When Teddy Roosevelt went to the Amazon
Every week, The Thread checks in with booksellers around the country about their favorite books of the moment. This week, we spoke with Jinny Amundson, one of the owners of Old Fox Books in Annapolis, Md.
Jinny Amundson loves "that great armchair adventure type of novel."
And it's even better when the story is true.
That's the case with her latest recommendation: Candice Millard's "The River of Doubt."
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It offers a nonfiction account of Theodore Roosevelt's trip through the Amazon. He took up the task after he lost the election, and after he was shot — "when he was looking for another adventure."
Amundson said the book captures all of the things the expedition did wrong and all of the dangers they faced. "The journey that he took — even now, there is no way that I would have ever done what he did."
At points, it seemed like the trip might be Roosevelt's last. "They thought they were going to die. There was a point where Teddy Roosevelt, as wonderful and fantastic as he is with this take-charge-Rough Riders attitude, even he was sort of beaten by the Amazon and the river."
Millard is "a ridiculously good writer," Amundson said. "The way she's able to make it a travelogue as well as talking about the ecology, the geography, the actual cultures — you get a bit of anthropology as well — and weave it all together with a biography of Teddy Roosevelt.
"There's something very beautiful about being able to do that."