Looking for a cracking-good "out on the trails" read?
Fatamorgana
Posts: 257
Even though I am only on page 154, I had to write & review this Book, Winterdance: the fine madness of running the Iditarod.
It's the first time I've come across the author, Garry Paulsen, he's a US writer but his style is both easy to read & highly entertaining. I haven't laughed out loud with tears rolling down my face whilst journeying on the London Underground, surround by fellow commuters, since reading Bill Bryson's "Neither here nor there" many years ago.
The difference is, this is series of mis-adventures, cock-ups and small triumphs set out on the trails of both in his home town (8 days drive aways from) and in Anchorage, Alaska, in preparation for racing the maddest race of them all, the Iditarod. I thought the MDS was bonkers, but this race is seriously "out there" & only when he turns up in Alaska does he realise, with two months on-location training to go, he's monumentally out of his depth.
What Paulsen manages to bring to this "fine madness" of running a dog sled team, initially for pleasure before finally realising he should perhaps be racing the Grandaddy of all dog sled racing, is a literary style that you simple devour at the same pace as his demented dog team, tearing up the pages as they in turn tear up the Minnesota & Alaskan wilderness in fine style, leaving you in both awe and some amazement that both man and dogs somehow survive their ordeals.
Little wonder then that betting amongst his fellow racers sees his team being odds-on favourite not to make it out of Anchorage in one piece on the first day, and only by the skin of his teeth and his recently replaced lead dog taking him on a scenic route through the back alleys, gardens & deserted down-town of the Anchorage do they somehow, four hours later, manage to slow the sled sufficiently for them to re-find the trail.
This is a life-affirming, hilarious, beautiful account of being "out there", out on the trails, out amongst some of the most wondrous, life-changing scenery being both humbled, attacked by and yet in tune with Mother Nature. I don't want this book to finish, but I suspect when it does he'll not want it to end either and will choose instead to harness up the team turn them around and go and have another adventure. I can't recommend this book highly enough and the best news of all is that he's got a back catalogue of adventure novels, so I'm sorted for next few month's reading material!
It's the first time I've come across the author, Garry Paulsen, he's a US writer but his style is both easy to read & highly entertaining. I haven't laughed out loud with tears rolling down my face whilst journeying on the London Underground, surround by fellow commuters, since reading Bill Bryson's "Neither here nor there" many years ago.
The difference is, this is series of mis-adventures, cock-ups and small triumphs set out on the trails of both in his home town (8 days drive aways from) and in Anchorage, Alaska, in preparation for racing the maddest race of them all, the Iditarod. I thought the MDS was bonkers, but this race is seriously "out there" & only when he turns up in Alaska does he realise, with two months on-location training to go, he's monumentally out of his depth.
What Paulsen manages to bring to this "fine madness" of running a dog sled team, initially for pleasure before finally realising he should perhaps be racing the Grandaddy of all dog sled racing, is a literary style that you simple devour at the same pace as his demented dog team, tearing up the pages as they in turn tear up the Minnesota & Alaskan wilderness in fine style, leaving you in both awe and some amazement that both man and dogs somehow survive their ordeals.
Little wonder then that betting amongst his fellow racers sees his team being odds-on favourite not to make it out of Anchorage in one piece on the first day, and only by the skin of his teeth and his recently replaced lead dog taking him on a scenic route through the back alleys, gardens & deserted down-town of the Anchorage do they somehow, four hours later, manage to slow the sled sufficiently for them to re-find the trail.
This is a life-affirming, hilarious, beautiful account of being "out there", out on the trails, out amongst some of the most wondrous, life-changing scenery being both humbled, attacked by and yet in tune with Mother Nature. I don't want this book to finish, but I suspect when it does he'll not want it to end either and will choose instead to harness up the team turn them around and go and have another adventure. I can't recommend this book highly enough and the best news of all is that he's got a back catalogue of adventure novels, so I'm sorted for next few month's reading material!
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Reminds me of a film called Iron Will...0
