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Bonfire Night! I won't pretend to get all the nuances of Guy Fawkes Day, having lived in England for only one of them, but I love my annual chance to use this icon. *waves to all her UK friends*
Speaking of fire, I'm reading/listening to The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America, by Timothy Egan, the surprisingly thrilling and subtextually homoerotic history of the founding of the United States Forest Service.
I know, right? But the friendship between Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot was passionate and deep, and founded on a love of the American West that gave rise to the very concept of conservationism in the US. (I've lived near the Gifford Pinchot National Forest most of my life, and didn't know until this week that Gifford Pinchot was just, this guy, you know?)
Egan uses a devastating forest fire that burned much of northern Idaho and Montana in 1910, as the linchpin of his story--it's the kind of book that starts with a vivid and horrifying description of the approach of a disaster--the titular fire--then goes back in time and traces the threads that led up to that disaster and its importance as "the fire that saved America". I still don't know whether the town survived!
[ETA:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nwhepcat has been there! It lives! Wallace, Idaho.]
The audiobook is read by Roberston Dean, whom I know nothing about except that he has a deep, rich, James-Earl-Jones-ish voice that's wonderful to listen to.
Highly recommended.
Speaking of fire, I'm reading/listening to The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America, by Timothy Egan, the surprisingly thrilling and subtextually homoerotic history of the founding of the United States Forest Service.
I know, right? But the friendship between Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot was passionate and deep, and founded on a love of the American West that gave rise to the very concept of conservationism in the US. (I've lived near the Gifford Pinchot National Forest most of my life, and didn't know until this week that Gifford Pinchot was just, this guy, you know?)
Egan uses a devastating forest fire that burned much of northern Idaho and Montana in 1910, as the linchpin of his story--it's the kind of book that starts with a vivid and horrifying description of the approach of a disaster--the titular fire--then goes back in time and traces the threads that led up to that disaster and its importance as "the fire that saved America". I still don't know whether the town survived!
[ETA:
nwhepcat has been there! It lives! Wallace, Idaho.]The audiobook is read by Roberston Dean, whom I know nothing about except that he has a deep, rich, James-Earl-Jones-ish voice that's wonderful to listen to.
Highly recommended.
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