Books I Took on Vacation

I'm not much of a vacation reader, preferring to be "doing" on trips like this. But I took a couple books along this time and surprised myself at the progress I made without sacrificing doing.

Here There Be Dragons by James A. Owen
You'll find this one in the teen fiction section at your bookstore. I bought it partially out of jealousy of my wife's now (thankfully) concluded Twilight series binge. I felt I needed a book written for someone half my age, too.

It's a great idea executed competently. That alone makes it stand out on the bookshelf. I can't help but think that I would have enjoyed this book a great deal more if I'd read it in junior high, but it was a decent plane read. I don't want to say a whole lot about it, and I caution you against reading synopses or blurbs about the book, as several I've seen give away some fun stuff.

The set-up is this: three Englishmen during World War I come into possession of The Imaginarium Geographica, an ancient book of maps of all the lands of make-believe, myth and fairy tale. A sinister force wants the book, and the men find themselves on a great adventure to protect it and the lands it details.

Owen has put his imagination to work here, and there are certainly payoffs. Unfortunately, the story is populated by flat characters. It's the first in a series, but I doubt I will pick up the next volume.

The Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz
I picked this one up a couple years ago at a bargain sale and it's been on my list ever since. I figured what better time to read it then on a trip to Hawaii? Cook was the first Westerner to visit the islands, and it's where he met his eventual doom.

The book is written by Pulitzer-winner Tony Horwitz, who retraced Cook's three Pacific voyages, interviewing the modern peoples of the lands Cook visited to get their take on the man who mapped the unknown parts of the globe in the late 1700s.

Horwitz's take on the present state of the South Pacific is a bit depressing and disillusioning. While interesting, I have to say I'm finding the book somewhat one-note. Horwitz alternates between his experiences in the South Pacific and the tale Cook and his men left in diaries and other accounts.

Horwitz's description of present-day Hawaii (Big Island) is especially dismal, and that's his description of the scenery, which I couldn't disagree with more. This alone casts his take into question for me.

Regardless of this slant, it can't be denied that the South Pacific has been exoticized and romanticized while the often low quality of life of the original inhabitants is hidden behind the shimmering images put forth by the tourist industries. This pattern seems to have begun shortly after the Europeans arrived. Even Cook lamented the effects he saw on later voyages.

But the book doesn't slight Cook's genius. Charts he drew while exploring the coast of New Zealand were in use until 1994. While his journals don't reveal a man given to emotion or excitement, the trajectory his life took makes him a remarkable character.