This is an amazing book. Its a travel book, to be sure, but there are no posh hotels or restaurants for Hansen on this trip. It took him 7 months to make this nearly 1500 mile journey, and I hate spoilers so I'm not going to say any more, but this was a great read! Hansen's style is humorous and sensitive.
While thi is definitely a permanent collection title, I'm seriously considering making a ring if there's sufficient interest.

Received in the mail today. Can't wait to read it. This will be a US/Canada bookring when I'm finished. Thanks, deenbat!

This is going out as an international bookring. Here is the lineup:

EMA375 - CA
morpha - OR
mlbish - IL
pammykn - FL
KristaMD - MD
Ebumu - NY
cartref - UK
billhookbabe - uk
Ilios - FL
deenbat - NH

Thanks for participating!

6/16: Received today. I'm finishing up another bookring and then this is next in line. Thx!

6/21: What a remarkable story and couragous journey Hansen encountered. I love travel books and this hit the spot for me. Thank you for sharing this book!

6/23: Sending off to the next person on the list.

Just arrived! This is one of my favorite kinds of books. Can't wait!
Thanks to goygirl and EMA375!

The ultimate sort of escapism this is, both the reading and the writing. Hansen pushed himself to the limits of physical and mental breakdown in order to more fully experience the environment and cultures of backcountry Borneo. Fabulous!

On to mlbish next.

Caught! (Finally.) Wow this one has been traveling for quite a while. I think my mailman must take a lot of days off because I certainly get mail in spurts. This one came today with several others.

Finished last night.

I thought this book was great! I am really getting into travel books, a genre I would have never expected to like. I recently read Heart of the Amazon by Yossi Ginsberg too, but I thought this book was much much better. I liked the narrator (author) and I really enjoyed his writing style. His descriptions of the rainforest and its residents were really great. Just the right balance of gross, serious, and funny too! I loved the anecdotes about how the rainforest people thought making fun of the white guy was so hilarious.

I was disappointed that the pictures at the beginning of each chapter did not have captions. Sometimes they correllated with the chapter topic, but they didn't always seem to, and I would have liked a little more information about the photos and the people in them. I also felt that I would have benefited from a little more detailed map. I had a terrible time keeping all the places straight and remembering where he'd been, etc. I just stopped trying after a while. It would have been nice to have a few more maps to help me keep track of what was going on.

Thanks very much for sharing, goygirrl. I'm sorry for holding onto this one so long. I have pammykn's address all ready to go and I will mail it immediately.

Received today -- looking forward to reading!

Thanks for sharing this book. Fascinating travel/adventure book...somewhere and something I know I will only read about. I will be looking for other books by Hansen. I was saddened by the epilogue to know that some of this unique rainforest had been destroyed. Sending out to KristaMD (Ilios asked to be skipped for now).

The book arrived today. Thanks to all who helped it along its way! I'll write an update when I start reading it.

I'm keeping a record of daily quotations as I read the book. Each morning, I scan the page where I stopped reading the day before, searching for imagery, insight, humor, or even just a clever phrase.

November 11, 2004
"The storytelling helped me remain optimistic during this first walk in the jungle. If I could fall asleep laughing, I would be fine for the next day. I could do without a map, but a sense of humor was essential."
page 74

November 12, 2004
"We might laugh at the notion of plastic tea sets in the jungle, but it is a time-honored ritual for Western travelers to collect preindustrial artifacts to use as home decorations. A woven rattan sago mat on a living room wall creates a lifestyle image with that ethnic touch. Possession of primitive artifacts suggests worldly knowledge, just as in the highland communities of Borneo an electronic wristwatch that plays "Happy Birthday" is the mark of a great traveler. Funny thing how travel can narrow the mind."
page 147

November 14, 2004
"One of the difficulties of my trip was this continual saying goodbye to friends. I was never in one place long enough to enjoy a sustained friendship, and I found that frustrating. I would meet someone I liked, and within a day we could be great friends. The next day I might be gone. But there were some obvious advantages to this situation. This knowledge that I would soon be leaving intensified the quality of the relationships. I wouldn't waste my time with people who didn't interest me or who were a drain on my energy. It was a valuable lesson."
page 246

I really enjoyed this insightful exploration of a vanishing culture. Hansen's open mind and his willingness to humble himself make him a most likeable narrator for the trip of a lifetime: a 2400 mile walk through the deepest jungle of Borneo.

