Joan's Picks: Go as a River and Wanderlust

Go as a River by Shelly Read 

This begins in the late 1940’s, set in Colorado in a town called Iola, in Colorado, where young Torie lives with three very difficult men (her father, brother and uncle who was disabled in WW2) after her mother was killed in a car accident when she was 12. It was immediately assumed that she’d take over all the household duties and she spends the next several years cooking and cleaning and helping out on the family’s peach farm. One day, when taking a load of peaches into the town she has a chance encounter with a Native American man which changes her life irrevocably - with bigotry being alive and well in that era, her options are few and far between. It’s the first novel by this author and is being compared a lot to Where the Crawdads Sing. 

  

Wanderlust by Reid Mitenbuler 

Extraordinary nonfiction about a larger than life great bear of a man named Peter Freuchen who was a Dane who spent 20 years living in Greenland and embarked on a series of Polar explorations – getting into some sticky situations from which you can scarcely believe he managed to extricate himself. With an extraordinary appetite for life and an eclectic CV to go with it, he explored the Canadian wilderness, spent time in Hollywood as a screenwriter and producer, won a major game show, met the President and married several times. I’ve attached the front cover image of the book as it’s so remarkable - the photo was taken by the legendary photographer Irving Penn of Freuchen and his third wife and sums him up quite well I think! 

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