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My Journey to the Top of the World

7/23/2022

Title: My Journey to the Top of the World
Author: Saray Khumalo
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Reviewer: Nancy Richards
There was a point at which I could relate to Saray Khumalo’s story. It’s when, on an early climbing expedition, she wonders why she is doing this. Half way up a precipitous slope on day one of my first ever hike, I wondered the same thing. I also understood what she meant when she said she regretted packing a solid fruit cake for a friend’s birthday when they reached the top.

On my trip, a fellow hiker carried not only a pot of proving dough to cook later on the fire, but a wooden bread board on which to slice the finished loaf. (If you’ve never hiked with a backpack, the folly of this will be lost on you, but just think weight.) For Saray, on her Journey to The Top of the World, there was no opportunity for doubts, regrets or to turn back, but the learning curve for both her, and this reader, was steep, sheer and breath taking, literally.
At the end of her book she lists some of the lessons she learnt ‘along the way’. How clear is the view from hindsight! But I learned something on pretty much every page, starting with the Prologue. A serious head injury, a broken limb, plastic surgery and a coma filled with hallucinations following a biking accident need not deter you from running a marathon within three months. Nor from cancelling any plans for climbing Everest. Sorry if this is a spoiler – but it is on page 1.
In the first few chapters she whistles through childhood in Zambia and Zaire, a strong start on a career path, through marriage and motherhood. The nub of the book however, is not about climbing corporate ladders, but mountains. ‘When I returned from Kilimanjaro, I knew that this was just the start of my mountaineering journey’. Her sights were set on the Seven Summits, the highest mountains in each of the seven continents. A straightforward goal – but like litter on Everest, the path was strewn with obstacles. Amongst the big ones, coma apart, were avalanche, earthquake and frost bite. But I’ll leave you to read the nightmare details of those for yourself.
Among the more minutely shared lessons I learned were that: ‘Sherpa’ is not a job but a Tibetan tribe and that members are traditionally named after the day of the week on which they’re born. That they are not necessarily all docile beings who accompany down-padded and dogged, high-profile, high-income internationals uncomplainingly up dizzy and dangerous heights. They have rights, feelings and foibles too and should not be underestimated, nor undermined. That there is such a profession as an ice-doctor, and that climbers should heed their wisdom closely. That egos, and raw personality traits, tend to ‘come out to play’ on mountains and that the vitality of even the most super-fit, machine of a climber is vulnerable to what an unpredictable mountain might mete out. That ‘lama’ simply means monk and their blessings are to be valued. That the blue, white, yellow, red and green colours of Tibetan prayer flags represent sky, air, earth, fire and water – and that the elements, like climate and temperature, are also to be respected.
That if you wear a K-Way jacket on a mountain, you mark yourself as South African. That sponsors are not just altruists, they expect much of you – and if you are as committed as Saray is, you expect much of yourself – and what you are able to achieve for others as well as your own goals.
Although I learned a great deal more about the precarious world of ascents and descents, peaks and pitfalls, let me just say finally I discovered that third time is not always lucky and that as the first black woman to summit Everest, the hurdles Saray faced were way many more than the obvious. Very finally an invaluable lesson, I think, for anyone on a journey worth undertaking is the imperative to write down your thoughts and feelings as you go, like Saray must have done, because as with childbirth you will surely otherwise forget.

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Goodnight Golda

7/14/2022

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Author: Batya Bricker
Illustrations: Ilana Stein
Reviewer: Miriam Schiff
This book was written to give girls and young women perspective of all the things they can aspire to be, be it scientist, doctor, politician, teacher, fashionista, freedom fighter, mother, business or a role that hasn't been invented yet.

It features characters from biblical times to today – women who had pluck, who swam against the current, who wanted to save others from suffering or right political wrongs. All these women searched for and found something special only they could give to the world. It wasn’t easy or comfortable or without heartache, but they did it anyway.
The book is laid out with each woman and an illustration on two pages and is written in language that will appeal to preteen children, much like a storyteller would do.
There are chapters on so many strong-willed women. To name a few: Golda Meir, first woman Prime Minister of Israel (hence the title Goodnight Golda); Vera Cooper Rubin, American astrophysicist who discovered dark matter in space; Helen Suzman, the only woman in the South African Parliament fighting for the rights and justice a of all South Africans; Hedy Lamarr, film star and inventor – eventually known as the Mother of WiFi. Gertrude Elion, Nobel prizewinner for Medicine who started out as a biochemist working in a factory testing the sourness of pickles and went on to develop drugs for leukaemia including one that makes transplant surgery possible today.
Amazing and inspirational and, while all these women were Jewish, their stories are a testament to achievement, no matter where you come from or what your faith.

