This month I want to offer my recommendations on five early authors who shaped my fascination with places and times. My personal writings include historical adventures and thrillers; all crafted to take my readers to places they may never visit and into time periods and intrigues that molded a nation and its people. Like earlier authors, my stories glorify no superheroes, just ordinary women and men, often just kids who overcame enormous odds. Three of the authors are American and one British and one British Canadian. I say thanks and cherish their work.
James Fenimore Cooper was an author of the early 1800’s whose stories of early colonial life and adventure virtually created the genre of adventure fiction in America.
Favorite book…The Last Of The Mohicans
Robert Service was a British born Canadian whose stories of the north country at the turn of the 20th century presented the “frozen north’ of Alaska and the Yukon as real places teaming with scoundrels and everyday heroes, where the weather and wildlife became antagonists.
Favorite book…The Trail of ‘98
Ernest Hemingway was originally from Illinois but traveled the world looking for stories and adventures from the 1930s through the 1960s. His personal struggles always found a way into characters you care about.
Favorite book…The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest K Gann was an American who wrote of his two passions, aviation and sailing, taking his audience around the world, where life depended on the ability to deal with what broke or with pirates or bitter enemies. His settings were unique in that the story might be set in the middle of the Pacific during a typhoon or 25,000 feet in the air.
Favorite book…Fate is the Hunter
Patrick O’Brian was a British author who wrote of unique co-protagonists, one a Navy commander and the other a scientist and their adventures across the world and in mortal combat. He humanized leadership and elevated the lowest ratings on a ship to heroes. His unique pairing of seamanship and science were often critical to overcoming overwhelming odds.
Favorite book…Master and Commander
From Cooper I learned of early America and how people, indigenous and white pulled together. From Service I carried a childhood fascination of the north to a life in Alaska. Hemingway took me to war in Spain, fishing in Cuba, and on safari in Africa. Gann helped spike my fascination and lifetime involvement with aviation and exotic ports. O’Brian taught me about teamwork and persistence in the face of what might have been insurmountable challenges.
Note: Every book noted above became a major motion picture.