The River of Doubt

If you think the prominently placed mustache on the cover of the book is a sign of good things to come, you're right. Millard's nonfiction book gives a riveting account of Teddy Roosevelt's daring journey down a previously unexplored river in the Amazon jungle. After a crushing defeat as a third party candidate in the presidential elections, Roosevelt was feeling down and decided an adventure was in order. What was originally meant to be a simple cruise through some well known but exotic Brazilian rivers snowballed into a full-fledged expedition, co-headed by Candido Rondon, Brazil's most famous explorer, to map a 400 mile long river that eventually empties into the Amazon River. Along the way, the expedition was beset by poor planning, piranhas, French poetry, and murder. Roosevelt nearly died on the river, and the toll the journey took on his health is thought to have contributed to his relatively early death several years later at the age of sixty.

This is an ideal summer book--it reads like an adventure novel and is packed with fascinating information about the people, history, geography, and insects involved. Millard doesn't mess around when it comes to her research, either. According to the book's endnotes, as part of her preparation for the book, Millard traveled to the Brazilian rainforest herself to interview a reclusive tribe that the expedition probably encountered. The information she gleaned from her research is woven nicely into the main narrative, offering useful tidbits at just the right moments. After reading this book, I had a full arsenal of anecdotes and trivia that would be ideal to share at a dinner party, if I went to dinner parties, or ever left my house. This book is suspenseful, riveting, and well researched.