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One Step Too Far

7/14/2022

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Author: Lisa Gardner
Publisher: Century
Reviewer: Beryl Eichenberger
Missing persons – we hear about them every day -so many and so few return alive. Missing in so many situations; walking down the road, at a mall or on a hiking expedition. Mysteries - , many that are never solved and try as they might, hard pressed authorities are understaffed to take on the mammoth task of searching. When someone goes missing in the mountains very often it is up to volunteer search parties to take up the slack. I am full of respect for those who tackle the mighty outdoors, as a hiker or as a rescuer. Hunting for answers is never an easy task.

‘ My name is Frankie Elkin and finding missing people is what I do. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never bothered to care, I start looking. For no money, no recognition, and most of the time, no help.’ This is the protagonist of Lisa Gardner’s new novel ‘One step too far’ and we are about to embark on a journey of terrifying reality.
Frankie, middle aged white woman, recovering alcoholic, loner, has once again earmarked a missing person and she’s making plans to join the search team. She has a talent for finding missing persons – it makes her put one step in front of the other on any given day. Her success rate is impressive (even if they were mostly bodies) but it is her empathy for the families of these people that spurs her to search ‘cold’ cases.
Timothy O’ Day is one such case. Five years since he was lost in the mountains after his bachelor party camping trip. There is no closure in this case and his father and three of his friends who were with him on the fateful night , Scott, Neil and Miguel, are once again heading to the mountains for yet another annual foray. With canine searcher Daisy, her handler Luciana, local expert Nemeth and volunteer Bigfoot Bob, dad Martin O’Day has gathered an experienced team for this final search. And the very inexperienced Frankie joins it. The resulting journey is well – hang on to your hat - chilling, visceral and gut-wrenching.
It is clear that Gardner is a seasoned hiker. I learnt an enormous amount about safety measures, what you pack, how to stay alive, rules of the hiking fraternity and so much more – it makes for fascinating reading and Gardner is a clever guide. Opening preparations alert Frankie as to the emotional undercurrents of the party but all seems fairly stable as Nemeth sets out on the path. This is a gruelling hike as we move into the mountains of the Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming to a fictional destination - Devil’s Canyon. And the key is in the devil … I walked with them, felt their fears, held my breath and wept with the frustrating failures. Suffice to say Gardner has produced an unpredictable page turner which will most certainly have your nails bitten down to the quick.
When nature’s agenda for protecting its own comes up against human manipulation the battle begins. Step by excruciating step the secrets of the mountain are revealed and, as the hunters face one setback after another, when food goes missing, ugly screams are heard at night and no seeming answers they slowly realise that they have become the prey and the game is on…

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Children of Sugarcane

7/4/2022

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Author: Joanne Joseph
Publisher: Jonathan Ball
Reviewer: Nancy Richards
‘If only’ is what I thought after reading Joanne Joseph’s Children of Sugarcane (Jonathan Ball). If only all young women could be so courageous as to take charge of their own destiny, against all odds and in the face of so much social and familial pressure. If only all young women could be so determined to gain as much knowledge and learning as they could. If only they could have so much self-belief, self-insight. compassion for and

understanding of others. If only – and this was the big one - they could express themselves and their beliefs so articulately and with such passion as Shanti. Shanti is the young woman, the protagonist of this book who at the tender age of fourteen makes the decision, in order to avoid a forced and arranged marriage, to sail from the Madras Presidency in India to Port Natal in South Africa to become an indentured labourer in the British-owned sugarcane plantations. A reminder, she was fourteen years old. She was alone. And this was 1916. Imagine! Just imagine, apart from anything else, the interminable sea voyage shared with the hope, struggling and suffering of a shipful of others.
There is a speech, a full page long, that Shanti gives towards the end of the book, that is nothing short of sizzling. To an unsympathetic, largely hostile audience, she delivers a heartfelt and impassioned cry, a demand for justice, rights and understanding (and all this in English, not her mother tongue), that had me punching the air in her honour. If only, I thought, all young women could find the words to express themselves so powerfully and clearly.
To my mind, Joanne Joseph’s book epitomises power and passion. It seems to me that the passion she had for writing this story – a collective of so many people’s narratives, and one that for her was triggered by an internet image she found of her maternal great-grandmother, was what led her to undergo a total immersion into the ‘rabbit-holes’ of her family’s history as well as the deep waters of specialist academics who have written extensively on Indian indenture in the 19th century. In turn the passion gave her the power to piece together this layered story in way that makes it so accessible. It also enabled her to breathe power and passion into Shanti making her both impressive and inspirational. If only young women, then and now, could have half as much confidence and clout. If ever I were looking for a speech writer Joanne Joseph would be top of my list.

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My Journey to the Top of the World

Goodnight Golda

One Step Too Far

Children of Sugarcane

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