The MM best books of the year list

Historian and novelist Margaret Muir responded gallantly to my implicit challenge for readers to produce their own "Ten Best Books of 2014" list.

She warns us that they might not appeal to all, but here they are:

A slather of works by Rafael Sabotini, all available free online -- Scaramouche, Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, The Snare, The Sword of Islam and a Collection of his other works. 

Liberty or Death, and Heart of Oak both by David Cook  

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (free online: hit the link) 

'Bounty' (Captain Bligh's) Log book. 

'Narrative of the most extraordinary ....' by Owen Chase (Chase's actual narrative of the sinking of the whaleship 'Essex' which inspired the story of Moby Dick).

LJ's best ten books of 2014

The Library Journal leads the race for nominating Best of the Year.  Expect many more to follow.

Best Books 2014: Top Ten

BY LJ REVIEWS ON NOVEMBER 6, 2014 LEAVE A COMMENT

By Bette-Lee Fox, Liz French, Barbara Hoffert, Stephanie Klose, Amanda Mastrull, Annalisa Pesek, Stephanie Sendaula, Henrietta Verma, and Wilda Williams

Gay, Roxane. An Untamed State. Grove. ISBN 9780802122513. pap. $16; ebk. ISBN 9780802192677. F
In Gay’s debut novel, Mireille Jameson is kidnapped while visiting her parents in Haiti with her American husband and their son. Her father will not pay the ransom, despite being well able to afford it, and Mireille’s awareness of his refusal magnifies the horrors she endures. Though she is eventually released, she struggles to adjust to life after the ordeal. Gripping, harrowing, and unforgettable. (LJ 2/1/14)—SK

Greenwald, Glenn. No Place to Hide. Metropolitan: Holt.ISBN 9781627790734; pap. ISBN 9781250062581. $16; ebk. ISBN 9781627790741. POL SCI
Greenwald provides the authoritative story of the 2013 national security leak by National Security Agency (NSA) whistle-blower Edward Snowden. A Guardian columnist at the time, Greenwald here details meeting Snowden in Hong Kong and the legalities and logistics of publishing articles about leaked material while criticizing the media’s response. Particularly noteworthy is his comprehensive and fascinating examination of the documents—including why the NSA’s actions should matter to all citizens. (LJ 6/15/14)—AM

Harris, Mark. Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War. Penguin. ISBN 9781594486005. $28.95; ebk. ISBN 9780698170506. FILM
Film historian extraordinaire Harris (Pictures at a Revolution) conveys the very different personalities of award-winning directors John Huston, George Stevens, William Wyler, Frank Capra, and John Ford as they went to war for the United States. We see how their experiences shaped their work when they returned to Hollywood—and how they helped to transform the U.S. War Department’s propaganda machine. (LJ 3/1/14)—LF

James, Marlon. A Brief History of Seven Killings. Penguin.ISBN 9781594486005. $28.95; ebk. ISBN 9780698170506. FIronically, this stunning fictional investigation of the attempted assassination of reggae star Bob Marley days before Jamaica’s 1976 general election isn’t about Marley, who hardly appears. It’s about Jamaica itself, as we’ve never seen it, revealed in a lush, intensive outpouring of voices that range from lowlifes and CIA agents to a naïve reporter and a woman on the make. As the accumulated detail reveals, this history could never have been brief; there’s too much to learn. (LJ 7/1/14)—BH

Kolbert, Elizabeth. The Sixth Extinction. Holt. ISBN 9780805092998. $28; pap. ISBN 9781250062185. $16; ebk. ISBN 9780805099799. NAT HIST
There have been five major species extinctions over the past half billion years, the result of natural catastrophes. Earth is now in the midst of a sixth extinction, says New Yorker writer Kolbert, and we humans are the primary cause. Drawing on the research of marine biologists, atmospheric scientists, geologists, forest ecologists, and paleontologists, her eye-opening and movingly written report is science journalism at its finest and an important wake-up call. (LJ 2/15/14)—WW

