June 2024: Wonders of the World!

I get to visit Glacier National Park this year for the first time. The more research I do for our trip, the more exciting it looks. So, my challenge is to read about wonders – natural or otherwise. Nonfiction or fiction. As the book’s setting or as history.

From the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World to lists from other eras; from engineering marvels, solar system wonders – there are a lot of wonders to explore listed here on wikipedia.

What a great topic! I was thinking of that for another group I'm in! I have an older book, The Seven Wonders by Steven Saylor which is a prequel to a series. This is a book of 7 essays or short stories where the main character travels to each of the seven wonders and solves a mystery there.

Enjoy your trip to Glacier National Park, Cindy. The "Going-to-the-Sun Drive" is a spectacular scenic drive!

I'm off to check out my books for "Wonders" to read about.

Here is the link to the group wiki:

https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Reading_Through_Time_Challenge#Future_To...

I have a book entitled Grand Ambition by Lisa Michaels that is a novel based on real events when in the 1920s a honeymoon couple tried to ride the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

Fantastic theme! Although it seems that I do not have much for this on my shelves. My first idea is to listen to The Early Years: Zoo Quest for a Dragon, Quest in Paradise & Quest Under Capricorn by David Attenborough, which covers his travels in the 1950s. It is on my Audible wishlist.

One I've been meaning to get to for years: Joan Breton Connelly's The Parthenon Enigma.

I've got quite a number of books in that Wonders of Man series. This could be a good time to read some of them, see if I want to keep any, and weed out the rest for a fifth-grade teacher in my church.

I'll have finished Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris (reading it for April's "disabilities" theme), but this one would fit for anyone who wants to take on Hugo.

There are at least several interesting videos in the Great Courses – World Heritage Sites, A Guided Tour of Ancient Egypt, The Cathedral, The World's Greatest Churches, probably quite a few more (links are to GC's Wondrium site) – which I can watch at my desktop computer while I nebulize for my COPD.

If I could get enough books packed away to create some clear table space, I've got a very advanced (2K+ pieces) lego puzzle of the Taj Mahal that I want to get working on, though that doesn't qualify as a book.,,,

>6 CurrerBell: Oh, Notre Dame de Paris is a great idea! I didn't think of that.

I'm not sure what I'll read, but >6 CurrerBell:'s suggestion of Notre Dame de Paris is a possibility.

I also have a nonfiction book I've been meaning to read for ages The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan. According to wikipedia "The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total area and the second-largest by total volume", so sounds like a natural wonder to me.

>8 kac522: That's a thought. I've got The Death and Life of the Great Lakes in TBR storage as well.

This is a potentially very rich field, depending how widely one ranges for lists of wonders. Plenty of time to ponder it though.

Though there may not be much (if anything) on my tbr, I love this theme!

I've also never been to Glacier National Park (or Waterton on the Canada side... in my own province! My excuse is I don't drive). I would love to see both!

I’ll be starting a new mystery series with The Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison. The series is set in the Himilayas, the world’s highest mountain range and for sure a wonder of the world for me. I love reading stories set there.

forgot to save this, what a great idea! not sure where Im going with this but I did find this list which is very encompassing, wonders from around the world the 200 wonders of the worldI surely will think of something

always fascinated with The Alhambra. think Ill start with the tales of the alhambraby washingto irving also the bird king

I am so glad this theme popped up: I have always loved the story and history of Granada and the Alhambra. So the book I chose is tales of the Alhambra and chronicles of the conquest of Granada.

I have only read two books by irving in HS Rip Van Wrinkeld and the Headless horseman. Thought it was about time to read this.
I am not far in, but I already feel like Im part of this journey. The descriptions, the people he meets, the history is more then I could imagine. I suspect I will be spending a while with this book. so thankyou for this theme!

I am in the process of reading Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams. I am also reading this one for a real life book discussion group and it fits in perfectly here. I am also going to see what else I have on my waiting list that would fit into this category.

If I get time I will also read Seven Wonders of the Industrial World by Deborah Cadbury.

