Best books I read in 2008 Part 5 Numbers 5-1

5. Rome 1960 by David Maraniss. Dave tackles the cold war, Jim Crow, the coming of TV to the sports world, plus some bigger than life characters like Mohammed Ali (in his Cassius Clay days) and Wilma Rudolf, in the context of the 1960 Olympics. If that sounds like an almost impossible task, it is, even for Maraniss. There are some great stories and portraits, but in the end, this is not as strong as his other sports books like Clemente or When Pride Still Mattered. Any one of the story lines would have made a compelling book; all of them together was too much.

4. Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Round the World, by Charles Darwin. Otherwise known as the Voyage of the Beagle. This wasn’t my first reading, but I found new things to fascinate me. Despite his ability to see the world of rocks, plants and animals in new and creative ways, Darwin was profoundly conservative and Anglo-centric in his social awareness. Time and again he judges the natives harshly from the narrow viewpoint of an English gentleman. The Fuegans, the Maori, even the Tahitians are described by Darwin in almost subhuman terms born of racial prejudice and social arrogance. Ironically, many of his harshest judgments are rendered from the certainty of his Christian faith

3. Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future, by Jeff Goodell. Despite what Barack may have said during the campaign, there’s no such thing as clean coal. Goodell proves it. If you want to argue against coal at your next cocktail party or family gathering, read this book first.

2. Before the Dawn, by Nicholas Wade. The NY Times science writer traces the family tree of everyone whose ancestors come from anywhere in the world except Africa to 150 individuals who crossed the Red Sea and just kept spreading. The rest is history – or at least anthropology.

1. The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, by Candice Millard. Forget the politics; this is Roosevelt at his most human and vulnerable. His last great (and nearly fatal) adventure. His loving and ultimately toxic relationship with his son. And, in Roosevelt’s shadow, Millard just lightly sketches in one of the greatest environmental and social heroes of Brazil or any country - Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon, who ordered his soldiers not to fire at hostile Indians even when they were shooting poison arrows at them. Here’s what the Washington Post had to say:

Just try to imagine it: George W. Bush loses re-election by a landslide and, undeterred by the humiliation of it all, sets off on a journey of unspeakable danger and hardship into the darkest depths of the Amazon jungle.

Hard to imagine. But it’s hard to imagine as you read The River of Doubt, that Roosevelt did such a thing less than 100 years ago and even harder to imagine how the world has changed in those years since he did.