Stanley and Livingstone

Victorian newspapers thrilled their readers with tales of explorers finding the sources of tropical rivers, discovering unknown species of birds and lost tribes. Often as not the famous explorers eventually disappeared themselves, which is what happened to African explorer, Dr. David Livingstone. When Henry Morton Stanley set off to find him in the spring of 1871, Livingstone hadn't been heard from for six years. Stanley found him on November 10th, uttering the famous words "Dr. Livingstone, I presume," or so it was reported in the New York Herald. The Herald paid Stanley's expenses and the story sold a lot of papers. Livingstone had survived pneumonia, exhaustion, disorientation, kidnapping, theft and extreme conditions. At one point the natives confined him in a roped enclosure where he begged passersby for food. Though Stanley found him, he couldn't make him leave. Livingstone died in central Africa two years later, of malaria and an advanced case of dysentery. He was 60. Stanley and Livingstone both appear in A Book of Ages, as do Hernando De Soto, Hernan Cortez, Robert Falcon Scott, Christopher Columbus, Captain Cook, Roald Amundsen who discovered the South Pole and Christopher Robin Milne who discovered the North Pole in a memorable expedition described in one of his father's books.

Father's Day

Is it too early to talk about Father's Day? I don't think so. Men buy their wives Mother's Day presents the afternoon of the day before; women are more organized and probably bought the father of their children a gift in the post-Christmas sales. So, I am counting on the kids.

Kids? Fathers love books. Biographies are great. Military biographies even better. Sports biographies, excellent choice. Political biography?

It's getting hard to choose isn't it? Which do you go for? The safest idea might be to spread your bets out a little. Cover the board. Buy Dad A BOOK OF AGES. It's got sports heroes, famous generals, film stars, chefs, cowboys and Indians, bank robbers, mountain climbers, spy novelists and real spies, rock stars, business tycoons, famous explorers, presidents, philosophers, inventors, scientists, heroes and arch-villains.

And A BOOK OF AGES is fun to read. Men love facts, and every page is jammed full of interesting facts, funny stories, amazing moments from over 700 amazing lives. Bite sized paragraphs. Dad will start reading them aloud to you: "Did you know that Ted Williams homered in his last time up?" "Did you know that George Washington didn't win a battle until he was 44?" "Did you know that Pete Townshend broke his first guitar onstage when he was 19?" (All true.)

And I know you will act as if you are interested when he does this because dads are at their most lovable when they are dispensing bite sized bits of wisdom. They are happiest when they are doing this. He will love this book. And you will refrain from rolling your eyes when he is reading from it, at least until you have left the room.

But seriously, it is a perfect gift. Suitable for grandfathers too.