The Book Mistresses
Chosen by Kim
Excerpt from cover:
"The River of Doubt- it is a black , uncharted river that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world.Indians armed with poison -tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranahs glide through its waters; boulder-strewnrapids turn the riverinto a roiling cauldron.
After his humiliating election defeat in 1912 Rooservelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil's most famous explorer, Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Rooservelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believeit.
Along the way, Rooservelt and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, losing their canoes and supplies to whitewater rapids, and enduring starvation, Indian attack, disease, drowning, and a murder within their own ranks. Three men died and Rooservelt was brought to the brink of suicide. The River of Doubt brings alive these extrodinary events in a powerful non-fiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans that ever lived.
From the soaring beauty of the Amazon rainforest to the darkest night of Theodore Rooservelt's life, here is Candice Millard's dazzling debut."
The Book Mistresses' Review:
At our last Book Club meeting we reviewed "The River of Doubt" by Candice Millard. This book was different from many historical nonfictions as it was not only about Theodore Roosevelt, our adventurous 26th president, but also the dangerous journey of a group of men down an unexplored river of the Amazon in 1914. Each man had his own reasons for attempting this grueling journey, from gathering nature specimens to protecting a father, to self promotion. During their journey each man's endurance was tested to it's absolute limits in dealing with the indifference of nature and its own tough competition for survival. The men battled the constant barrage of insects, aggresive native peoples, raging rapids, disease, unrelenting rains as well as accidents which claimed the lives of some of the members of their expedition. The journey brought out the best and worst of human nature and forever changed the lives of all of those who survived it. I think we all enjoyed the book as it painted a vivid picture of a time and place in an unexplored part of the world as a backdrop for a character analysis of the participants of a spectacular journey.