Antoine de Saint-Exupery, b. 1900. I’m going to ask the girls to look for a copy of Saint Exupery’s autobiographical travel story, Wind, Sand, and Stars at the library today in honor of his birthday. He’s more famous as the author of The Little Prince, a book you’ll either love or hate. Some people think it’s too, too precious, but I’m in the “love” camp.
I’m looking forward to reading Wind, Sand, and Stars about Saint Exupery’s adventures as a pioneer aviator flying mail routes in Northern Africa. Have any of you read this book or any other travelogue adventure that you would recommend?
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That book just looks beautiful! That does a lot for me. The most amazing nonfiction book I’ve read is Into Thin Air, about a trek up Mount Everest by Jon Krakauer. Truly informational and an interesting tale. I hope that others will post recommendations, too, because I do love that kind of writing, especially when the story moves along.
I read that book when I was 12 or 13, but really can’t remember it. For travel accounts set in Africa, a few books I have enjoyed are Evelyn Waugh’s travel writing, Beryl Markham’s West with the Night, and Across the Limpopo by Michael Nicholson.
Jennifer, along with Krakauer’s book I enjoyed Touching the Void by Joe Simpson, The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev, Left for Dead by Beck Weathers (both Boukreev and Weathers write about the same incident on Everest that Krakauer’s book chronicles, but from different views – Boukreev was the rescuer and Weathers was part of the doomed party that was abandoned by the others on the mountain), Endurance by Frank Worsley, The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The South Pole by Roald Amundsen, Alone by Richard Byrd, and The Coldest March by Susan Solomon.
Wow–thanks! I picked up No Horizon is so Far by Liv Arneson and Anne Bancroft and just read that this summer. They are the two women who skiied across Antarctica. It, too, was interesting.