Krist, Gary. Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans. Crown. ISBN 9780770437060. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780770437077. HIST
Join the eccentric coterie within Storyville, New Orleans’s red-light district. There’s resolute saloon owner Tom Anderson, the “Mayor of Storyville”; thriving madam Josie Arlington; determined musician Louis Armstrong; and a serial killer colloquially referred to as the “Ax-Man.” Moments of vigilante justice and loose affiliations with the Mafia complete this gripping true-crime narrative. (LJ 10/1/14)—SS

Mitchell, David. The Bone Clocks. Random. ISBN 9781400065677. $30; ebk. ISBN 9780812994735. F
In this breathtaking, audaciously brilliant book, Holly Sykes gets caught in the battle between good Horologists and evil soul decanters, fleeing her grubby English hometown after her brother’s disappearance for a fling with amoral Hugo in the snowy Alps, marriage to urgently rational war reporter Ed, and beyond. The book isn’t about Holly, though, but about the variety of fantastically rendered worlds we move through as her story—which is to say our story, past, present, and future—unfolds. (LJXpress Reviews, 10/9/14)—BH

Nicholls, David. Us. Harper. ISBN 9780062365583. $26.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062365606. FMeet the Petersens, off on a summer grand tour of Europe. Son Albie, heading to university in the fall, isn’t totally on board, while artist Connie and biochemist Douglas skirt around the disintegration of their 24-year marriage. It could all turn into a ghastly mess, but in the hands of the astute and fulgent Nicholls, this family tale probes the true value and power of love. (LJ9/15/14)—BLF

Smiley, Jane. Some Luck. Knopf. ISBN 9780307700315. $26.95; ebk. ISBN 9780385350396. F
In a work both grand and intimate, about parents and children, hope and disappointment, countryside and country, Smiley moves from the 1920s to the 1950s as she unfurls the life of Iowa farmers Rosanna and Walter Langdon. Then, as their children grow up and sometimes move away, she steps back to offer a wide-angle view of the country midcentury. The beautiful, you-are-there language allows ordinary events to amass, giving us a significant feel for life at the time. (LJ 7/14)—BH

Zevin, Gabrielle. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. Algonquin.ISBN 9781616203214. $24.95;
pap. ISBN 9781616204518. $14.95; ebk. ISBN 9781616203948. F
A.J. Fikry, a young widower, is the owner of Island Books on Alice Island, trying to heal and keep his bookstore and himself from going under. A.J.’s life takes a wondrous turn when he happens upon an abandoned two-year-old in the store. Maya is clever and charming and quickly captures his curmudgeon heart. Zevin’s adult fiction debut, “about a life of books, redemption, and second chances…reminds us exactly why we read and why we love.” (LJ 2/1/14)—AP

Latest from McBooks press

McBooks is proud to publish 

the latest of the Kydd Sea Adventures by Julian Stockwin,

PASHA

Pasha: A Kydd Sea Adventure

Julian Stockwin

McBooks Press

978-1-59013-683-6

(Nov 1, 2014)

Combining historical accuracy with thrilling action and exotic locales, Pasha is sure to

stand out as Kydd’s most exciting adventure yet.

Captain Thomas Kydd and company set sail for the Mediterranean in Pasha, the latest

from Julian Stockwin’s popular Kydd Sea Adventure series. Set during the Napoleonic Wars,

Stockwin focuses on the British Royal Navy’s involvement, this time offering fresh insight into

the little known but fascinating Dardanelles Operation with Sultan Selim III playing a pivotal

role. Pasha combines historical accuracy with thrilling action and exotic locales, infusing the

most routine events with an edginess befitting the dangerous times and turning even the simple

act of setting out to sea into nail-biting suspense.

