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Thunder in the Mountains by Hank Johnston
If you want to know the ins and outs of the Madera Sugarpine Co, this is the book for you. It gives the history of the company and it's forebears. I read it because the book details the construction of the log flume that ran from Fish Camp all the way to Madera complete with pictures. That's probably not a good enough reason for you to read this book. And as any Hank Johnson book that has trains in it, there are plenty of in depth discussions of the trains. Let's just say I am learning a lot about the Shay Locomotives. There were also descriptions of camp life including where all the bordellos were located. I can now include those in my History of the area spiel.
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How to Rule an Empire and Get away with it by K.J. Parker
This is a sequel to "16 Ways to Defend a Wall City" and it's not as good as the first book. This book picks up long after the siege has started and it has a similar premise as the first book somebody not suited for the job takes over the main job of running the City because of competence or in this case similarity to the looks of the Emperor. But then displays competence at the job, more so than the people around him. Noktor becomes Emperor taking the place of the previous Fake Emperor put in place by the hero of the last book. But that hero is long gone.
It was just more of the same but the solutions to the problems weren't as fun. There was a twist in the middle but I didn't really care about it. And the solution to the problem was poor.
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Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee
Prince Edward is coming to Calcutta and nothing better mess that up. Except the natives are staging protests and a friend of Surrender-Not is in charge of the peaceful protests. Meanwhile people are being killed in a most grisly fashion. Sam Wyndham finds the first victim while he is stoned out of his mind on opium and running from Section H. But there are soon two more victims and they all seem to be connected.
The mysteries are getting better but there is still a heavy handed political aspect on the back side, a way of telling just how bad the British where in India while investigating the mystery. I guess there is no light handed way to tell how bad the British were in India. I guess I don't like the main character. He's addicted to Opium. He treats his would be paramour poorly. And he's not that clever. Although he does see his way to solving the crimes in the end. But no one is brought to justice in British India.
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The full title for the book is The Yosemite Guide Book: A Description of the Yosemite Valley and the Adjacent Region of the Sierra Nevada, and of the Big Trees of California...Published by Authority of the Legislature. The book was published in 1871 based on a survey done in the summer and fall of 1866. It was six month backpacking trip. The trip was taken before the stage coach roads were built so they had to follow some hiking trails in. The guide did give some helpful information on how long the trip took from Sacramento depending on which route you chose. Some of the information was pretty funny. Some of the information was downright wrong based on subsequent information. I think the biggest bit of misinformation was the passage on how it was impossible for Glaciers to have formed Yosemite Valley. It was interesting to find out that most of the names we know today were fully realized in 1866. There were one or two I didn't recognize, but most of them are the names we know today.
The author used latitude and longitude to describe exactly where Yosemite was located. He did use the latin names for all the flora and fauna he saw. The whole book was quite draw, but it was a good exercise in compare and contrast.
I read a reprint of the original manuscript made by University of Michigan press. What the UM Press did was xerox the old book and put it out. So the type for the book was incredibly tiny. I wish they had just typed it out fresh in a normal font.
This book is only recommended if you are doing a deep, deep dive into the history of Yosemite.
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Death in the East by Abir Mukherjee
Captain Sam heads off to an Ashram to kick his Opium habit. But while in the hill town of Assam, he spots a face from his past, a man thought dead who Wyndham had accused of murder during his early days on the force. Meanwhile in Assam, people are dying and newly sober Wyndham must find who is killing people. The novel follows two tracks Wyndhams early days as a London Constable and the murders in Assam.
They mystery was a bit better. I liked the bits about London. I feel we will have more of those adventures as the series moves forward
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Seventy Seven Clocks by Christopher Fowler
I feel like I'm doing homework when I read these books. I also feel like I should like these books more than I do. British Mysteries. A touch of the occult. Odd couple detectives. But I just don't feel engrossed by these books. In this one, the upper crust Whitsable family is being murdered in spectacular fashion. Meanwhile Bryant and May must fight to save their PCU from being disbanded into other departments. As the book progresses more and more of the Whitsables meet untimely ends.
