The marvelous detail and picturesque way in which Carhart brings the known historical details of life during this time frame, together with his detailed and beautifully portrayed thoughts of what could so easily have been the details of Baptiste’s life at that time in history is remarkable.
Across The Endless River gives insight into Jean-Baptiste’s thoughts about so many things, including viewing those in Europe who were not privy to the rank, wealth, extravagances and royalty of the elite lifestyle of the aristocracy — the life that the majority of people dealt with in the ever crowding Europe at that time.
Carhart also showed great care and at times intricate details of frontier life and Native American life in the wilds of North America, the New World — the freedom in living as well as the dangers and hardships.
Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau is the son of Sacagawea of the Shoshon tribe and the Mandan tribe on the Missouri, and Toussaint Charbonneau, a French fur trader and guide originally from Montreal. Traced is Jean-Baptiste’s journey through his youth and young adulthood, told in such a way that I could hardly put the book down until I finished it.
Jean-Baptiste’s parents traveled with Lewis and Clark on their historic discovery expedition to the Pacific and back — Baptiste was born on that journey.
As a side note, Captain William Clark gave him the nickname Pomp or Pompy and named Pompys Pillar National Monument after Baptiste. I found out recently that Baptiste as a baby is the only child ever depicted on a United States coin to date – the Sacagawea dollar depicts his mother Sacagawea with Baptiste in his cradle board.
Baptiste was sent to St. Louis to be with Captain Clark to get his ‘white man’ education. Later in his teen years, he acted as guide to natural scientist Duke Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg. Paul was very impressed with Jean-Baptiste’s knowledge and understanding of the natural world in North America, the ways of the Native American tribes, and his quick wit and knowledge of various subjects and languages. Paul asks Baptiste to join him on his trip back to Europe and help him with the cataloging of all the New World treasures he had collected during his journey in America for his new book and exhibition of his treasures back in Europe. As a scientist, Paul also considered Baptiste’s trip to Europe as a bit of an experiment to see how he would fare.
Jean-Baptiste spends five years traveling with Paul in Europe learning about the various cultures, languages, music, life at court, and so much more while he is in Europe. Because he is a guest of Duke Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg, he is admitted to noble homes, palaces, and more. He is able to attend royal banquets, balls and dinners, attend performances, and meet many interesting people, including some very unique and charming women in Europe.
You almost feel as though this is a full and actual historical account of Jean-Baptiste’s life, and much of it may well have happened as Carhart paints it for us, but there is little that is actually detailed in writing, or known about, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau’s life.
As someone who loves history, and particularly the details of life in other times and places, I thoroughly loved Across The Endless River. Although, I really don’t think you need to be a history buff to enjoy this novel as Carhart’s love of, and romance with, the time, the people and the history are so vital — it is so visually and beautifully written.
This review article about this wonderful book was first published on Blogcritics.org here and can also be found under my writers page here.
I love historical fiction, especially historical fiction that is based on real characters, and particularly when it is carried out so lovingly and beautifully. Carhart took the ‘wireframe’ of history known about Baptiste, and wove a wonderful story. I found myself wondering about Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau for the first time because of this book. Of course, due to the lack of much real historical detail one could never truly see through his eyes – so to speak – but Thad Carhart brings him and his life during that period in history to life in a very unique and extraordinary way.
I recently had the distinct pleasure of watching the Criterion Collection’s newest addition, Costa-Gavras’ “Z” on DVD* (coming out October 27, 2009), and wrote a review of it here on Blogcritics.
I can’t wait to read the book:
Z was directed by Costa-Gavras and loosely based on the 1967 novel Z by Vassilis Vassilikos — a novel which he stated was based in fact — a reconstruction of a political crime. Costa-Gavras’ film Z was the winner of the 1970 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Costa-Gavras started the film with the following disclaimer: “Any similarity to actual events or persons living or dead is not coincidental. It is intentional.”
* The DVD was provided by the publisher as review material for my review on Blogcritics.org
I recently read, listened to The Shack written by William P. Young and published by Windblown Media, and was planning on writing a review of the book because I really enjoyed it, but today I read Tom Matlack’s review and thought to myself, I really don’t think I could say it any better. So instead, I am posting a link to Tom’s review:
Tom Matlack: Meet Me at The Shack (HuffingtonPost.com)
Tom starts off with one of the conversations in the book between Mack and God:
“Why is there such an emphasis on you being a Father? I mean, its seems to be the way you most reveal yourself.” Asks Mack, a man who has suffered brutal abuse from his own father and lost his young daughter to a serial killer who leaves a bloody red dress in a remote shack only to be invited back that same shack four years later…
Tom goes on to give a very well done review of the book. Must read.