Pallas Gates McCorquodale, Foreword Reviews

The Dark Side of the Web

From The Economist

THE first ever e-commerce transaction, conducted by students from Stanford and MIT in the early 1970s, involved the sale of a small quantity of marijuana. For decades afterwards, the online drugs trade was severely constrained by the ability of law enforcement to track IP addresses and the means of payment. The trickle of transactions threatened to become a flood with the emergence a few years ago of Silk Road, a drug-dealing site on the “dark net”. These e-depths cannot be reached through a normal browser but only with anonymising software called Tor. Buyers and sellers transact there pseudonymously in bitcoin, a crypto-currency.

Silk Road was shut last year with the arrest of Ross Ulbricht, the 29-year-old American whom investigators believe to be Dread Pirate Roberts, the site’s founder. Mr Ulbricht is due to stand trial in New York next January on charges that include computer hacking and money laundering. But law enforcers who predicted that Silk Road’s demise would mark the beginning of the end for online black-market bazaars were wrong. Instead, dozens of dark-net Amazons and eBays (also known as crypto-markets) have sprung up to fill the void. They are not only proving remarkably resilient but expanding their offerings and growing more sophisticated.

This is fascinating stuff, like something out of a dystopian future.  What intrigues me is the code name of the site's founder -- Dread Pirate Roberts.  Could he be thinking of "Black Bart" Bartholomew Roberts, a pirate of the so-called Golden Age of Piracy (early 18th century)?  So many wonderful tales are told of Roberts that he could be a myth.

For a start, he dressed as only the highest class of pirate should -- in a crimson damask waistcoat and breeches, a broad tricorne with a red plume on his head, and lots and lots of bling -- only it was real gold, and real diamonds. He also strongly disapproved of heavy drinking, and once shot a crewman without hesitation when the cheeky, drunken so-and-so addressed him in an insolent manner. His men disliked his heavy-handed disciplinary style, but respected him for the wealth in prizes that he brought to the ship -- so much so, that when he was killed by a broadside from HMS Swallow they threw his body overboard so that the navy would not hang his corpse from a gibbet, in chains.

Is the founder of "Silk Road" anything like Black Bart?  Somehow, I doubt it.

Biographer Duyker describes exploring an explorer

Edward Duyker, multi-award-winning Australian biographer, was kind enough to allow me to interview him about his latest work, the story of a great French explorer, Dumont d’Urville: Explorer and Polymath, which has just been published by Otago University Press in New Zealand.

Your new biography is eminently readable—all 671 pages of it! How long did it take to write, and why so long?     

The biography took more than seven years to research, write and then edit.  I knew it would be substantial book, given d’Urville’s many voyages and his involvement in important historical events, but I did not imagine it would ultimately be such a major undertaking.  I am a great admirer of the New Zealand historian J. C. Beaglehole and his work on James Cook.  I felt that Dumont d’Urville deserved the same kind of forensic scholarship. 

During your research and writing, there must have been moments of great elation and of great despair. Do any of these stick out your mind?

In d’Urville’s birthplace, Condé-sur-Noireau, it was very exciting to discover a fragment from his journal aboard the Chevrette in the Black Sea in 1820, a substantial part of his journal on the Coquille circumnavigation in 1823-24, and several months of his journal during the last year of his life.  No other scholar has used them before.

My other exciting discovery in Normandy was a thick dossier of documents relating to the arrest and imprisonment of d’Urville’s mother during The Terror.

As for despair, I certainly experienced it in the search for the notarial inventory of d’Urville’s Toulon residence after his death.  Although a public document, it was in the hands of a private notarial office, heir to the practice that had compiled the record back in 1842.  The owners ignored my requests, firstly by mail from Paris, and then in person at their front desk in Toulon – on each and every day I was in the Mediterranean port city.  It was an excruciating game of persistence.  It was only after official intervention that they finally handed over a photocopy on my second last day in Toulon, but not before demanding 50€ cash.  I never did get to see the original. 

If Dumont d’Urville were alive today, what do you think he would consider his greatest achievement?  And his greatest disappointment?

