High - A Journey Across the Himalaya through Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal, and China (Erika Fatland, 2023)

 (570 pages)

Author took a journey through the areas mentioned in the title; it was divided into two segments, each lasting months.

I like travel books - they give a feel for geography and history told against a story line of things the traveler is encountering, difficulties along the way, etc.

These areas are generally unfamiliar to me. As she moves east, even less familiar.  Lots of visits to Buddhist temples (after starting more with Hindu-Muslim mix, mostly Hindu, then Hindu-Buddhist mix).

Discussions of India-China borderlands are interesting, also India-Pakistan - fraught areas, as is well-known. Kashmir.

Discussions of Chinese control in these areas - after some intermittent resistance, now it's mostly well-controlled.  Social media monitored more closely than in modern-day Great Britain! In the short "acknowledgements" section at the end of the book the author mentions the risks that folks took in speaking with her, including on dangerous topics; she obscured their names and locations in the telling. This atmosphere won't be changing anytime soon.

Lots of Chinese tourists in various areas - as the country has gotten wealthier, they are on the move.

Some of the areas are incredibly obscure.  Shamans with lots of power.  Menstruating women sent off to a hut for days; poor conditions, unhealthy to the point of causing some deaths.  Changing, but many still stuck with this.

Dealing with altitude. She visits Mt. Everest base camp, an interesting perspective from a person not attempting the summit.

Pretty amazing to imagine throughout; I don't foresee visiting any of these places; so it's nice to at least get an armchair experience.

Gates of Fire (The Battle of Thermopylae) (Steven Pressfield, 1998)

(384 pages)

Greek survivor at Thermopylae is asked by Xerxes, seeking understanding about the courage of the Spartans, to tell the story of the battle as he understood it.  A Persian historian records the tale.

A good job of moving back and forth in time. Weaving in early childhood experiences of the survivor (and his sister), his incorporation into Spartan ways.

I wasn't as interested in the battle sequences though no doubt they are rendered effectively.

This kind of fighting - no drones; no gunfire from a distance.  

Descriptions of the Spartan training.  Their superiority. Selection of the 300; their known fate.

I appreciated that the author typically presented the Persians, even their auxiliaries, as courageous fighters. 

Ending phases of the book are remarkably good.  The speeches of King Leonidas and others on the final morning of the battle. The type of brotherhood of these men in arms; echoes of similar stories from wars throughout history; very effective. A relationship unlike any other.

This is an idealized presentation of Sparta as I understand things - though that's OK, the focus here is military matters and it seems Sparta very much excelled there.

Courage of the Spartan women is presented, an interesting angle that I hadn't previously seen; how their support mattered.

Good discussions of courage and fear; "there are rooms we must not enter" - courage doesn't mean absence of fear.

Well worth reading.