Vintage Pix | Bookstore - Recent Reading and Recommendations

	I came across Philip Pullman's books by accident when I borrowed the audio version of The Golden Compass from the public library to take on a driving trip and found out the book was just the first in a trilogy. And darn, if the third book hasn't been published yet! In the meantime I will have to read the Sally Lockhart books instead.
	His Dark Materials trilogy: Book I: The Golden Compass Book II: The Subtle Knife Book III: The Amber Spyglass (coming this spring)	Sally Lockhart trilogy: The Ruby in the Smoke A Shadow in the North The Tiger in the Well
	Alluring Target: In Search of the Secrets of Central Asia by Kenneth Wimmel, with a foreward by Ella Maillart Got this as a birthday present from my big brother. Ella Maillart (1903- 1997) was a Swiss traveler and writer, and her books are hard to find (at a reasonable price anyway). Wimmel devotes a chapter to her trip with Peter Fleming (Ian Fleming's brother) across China in 1935. I have both Maillart's account Forbidden Journey (originally published in French as Oasis Interdites) and Fleming's version News from Tartary. Read Maillart's obituary (in French). Oh, yes, there are chapters about other European travelers in this region as well, including Alexandra David-Neel, whose book I haven't read yet.
No images available (out of print)	Crusader: By Horse to Jerusalem by Tim Severin (ISBN 0091735157) In 1987-88, Tim Severin and Sarah Dormon followed the route of Duke Godfrey de Bouillon and the First Crusade, riding on horseback from France to Jerusalem. There's no sales link here because this book, published in 1989, is rather difficult to find. I have had my eye out for it for several years, ever since seeing a documentary about the trip on the Discovery Channel and reading the article in National Geographic (September 1989). After twice finding copies listed in on-line search engines for used bookstores only to be told that the book had already been sold (one in Ireland and one in New Zealand), I finally this year bought a copy via the internet in a used bookstore in England. It's a great book. Once it came in the mail, I read it straight through. Severin's other books are easier to find. Most of them are about traveling by boat, and I'm only interested in the horsey ones! In 1990, Severin traveled on horseback with a group of Mongolians tracing the route of Genghis Khan towards Europe: In Search of Genghis Khan: An Exhilarating Journey on Horseback across the Steppes of Mongolia
	Tuva or Bust!: Richard Feynman's Last Journey by Ralph Leighton (out of print) This may only appeal to a select readership of people who are as fascinated as I am by the country Tuva in Central Asia. The book chronicles Feynman and Leighton's attempts, begun in 1977, to find out more about the remote land best known for the postage stamps produced there in the 1930s. Nowadays Tuvan singers turn up on NPR and movie soundtracks, and Huun-Huur-Tu has its own website! Click here to see Huun-Huur-Tu's CDs at Barnes & Noble
	The Illustrated Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel and William J. H. Andrewes Who would thing that a book about longitude would be hard to put down? The British government offered a reward of £20,000 in 1714 to whomever could invent an accurate way to measure longitude for sailors. Sobel's Longitude chronicles John Harrison's struggle to invent a clock that could keep time on shipboard and the competition and obstacles along the way. Andrewes provided the captions for the illustrations and photographs for this edition, which make the technical information much easier to understand. Sobel's most recent book is Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love, which I haven't read yet.
	The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers by Tom Standage Another fun read (really!) that compares the development of the telegraph with today's internet. Imagine a technology that allowed instantaneous communication in a world that had formerly relied on letters and people travelling by sea. The invention of the telegraph changed everything from how news and information spread to how the stock market and business worked. (Even some people's love lives were effected with telegraph operators meeting over the wires and getting married "on-line" so to speak.)
	The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life by Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen Rosenzweig & Thelen, both public historians, look at how Americans use, understand, and formulate history for themselves. The authors analyzed data collected from a survey asking how people learn about and connect to the past. I actually have some personal interest in this book since I know people involved in the original development of this study, and I helped give test surveys to visitors at the National Museum of American History.
	Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England by Richard Godbeer And now for something completely different! This is a scholarly study of folk culture in seventeenth-century New England that examines the widespread belief in traditional magic and magical practices among many English colonists and how they reconciled this with what the preachers were telling them they should and shouldn't do. Godbeer argues that aspects of Puritanism even made some people more likely to turn to charms and fortunetelling as a way to cope with the strain of believing Calvinist doctrine. (Dmned if you do & dmned if you don't?)


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