January 2017 - First encounters

January brings to mind firsts, and it seems like a good time to read about first encounters or first contact between cultures. There are lots of books, both fiction and nonfiction, about European contact with the indigenous peoples of the New World. However, this theme isn't limited to discovery and exploration of the New World. Any first encounter/contact between cultures will work.

Some suggestions to get you started:

Fiction
The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami
Black Robe by Brian Moore
Malinche by Laura Esquivel

Nonfiction
A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World by Tony Horwitz
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz
The Journals of Captain Cook
1493 by Charles C. Mann
Big Chief Elizabeth by Giles Milton
The Race for Timbuktu by Frank T. Kryza

I plan to read Black Robe by Brian Moore.

I will read Roanoke by Angela Elwell Hunt. I have long been fascinated by the lost colony.

I'm hoping to participate more next year, as I have lots of historical fiction piling up on my shelves and Kindle. For January, I will plan to read Malinche, but only if I can find it among the many boxes of books that will be coming out of storage as we get settled in our new home. Otherwise, I see that Judy's choice, Roanoke, is available for free on Kindle, so I will use that as my back-up.

I read an interesting NF book about the Roanoke Colony several years ago - Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony. The writing is its biggest drawback. The author has a quirky writing style filled with sentence fragments. I don't mind that so much in Louise Penny's novels, but it seems out of place in nonfiction.

I'm currently planning on The Journals of Lewis and Clark, which seems to be about the only "first encounters" I can find in "history" books I've already got that will qualify for ROOTs. I may, though, also reread Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow and Children of God, sci-fi which I haven't read since they were first published back in the late 90s and which I also have available for ROOTing.

I've also got Fenimore Cooper's "Leatherstocking" tales in Library of America, but I'm not sure those are really "first encounters."

>6 CurrerBell: I think the Leatherstocking tales would fit the spirit of this theme. They're frontier tales, and cultural clashes occurred regularly as the frontier moved West.

Also hoping to participate more next year - I think I will read Big Chief Elizabeth.

>6 CurrerBell: I enjoyed the Lewis & Clark when I read it a few years ago. That seems like a good choice, as do all your other suggestions, actually. I adore The Sparrow.

I didn't even think of The Sparrow as an option - I might do that one instead...

Decision at Doona by Anne McCaffrey, involves a first-contact theme with an alien race. I read it years ago and enjoyed it.

>6 CurrerBell: I'll be curious what you think of Sparrow. I also read it a few decades ago; I had mixed feelings about it, but its been a while...

>1 cbl_tn: Tony Horwitz is one of my favorite historical writers. Both of the books you mention are outstanding; the Cook book in particular gave a different sort of history to the captain that I hadn't realized. Well worth reading.

I had a look at my shelves and found it hard to come up with something that fit. The closest I came is with The Vikings and their Enemies: Warfare in Northern Europe, 750-1100. Definite culture clash there but does it fit the theme?

>13 Familyhistorian: Viking exploration of North America would be a better fit, but I think this still fits. It may not be about the actual first contact between these people groups, but it's about the period when the balance of power shifted.

Thanks Carrie. I think I will read the Viking book as I want to read something from my shelves.

Hi Carrie, I'll join the monthly themes in 2017 and read 1493 by Charles C. Mann in January.
It's been on my wishlist for a while now and this is good opportunity to finally get to it.

>16 Trifolia: Wonderful! That's a great choice!

I'm currently in the middle of the very long Shogun. I think it will work for this!

I dipped into The Vikings and Their Enemies: Warfare in Northern Europe 750-1100. It is going to be good but won't fit in with this month's theme. Instead I plan to read Scotland Farewell: The People of the Hector.

>19 Familyhistorian: Scotland Farewell sounds really interesting. I can't wait to see what you think of it!

James Fenimore Cooper: The Leatherstocking Tales I; The Pioneers, The Last of the Mohicans, The Prairie (Library of America)

Next up will probably be the LoA edition of Melville's Typee, Omoo, Mardi and then I'll decide if I want to (and have time to) go on to the second LoA of Leatherstocking. LoAs are doorstoppers.

My "First Encounters" book. Roanoke by Angela E. Hunt was fairly interesting and I thought her story of what happened to the colony was quite plausible.

