Life on the Mississippi by Rinker Buck

 

Title:  Life on the Mississippi

Author:  Rinker Buck

Narrated by:  Jason Culp

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 15 hours and 21 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster.  Thank-you!

 If you had unlimited time, where would you like to explore in the world?

 Rinker Buck is a fascinating historian.  While he does research as other historians do, he also likes to fully live out the experience that he is researching.  His previous book, The Oregon Trail, is one of my favorite books.  He experienced pioneer living by crossing America on the Oregon Trial in a prairie wagon.

 In Life on the Mississippi, Rinker Buck explores another great part of our history that was a prime way our country was settled and grew economically, flatboat travel down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.  Buck starts his journey upstream of Pittsburg and he goes all of the way to New Orleans.  This books tells the story of his journey with helpers along the way.  The river has changed a lot since the nineteenth century and Buck has many near misses with barges.  He stops at different towns and tells the stories of those towns.  He also fills in with different related points in history as well. He talked about slavery and the removal of Native Americans.  He also includes his political views which may be off-putting to some people.  He spent a lot of time talking about his broken ribs and seemed very proud of breaking them several times in his life.  It just sounded painful to me.

 I like how it looked at this point of history of the regular people who used the rivers to travel to new areas of the United States and to ship goods.  I didn’t realize just how important it was for commerce in the founding of our country and even now.

 It also is sad how trashed the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers are now and how they are set up for commercial and not leisure craft.  He did have some not nice things to say about the Army Corp, but some of it was misunderstanding of what the Army Corp does.  Its purpose is to keep the river navigable and to prevent flooding.  It’s purpose is not to clean up the river and make it beautiful. 

 I listened to the audiobook while my husband Ben read the physical book.  We both enjoyed the journey.  The one thing both of us wondered about was how blunt he was talking about his friends (and not friends) that were on the journey with him.  He was not always the nicest in his descriptions.  It was fun to read it at the same time and share our thoughts.    Jason Culp was a good narrator of the audiobook.  I did miss Rinker Buck as the narrator.  He narrated his previous book, The Oregon Trail.

 Life on the Mississippi is a good adventure story and an interesting way to learn history.

Top 10 Pioneer Books

Pioneers – those hardy souls who left behind family and all that was known to them to explore unknown reaches and try for a chance at a better life.  I have been intrigued by pioneers and explorers since I was a child.  The following are my top pioneer picks in no particular order.

1. The Oregon Trail by Rinker Buck – Two modern day brothers decide to travel the Oregon Trail with an old fashioned schooner and team. This was a hilarious road trip tales as well as including a great history on the original pioneers who took the Oregon Trail.  I loved it!
2. Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon – The first three books of the Outlander series are about Scotland and its history; book four changes to the frontier life as the Frasiers’ settle in the United States in the 18^th century.  Jamie and Claire arrive in the United States via shipwreck.  Jamie eventually decides to start a settlement, Frasier’s Ridge in North Carolina.  Building a cabin, settlement, and the hardships of making it all work are all described in vivid detail.  I especially love how Claire uses her 20^th century doctor knowledge to become a skilled 18^th century healer.  Overall, this is the story of Jamie and Claire carving out a life on the frontier.
3. Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati – Into the Wilderness is a continuation of Last of the Mohicans by James Fennimore Cooper.  It is the story of Nathaniel Bonner (Hawkeye and Cora’s son) and Elizabeth Middleton, a 29-year old English spinster who has moved to a remove New York mountain village to join her family in 1792.  Will her refined English ways be able to handle the trials of living on the frontier?
4.  Little House on the Prairie Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder – Lyrical series that explores the
   
   many moves and lives of the Ingalls family from Wisconsin to Kansas to Minnesota to South Dakota.  The Little House Series is descriptive and wonderfully told from a child’s point of view.  It describes the lives of pioneers in great detail thinking that kids won’t know what is meant otherwise.  This is perfect for us that are so far removed from the time to teach us how pioneers lived and did their tasks.  The love of the Ingalls family helps them through trials and tribulations.  They lived during changing times and Wilder was able to immortalize family, friends, and a way of life.
5. Pioneer Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder – Pioneer Girl was Laura’s original book written for adults that eventually was turned into the Little House series for children (and her daughter Rose’s books for adults).  This publication has pictures, maps, and notes that meticulously detail the real journey of the Ingalls and answered many burning questions I’ve had since childhood.  This is a grittier tale than the Little House series.
   