As I noted, I listened to The Shack in audio book format. I purchased it through the iTunes Store (through their connection with Audible.com). The recording also had a piece after the book ended from the author, William P. Young and a radio show after that where they talked about book — all in the audio book file. I very much enjoyed it all.
The Apple iTunes Store had a great deal on The Shack last month for $5.95 — not sure about the exact cents, but it was less than $6 for an audio book — not too bad at all. Sheesh, you couldn’t even buy the paperback at Walmart or Target for that. So, I figured it was the best time to buy it. It really was an awesome book. Well worth reading as you will see from Tom’s review.It’s also available from Amazon in book format, Audio CD format, as well as ebook format for the Kindle.
The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity (Audio CD from Amazon)
The Good Men Project
I recently had the pleasure of talking with Tom Matlack via email after posting a comment on his blog article here.
I really thought Good Men was a great topic for a book and would likely be read by not only men, but by women as well. In my comment on the blog posting, I noted that “All the heroes have gone on walkabout, it’s great to see a book about the unsung heroes of the family. Fathers are very important in the life of a child; and father figures of all kinds are needed in a society where families tend to break up frequently.”
I was really surprised that publishers wouldn’t touch the book and didn’t think men would read it!
Well, Tom Matlack and others decided to go it alone and make it happen. The Good Men book, the (documentary) film, the website — the Good Men Project is well under way. The book Good Men is available for purchase now, and I have a feeling that it will do very well. They use the project to promote and help fund several non-profit groups that help kids.
You can check out information on all of the aspects of the Good Men Project at their website GoodMenProject.org. The excerpts from the book are great!
After I posted my comment on his article, Tom Matlack wrote me in email, and asked if I would be willing to write an article about Walkabout. I told him I would and it took awhile but I finally got it done. The article I wrote is entitled Walkabout and Other Rites of Passage and it was posted on the Good Men Project blog today – Thanks Tom! I focused on Aboriginal Australia and Native American/First Nation rites of passage as I have a passion for both of these peoples and their ways of life.
You can read a little of the the Good Men Project book through the Amazon “Look In” feature here: The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood
Citizen Jane by James Dalessandro with contribution by David Mehnert is a true crime drama written from the victim’s perspective in this Onyx True Crime story about Jane Alexander.
Tom O’Donnell is a con man extraordinaire who would do anything to get what he wants (money) including murdering Jane Alexander’s 88 year old aunt! A true black widower? Who could ask for more even in a fiction, but this was a true story.
Jane Alexander is also the co-founder of Citizens Against Homicide.
In addition to the book mentioned above, The Hallmark Channel is releasing their their very own premier movie based on Jane Alexander’s story, Citizen Jane. I wrote a review of the movie at Blogcritics about the movie:
Citizen Jane is a Hallmark Channel original movie based on a true story of brutal murder, unbelievably bold theft, and one courageous little lady’s search for justice at all odds. Ally Sheedy (of Brat Pack films, as well as War Games and Short Circuit, two of my all-time favorite ’80s movies) beautifully plays Jane Alexander.
Jane has it all. She has a wonderful family, she’s been successful in her personal and financial life. As if that weren’t enough, she also appears to have landed a wonderfully deep and lasting romance with her boyfriend, Tom O’Donnell played by Sean Patrick Flanery (The Dead Zone TV show, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, The Boondock Saints).
But this is not all fun and games. Tom O’Donnell plays for keeps and Jane and her aunt are current subject of his ‘affections!’
Jane Alexander when she realizes that Tom is responsible for her beloved aunt’s death is relentless. Throw in an equally determined Detective Jack Morris played by Meat Loaf Aday and you have quite a mix. Read more here: Movie Review: Citizen Jane on the Hallmark Channel
sz4t8kig5a
Frank Muller – Remembering a Great Audio Book Narrator
I did a more indepth review of Frank Muller, the wonderful audio book narrator, which was published by Blogcritics today!
