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Flight to the Top of the World: the Adventures of Walter Wellman By David L. Bristow University of Nebraska Press, $29.95 (hc); $28.45 (kindle) Reviewed by P.J. Capelotti Walter Wellman is a unique figure in American journalism and exploration, comparable in some respects with Henry Morton Stanley.  However, since Wellman straddled many different fields: journalism, politics, exploration, aviation, technology, and the Polar Regions, he has been a particularly difficult individual to pin down in any one account of his life of writing and adventure.  His five expeditions in search of the North Pole from 1894-1909, along with an attempted stunt flight across the Atlantic in 1910, have long defined his life.  The present volume moves a bit closer to the goal of a full accounting but, in the end, as did Wellman himself so many times, it comes up short by failing to reach its stated goal. The strengths of this biography are also its weaknesses.  First, the revelation of ne...

Fiction And the winner is – SAVAGE LIBERTY : A Mystery of Revolutionary America By Eliot Pattison 387 pp. Counterpoint Reviewed by Dennis C. Rizzo This is the second book by Pattison I have reviewed and the fifth I have read. I have a passion for historical novels, and mysteries in particular. Eliot Pattison delivers both history and mystery, and no more so than in Savage Liberty . Following up in the Bone Rattler series, protagonist Duncan McCallum returns as the skilled warrior-hero who dares all and survives by his strength and wits. No matter we have to suspend disbelief at times - McCallum evades more death traps than Indiana Jones, escapes traitorous allies, is blind-sided by self-serving American patriot rebels, is chased and tortured by self-serving Royalists, and finds himself once again the target of Lord Ramsey’s revenge for daring to love his daughter. This is the classic entertainment portion of a Pattison novel. It works for the most part. In Boston harbor abo...

--> Fiction The pious are God’s sacred marks. A CHILD WENT FORTH By Boston Teran 332 pp. High-Top Publishing LLC Reviewed by Eric Petersen Award-winning novelist Boston Teran is back with his twelfth book. The author’s name is a pseudonym, and the curious promotional material claims that his “identity is unknown, yet it is known that he grew up in an immigrant Italian world in the Bronx and describes most of his relatives as ‘gamblers, con men, numbers runners, and thieves.’” The blurb on the book jacket says of the author, “because of his unique style, [he] has been compared to painters like Picasso and Breugel, the composer Tchaikovsky, and filmmakers like John Ford, Sergio Leone, and David Lean.” How much of this is tongue-in-cheek is debatable. One thing that can’t be debated is the author’s talent; he’s won many awards, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wins another for this masterpiece of historical fiction that examines the darkest part of American history – slavery in t...

Nonfiction Renaissance woodsman THOREAU: A Life Laura Dassow Walls 615 pp. University of Chicago Press Reviewed by Marty Carlock Thought we knew all about Thoreau, did we? An idle, eccentric hermit who spent two solitary years in a hut at Walden Pond and wrote a book about it? And sometimes took the Alcott girls out to wander the Concord meadows and catch butterflies? Wrong, wrong, wrong. Thoreau was a graduate of Harvard College, a meticulous naturalist who contributed to scientific studies, was elected to natural history societies, knew Greek, Latin, German and French, and could read other languages. He studied and developed empathy with American Indians, conducting anthropological research before the term existed. He overcame his love of solitude to become a witty and popular lecturer and a fiery abolitionist speaker. A century ahead of American hippies, he became fascinated with Eastern religions and assembled a library of such writings. He was fond of machinery and insatiably cur...

Nonfiction Moments in her life WHEN HISTORY IS PERSONAL By Mimi Schwartz 270 ppp. University of Nebraska Press Reviewed by Diane Diekman Mimi Schwartz grew up in the Queens borough of New York City, the first American-born child of German-Jewish immigrants who escaped in 1936 from Hitler’s Germany. She is now an award-winning author and professor emerita in the writing program at Stockton University. When History Is Personal is her collection of 25 essays, taken from 25 moments in her life. “Each essay focuses on a moment that matters to me,” she writes in the preface, “with an eye to the history, culture, and politics that have shaped it.” The essays are grouped into four sections. “Family Haunts,” covering her childhood and family history, is written from a youthful perspective. “In and Out My Front Door” and “Storyscapes” discuss experiences and conversations throughout her adult life. “Border Crossings” leads into the future, as she grows older and enters new territories of l...