(only because I visited Vice-Admiral William Bligh's grave last Saturday - I hadn't intended to but his grave is in the garden of London's Garden Museum next to the Tradescant family tomb)
I'm slogging away at The Wild Places by Robert McFarlane ( London, 2007 ) and not particularly enjoying the process.
McFarlane took it upon himself to find and travel to the most remote places in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. So, off we go to Ynys Enlli, Rannoch Moor, the Coruisk Basin, County Clare's Burren, the Aran Isles, Ben Hope, Sandwood Bay, Sharpnose Point and Bin Chuanna— among other places. I was at the Burren two years ago and can attest to its rugged terrain and the fascinating long, straight-as-an-arrow lines along which limestone cleaves. It IS difficult walking! The night I spent on Inishmore in the "Man of Aran" cottage was fascinating. That was as dark and as quiet a place as I've ever been. It was, in fact, so quiet that I could hear my heart beat ( it doesn't get any quieter than that— and, believe me, I've been in some quiet places ).
Maps, man! Maps! For god's sake, you cannot expect to hold the attention of readers unfamiliar with these locales without maps. Also, a plate or two would help a lot.
An interesting look at a fascinating man and writer. He truly lived to the full and experienced life for all its pain, pleasure, sorrow and joy. Excellent reading.
I'm just ninety pages into Robert G. Kaiser's So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and The Corrosion of American Government.
The book focuses on the transformation of The District of Confusion ( a/k/a Cancer On The Potomac ) from a sleepy backwater ("A city of Northern charm and Southern efficiency") where limited, necessary government functions were accomplished by collegial consensus to today's urban hellhole largely populated by sleazeballs.
Kaiser accomplishes the task by following the career of one Gerald Cassidy, a graduate of the school of hard knocks who begins life as a bleeding-heart liberal attorney for migrant workers in Florida and ends up a slimeball with a net worth of $100 million through influence peddling and manipulating the spending of taxpayer money. If you want to understand why the U.S. is well on the way to bankruptcy, this is a book which explains the process of how and why the richest nation the world has ever seen self-destructed.
Just started Song of Ice and Fire: A Clash of Kings,, by George R.R. Martin. It's the second of a series of four (hopefully, soon to be five). They're classified as fantasy, I think, but although they're set in an alternate reality, the only thing "fantasy" about them is a rebirth of dragons.
Highly recommended for those who enjoy tales of court intrigue and politics.