Zack @ Bellevue Archive.

The Hansa family's wagon moved across the Dakota prairie like a small boat on the sea. Per Hansa looked across an ocean of rolling grass and his spirit filled with possibilities; here he could build something great for himself, for his family, and for generations to come. His wife Beret looked over the endless plain and choked back tears of sadness; they couldn't possibly be stopping here. She knew something bad would happen if they did. Days later Per and his sons sank their plowshare into the black Dakota soil.

O.E. Rölvaag's novel Giants in the Earth is a sobering look at life on the American frontier. He takes us out to the Hansas' fields during the 18 hour work days of summer and into their sod hut in the depths of the Dakota winter. The isolation of living out on the wide plains, days away from the nearest town, years away from their homeland, weighed heavily on Beret. Empathizing with the Hansas' unrelenting struggle for survival is a frightening departure from more romanticized depictions of pioneer life.

Rölvaag wrote Giants in the Earth so that the people of Norway would know what their relatives undertook settling in the American Midwest. He also left Americans a moving testimony to the hard work, innovation and endurance required for nineteenth century life on the plains of the Dakota Territory.

While many of his Brown University classmates were leaving to study abroad in Europe, Kevin Roose was packing his bags for Lynchburg, Virginia.  An agnostic who lied about his religious beliefs on his application, Roose was studying for a semester at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University bible school. For the next few months he would follow "The Liberty Way", the school's forty-six page code of conduct that prohibits watching R-rated movies, drinking, smoking, cursing, gambling, dancing, and anything beyond holding hands. When his History of Life exam read "True or False: Noah's Ark was large enough to carry various kinds of dinosaurs", he answered True.  During spring break he preached the gospel in Daytona Beach bars, on Friday nights he attended bible study, and on Sunday mornings he sang on national television in the front row of Falwell's church choir. He was undercover at what Falwell called "Bible Boot Camp", hoping to connect with his evangelical peers.

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University is not an attack on the many friends Roose met during his semester; rather it's an attempt to understand a culture that was completely foreign to him. The kindness of the students and faculty helped him feel at home at Liberty, and it was interesting to see how the author's own beliefs changed during his evangelical immersion. His attempt to bridge the God Divide in our country is a welcome break from the shrill voices on our radios and televisions.

I was wine tasting recently, and the people pouring described the wine to us in fantastic detail. The Pinot Noir tasted of spiced strawberries and black cherries, the Chardonnay was barreled in 50% new oak with a citrusy dryness at the front of the tongue, etc. I didn't know what they were talking about, but I enjoyed the experience enough to try and learn more about wine. My first (and so far only) step has been to read the book Winewise: Your Complete Guide to Understanding, Selecting, and Enjoying Wine.

WineWise is a great first step.  It describes the different wine varieties as well as the different regions in the world where they are created. There is an introduction to pairing wines with the right food, season and occasion. And in one of my favorite sections the authors choose their "best bargain" wines at different price levels, and the levels aren't painfully high (under $12 and under $20). Wine has recently surpassed beer and spirits as the alcoholic beverage of choice in the United States; this book has a great deal of information and a refreshing lack of pretense for beginners learning more about it.

The 1889 Paris World's Fair with its new Eiffel Tower so stunned the world that the United States immediately decided to outdo them. The leaders of Chicago banded together and the city won the right to host our 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Chicago had a handful of months to construct around 200 new buildings and a surrounding park and populate them with exhibits from around the world. Our nation's pride was on the line, and they hadn't yet selected a site within Chicago to build the expo.

While America's greatest architects were designing the fair's famous "White City", just down the road Dr. H. H. Holmes was creating his own castle-like dream building. Inside he connected gas pipes to a soundproof, windowless room that could be locked from the outside. He filled its huge cellar with a quick lime pit and a furnace that reached 3000 degrees Fahrenheit among other things. He later confessed, "I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than a poet can help the inspiration to sing."

Erik Larson's history The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America introduces us to Daniel Burnham, one of the many geniuses who created the World's Fair, and Herman Webster Mudgett, aka Dr. H. H. Holmes, a sociopathic killer roaming the streets of Chicago. Larson writes a fascinating and frightening story surrounding Mudgett, but it's a testament to his research and writing that I was more interested in Burnham and the amazing accomplishments of those who created the fair.

Jimmy Luntz had a white tuxedo, a gambling problem and a sizable debt; Gambol was there to collect the debt. Things weren't looking good for Luntz on their drive north, but that changed quickly once Luntz shot Gambol in the leg, stole his Cadillac and left him by the side of the road. Considering the people Gambol knew, Luntz's situation now looked downright bad.

Anita Desilvera liked alcohol and bad men who hated themselves. Luntz said hey there at the Ramada lounge and she said, "Very suave. You silver-tongued devil." Anita drank and sang karaoke for hours and was the hit of the evening, in her opinion. "Thank you very much, I love this town!" she said many times, making up lyrics and melodies. The waitress said she needed a pill, but Luntz disagreed. "Man," he said, "she breaks your heart."
 
The characters in Denis Johnson's novel Nobody Move are racing for a stolen $2.3 million dollars, and it's clear that none of them deserve it. Johnson creates a break-neck paced, ricocheting plot that threatens anything entering the book's pages. He also has an affection for lowlifes and a wealth of talent, which keep the tension and our interest high until the final page.

Kate Atkinson's novel When Will There Be Good News? has one of the most brutal and frightening beginnings that I've read. A mother and her three small children are picnicking in the country when a man attacks with a carving knife. Six-year-old Joanna escapes into a tall wheat field, but she is the only survivor.

