FArTHER is the story of a father who dreams of flying. However, when he goes to war and does not return, his son attempts to finish where he left off and makes his dream come true. Winner of the 2012 Greenaway award, this truly is an inspirational story showing how any dream can be fulfilled with love and motivation. David wrote about weather as well as anyone who ever put words on paper, and he loved his dogs more purely than he loved anything or anyone else, but nature itself didn't interest him, and he was utterly indifferent to birds. Once, when we were driving near Stinson Beach, in California, I'd stopped to give him a telescope view of a long-billed curlew, a species whose magnificence is to my mind self-evident and revelatory. He looked through the scope for two seconds before turning away with patent boredom. "Yeah," he said with his particular tone of hollow politeness, "it's pretty." In the summer before he died, sitting with him on his patio while he smoked cigarettes, I couldn't keep my eyes off the hummingbirds around his house and was saddened that he could, and while he was taking his heavily medicated afternoon naps I was learning the birds of Ecuador for an upcoming trip, and I understood the difference between his unmanageable misery and my manageable discontents to be that I could escape myself in the joy of birds and he could not." (pp. 37-38)

I particularly enjoyed Franzen's rants on literary interviews, then grammar (read it to get the in joke). Whatever the topic Franzen writes with enjoyable fluid prose that prevented me from putting the book down (OK figure of speech, closing the kindle on my laptop) In "I Just Called to Say I Love You," Franzen beautifully captured the societal damage being caused by cellphones. He also draws the issue close to home, describing how his relationship with his late parents may have coloured his view of cellphones.It was fascinating to learn through the authors words and quotations extracted from Cook's logs the experiences that both the explorers such as Cook and the many indigenous populations experienced as they encountered one another. When a father who dreams of flying goes off to war and doesn’t return, his son decides to make his dream come true. Grahame’s moving story, with stunning illustrations, shows how, with love and a bit of ambition, you can reach seemingly impossible goals. This is a picture book for children of ages 8 and upwards. Although it doesn’t contain a lot of text, the words are beautifully woven into the pictures using different fonts and text sizes. The pictures themselves are intricate and detailed images put together in a unique way using photographs and illustration which in themselves tell a story. I found myself asking questions about the images and even making up a little more of the story in my head. He is also the co-author of the mega-million selling Killing books, the bestselling non-fiction series in history: Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus, Killing Patton, Killing Reagan, Killing England, Killing the Rising Sun, Killing the SS, Killing Crazy Horse, Killing the Mob, and the upcoming Killing the Killers. A genius has ways of manifesting his boredom, often with displays of cruelty. Franzen tells an interesting anecdote about Wallace signing copies of his novels to Franzen:

Jonathan Franzen is a man of specific interests: birds and books. These essays are about various bird watching trips, and specific plays or novels that normal people have never heard of. Still, Cook is a fascinating individual. The son of a pigslop, he enlisted in the Royal Navy at seventeen as a young man with no experience and no connections. Through application and ability, he rose to the rank of post-captain and became something of a media superstar. Through it all, he was a family man who rarely saw his family, a Sailor who pined for home but, when at home, found himself pining for the sea. On his voyages, of which there were three major ones with him in command, he began as an admirer of the Pacific cultures he discovered. His admiration grew into fascination, such that some in the Admiralty began to fear he'd "gone native." By the time of his last voyage, however, he'd begun to believe his own legend and started brutalizing both his own men and any islanders who defied him. There are some good essays in this collection, but I think I already read them all on the internet already, and then there are just like A BILLION OF JONATHAN FRANZEN'S THOUGHTS ABOUT BIRDS. Rarely, if ever, have I read a history book as compelling and as human as 'Farther Than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook'.The second essay of note is on autobiographical fiction and contains an interesting and informative insight into Mr. Franzen's working methods. The book is worth reading for this essay alone, especially if you're a writer or interested in the art of writing. It must have been hard for Cook. I know how I am. I'll take the admiration without the effort. The minute I actually have to earn admiration from someone, then I feel it's over. You should admire me *more* because of my effort. My ego is unbearable. Cook wanted to be a legend. He wanted to be in the history books. Yet his third voyage at the height of his fame was disastrous. Here is a man with all the pressure hanging over his head thinking he's returning to greatness while the world itself has been in constant change. There's a moment where, after resorting to brutality finally, he is invited to a grand feast. It was actually a plot to kill him and his men which didn't pan out. He was oblivious to the danger. It’s sad to see the idealistic, professional, ambitious, and adventurous Cook of the first voyage degenerate into the sloppy and unpleasantly cruel Cook of the third, the one whose arrogance got him killed. The transformation of Cook’s character that led to his death gives this book a touch of Greek tragedy, and turns it into a morality tale proving the point that power corrupts. Hello Yellow - 80 Books to Help Children Nurture Good Mental Health and Support With Anxiety and Wellbeing -

Some essays left me scratching my head. For instance, the essay about how he finds it “oppressive and grating” when people end cell phone conversations in public spaces by saying “I love you.” Unless the book has been, in some way, for the writer, an adventure into the unknown; unless the writer has set himself or herself a personal problem not easily solved; unless the finished book represents the surmounting of some great resistance—it’s not worth reading. Or, for the writer, in my opinion, worth writing."Franzen brings up Wallace's lying and betrayals. This too was a humiliating aspect of my friendship with a genius. Many's the time I waited for him to show up to our little "writer's group" only to have him not. Something else came along. Or he forgot. Or, later on, he started drinking. The lying, not so much perhaps, but, perhaps more because of the drinking than anything else, it too came up. Dismaying! One of the most ruthlessly intellectually and emotionally honest people I've ever known would resort to lying and cheap excuse-mongering. His girlfriends suffered far more than I did from these things, but it was still dismaying. The self I felt myself to be that day was a self I recognized only because I’d longed for it for so long. I met, in myself, on my first day in New York City, the person I wanted to become." Overall, I couldn't connect with Franzen's writing style. His prose is usually devoid of emotion and sentimentality. Even in 'formal' writing, I prefer a bit of heart and a sense of nostalgia to come across in essays and speeches. At times, I felt like a crusty English teacher, urging her student to make me feel why saving endangered bird species or whatever other cause is meaningful. If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings, I say, 'I'm still waiting to hear what your point is."

The author provides a comprehensive view of the man and the challenge and very adequately provides the reader insight to an incredible figure in history. The novel itself was written 1924-25, a couple of years after the giddy expectations of 1922 had probably burned off. It's interesting he chose to set the novel in that particular year. Following the 90s analogy, it would be like someone writing a novel in early 2000s about the year 1999 - in the same sort of cultural era, but with a darker, more sober mood.An easy to read explorer/adventure story with just the right level of detail for me - I learned lots of things about Cook that I didn't know (that I probably should've known, given the hero worship of him in NZ) but the story wasn't bogged down with excessive detail.