It’s summer, so let’s talk books

Let’s skip Donald Trump. The fascinating decision by the leader of the Island’s Green Party to go all-in on politics by leaving behind his dentistry practice. And whether or not a referendum is a good way to decide a complex issue.

For now. It’s summer. Let’s talk books. Here are my annual suggestions – part two.

Just a reminder. I haven’t ‘read’ any of these books. I listened to them as audiobooks bought with gift cards, and an online book club membership, from my family. Edmund Hillary is credited with saying he climbed Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, “because it is there.” Actually, he didn’t say that. One of the more famous failures in the bid to be Viewpoint example - the May 15, 2006 case of British climber David Sharp. He lay dying near the top while 40 climbers trudged past on their way to the summit.

It’s a fascinating read. Erik Larson. I’m a fan of his work. He explored one of the deadliest hurricane’s in U.S. history in Isaac’s Storm, a story about how racism and over-confidence left thousands dead in Galveston, Texas in the fall of 1900.

In this book, he looks at what life was like for in Berlin 1933 when mild-mannered William E. Dodd became America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

He sees the mounting attack on foreigners – change to the work to “immigrants,” “Muslims” or “Mexicans” and feel the chill running down your back this week – and tries to convince his government about the danger boiling up on the horizon. He’s ignored.

Dodd and his family rub shoulders with some of the most chilling men in the 20th Century, including the Nazi’s propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, and the preening Hermann Göring, the man Hitler chose as his successor.

Maclean. Handsome Son spent two summers fighting fires in Quebec, Ontario and north of Fort McMurray. He told me about the day he stepped onto a mossy piece of ground, saw fire running across his boot and knew it was time to get out of there.

“Never story,” I urged him.

On Aug. 5, 1949, a crew of 15 from the United States Forest Service’s airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, parachuted into a mountainous area in Montana. Two hours, three were still left.

Maclean pieces together what happened in the Mann Gulch tragedy. It’s a wonderful piece of real life detective work. and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston. He had to decide if he was going to cut off his own right hand, or die pinned to canyon wall by an 800-pound boulder. He wrote a book about what happened, so you can guess his decision.