An odyssey of the north
A story of a men searching for his robed bride and he sweat revenge on the robber.

The Ravens

by Christopher Robbins, read in San Francisco, November 2003

In 1966 the plan was to send a few men from Vietnam to the neutral Laos to direct Air Force firepower in the secret war against the North Vietnamese Army.
This book is a close and personal look at the guys that were known as “Ravens”. They fought a secret war flying light aircraft and they made a daily affair at flying these aircraft into the enemy bullets on a daily basis without any real weaponry for protection.

9-11

by Noam Chomsky, read in Tanzania, December 2003

From the Internet:
A brief, but well-focussed application of some of the principles applied by Chomsky in a huge variety of contexts – e.g. that we in powerful, relatively free societies should look more closely at what is done in our names and with our money by the states that claim to represent us, that we should apply the same standards to ourselves as we apply to others, that because states are not moral agents, and what they do often differs significantly from what we are told they do, we have to look at the facts rather than simply accept what we are told, etc.

One basic point to emerges is that to accuse those who question what the US, UK and their clients are now doing, or who seek to raise broader issues, of condoning terrorism is not only fundamentally illogical and amoral, but also profoundly dangerous in the longer term.

The book is a collection of edited transcripts of interviews conducted with Chomsky in September and October of this year. Although brief, it is a very useful starting point for any serious consideration of September 11 and its consequences.

Animal farm

by George Orwell, read in Tanzania, December 2003

From the Internet:
The animals of Manor Farm are unhappy, in fact, downright angry. Jones the farmer is a brute and not even a good farmer. Led by the pigs, who are the cleverest and most persuasive, they rise up and stage a revolution. They plan a future for the good of all animals, all for one and one for all. They run the farm themselves, they struggle through the hard times and battles to retake the farm, they weather the internal political struggles of the pigs who cannot agree who should be leader, and in general make a better life for themselves. Then disaster strikes. The pigs seem to be changing the rules to suit themselves and have ways of frightening those who speak out. The one pig who really had a good heart is ousted by the bad pigs. The dream turns into a nightmare, will it all end in tears?

This list is not complete and I forgot the names of some authors. I had it written down on a nice paper but I can’ find it anymore. This is also a reason I made this list, so I don’t have to take care of all my little papers.