Finished tales of alhambra for and what an excellent journey I had. Irving is a very good travel writer, I felt as if I was on the trip with him, even smelling the dust and seeing the markets. This 1832 volume follows the author's visit to ruined Alhambra; a time long before the current legions of tourists, when he could ramble about and pick where he lodged! He's a good writer and combines a largely descriptive first third - picturing the palace, its environs and the colourful characters encountered there - with traditional fairy tales and a bit of history. The first half was about the building of the alhambra and the surrounding city of Granada. my only compliant would be the lack of a map, but suspect there is one in hardback. Np, I used google.

the last part contained the tales, I felt that they were too many (perhaps becaue they were somewhat repetitious), but nearly every individual story is well written and enjoyable. The framing narrative of the author's arrival and sojourn at the Alhambra is especially well done. I did not realize when it was written, and was pleasantly surprised how modern the writing was. so wish I could go there myself, but this is as good as any guide. Plan to read his history of New York just for fun

recommended to anyone who enjoys traveling vicariously though books

rating 5*

I read The Seven Wonders by Steven Saylor. This was the story of Gordianus, who is just 17 and Antipater of Sidon, the world's "greatest poet" (a real historical personage), Gordianus' teacher. For reasons we don't find out until the last chapter, Antipater faked his own death and with Gordianus traveled to some ancient wonders, solving crimes along the way. The problem being for me, that several of the "mysteries" were based on Greek myths, of which I had no knowledge, so the intricate details of the crime and its subsequent resolution made no sense. I almost DNF'd this book, but I persevered. 321 pages 3 stars (would have probably been higher had I been a better mythology student) This is a twofer and will also count for the quarterly read: Ancient/Biblical Times.

I have finished Babel where we meet Robert Koldewey on the digsite in Babylon, waiting for permission to ship the crates containing the Ishtar gate and part of the Procession Road to Berlin, and reflecting on his work and much else.

I wasn't sure that I had anything for this topic, but I found something I had forgotten: The National Parks: America's Best Idea. This one is a chunkster, although there are a lot of pictures, so I'm not sure if I'll finish it this month, but I'll give it a start at least.

>19 atozgrl: I love most anything by Ken Burns! BTW, the video by the same name is free on Amazon Prime.

I'm still pondering what to read for this theme.

>20 Tess_W: I saw the original video when it aired on PBS, and like all things Ken Burns, I loved it. That's why I picked up the book. But I had completely forgotten that I had it. This may be one of those things that I read as I can, in bits and pieces. Normally I don't read more than one book at a time, but this is one of those books that I can read while also having another book going.

>21 john257hopper: through a dart (figuratively!), eeny meeny miney moe, rock, paper scissors?

>23 Tess_W: haha yes maybe....I have not really focused on it yet. I am away next week, so will focus on it from the 15th of the month.

Stonehenge / Rosemary Hill.
2 stars

This is all about Stonehenge. Historiography, lots of Druids, some Romans, archaeology, astro-archaeology, tourism, and more I just skimmed over. I found this very dry. It got a bit more interest from me when we hit the archaeology (20th century) and tourism (21st century) sections, but overall, I just found this very dry.

the gift of stones is one of my favorite novels about Stone henge It takes place at the time it was built and I found it an excellent introduction

I have arguably slightly cheated on this month's theme and read a novel with a slightly tenuous link to it, being set in Egypt with a final scene set in the Great Pyramid, the only survivor of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. This is Ziska by Marie Corelli. This is a short but powerful and quite horrific novel about the titular reincarnated ancient Egyptian woman and her desire for revenge against her former lover who murdered her, a warrior called Araxes, reincarnated in the form of a French artist Armand Gervase. It contains some dramatic passages about the power of love and passion and vengeance, and how these can lead to disaster, as exemplified in the dramatic final chapter set in basement of the Great Pyramid. Marie Corelli is very little read nowadays but should be better known - this novel came out in the same year as the much more famous horror novel Dracula, as well as Richard Marsh's The Beetle, another little known and underrated work and author.

>27 john257hopper: Hey, we don't mind cheaters here! I have selected and read a book that was not exactly how it was advertised, thinking it would fill a slot, while it didn't really! This group is more like hang grenades, close enough will do! I often "cheat" when I'm running short of time and resort to a short story to fulfill a category.

>28 Tess_W: Short stories are fine as well, life is too short sometimes :)

Abraham Ascher, The Kremlin (Wonders of Man) 3***

This is one of those "Editor of Newsweek" series of which I've got 10 out of 24 volumes. Got them a half-century ago and never read any so I'm thinking of going through alll that I've got for ROOTing purposes. Not the greatest thing since sliced bread, but they've got a lot of good illustrations and the text isn't bad. Follows a basic format for the series – text and illustrations giving a history of the Wonder, followed by some excerpts from literary materials about the Wonder, concluded with a few pages of historical reference material (dates, dynastic trees of royalty, that sort of thing).