Thirty years later Joanna, a successful doctor and the mother of a little boy, is told her family's killer is being released from prison. A few days later Joanna and her son disappear. This is one of many gripping plot lines, including a train crash and a case of missing identity. But Atkinson's real subject is loss. Is it truly possible to get over losing someone you love? Will a person give in to their loss, or will they struggle to move forward?

Before reading When Will There Be Good News? you might want to reread its title. Amid murders and train wrecks you could ask yourself the same question. But Atkinson focuses on survivors and the good they create in their lives rather than the evil created by her villains. It's a literary page-turner and a book whose survivors are as interesting as the events that surround them.

Yukio Mishima's novel The Sound of Waves takes place on the small Japanese fishing island of Uta-Jima. The island is so small that when Shinji first glimpsed Hatsue moving boats on the beach at twilight he knew she was from somewhere else. The boy stopped and studied her face without saying a word. She continued looking out to sea, though her eyes narrowed. Later Shinji would blush at his own rudeness.

Shinji is a fisherman and poor, and Hatsue recently returned from another island where she trained to be a pearl diver. Hatsue is also the daughter of Uta-Jima's wealthiest businessman, and her father intends her to marry Yasuo, a rich but corrupted young man. Shinji and Hatsue fall in love, but they must contend with her father and Yasuo as well as the jealousies and gossip of their neighbors.

The Sound of Waves values the earnestness of rural Japanese life over the sophistication of the Western world. Mishima's two heroes are innocent, but they also share a straight-forward good sense. His writing is simple, spare and beautiful. Mishima turns what might be cliché in another writer's hands into a gorgeous story about humility.

Gary Paulson never chose to run the Iditarod; the decision was made for him, gradually, over many days and nights in the northern Minnesota woods. He spent those days and nights running his sled dogs, and the more he understood them the more he felt connected to the natural world around him. The separateness of him from his dogs, his dogs from the wolves, and the wolves from the rest of the world began to disappear.  He writes, "...The beauty of the woods, the incredible joy of it is too alluring to be ignored, and I could not stand to be away from it - indeed, still can't - and so I ran dogs simply to run dogs; to be in and part of the forest, the woods."

Paulson's book Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod is his chronicle of racing in the eleven hundred and eighty mile sled dog race in Alaska. The Iditarod was especially dangerous for someone with Paulson's limited experience. His first summer he knew so little about training for the race that he tied his dogs to a rusty old bicycle, jumped on and set off down the road. He managed to keep the bike on two wheels until a rabbit crossed the road and the dogs chased it through the woods for miles. In Alaska he and his dogs were blown off a mountain, saved by his snow hook catching on the rock face. He endured moose attacks and dogfights, sleep deprivation, hallucinations, frostbite and many, many skunks.

What makes Winterdance unforgettable is learning why Paulson did run the race. I have never seen frozen waterfalls in Alaska's interior or watched the sun rise in a golden blaze across the Bering Sea. Paulson's book gives us a greater sense of nature's importance.

Hugo Baskerville was so cruel and his death so strange that a legend spread across the Devon moors: the Baskerville family would always be cursed, pursued by a black spectral hound. But when Sir Charles Baskerville was found dead outside his ancestral home hundreds of years later, Sherlock Holmes was more interested in the facts of the case than a family curse. Sir Charles went out to enjoy a cigar and an evening walk, but he never returned. His footprints showed he had lingered at a gate leading out to the moors, then tiptoed to the end of an enclosure. His butler found him dead, his face horribly distorted. Near his body were the footprints of a gigantic hound.

Dr. Watson travels to Baskerville Hall to investigate Sir Charles' death and report his findings to Holmes, who is involved in another case. Watson is an observant narrator, but he's also a little slow connecting the facts of the case. This enjoyable narrative device allows us to try and solve the case right along with Watson as he meets the suspects.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories about Sherlock Holmes, but it was a rare case such as this where Holmes admitted his opponent might be his equal. An escaped madman and the possibility of a real beast roaming the moors add to the danger surrounding Baskerville Hall. It all helps make The Hound of the Baskervilles one of Doyle's best.

George Plimpton wrote his stunning article about Hayden "Sidd" Finch in an April 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated, a few days before baseball's opening day. Finch, a sensitive Harvard dropout, had recently returned from Tibet where he'd lived as a trapas, or aspirant monk. He owned some clothes, a shepherd's crook, a baseball glove, and a French horn. He stood on the pitcher's mound for his spring tryout with the New York Mets wearing one hiking boot and shouted "Namas-te!" (Sanskrit for "Greetings!"). The gathered players and coaches were skeptical. But when the gawky Finch fired a 168 miles-per-hour fastball, the only sound heard across that Florida baseball diamond was the catcher's bleat of pain.

The Mets were desperate to sign Finch to a major league contract, but it would be difficult. How do you entice someone to play major league baseball who has no interest in money or fame? And Finch had many interests beyond pitching. He was a serious musician who loved to play his French horn in his bath and at the window. He played beautifully. By far the Mets' biggest difficulty in signing Finch was that Finch wasn't real. George Plimpton made him up, and Sports Illustrated ran the story as a joke for their April 1st issue.

Plimpton's article is reprinted in Sports Illustrated Baseball: Four Decades of Sports Illustrated's Finest Writing on America's Favorite Pastime. SI has long produced some of the best sports journalism, and their articles often pass over from great sports writing to great writing. Frank Deford, Robert Creamer, Steve Wulf and others contribute articles to this collection that's less about baseball than the people who play it and those of us who love it.