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As We Were Told by Coarsegold Historical Society
The theory behind this book was to get all the old timers in Eastern Madera County and have them tell their tales. The Coarsegold Historical Society (Coarsegold is another small town in the area) got a hundred or so people and interviewed them. I'm guessing all the interviewees were in their late 70s or 80s. Since the book was written in 1987 or so, a lot of these people had knowledge going back to the founding of the area. They talked about the mines. They talked about homesteading and ranching. There was a lot of talk about the Sugar Pine Lumber Company Flume which still fascinates me. The book was a treasure trove of information about Eastern Madera County. I'm going to bore tQ for months will all the anecdotes I found.
But it's a slog. It's almost 400 pages long of an oversize book. Think an encyclopedia volume size. The book is just interview after interview or written history. Sometimes they start with a family tree but most of the time it's a just a recitation of who the parents where and how many children they had and which children had children. And since most of the people in the book were quite fertile you start with families of 7 or 8 kids. It would also have been nice if they grouped the chapters according to locations, have all the Raymond families together and all the Oakhurst families together, etc. But no. It wasn't even in alphabetical order.
I think the worst part for me, being new to the area, is that there is a lot of local knowledge I just don't have, yet. They talk about places as if I should know where they are. Take for example the Polk School. A lot of the people in the book went to the Polk School. They also say it was at the corner of the River Road and the Raymond Road. Roads in my area are no longer known by names. It's all number. I eventually did realize they talked about Road 400 and Road 415 as the River Road and The Raymond Road respectively. It would be better for me if the book came with a map with all the ranches and homesteads listed on it. I did spend a lot of time with Google Maps open trying to track things down.
I'm glad I read it. I'll probably have to read it again. I'm currently reading a copy from the library. If I want to buy my own, Amazon has one for $500.
I don't recommend it except for me.
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Twenty Years in the Backwoods of California by John Shay Published in 1923
This book is a bit of a mess. It's a collection of anecdotes rather than a linear narrative. The book also doesn't have a lot of details, names and places and dates almost never appear. When the gold strike occurred in 1897 in John Shay's gold dreams were rekindled. But rather than leaving San Francisco and heading for the Yukon, he struck out for the depleted gold fields of California, particularly the area around Grub Gulch. He stayed there 20 years and then left. He had some success panning for gold, but he made more money as a blacksmith on the Coach road to Yosemite. He met Indians. He killed coyotes. He fired off his .22 in celebration when Roosevelt rode through on his way to Yosemite. The Roosevelt story was the reason I read the book. Sadly, it wasn't very long but did give a few tidbits about the event that I hadn't read before.
The weirdest part of the book is Shay's wife. The book is dedicated to her. But in the start of the book he leaves her behind in San Francisco when he heads to the gold fields. I'm never sure if he eventually brings her up to his homestead on Road 600 or not. In one or two places there is a reference to 'she' but it's never clear when 'she' arrived. Like I said, the book is a bit of a mess.
I first heard about Shay because there is a placard dedicated to his blacksmith shop on Road 600 that the Clampers installed. The Clampers, or E Vitus Clampus, is a group of do gooders and drinkers here in Gold Country. They put up a lot of plaques to give the history of the area. Originally organized back in the 1850s to help widows and orphans of miners killed in accidents.
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Between Two Fires by Christopher Buelhman
The war between Heaven and Hell spills over onto earth during the 14th Century. Demons walk the earth as the plague ravages all of Europe. Excommunicated former Knight Thomas and orphan Delphine set off on a quest to do Avignon to talk to the Pope to see what can be done. Or something like that.
Such a good book. I wish it were a series but the tale raps up nicely in the end. Such a squalid depiction of a journey from Northern to Southern France with ghastly depiction of everything in between.
I also can't get enough of Buehlman, the author. It's amazing the various genres he writes in. I am quickly devouring all his books.
Lots of sword fights.
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The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buelhman
Vampires. It's a vampire book. I don't know what can be done to make the vampire book feel fresh, but this isn't it. A group of vampires stalk the streets of New York in the 1970s living in the subway tunnels and drinking blood from the New Yorkers. Everything is fine until the subway vampires come across a new type of vampire. There are a few new tweaks to the mythos, but at the end of the day it's all just a quest to slake the unceasing hunger.