6. Free Land by Rose Wilder Lane – As I discovered in Pioneer Girl, Rose Wilder Lane helped her mother by editing her original adult novel, Pioneer Girl, and then helped her edit them to children’s books.  Lane then used the stories to write her own adult novels.  Rose Wilder Lane was a very famous author in her day, but has been eclipsed in modern times by her mother.  Lane’s pioneer books are worth a read, especially for lovers of pioneer tales.  Mary and David Beaton are newlyweds that travel to the Dakota Territory to homestead 300 acres.  Isolation, blizzards, and cyclones are just some of the trials they face.  Their story is very similar to the real life stories of Almanzo and Laura Wilder and Charles and Caroline Ingalls.
7. Young Pioneers by Rose Wilder Lane – This novel was originally published as Let the Hurricane Roar.  It tells the story of David and Molly.  They are newly married and just 18 and 16 when they head west with the blessing of their families.  They have a rough time in the newly settled west when a grasshopper plague hits.  You can think of this book as an adult version of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s On the Bank of Plum Creek.
8. My Antonia by Willa Cather – Willa Cather perfecting captured the pioneering spirit in two of her most famous works, My Antonia and O Pioneers.  In My Antonia, Jim Burden is raised by his pioneering grandparents in Nebraska.  His nearest neighbors are the Bohemian Shimerda family and their daughter, Antonia.  Antonia and Jim have many adventures together and experience the trials and joys of the pioneer life.
   
9.  O Pioneers by Willa Cather - O Pioneers is the story of Alexandra Bergson.  She is strong woman who takes over the family farm after her father’s death and makes it a success in Nebraska during pioneer times.
10. A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich – A Lantern in Her Hand is the story of a mother, Abbie McKenzie Deal.  As a young woman, Abbie dreams of a singing career, but instead marries a neighbor boy and Civil War vet, Will Deal.  Newly married Will and Abbie Deal move to Nebraska to start a family.  It’s a hard life starting a new farm and family while living in a soddie.  Abbie lives live sacrificing all for the sake of her children.  All of Abbie’s life is packed in this one novel, but I love her reflections as an old lady on her life and decisions.

What is your favorite pioneer book?  What elements of a pioneer’s tale draws you to the story?

For a travelogue of my visit to two pioneering sites – the settings for Little House in the Big Woods and On the Banks of Plum Creek, check out this post.

Laura’s Top Ten Books of 2015

It’s hard to believe another year has wrapped up and we are starting 2016. I read a lot of outstanding books this past year and had a hard time narrowing my list down to only the top ten.  I did note though that this year, many of the books I read it book club made it to my top ten, we had a great year for books.   I also noticed most are historical fiction or historical non-fiction books. These books were not necessarily books published in 2015, but they were books I read in 2015.  I did not include books that I was rereading, but only books that I’ve read for the first time.  And now without further ado, my top ten books of 2015.

1.       The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah – This was a book club pick that I listened to on audio and was riveted. This is the story of two sisters in France during World War II, one sister is a wife and mother, the other a resistance fighter, but both are heroes and survivors in their own ways.  This novel was gripping until the last page and a great portrayal of women during the war.

2.      All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr  - Another book club pick, this book had me distressed for one of the main characters from the get go – a blind girl who cannot read the flyers the allies are dropping on the town to evacuate.  This story is also set in WWII and tells the parallel and then intersecting stories of a blind girl living in France and a young electronically gifted German boy who becomes a Nazi soldier.  This book was riveting all of the way through and is a story I still think about.

3.      The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman - You guessed it, this is another book club pick this year.  A WWI vet is living with his young wife at a remote lighthouse in Australia when they find a seemingly orphaned infant. Their choices change their lives forever. This one is another story that will haunt me forever with how the choices you make can impact so many lives.

 

4.      Ross Poldark by Winston Graham - I was on a book blog tour for this book with Austenprose and loved it.  This is a new fascinating historical fiction author and series for me.  I’ve read the first two books and vastly enjoyed them and also enjoyed the Masterpiece series based on them.  Up next in 2016 is reading book 3.  Ross Poldark has returned from fighting in the Revolutionary War in America to find his father dead, his estate ruined, and the woman he loved engaged to marry his cousin.  Most interesting to me was Poldark starting up copper mining on his property in Cornwall again after my years in the Copper Country (Upper Peninsula of Michigan where many Cornish miners immigrated).

5.      The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh – Another great book club pick for December, this was a very unique story that I found fascinating.  It describes a young girl that was raised in a variety of foster homes without a family.  She had one opportunity to have a family, but it all went very wrong.  The book skips back in time to this missed opportunity and in the future she tries to make a life for herself.  It also discusses how she uses the Victorian language of flowers to communicate and start a thriving business.