I suspect that he would have been most proud of his two Antarctic descents.  As for disappointments, I feel certain that it would have been the death of his young children and the emotional toll on his beloved wife Adélie, compounded by the long separations during his expeditions. 

There is that intriguing word in your title, “polymath”—why did you use it, and why is it meaningful?

I see d’Urville as a ‘much learned man’, an individual with multi-disciplinary expertise.  He was a navigator, linguist, botanist, entomologist, ethnographer, social observer and travel writer.  In the renaissance sense of the word, he was also a man of dual intellectual and physical accomplishment: resilient at sea and as a botanist who undertook arduous field excursions during his landfalls.

You have also published critically acclaimed biographies of Daniel Solander, Marc-Joseph Marion Dufresne, Jacques Labillardière, and François Péron. You must have come to know all these men very well indeed—so, with which one would you prefer to be castaway on an uninhabited tropical island, and why? 

Definitely Daniel Solander.  He was so easy-going and everyone who knew him loved his company. Labillardière and Péron were both difficult individuals; Marion Dufresne would want to be in command!

AND BREAKING NEWS!  Dumont d’Urville: Explorer and Polymath is to be published by the University Press of Hawaii, so soon will be available in the United States.

Edward Duyker and his wife and helpmate, Sue, came to the south of New Zealand for the launch of the book, and took the opportunity to explore places that were part of the story he told. He was kind enough to share these images with me.

Duyker with his editor, Jane Connor, the memorial to Dumont D'Urville at French Pass, and Duyker at French Pass with d'Urville Island in the background.

Torrid Zone review

From the Historical Novel Society

War with France at the turn of the 19^th century means conflict and intrigue on the high seas. HMS Scylla, led by Post Captain Banks, is escorting the replacement Governor of St. Helena, along with his obnoxious wife, two personal servants and a number of petty officials. Also traveling with these honored guests is Banks’ pregnant wife, Sarah. After dropping off the guests on the island, the plan is to return home to England and be re-fitted for the war. Unfortunately for the Scylla and her crew, they are faced with fighting three French warships simultaneously en route, and, unbeknownst to the crew, a serial killer is on board.

This is my first reading of the books in the Fighting Sail series. Although it always helps to read the previous volumes to learn more about the characters and their backstory, this book is a good standalone novel, especially if you enjoy British nautical books as I do. What I found interesting are the culture and the politics on board His Majesty’s ships; the author does a great job telling his story through the viewpoints of several of the crew members. Many novels in this genre only tell the tale from the captain’s perspective, while this book explains in detail life on board a warship and the differences of opinion that arise between the captain and his crew. Bond’s knowledge of nautical terms is impeccable, and his command of writing about the British navy is excellent. I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy a good nautical tale.

Reviewed by Jeff Westerhoff

Intriguing glimpse into patients and their lives

Dr Chris Reid (pictured above, with his book) has done something remarkable.

Armed with both his qualifications as a GP, and a diploma in photography, he came to New Zealand to practice both skills in the Far North.

After every 15-minute consultation, he asked the patient involved if he or she would mind having his or her photo taken.  To his surprise, as he says, everyone said, Yes.

The result is a book that memorialises the characters of a small community.

From the Northern Advocate

Peter de Graaf talks to a Northland doctor about a two-year project to photograph almost every one of his hundreds of patients, and the extraordinary book that resulted.

Most patients don't go to their GP for a consultation and end up with a portrait.

But then Chris Reid isn't most doctors.

This weekend sees the culmination of a project by the Bay of Islands GP to photograph virtually every patient that walked into his surgery during the past two years.

The result is an extraordinary collection of photographs capturing a cross-section of Northland society - from an ex-pat billionaire to struggling solo mums, Maori and Pakeha, toddlers and nonagenarians. There are mothers and daughters, couples, mates, kuia and kaumatua, and a few people who have since passed away but whose families still wanted the photos to be used.

