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See allA great mix of historical accuracy and an imagining of specifics that history can't know for sure about the unutterably tragic story of the Donner Party
The best and most interesting part of this book is that it takes the most normal, ordinary situations and makes disaster look...inevitable.
About a man pushed to his absolute limit, and a boy who learns from his father how to deal with that. Who learns that violence and secrets are okay and even natural.
The writer does a great job of conveying our main character, Paul, as someone we think is open-minded or “woke” at first, while harbouring a terrible secret. And only the story and events told in his own voice, made to sound understandable or even normal, reveals to us, bit by bit, how not normal, how incomprehensible, some of his actions are. His voice, increasingly paranoid and mean-spirited, takes us on a journey into his mind and heart.
Well worth listening to, as well. This book does very well in audio format.
I don't know why I set this one down for so long. An excellent account of flawed men, doing the unthinkable, in the pursuit of money, at the expense of the environment around them. But, of course, they (mostly) didn't regard that.
Honestly, I wanted this book to be more structural/ idea-spawning rather than inspirational.
I'm glad that Ryder got a lot out of his organizational method. I do not expect to find the meaning of life in a notebook that I keep. I expect it to reflect my life, in whatever way is best for me. That's it. I found the rest of the claims pretentious.