I wanted to read something from my shelves for this challenge but it was difficult to find something that would fit as a first encounter. Scotland Farewell: The People of the Hector is not about the first people to come to Nova Scotia as there were settlers there when the Hector arrived in Nova Scotia. It is a good thing that the Americans from the Betsey were there to help the Hector passengers as it is doubtful if many of them would have survived without assistance.

It was a first encounter with Nova Scotia for the Scots who had no idea of the forested land they would have to deal with. It was also the Mi'kmaq's first encounter with the 'men in skirts' and they were probably right to be wary of them.

I am not sure why I waited so long to read this story of the Scots coming to Nova Scotia. It was an interesting account and helpful for my research in the area.

I read Big Chief Elizabeth: How England's Adventurers Gambled and Won the New World by Giles Milton. This was a really interesting and very readable work of narrative non-fiction about the early English settlements in the New World (Roanoke and Jamestown). I knew very little about these early settlements (in fact I had never heard of Roanoke, the lost colony) and found this really interesting. The key word in the title is 'gamble' - it's hard to believe how we eventually managed to make a successful colony (Jamestown) with so little understanding of what the New World was like. And voyages by ship were still so dangerous and unpredictable at that time - on several occasions colonists arrived in the New World without any provisions due to lost ships. And we behaved terribly towards the Native Americans as often as we could.

I find myself drawn to stories of immigrants to the United States since my grandparents and other close relatives arrived here as immigrants. My read for January, therefore, was Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. I enjoyed this tale of Eilis, a young woman from Ireland, coming to the United States, specifically Brooklyn, in the early 1950s. Good story that kept my interest. A twist in the novel brings out even more strongly the differences to Eilis between her life in the United States and her life in Ireland. I also want to recommend the recent movie made from this book, which stayed true to the story and which I also enjoyed quite a bit.

I didn't manage to get anything read for this theme... I hope to do better in February!

>25 cbfiske: - I loved Brooklyn - both the book and film!

I've finished the complete two-volume Library of America edition of Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales (five novels in all) along with an abridged edition of The Journals of Lewis and Clark (this latter quite tedious because of repetitive hunting and river-navigation narrative and not enough discussion of Indian ethnography). Additionally, I finished Typee and Omoo from the Library of America edition of Herman Melville: Typee, Omoo, Mardi, both of which were quite enjoyable (and a lot more humorous than Moby Dick). I plan on reading Mardi so that I'll finish the entire volume for the Big Fat Book and the ROOTing challenges, but I'm probably not going to get it finished for at least a couple weeks yet. Actually, I finished Lewis & Clark this afternoon (Feb 1), but most of it was read during January so I'm going to include it in the January RTT.

I did end up reading Black Robe. It covers some of the same ground as The Orenda, and I think The Orenda is the better book of the two.

I read Roanoke by Angela Elwell Hunt and White Seed: The Untold Story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, Paul Clayton, which both covered the same territory.

I enjoyed both of these books about the lost colony of Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina. The Hunt book was written from a Christian perspective, which I thought resulted in a story that was more accurate for that event at that time in history. The Clayton book did not paint the picture quite as well, but provided different viewpoints as to the possibilities of what happened.

Both of these books were faithful to the dates, people and events which had been recorded. From the list of passengers, each author fashioned stories for their major characters. Hunt’s Thomas was a minister of the gospel. I thought this character was the weakest part of her story, with the workings of his mind too repetitious, and I thought, unlikely. Clayton’s Thomas was an indentured servant, turned soldier, and seemed more believable. Clayton’s minister did not.

Both faithfully rendered the setting of Roanoke Island and the beginning of the settlement there, as Governor White has described it well upon his return to England to procure more supplies. The story of his trials in trying to get ships to return, of Raleigh’s unhelpfulness, of the queen’s denial of ships due to the increase in aggression of Spanish ships in the waters, and English ships needed for protection and combat. Of the false starts when the captains of the ships he finally received continually broke off their course to chase Spanish ships for treasure. Of his frustration in not being able to get back to the settlers - one his daughter, one his new granddaughter born on Roanoke just before he had to leave. Both of the author’s tellings of these events rang true.

Their imaginings differed greatly about what might have occurred on the island between White’s leaving and finally being able to return years later. Although he was able to debark to the island, his search there yielded no colonists. Because of the weather, White was not able to be taken to the mainland, and was returned to England never knowing what may have become of his people.

Though I had some quibbles with both, the possibilities made for fascinating reads, both of them, though the Hunt book was overall better than the Clayton book.