For years, it has always been my particular joy to find an audio book that had been narrated by Frank Muller. I love the work of many narrators of books, but even after all this time, I still think, Frank Muller is my all-time favorite narrator.
Much more in the full article.
Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others (NYTimes)
Amazon caved to publishers of Kindle ebooks who changed their minds about selling ebooks on the Kindle. So Amazon silently removed the books from the Kindle and credited the Kindle and ebook ‘owners’ for the books people thought they had bought and paid for.
The total irony here — and not in a good way– is that the ebooks were by George Orwell of all people! The books? 1984 and Animal Farm!
Oh, yeah, I kid you not…
Apparently, George Orwell (or more specifically … since George Orwell is in his grave spinning over this … George Orwell’s heirs or whoever is in charge of the estate, or his publisher instigated this .. they obviously learned ABSOLUTELY NOTHING at all about George Orwell or they would never have done this).
The books …. 1984 and Animal Farm
Unbelievable! I am so glad I don’t own a Kindle and haven’t wasted my money buying ebooks that can disappear in the middle of the night …
IMPORTANT: I am removing all Kindle ebooks and Kindles from my “My Passion Is Books” Amazon Associate Store and references to the Kindle on the My Passion Is Books” website.
… I am SOOOOOO glad I bought my copy of 1984 in a second hand shop….a real book.
Unbelievable!
….also unbelievable that Amazon would do this without any prior warning … it was nice they repaid the money, but it doesn’t help the inescapable feeling of betrayal, invasion, almost a feeling of someone noiselessly coming into your home, maybe even your own bedroom to take back something in the middle of the night that you had already bought/paid for … but they had second thoughts on after the deal was done…
CoryDoctorow - photo provided under Creative Commons License by Joi on Flickr.com
And he has definitely proven that locking down copyrighted works does not keep them safe, nor does it insure profitability.
Cory continues to give back to the community on many levels, while also selling his books and doing very well despite giving his books away and using the Creative Commons License and encouraging copying, remixing, etc!
Like all his books, Cory’s Overclocked page has a link to download them for free right on his website:
http://craphound.com/overclocked/
http://craphound.com/overclocked/download/
He has all of the stories available as free downloads as well as being sold, and here’s what he says about it all:
These files are under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license. Mix ‘em up. Send them to your friends. Get creative. Tell me about it. Make cool junk. Some weirdos actually get pissed off when their readers like their stuff enough to share it and improve it. Me, I’m over the moon when that happens.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/legalcode
Like Tim O’Reilly says, “Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.
http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2002/12/11/piracy.html
Or, more to the point, as Woody Guthrie said:
This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.
What a wonderful and refreshing thing to see in this day and age!
Cory’s BIO:
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction novelist, blogger and technology activist. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing (boingboing.net), and a contributor to Wired, Popular Science, Make, the New York Times, and many other newspapers, magazines and websites. He was formerly Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties. In 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.
His novels are published by Tor Books and simultaneously released on the Internet under Creative Commons licenses that encourage their re-use and sharing, a move that increases his sales by enlisting his readers to help promote his work. He has won the Locus and Sunburst Awards, and been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and British Science Fiction Awards. His latest novel, New York Times Bestseller LITTLE BROTHER, was published in May 2008, and his latest short story collection is OVERCLOCKED: STORIES OF THE FUTURE PRESENT. In 2008, Tachyon Books published a collection of his essays, called CONTENT: SELECTED ESSAYS ON TECHNOLOGY, CREATIVITY, COPYRIGHT AND THE FUTURE OF THE FUTURE (with an introduction by John Perry Barlow) and IDW published a collection of comic books inspired by his short fiction called CORY DOCTOROW’S FUTURISTIC TALES OF THE HERE AND NOW. His next novel is MAKERS, due from Tor Books in October, 2009.
LITTLE BROTHER was nominated for the 2008 Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards. It won the Ontario Library White Pine Award, as well as the Indienet Award for bestselling young adult novel in America’s top 1000 independent bookstores in 2008.
He co-founded the open source peer-to-peer software company OpenCola, sold to OpenText, Inc in 2003, and presently serves on the boards and advisory boards of the Participatory Culture Foundation, the MetaBrainz Foundation, Technorati, Inc, the Organization for Transformative Works, Areae, the Annenberg Center for the Study of Online Communities, and Onion Networks, Inc.
