When Buffalo Ran: A Frontier Classic of Childhood on the Plains -- by George Bird Grinnell

 

There's plenty of potential in this book first published in 1920 by Yale University Press. I gave it four stars, but I question my own decision-making sometimes. It's a strong four.

This space and airy simple, but effective tale of the life of Wikis, growing into a warrior when his people needed him the most out on The Great Plains against other tribes, the US Cavalry, hunger, and injury, pursuing food is only 114 pages. It could easily be a (YA) Young Adult Book long before literary agents came up with the term. It could also easily be used as a scriptwriter's base for a movie, or documentary.

Oddly George Bird Grinnell's book doesn't clearly, or firmly, name Wiki's tribe, but they were friends of the Arapaho. It was with the Arapaho that Wiki had his first successful raid, and the Plains Indian situation was better understood, too. Each tribe had its own allies but was basically an island of people.

Grinnell was a New Yorker, but went on some hunts out west, led by Pawnee scouts, and he is credited with being an influential conservationist. Good enough to influence Teddy Roosevelt.

This is a book that I inherited from my Mom. Thanks Mom.

Ghost Train To The Eastern Star -- by Paul Theroux

 

Paul Theroux can be counted on to deliver clever content, and interesting observations. He upped his game in this one, extending to more personal revelations, and about other writers. He gave brief reviews of the books and authors he was reading while traveling, and conducted walking interviews with authors Haruki Murakami and Pico Iyer after he finally arrived in Japan.

It was impossible to not learn some things when he talked to Murakami and Iyer about writing, the writers' lives, and Japan. If he hasn't already, he could probably create a lucrative new genre in walking writer biographies. Both of these read well.

After Japan Theroux visited Perm, Russia. It wasn't for his hair, but there were some hair-raising instances, learning about the Gulag system. He toured the area with some local experts, and a translator. His descriptive powers didn't fail him there, either.

This trip encompassed so much of Eurasia that it warranted a two-page map, using rail lines between London and Japan. I get the impression that he got a very good advance to write this for Penguin Books, published in 2009. He started by going through the Southwestern part of Eurasia, and into India and Southeast Asia, briefly in China before going to Japan. He met and talked to many interesting people along the way. He always does.

My reading was greatly interrupted overseas, by love, dating, marriage, eventual fatherhood, and moving back to the U.S., after my 2010-2016 teaching stint roughly between Hong Kong and Macau. I'm still not sure that returning to the U.S. was a good move. I was teaching in China, and it was a good lifestyle. I loved teaching, but China was changing, and it didn't seem for the better. Now there's a lot of discomforting saber-rattling over Taiwan, and the age discrimination here is pretty bad, too.

I think I bought my copy of Ghost Train To The Eastern Star on my last single man's hurrah in Chiang Mai, Thailand in early 2011 between semesters at United international College. Somewhere around here is that copy of Kim that I bought in India in 2005. I'm very glad there's always something, somewhere to read. I'm also glad for writing quality which authors like Theroux consistently bring us.    

Five stars out of five.

Captain From Castile -- by Samuel Shellabarger

Sometimes a lot of well-used and well-edited words make words harder to come by, and this is one of those occasions.

Author Samuel Shellabarger's masterful work on this fast gallop of a great read makes me feel sorry for anyone who didn't look up the publication year here of 1945 when the world was still at war. People were tired of all the bloodshed, oppression, mass murders, heavy bombing deaths, and ideologies like Nazism, which turned many stomachs when the world learned of the death camps. I think Shellabarger might've been thinking of those camps when he addressed the Inquisition. There were many things very much in peoples' minds and eyesight. Death was, and has been around for years, and Captain From Castile did not shy away. I usually read the publication dates because they can, and often influence an author's approach to their book. Empathy is always important.

The conquest of the Aztecs was equally bloody, and was not short of bloodshed. The Aztec ritual sacrificing of prisoners and cannibalism, after cutting their hearts out was not ignored, but some research says it was likely less massive and systematic than in these pages, but part of daily life in pre-Colombian times, nevertheless.

1945 was hardly 2023, and an intelligent reader should know that there are serious differences socially, and in other senses. I read it for various reasons, including my need to read top-level content, and it delivered very nicely. Shellabarger connected all of the paragraphs, words, and sentences superbly. It was easy to keep on reading past chapter breaks until falling asleep with the light still on. Only a few rare word choices slowed that fast gallop for an instant.

It had all the elements, evil villains, romance, drama, history, and heroes. I can easily recommend it, if you can find a copy. I got one through my most consistent supplier with the original cover still clinging to the book, despite some very weak spots in the creases.