Adventure Bookshelf

There is a nice essay in the Washington Post by Garrison Keillor revealing the genesis of his lifelong love of books.

“I plopped down and read them, one after the other. Nobody yelled at me, nobody told me to stop reading and sit with my feet up and not move….I chose to enter a privileged world (open to all) in which Twain, Stevenson, Thurber, Dickens and other strangers confide in you and tell you their stories.”

Read it here:
The Reading Life by Garrison Keillor - Washington Post

Garrison Keillor at Amazon.com

“For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.”
- Louis Lamour

Well, as we head into December we have come to the end of our first month online. Adventure Bookshelf had its first post on Nov. 12 - Jupiter’s Travels by Ted Simon - the self-told story of one man’s epic journey around the globe on the seat of a motorcycle. We took a look at man’s struggle for survival, ocean journeys, a couple of cool online book clubs as well as some classic children’s and young adult adventure book favorites.
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But, luckily, he kept his wits and his purple crayon…

Good old Harold, living proof that quick thinking and imagination will take a person far in this world. Equipped only with his trusty purple crayon he journeys through a landscape of creativity - into forests, across oceans, through the sky in a balloon. A seashore picnic of his favorite pies is shared with a deserving moose and porcupine, before continuing on to find his way home and into a snug bed cheerfully lit by the light of the faithful moon.
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“Nothing links man to man like the frequent passage from hand to hand of a good book.”

- Walter Sickers

If you love a book, set it free.
BookCrossing.com is a very cool website where members can release books into the wild and then track their journeys online. The process involves registering the book you intend to let go at their website, after doing so you receive an ID number with which the book gets labeled. From there you give the book away or leave it somewhere public to hopefully be found and read by someone else, who then passes it on in turn. Each reader is encouraged to inform the site that they found the book, including the location and where they released the title afterword. Users may ‘tag & track’ books anonymously as well as share reviews and interact with other members.
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The Wanderlust has taught me . . . it has whispered to my heart
Things all you stay-at-homes will never know.
…The Wanderlust has blest me . . . in a ragged blanket curled,
I’ve watched the gulf of Heaven foam with stars…

- Robert Service

Actions not words. - In 1947 Norwegian explorer & ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl had a theory that Polynesian islands could have been settled by people from South America in Pre-Columbian times.
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…”I’ve always thought,” said Rainsford, “that the Cape buffalo is the most dangerous of all big game.”

For a moment the general did not reply; he was smiling his curious red-lipped smile. Then he said slowly, “No. You are wrong, sir. The Cape buffalo is not the most dangerous big game.” He sipped his wine. “Here in my preserve on this island,” he said in the same slow tone, “I hunt more dangerous game.”

Rainsford expressed his surprise. “Is there big game on this island?”

The general nodded. “The biggest.”…
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