6.      Pioneer Girl:  The Annotated Biography by LauraIngalls Wilder – I have loved Laura Ingalls Wilder since I first read Little House in the Big Woods as an eight-year old. Pioneer Girl was Wilder’s first draft of the story of her life told for an adult audience.  Even better is that the editor added meticulous notes about the details that solved a lot of things I have been wondering since I was a child.  This book is fascinating for those that love Wilder as well as those that just want to learn the history of the pioneers of this country.

7.      The Oregon Trail by Rinker Buck – Rinker Buck goes on a cross country journey along the Oregon Trail with his brother Nick using mules and a wagon.  The journey is interesting and perilous at times.  Buck also gives a lot of great historical information about the Oregon Trail and those who traversed it. 

8.      A Desperate Fortune by Susanna Kearsley – I loved the Jacobite mystery in this novel as well as the mysterious Scottish man who I thought was a great hero.

9.      The Secret of Pembroke Park by Julie Klassen – I found a new favorite author this year – Julie Klassen.  I read this book also on a tour with Austenprose and loved this regency romance.  Part Jane Austen, part Charlotte Bronte, the mystery and sweet romance made this a page turner for me.

10.  The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell – This book was a strange one that made me wonder what the heck was going on when I got to the end.  The ending still has me puzzled and thinking about it.  Who did it – I want to discuss!  A typist befriends an alluring new typist and has great adventures until everything takes a sinister twist.

Other books I loved this year but didn’t quite make my top ten include: The Wright Brothers by David McCullough, Inside the O’Briens by Lisa Genova, Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, and The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick.

For more top books from the past, check out my lists from 2014, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.

What were your favorite books of 2015?

The Oregon Trail by Rinker Buck

Title: The Oregon Trail:  A New American Journey
Author: Rinker Buck

Read by: Rinker Buck

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 16.5 hours (14 CDs)
Source: Simon & Schuster Audio Review Copy – Thank-you!

I have been obsessed with the Oregon Trail my entire life.  Besides playing the computer game back in the 80’s and early 90’s in computer class, I loved to read biographies of the early pioneers who blazed the pathway west.  I sadly have not seen the trail yet myself, but this book, The Oregon Trail, is the next best thing. Rinker Buck becomes interested in the real Oregon Trail during a trip and starts to research it.  The trail is two thousand miles long and spans six states; Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon   Raised with a spirit of adventure, Rinker Buck decides to become the first person to travel the entire original Oregon Trail in a hundred years in an authentic Schuttler Wagon pulled by three mules.  His brother Nick, a master team handler, and his dirty dog Olive Oyl also joins the adventure.

With the sign “See America Slowly” on the back of the wagon, the two have to face modern trials such as RVs trying to run them off the road, as well as problems that were also faced by the pioneers, traveling in the desert with no way to get help and having your water disappear in a fateful accident.  Rinker and Nick also face the problem of being two completely different people.  Rinker is fastidious, very organized, and clean, while Nick is dirty, a hands on mechanic, and a born story teller to any audience that will listen.  At first Rinker doesn’t want Nick along on the trip, but he soon realizes that he couldn’t complete the voyage without him and the two come to a better understanding of each other and the ghost of their father.

I also enjoyed how Rinker Buck included a vast amount of fascinating Oregon Trail history in this book and also included Narcissa Whitman’s story as the first white woman to cross the Rockies on the trail.  I loved to read about Narcissa Whitman when I was a child.  Buck included her entire story parsed throughout the book including ending at the settlement that Marcus and Narcissa Whitman founded and their mixed legacy.  I learned a lot of new items in this book such as the fact that it was mostly mules and oxen that pulled the wagons west.  I always thought it was horses and oxen.  There was also a great section on Cholera on the trail that I will be using in my water quality classes I’ll be teaching this fall.

I also enjoyed Rinker Buck’s personal story.  Having a father that took his sons on a wagon trip through New Jersey to Pennsylvania in the 1960’s was fascinating. His father left a mixed legacy with his children, but he instilled in all of his children an adventurous spirit which made this trip possible.

Rinker Buck narrated this audiobook himself and did a fantastic job.  I loved the fact that it was the author telling his own story and he did a great job adding voices to other characters such as his brother.

The only negative I had with this book was that since it is a Memoir, Rinker Buck was at times very opinionated.  While at times, it was funny, such as his descriptions of what he has decided is the typical RV owner, at others times, it was offensive, such as when he describes all religion as made-up.  Luckily these diatribes only happened a couple of times.

Part Memoir, part adventure story, and part history, The Oregon Trail is a book to be experienced.  I highly recommend it.  I’m ready to go on The Oregon Trail myself!