The images are a mix of colour and black and white, all but two taken against the bare grey wall of his surgery in the natural light of a single window.

The idea came to Dr Reid when he was making house calls as a GP in England more than a decade ago.

"It dawned on me what a privilege that was, walking into these people's lives. If you could capture that it would something quite special."

And, in 2004, he moved to New Zealand, where the idea was put on hold until his wife, Sara, gave him a fancy camera. And then ....

One lunch time he nipped out to a nearby hardware store for a tin of paint and, with help from a nurse, turned one wall into a suitable backdrop. He still had no idea how his patients would react.

The GP always waited until the consultation was over before asking if he could take a picture. He made it clear there'd be no ill feelings if the patient refused and that he was trying to capture the person, not the reason for the visit. His subjects also had to give written consent.

"If the first half dozen had said, 'You're dreaming', it would never have gone any further," Dr Reid said.

To his surprise, however, the first patient said yes. And the second, and the third.

Of the more than 400 patients he asked only two said no, and one of those later changed her mind. Ironically her portrait is one of the most powerful in the book.

Dr Reid never asked his patients to pose, "they just did what they wanted".

The result was so rich and evocative that it became obvious that a selection should be turned into a book.  Penguin (now Penguin-Random) turned it down, but iconic Kiwi publisher Craig Potton saw the potential.

Then came the hard part. The 400-plus photos had to be whittled down to the 150 or so that would fit in a book, a choice made on photographic merit and, in a few cases, the story behind the photo. The subjects, who are identified only by their first names, decided what would accompany their portraits.

Some wanted the briefest of captions, explaining their reason for visiting the doctor; others brought in virtual life stories. 

The book and accompanying exhibition were launched at Kerikeri's Turner Centre last night. All patients featured in the book were invited. Royalties from the book, and the profits from any prints sold, will go to Mid North St John.

Dr Reid said he had been touched by the number of patients who had asked him when "our book" would be ready.

"I think it's a social commentary of Northland, of who we are. Hopefully I've captured something of what our community is all about. There's a lovely link to us all."

* The exhibition will run from October 11-27 at the Turner Centre on Cobham Rd, Kerikeri. The large images will then go on display at Kaan Zamaan on Kerikeri's Hobson Ave and the small ones at Just Imagine in Russell. In mid-December the photos will go on show at the Auckland Camera Centre on New North Rd.

For readers who can't possibly get to the exhibition, here is a short gallery

And this one is my favorite:

His name is Foster.

Library treasure from an island paradise

Tengaepu o te Rangi Tararo with his Cook Islands version of The Pilgrim’s Progress , published in 1892 and restored by Akatarawa bookbinder Bill Tito.

From the DomPost

Talk about a serendipitous discovery.

Fossicking through an online used book sale can turn up amazing treasures.

It cost just $10 on Trade Me, but to Tengaepu o te Rangi Tararo it's a book worth much more than that.

It's a version of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress written in Cook Islands Maori and published in England in 1892 for use in Sunday schools and religious classes.

"It's priceless. It's part of our history. I'm delighted by it," he said, after daughter Dorothy Hosking presented it to him.

She had found it on the auction website.

Hosking had it restored by Akatarawa bookbinder Bill Tito, who also said the book was remarkable.

"It's the first time I've seen anything like this in the Cook Islands language. It's nice to be able to restore a book like this. There's a real good feel factor about it."

Te Tere o te Tuitarere was published by the Religious Tract Society, in conjunction with the London Missionary Society, for distribution throughout the Cook Islands.

The Pilgrim's Progress was first published in 1678, and was begun while Bunyan was in jail for breaches of religious law. It has been translated into more than 200 languages.

Tararo, of Ascot Park, Porirua, was born on the island of Mauke in the Cook Islands in 1931. He said that as a Presbyterian, he did not get to spend too much time at Sunday school in his youth.

"I only had three years at school. I was not well in my younger days. We had no doctors on Mauke and a lot of my generation died young because of it."

