Books like The Ends of the Earth — picked by fans

When I want to be astonished by the fierce and tender realities of the natural world—which is pretty much always—I read the late poet Mary Oliver. These are immersive essays by a writer who infused the very act of observation with a sacred energy—in her own words, “attention is the beginning of devotion.”

The essays are alive with animal life and soar with Oliver’s signature, forthright voice. In one essay, she rescues an injured gull. In another, she forages the eggs of a snapping turtle for dinner. Oliver humbly witnesses and partakes of the mystery and turns companionably to her reader with stirring questions: “Do you think there is anything not attached by its unbreakable cord to everything else?”

Wiman writes about human suffering, pain, poetry, and faith, subjects that do not often and ordinarily coalesce. He is familiar with and eloquent about the mutability of belief, about knowledge, and contingency. “Experience lives in the transitions,” he states. If there is a sense of urgency in his thinking here, there is also a sense of lightness, nuance, conjecture, and intimacy too, all of which are suited to the gravity of his subjects.

A series of poetry lectures not intended for publication, they combine to form an astounding journey into language and art. You don’t need to be a poet to love the casual way she delivers bomb after bomb, and to wish you’d been her student. I guess this is as close as I’ll get, and it’s taken a long time (I’m still not done) because I can just sit on a phrase or a page for an entire subway ride. Definitely would have failed her class, but having the lectures written out is like getting an extension without needing to grovel for it.

Because of the way she writes about the past and the way she writes about the present. Because she is at once straightforward and lyrical. Because she writes about places and people with the same acuity and insight. Because she writes with certainty about ambiguity.

This is one of my favorite books ever. Horwitz’s project was to follow famous travelers, and Blue Latitudes follows Captain Cook on a voyage that Cook himself characterized as having gone “farther than any other man has been before.” (Trekkies take note: Cook/Kirk, “farther than any other man has been before”/”boldly go where no man has been before.” Who knew?) 

Star Trek aside, Horwitz, accompanied by his hard-drinking sidekick Roger, boldly goes where Cook went, exploring history, culture, and the legacies of European colonialism on their way. In between bouts of laughter, we learn a lot about the South Pacific, then and now, and about Cook and his men themselves—not to speak of Horwitz and Roger. It’s a rollicking voyage through time and space that holds your attention throughout.

This book is the first in the Jaded Trilogy. It’s set in New Zealand during the 1970s. It’s a twisty plot (which I particularly love) and there are Russian spies.

NZ in the ’70s (mid-Cold War) when nothing was as it seemed and everyone had an agenda, whether it was stealing a painting, growing and distributing weed, or counter surveillance on a Russian diplomat. And things overlapped as they do in New Zealand.

This is a fun exciting book. It reminded me of what the world was like before phones became computers back when everything was analog. As a writer of spy/PI thrillers, it was a great read. (I’m a fan, I’ve read all of Nick Spill’s work including his non-fiction.)

Samuel Manaiakalani Kamakau (1815–1876) was one of the most important and prolific Hawaiian scholars of the nineteenth century. His history of the ruling chiefs of Hawai‘i begins with the high chief ʻUmi, eight generations before Kamehameha I, who established the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1795, and continues to the death of Kamehameha III in 1854. Ruling Chiefs, published in 1961, was translated from Hawaiian newspaper articles that appeared in the 1860s and 1870s. The stories include Captain James Cook’s arrival in 1776, the coming of Western missionaries, and the changes that followed. All of the writings of Kamakau are highly recommended, including The People of Old, The Works of the People of Old, and The Tales and Traditions of the People of Old.

I was fortunate to view two Venus transits, and this book made me realize how certain astronomical events have had enormous social impacts. There are many such examples of adventure, elation, and disappointment in this book, but the one that I found most fascinating is the 1769 transit of Venus, which was the main reason for the British voyage to the Southern Hemisphere. This historical event had major repercussions for Australian Indigenous people due to British colonisation. 

I particularly enjoyed referring to the many colorful images and maps as I read. The stunning painting of Fort Venus, set up for Lieutenant James Cook and astronomer Charles Green’s observations, led me to recently visit the same site, now called ‘Point Venus’, in Tahiti.

From the title of this book about "so-called Australia," it’s clear that we are going to hear a deeply subversive account of the politics and history of that country from an Aboriginal perspective.

In addition to providing a powerful critique of colonial narratives about white settler "discovery" that remain dominant in Australian public culture, the authors curate a rich archive of Aboriginal disruption of those narratives.

These have taken the form of not only statue protests of the kind that we have seen in other parts of the world, but also art, music, films, mock ethnographic documentaries, counter-memorials, and more. The book shows how another history of the continent has always been narrated, even if settler audiences have lacked the literacy necessary to understand it.  

We are accustomed to thinking of ourselves as a species mentally superior to all others. This view was challenged in the 19th century with the discovery in Europe of the Neanderthals, an extinct large-brained human-like species. Our superiority seemed to be restored by evidence that Neanderthal extinction followed the arrival in Europe of seemingly dominant Homo sapiens from Africa. Accumulating archaeological and genetic evidence is changing that comfortable picture. Another large-brained but extinct human-like species, the Denisovans, are now also known to have existed in widespread regions of Russia, Asia, and Oceania. Not only were these archaic species technologically and culturally on a par with sapiens, but they also mated occasionally with each other and with our own species. Many people throughout the world carry genetic material from them, and these have contributed to our own regional adaptations. This book challenges our view of ourselves, and implies greater affinity and… show more.