I really like to read non-fiction. I really like to read non-fiction, usually the more disaster-based the better (Krakatoa, the Black Death, the Dust Bowl...). I think the last fiction book I read was O Pioneers by Willa Cather, which was only because I read it for the first time last summer and loved it so much that it needed revisiting. So many fiction books are so disappointing; then, not only have you invested time, but you haven't learned anything. Maybe I'm picking up the wrong non-fiction books? Recently I re-read 1491, and while the dangers that lay in the "New World" were not the focus of the book, my mind wandered to how long I could have survived in the pre-Columbian Americas. Bears, cougars, poisonous snakes, plants you don't recognize, people whose language you can't speak and whose customs are unknown to you, deserts, etc. Maybe three days? The challenges that the Native Americans faced and overcame as they adapted the world to suit them are spectacular, although they had 30,000 years, give or take. You know, Gilligan's Island was in syndication when I was a child, and they survived for at least three years that island, so you just never know.
And so here a lady, unprepared for the jungle, though this isn't a hostile jungle in the least.
I highly recommend reading both of these books if you haven't already.
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