When he arrived in New Zealand in 1961, he left about 1000 people living on Mauke. "There's only about 300 there now," he said.

Reading the unusual book in his own language had forced him to think about the island life he reluctantly chose to leave behind all those years ago.

He wants Hosking to make the decision about what eventually happens to the book. "She gave it to me, so I'll leave it to her to see whether it stays in the family."

Never underestimate a pigeon

Some time ago, I was very amused during a train ride from Wellington.  While the train was waiting at the station, someone opened the door ... and a pigeon hopped in.  It didn't seem at all alarmed when the door shut, or even when the train got going with the usual jerk.  Instead, it wandered up and down the car as if it was filling in time.  We passed a couple of stops with no reaction from our feathery passenger, but when the train got to Tawa, it was different. It stepped up to the door, waited for someone to push the open door button, then hopped out, and waddled briskly up the platform, nodding happily to itself.  Obviously, it knew exactly where it was going.

Now, the news of another use of modern contrivances by pigeons has surfaced.  According to the newspaper, pigeons are riding the escalator up to McDonalds, which is on the second floor of a building on Lambton Quay, the "Golden Mile" of Wellington.

And someone has complained about it.  What Maccas is going to do about it remains a mystery, but meanwhile the pigeons ride and fatten.  That lack of exercise surely can't be doing them any good.

Kangaroo drawing could change Australian history

Does this look like a kangaroo to you?

It certainly does to me.

Trouble is, it is in a 16th century Portuguese manuscript, confounding all conventional understanding of the European discovery of Australia.

Sophie Tedmanson reports.

The Dutch ship Duyfken, which landed in Australia in 1606, was thought to been the first European ship to dock on the mainland. However the discovery of the long-lost manuscript has led historians to believe that images of kangaroos had been circulating for decades before then.

The 16th century drawing was proof that the artist had either been in Australia or heard reports about the country and its native animals from other western European travellers, according to Les Enluminures researcher Laura Light.

‘A kangaroo or a wallaby in a manuscript dated this early is proof that the artist of this manuscript had either been in Australia, or even more interestingly, that travellers' reports and drawings of the interesting animals found in this new world were already available in Portugal,’ Ms Light told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Portugal was extremely secretive about her trade routes during this period, explaining why their presence there wasn't widely known.’

The manuscript also features of male figures adorned in tribal dress, baring naked torsos and crowns of leaves in the text, which Ms Light said could depict Aborigines.

The pocket-sized manuscript contains text and music for a liturgical procession. It is inscribed with the name Caterina de Carvalho, who is believed to be a nun from Caldas da Rainha in western Portugal.

Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon has long been credited with being the first European to discover Australia when he docked the Duyfken at the mouth of the Pennefather River on the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland in 1606.

Some historians, including author Peter Trickett, have long debated that the coast of Australia was actually first mapped by a Portuguese maritime expedition nearly a century before the Dutch landing.

‘It is not surprising at all that an image of a kangaroo would have turned up in Portugal at some point in the latter part of the 16th century. It could be that someone in the Portuguese exhibition had this manuscript in their possession,’ Mr Trickett told the paper.

Other historians theorised that the drawing could be the result of expeditions made by Portuguese explorer Jorge de Menezes to New Guinea – which has similar flora and fauna to northern Queensland where the Duyfken landed – in 1526.

National Library of Australia curator of maps Martin Woods said the kangaroo-like image was not proof enough to rewrite history as it could actually depict a number of other animals from south-east Asia.

‘People will continue to look, but for now, unfortunately the appearance of a long-eared big-footed animal in a manuscript doesn't really add much,’ he told the paper.

The Les Enluminures gallery will exhibit the manuscript - valued at $US15,000 ($16,600) - as part of a new exhibition Sacred Song: Chanting the Bible in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Since this news was posted, the manuscript, called "Processional (Monastic Use, perhaps Cistercian," was sold.