This non-fiction book covers some of the major episodes in the author\u2019s life – his time as a mail pilot between France and the front lines of the African continent, his adventures exploring South America by plane, a flight from Paris to Saigon that ended with a crash and subsequent rescue, and his firsthand look at the Spanish Civil War. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The book is written with gusto – there is a lot of talk about what makes a life worth living, what makes a man a man, and some very romantic views of humanity and civilization. These are coupled with the stories of adventure, and his love affair with the Sahara desert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I enjoyed reading about his adventures, especially the descriptions of the places in between roads – places accessible only by plane. You can tell that he was enjoying immensely the life he was leading. Sometimes the book got a little overly philosophical for me, and a little technical in describing his flights and the operation of the aircraft of that age. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since it was written back in the 1920\u2019s he doesn\u2019t seem like someone who would be much of a feminist. There are also little bits of racism now and then, but you must expect to have to put up with these to get such a detailed glimpse into that adventurous age of exploration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next I am reading The Morningside by Tea Obreht.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This non-fiction book covers some of the major episodes in the author\u2019s life – his time as a mail pilot between France and the front lines of the African continent, his adventures exploring South America by plane, a flight from Paris to Saigon that ended with a crash and subsequent rescue, and his firsthand look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-3673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOpl7-Xf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}