Definitely not books that I'd be all that likely to buy today in a used book store, but might as well read them for LT challenges, especially ROOTs, then decide what I want to do with them. Two of the volumes that I have are Versailles and Notre Dame de Paris, which I can do for my own topic in the July challenge. The series also includes a volume on Chateaux of the Loire which, unfortunately for next month, I don't have – but I'm not going to rush out and buy it on ABE (where it's one of the series volumes that does seem to be a bit pricey).

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I've also started in on Justin M. Jacobs's Great Courses video World Heritage Sites: Exploring the World’s Greatest Places. Really excellent so far as the instructor, who's surprisingly knowledgeable about such a wide diversity of natural and man-made wonders. My only quarrel is that each "wonder" is being squeezed into the format of a Great Courses series, which means an approximately thirty-minute video. For a "wonder" that's fairly well-known, that can mean including some fluff as filler; and in contrast, thirty minutes isn't necessarily time enough at all for something like Australia's Great Barrier Reef, a discussion of which involves quite a bit of marine biology and other technical subjects. Oh well, can't have everything, and it really is a pretty good series so far (after having so far viewed just the first three sessions).

I’ve just finished the second book of The Histories by Herodotus, a book focussed entirely on Egypt, where he had traveled widely and seen many wonders both natural and man-made. Many classical scholars have suggested that he had written this book earlier than the rest of his Histories, as a stand-alone we might call it, then fitted it in with the rest at the appropriate point, so I decided that Book II on its own could be used for this theme. Herodotus writes about Egypt’s history, its geography, its gods, and many of the wondrous sights he saw everywhere he went. Some of these wonders, eg the Nile River, we could still visit today, but many of the marvelous feats of architecture and engineering would be either in ruins or disappeared. I really enjoyed seeing Egypt through the eyes of this 5th century BCE traveler. And I’m finding Tom Holland’s translation very readable.

really enjoyed that book.

I'm still waiting on my hold for Steven Saylor's The Seven Wonders. Estimate is two weeks but I'm next in line for it.

>33 WelshBookworm: Hope you like it better than I!

>34 Tess_W: We'll see. My hold just came in, and I'm not enjoying my current audiobook. Will have to decide if I'm going to finish that one or not....

I have completed my read of Grand Ambition by Lisa Michaels. This was an interesting story about Bessie and Glen Hyde who undertook the adventure of riding the rapids of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in 1928.

wow, Im sorta done with GC reads; but I might have to make an exception. this looks fascinating

Justin M. Jacobs, World Heritage Sites: Exploring the World’s Greatest Places (Great Courses video) 4****. Twelve hours (24 half-hour sessions), varying as widely as Australia's Great Barrier Reef. to Iceland's Thingvellir. Instructor an extremely knowledgeable polymath on all of the sites, both natural and man-made; but as with most polymaths, there's a bit of overall superficiality. In fairness to the instructor, the superficiality may be a natural consequence of trying to cover what can sometimes be a quite intricate subject in just thirty-or-so minutes per site. Personally, I'd like to have seen a lot more time on the Great Barrier Reef than on Thingvellir – and that's not because I'm more interested in one than in the other but because I think the ecology, biology, and geology of the Great Barrier Reef needs a more detailed explanation than the history of Icelandic pre-Norwegian self-government.

I'm also a little bit concerned that this course has at times too much a Western and U.S. political bias. Fine, ISIS shouldn't have blown up the Palmyran temples and "idols"; but a pretty decent argument could be made that ISIS wouldn't have been in Syria in the first place, or at least wouldn't have risen to the strength it did against the Assad government, if the U.S. didn't have this rather nasty habit of running around minding everyone else's business but our own. Yeah, Assad is a rather rough-and-tumble dictator, but it's a rather rough-and-tumble part of the world and at least Assad did keep the lid on things and protect religious minorities (of which he himself is one, an Alawite) in a very divided country until the U.S. came along and decided to "improve" things, thus producing what the CIA calls "blowback."

4**** isn't at all a bad rating, but this course wasn't quite up to the level of some other Great Courses videos that I've seen and rated at 5***** (and might even have rated higher if the LT rating system so allowed).

I am late, but I wanted to report that I finished listening to my choice for this: The Early Years Collection by David Attenborough. Apart from a collection of interviews, it features stories from three of his trips in the 1950s and 60s (to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Northern Australia). He describes many wonders of the world indeed, such as Komodo dragons, birds of paradise and ancient Aboriginal rock paintings.