The Twenty-ninth Day by Alex Messenger

 "...this was the beginning of something life-changing for my fellow paddlers and me--this was Hommes du Nord, forty-two days of canoeing Canada's wild rivers and lakes."

 Alex Messenger was 17 in the summer of 2005 when he set off with five friends on a 600-mile trip across Nunavut in the Canadian sub-artic. And for the first twenty-eight days all went well. They successfully navigated the white water rapids strung along the Dubawnt River and happily camped in the taiga. And Alex tried to appreciate each moment along the way.

"The purpose of a journey is to experience those things that can't be explained and to forge the memories that will never be forgotten, the ones that change you forever."

Then, on the twenty-ninth day, while traversing a ridge alone, he encounters his worst nightmare. A grizzly bear. Somehow, Alex survives the bear's attack. But he and his friends are still miles from nowhere, and with his injuries, getting home just got a lot harder.

"One of the ways an expedition tests your mettle is that it's up to you and the group to solve any problems. If you wait for help to suddenly appear, your odds are not good." 

This is such a compelling biography! I loved Alex's lyrical descriptions of their canoe trip, and the river, the islands where they camped and the Inuit ruins they find along the way. And his recount of the bear attack itself is pretty chilling. He's so honest. About everything. I could not put this book down. If you love memoirs about outdoor adventure and survival, I highly recommend this one.

Happy Reading!

 

From my TBR shelf...

I bought Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand by Fred Vargas for two reasons:  I really like her Commissaire Adamsberg mysteries, and my library didn't own a copy. Plus, I found a really cheap used copy from Powells. But I don't know why I then let it languish on my shelf for years, without once picking it up to read. And I mostly picked it up now because it fulfills one of my Backlist Reader Challenge reads. But also because I really do like the way Fred Vargas writes. Especially when she's writing about Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg.

Adamsberg is the head of the Serious Crime Squad in Paris. But he's not your typical police officer. He gives off a "dreamy indifference" when he's solving a case that sometimes drives the other members of his squad crazy. At the same time, he makes these intuitive leaps and notices these unexpected connections that no one else ever sees. His unique talent means he solves a lot of cases...and it also makes for some very offbeat and imaginative mysteries. I like them a lot.

In this one, Adamsberg is chasing a murderer he once dubbed The Trident.  "The murderer who always escaped, and who, thirty years earlier, had thrown his life off course ... no other living being had caused him more pain and dread, distress and fury than this man." Now there's a new murder and Adamsberg is convinced that The Trident is back. There's just one problem. The man Adamsberg knew as The Trident died sixteen years ago.  Adamsberg even went to his funeral. It's a definite complication...and not the only complication Commissaire Adamsberg encounters in this compelling mystery. I shouldn't have waited so long to read this one.  Then again, it was definitely worth the wait.

Happy Reading!

My other favorite Commissaire Adamsberg mysteries:
     An Uncertain Place

     The Chalk Circle Man
     Seeking Whom He May Devour

Fun with Flavia

"It had been at Aunt Felicity's insistence that I was packed up like a bundle of old rags and tossed onto a ship to Canada."

Twelve-year-old Flavia de Luce has been banished from her ancestral home in England and sent away to Miss Bodycote's Female Academy in Canada, the same boarding school that her mother once attended. On her first night there, she discovers a charred and mummified corpse stuffed up her bedroom chimney. It's her seventh dead body ... and yet another mystery for her to solve.

I really enjoyed Alan Bradley's latest Flavia de Luce mystery, As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust. Far from home, Flavia is forced to grow up a bit in this book, but that doesn't detract from her charm. She's still precocious, and intrepid, obsessed with poisons and all things chemical, and still able to lie without batting an eye. And while I missed Buckshaw, especially Dogger, I liked the boarding school setting in this book. Flavia's interactions with the other girls and teachers made me laugh. And the mystery kept me guessing, too. All in all, this was a fun book; I smiled all the way through it. Yay for Flavia de Luce.

Happy Reading!