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(08-19-2021, 05:42 AM)Greg Wrote: The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buelhman
Vampires. It's a vampire book. I don't know what can be done to make the vampire book feel fresh, but this isn't it. A group of vampires stalk the streets of New York in the 1970s living in the subway tunnels and drinking blood from the New Yorkers. Everything is fine until the subway vampires come across a new type of vampire. There are a few new tweaks to the mythos, but at the end of the day it's all just a quest to slake the unceasing hunger.
"Fifth House of the Heart" by Ben Tripp was the most original vampire book I've read. Recommended.
In the Tudor Period, Fencing Masters were classified in the Vagrancy Laws along with Actors, Gypsys, Vagabonds, Sturdy Rogues, and the owners of performing bears.
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Discovery of the Yosemite & The Indian War of 1851 by Lafayette Houghton Bunnell
In the winter of 1850-1851, the Mariposa Battalion chased a band of Indians across the Sierra Nevada Mountain range. The battalion had been formed for just this action after the Indians had burned and looted several trading posts which resulted in several deaths. Major James Savage led the battalion due to his knowledge of the Indian ways, because he was married to several Indian women and because he owned the trading posts. The result of the chase led Savage and his men, which included the author, to be the first non-Native Americans to step into the Yosemite Valley.
Bunnell was awed by the experience and couldn't wait to write about it. This book, published originally in 1892 was put together to collate his various articles and clear up misconceptions other explores had written and to set the record straight. It's a very straight forward narrative. Bunnell does claim credit for naming the valley, although he spelled it 'Yosemity'. Bunnel also named Lake Tenaya after the Indian chief the Mariposa Battalion had pursued and recently captured. When Chief Tenaya was told of this honor, Chief Tenaya said the lake already had a name. And what was the honor since he would never be allowed to see the lake again after he was sent to the reservation?
There is a lot of sadness in reading the book from a modern perspective. The Indians weren't very highly thought of and it was only right of the whites to take their land. But Bunnell, who didn't think much of Native Americans, still felt they were being screwed by the government an made and effort to bring this up.
It was an interesting look into the early exploration of the valley.
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Cruel Acts by Jane Casey
Probably should break these out into their own thread considering I am up to book 8. Based on jury malfeasance, a serial killer is set free to await a new trial. Kerrigan and Derwent are tasked with making sure the evidence holds up for the new trial. But clues emerge that the serial killer might not have done it. Ah, the mystery. Either I'm more comfortable with the characters or Casey is getting better at telling the stories. I dove right in to the next book and should be finished with it shortly.
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The Cutting Place by Jane Casey
And with that I am done with all the Maeve Kerrigan books by Jane Casey. Bits of pieces of an unidentified woman wash up on the banks of the Thames. Kerrigan comes in to investigate. Naturally, there is a past crime that ties into the current one. There is shady gentleman's club that seems to be involved. And Kerrigan's relationship with her lawyer boyfriend seems to be going along swimmingly until it doesn't. The usual stew of plots and subplots and personal relationships.
The books are a nice break from the non-stop CA history that I find myself swimming in. The mysteries are good and twisty. I can't wait for the next but I guess I will have to.
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Teddy Roosevelt in California: The Whistle Stop Tour that changed America by Chris Epting
Not a great book but does give some salient facts. I mostly read it to learn more about Roosevelt's trip up Road 600 to Yosemite. Oddly, I came across some anecdotes in my readings that do not appear in this book. But if you want to read the speeches that Roosevelt gave while in California, this is the book for you. The book also reprints articles written at the time commemorating the visit. Most of Roosevelt's speeches follow a similar pattern. The president lauds the crowds for being great americans. He loves what they have done with the state especially the irrigation systems. Roosevelt also urges people to keep up their conservation efforts.
The best part for me was a the end of the book where the author retraces the steps Roosevelt took on his three night camping trip in the park. On the second night, Muir and Roosevelt camped outdoors near Sentinel Dome. Scapino, his boys, and I just hiked over pretty much the same area. Now, I need to go back and look at that area again.
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