New Leaf Nominations for June 2019 • Into the Labyrinth: The Quest

[issybird]

OK, here it is:

The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code by Margalit Fox.

Amazon US $14.49 | Kobo US $14.49 | Kobo CA $11.99 | Kobo AU $9.67 | Kobo UK £4.79

The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative.

When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece’s Classical Age, he discovered a cache of ancient tablets, Europe’s earliest written records. For half a century, the meaning of the inscriptions, and even the language in which they were written, would remain a mystery.

Award-winning New York Times journalist Margalit Fox's riveting real-life intellectual detective story travels from the Bronze Age Aegean—the era of Odysseus, Agamemnon, and Helen—to the turn of the 20th century and the work of charismatic English archeologist Arthur Evans, to the colorful personal stories of the decipherers. These include Michael Ventris, the brilliant amateur who deciphered the script but met with a sudden, mysterious death that may have been a direct consequence of the deipherment; and Alice Kober, the unsung heroine of the story whose painstaking work allowed Ventris to crack the code.

385 pp.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Catlady

When I looked this up at my library, I was intrigued by another book from this author: Conan Doyle for the Defense: The True Story of a Sensational British Murder, a Quest for Justice, and the World's Most Famous Detective Writer. Its publication date would put it thisclose to being eligible for June.

Oh, I've put this on hold. Thanks!

(You don't have to get too fussed about publication dates, especially when the price is reasonable or wait lists aren't very long. I'll note that I could be first on hold at two of my libraries.)

[Bookpossum]

Julian Barnes wrote an excellent book about this also, called Arthur and George.

I’m still travelling and on the Internet only intermittently - sorry about that. I shall be back home on Monday afternoon my time.

[Bookpossum]

The Palin Around the World in Eighty Days sounds fun. I second it.

[bfisher]

I second Silverlock

[bfisher]

I third Palin's Around the World in Eighty Days

[CRussel]

OK, it seems like we're a bit short of nominations, still, so I think I'll go ahead and nominate Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods.

Originally Posted by Amazon

God only knows what possessed Bill Bryson, a reluctant adventurer if ever there was one, to undertake a gruelling hike along the world's longest continuous footpath—The Appalachian Trail.

The 2,000-plus-mile trail winds through 14 states, stretching along the east coast of the United States, from Georgia to Maine. It snakes through some of the wildest and most spectacular landscapes in North America, as well as through some of its most poverty-stricken and primitive backwoods areas.

With his offbeat sensibility, his eye for the absurd, and his laugh-out-loud sense of humour, Bryson recounts his confrontations with nature at its most uncompromising over his five-month journey.

An instant classic, riotously funny, A Walk in the Woods will add a whole new audience to the legions of Bill Bryson fans.

320 Pages
Overdrive

AmazonUS -- $7.99
AmazonCA -- $9.99
AmazonUK -- £5.49
AmazonAU -- $12.99

Audible -- 1 Audible Credit
Goodreads

This book is a mostly factual account of Bill Bryson's quest to walk the entire Appalachian Trail. It's certainly appropriate for our theme this month, and I found it an excellent read and quite funny. (For those not familiar with the Appalachian Trail, it's a somewhat managed trail of some 2,100-miles that stretches from Georgia to Maine all along the eastern mountain ranges of the US. A daunting task for even a hardened hiker.)

Even though I read this a few years ago, I'd be happy to read it again with a chance to discuss.

[issybird]

I'm also going to make a second nomination, which I also nominated our first month, The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen.

In 1973, Peter Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller traveled high into the remote mountains of Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep and possibly glimpse the rare and beautiful snow leopard. Matthiessen, a student of Zen Buddhism, was also on a spiritual quest to find the Lama of Shey at the ancient shrine on Crystal Mountain. As the climb proceeds, Matthiessen charts his inner path as well as his outer one, with a deepening Buddhist understanding of reality, suffering, impermanence, and beauty.

Kindle US $13.99 | Kobo US $13.99 | Kobo CA $13.99 | Kobo UK £5.49 | Kobo AU $14.99 | OverDrive

352 pp.

[Victoria]

I second A Walk in the Woods. It’s been on my wish-list for quite some time.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I will third A Walk in the Woods.

[Catlady]

Second nomination: Dangerous Crossing (2017) by Rachel Rhys, 410 pp.

'An exquisite story of love, murder, adventure and dark secrets, Rachel Rhys brings this dangerous crossing brilliantly and beautifully alive' LISA JEWELL

'Thrilling, seductive, utterly absorbing' PAULA HAWKINS

England, September 1939
Lily Shepherd boards a cruise liner for a new life in Australia and is plunged into a world of cocktails, jazz and glamorous friends.

But as the sun beats down, poisonous secrets begin to surface. Suddenly Lily finds herself trapped with nowhere to go ...

Australia, six weeks later
The world is at war, the cruise liner docks, and a beautiful young woman is escorted onto dry land in handcuffs.

What has she done?

'Thrilling, captivating. Simply stunning' Daily Express

'It is written so beautifully it seems to glide by way too quickly, transporting you on a journey you won't want to end' Sunday Mirror

'Rhys creates such a powerful sense of foreboding that you may well gulp down the entire book in a single day' The Irish Times

Amazon US, $12.99

Kobo US, $12.99
Kobo Canada, CDN $13.99
Kobo Australia, AU $12.99
Kobo New Zealand, NZ $12.99
Kobo UK, £4.99

E-book and audiobook in Overdrive and Scribd.

[Bookpossum]

I second The Snow Leopard. It has been on my TBR since your earlier nomination, issybird.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

I second The Snow Leopard. It has been on my TBR since your earlier nomination, issybird.

Mine, too.

[CRussel]

I wasn't going to support The Snow Leopard, because of the price, but the Canadian Kindle price is only $10.99 CAD, which is about $8 USD. Within my budget. So I'll use my last ticket to third the nomination.

Charlie.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I nominate The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I had no idea that he wrote a series of books about Professor Challenger and that this book was an inspiration for Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. Published in 1912 and available in the public domain.

It's London, 1907. Journalist Edward Malone, rejected by the woman he loves because he is too prosaic, decides to go in search of adventure and fame to prove himself worthy of her. Soon after, he meets Professor George Challenger, a scientist who claims to have discovered a 'lost world' populated by pterodactyls and other prehistoric monsters.

For my last ticket I'm waiting to see what Dazrin nominates because his options sound exciting.