In 2007, Entertainment Weekly called him, “The William Gibson of his generation.” He was also named one of Forbes Magazine’s 2007/8 Web Celebrities, and one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders for 2007.
He is presently working on a new young adult novel, FOR THE WIN (about union organizing in video games).
On February 3, 2008, he became a father. The little girl is called Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow, and is a marvel that puts all the works of technology and artifice to shame.
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Links to some of his books on Amazon:
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future
Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
And his new book coming out November 10, 2009:
Thanks Cory for all your books, articles and helping us keep things in perspective.
We are only a week away from the June 8, 1949 Anniversary of when Nineteen Eighty-Four
was published in London and 5 days later in the U.S. I thought it was an appropriate time to discuss this great book.
1984 by George Orwell is an amazing work of fiction/satire. We have a copy that I read periodically because it’s a great book, but also because I don’t want to forget it. It is one of my most favorite books. It stands as a warning, a wake-up call, as well as a sick and sad story of a time we all hope will never happen.
Times Online posted a very good article entitled, “Frail, cowardly Winston saved us” by Robert Harris that includes, in part, the following but in no means the full article, nor really even the most important parts of the article which is a must read. Here are just a few little quotes from the article:
Nineteen Eighty-Four was published in London on Wednesday June 8, 1949 and in New York five days later. The world was eager for it. Within 12 months it had sold around 50,000 hardbacks in the UK; in the US sales were more than one-third of a million. It became a phenomenon.
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a standing rebuke to all those who think history or biography can ever be superior to the novel. Big Brother, the Thought Police, Newspeak, Room 101, telescreens, Doublethink, the Two-Minute Hate, the Ministry of Love, 2+2=5, Airstrip One, unperson – one has only to list the words to realise how central Nineteen Eighty-Four has become to our collective imagination.
In an era when so much serious fiction seems designed merely for the author’s own gratification, or at best for a limited literary coterie, here is a novel with exactly the opposite intention. Orwell’s painfully tapped-out typescript (flimsy top copy and two carbons) left his hands, went out into the world and changed it.
It performed the signal service of nailing for ever certain tricks and tendencies of the ruling classes. It set us on our guard. Sixty years on, that is an achievement worth celebrating.
(BOLD emphasis mine)
How true and thank you Robert Harris. 1984 is, I believe, a very important book, particularly in the economic and political times in which we live — where individuality, liberty and freedom are challenged at every turn — to reflect on this great work of fiction by George Orwell. And hope that we will not be foolish enough to allow anything remotely like it to ever happen.
Since we are passionate about books and our eyesight isn’t what it once was, we have naturally gravitated toward audiobooks in recent years. It is always our joy to find a book that had been narrated by Frank Muller.
I have read/listened to books narrated by Frank Muller by Stephen King, John Grisham, Tom Clancy, and Tim LaHaye. I enjoyed every single one of them!
Before Frank Muller’s tragic accident — that robbed him from continuing his career as one of the all-time best narrators of audio books, and in the process robbed us as readers/listeners as well — he had been a very prolific narrator. I was surprised by all the books and by so many authors, from the Classics to modern authors, that he had narrated when I was searching Amazon to find his Audio CD versions of books he had narrated.
I sure miss getting to hear Frank Muller narrating new books but I have certainly found a lot of existing ones to check into. Some are reasonably priced and others are way out of line, but there are various places to find them.
It feels like I am right there when I listens to Frank Muller narrate. I hate for the book to end and at the same time want to know how it ends. 
There are of course, as I noted above, some of Frank Muller’s narrated audiobooks on CD in our Frank Muller section of our My Passion Is Books Store, and here is a list of various retail book outlets that have even more of them.
There’s is also somewhat limited, but very reasonably priced list of Frank Muller narrated audio books at BooksOnBoard.com. Some are even in MP3 format (if you have a broadband connection) so you don’t have to worry about DRM (Digital Rights Management) in regard to reading it on your computers, on CD players, MP3 players, from different operating systems, and on other digital devices, or just being limited to the number of devices you own where you can make use of these treasures.
Rest in peace Frank Muller. I know your family misses you, but we do too!
At least we will never forget the wonderful way you read to us.
