Library Journal's Reader's Shelf

Epic Journeys:  Adventures in Reading

Books recommended by editors at Library Journal

This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland By Ehrlich, Gretel 2003-01 - Vintage Books USA 9780679758525 Check Our Catalog For the last decade, Gretel Ehrlich has been obsessed by an island, a terrain, a culture, and the treacherous beauty of a world that is defined by ice. In This Cold Heaven she combines the story of her travels with history and cultural anthropology to reveal a Greenland that few of us could otherwise imagine. Ehrlich unlocks the secrets of this severe land and those who live there; a hardy people who still travel by dogsled and kayak and prefer the mystical four months a year of endless darkness to the gentler summers without night. She discovers the twenty-three words the Inuit have for ice, befriends a polar bear hunter, and comes to agree with the great Danish-Inuit explorer Knud Rasmussen that "all true wisdom is only to be found far from the dwellings of man, in great solitudes." This Cold Heaven is at once a thrilling adventure story and a meditation on the clarity of life at the extreme edge of the world. …More

A Fraction of the Whole By Toltz, Steve 2008-09 - Spiegel & Grau 9780385521734 Check Our Catalog A memorable story of a father and son whose spiritual symmetry transcends all their many shortcomings, "A Fraction of the Whole" is an uproarious indictment of the modern world and its mores. …More

Sea of Poppies By Ghosh, Amitav 2009-09 - Picador USA 9780312428594 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title At the heart of this vibrant saga is a vast ship, the "Ibis," whose destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, and whose purpose is to fight China's vicious 19th-century Opium Wars. …More

The Sea Runners By Doig, Ivan 2006-06 - Harvest Books 9780156031028 Check Our Catalog In this timeless survival story, four indentured servants escape their Russian Alaska work camp in a stolen canoe, only to face a harrowing journey down the Pacific Northwest coast. Battling unrelenting high seas and fierce weather from New Archangel, Alaska, to Astoria, Oregon, the men struggle to avoid hostile Tlingit Indians, to fend off starvation and exhaustion, and to endure their own doubt and distrust. Based on an actual incident in 1853, "The Sea Runners"is a spare and awe-inspiring tale of the human quest for freedom. …More

The Mapmaker's Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon By Whitaker, Robert 2004-12 - Delta 9780385337205 Check Our Catalog A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon The year is 1735. A decade-long expedition to South America is launched by a team of French scientists racing to measure the circumference of the earth and to reveal the mysteries of a little-known continent to a world hungry for discovery and knowledge. From this extraordinary journey arose an unlikely love between one scientist and a beautiful Peruvian noblewoman. Victims of a tangled web of international politics, Jean Godin and Isabel Gramesin's destiny would ultimately unfold in the Amazon's unforgiving jungles, and it would be Isabel's quest to reunite with Jean after a calamitous twenty-year separation that would capture the imagination of all of eighteenth-century Europe. A remarkable testament to human endurance, female resourcefulness, and enduring love, Isabel Gramesin's survival remains unprecedented in the annals of Amazon exploration. …More

The Places in Between By Stewart, Rory 2006-05 - Harvest Books 9780156031561 Check Our Catalog In January 2002, Rory Stewart survived a walk across Afghanistan by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. In this memoir, he writes about heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers as he makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance. …More