I read and liked Shooting the Boh, set during a raft trip in Borneo, a while ago. I enjoyed this book perhaps even more because Hansen took the time to meet native people and learn about their lifestyles. His journey was one of self-discovery, too, as he highlighted the different mindsets between his American counterparts and the people of Borneo. In his travels and interactions with people, Hansen discovers the ways in which a simple life lived close to family and nature can be superior to our fast-paced, money and status-obsessed Western existence. Thanks for the chance to read this book. It will be traveling to its next reader soon!

The book arrived in today's mail. Thanks, I'm looking forward to reading it!

Nice book. It reads very well, and I really appreciated the author's adaptibility and his participation in the local culture. It's hard to believe that he was able do as well as he did given his sketchy preparation for the trip. I felt the author was foolish, trusting, brave, and very very lucky. It sounds like he has a winning way with people, since that's what got him through most sticky situations.

I was frustrated by the lack of photo captions on the chapter headings too, but found them after I was done reading. Future readers can find them on the 2nd page of the book, before the Contents, Map, and Prologue. I wished there were more photos.

I love this kind of full immersion travel book. It reminded me of Shaman's Apprentice by Mark Plotkin, and One River by Wade Davis, both of which I also recommend (both authors are ethnobotanists, so there is more of a purpose to their journeys). Thank you for sharing it, deenbat. I'll send it on as soon as I receive an address for cartref.

Nov 30--Mailed today by global priority, which turned out to be cheaper than first class by about $2. So cartref should have it within a week!

Edited belatedly to add that the Earth Island Institute runs a cultural and environmental conservation project with the Penan peoples in Borneo:

http://www.earthisland.org/borneo/index.html

recievied the book by post today from Ebumu, many thanks. A few pages of my present book I am reading to finish, then straight into this one, looking forward to it. :)

Really enjoyed this book, the descriptions made me feel as if I was in the jungle leeches and all. The way the culture of the people was described was great. For me the whole journey Eric took throught the jungel, was an adventure in learning as he went along, a book I will remember.

Released on Monday, December 13, 2004 at about 1:00:00 PM BX time (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) at controlled release in Derby, England United Kingdom.

RELEASE NOTES:

release to Billhookbabe, who is next in the bookring, enjoy.

I have it at last, and now it will journey through my bookring mountain, hopefully to be read by the end of January. Thanks for sharing.

I can also give this book another thumbs up. I think Hansen made the whole journey fascinating by describing not only the amazing but also the mundane. Everythind down to going to the toilet, sometimes missed by others to spare feelings. I loved also the descriptions of the jungle and the spirituality of the people who live within it. I think Hansen did learn a lot and respected these people by the time he left.

I was only disappointed on one account, that he never found out what happened to his friend who was arrested and carted off. He didn't stick around for long enough as he feared getting arrested, but I thought he might have found out later. Maybe he tried and couldn't, but he didn't give this impression.

Well, as soon as I have the addy I will send on to Ilios

Just a note from a Stranger in the Forest bookring alumna. I've just read Motoring with Mohammed, also by Eric Hansen, and I really enjoyed it and can recommend it to those of you who enjoy travel writing. Although this time Hansen's not in the rainforest, Yemen turns out to be just as exotic--almost everything about the culture there came as a surprise to me. (I borrowed the book from the library, so you won't find an entry for it on my shelf)

Ebumu's entry prompts me to add that I have a copy of Motoring With Mohammed available on my shelf if anyone is interested...

Just got this book yesterday, as I came back from classes. It might take me a while to get to this. I received pretty bad news from home yesterday and I am still shaken. Thank you so much for sharing this.

Update 6/15/05
I finally started this book last night. I apologize again for the delay. I expect to be done with it in two weeks or so. The introduction, with the author recalling his early encounters with wild animals in the back yard of his childhood, was absolutely endearing. I can relate! I used to have a imaginary friend living in my yard when I was a child. :o)

I notice that I am the last person on this ring, so I don't feel too bad. I'll contact deenbat today, to speed things up a bit, so that when I am ready to mail this, I already have an address.

I finally finished this book this morning. It was a wonderful account of Hansen's time in the rainforest of Borneo. I agree with all the commetaries made previously by other BXers, so I am not going to repeat those. I will comment however one thing that caught my attention throughout the book: Hansen's vulnerability.

The author was honest enough to show how unprepared he was, and brave enough to talk about his fears and the dangers he was exposed to due to his lack of preparation or dismissal of other people's advice. Hansen doesn't depict himself as a hero, and this makes the book even more interesting and vivid.

The passages on ethnobotany and the usage of plants by the different people in the forest was fascinating, especially the complex management of sago throughout great expanses of forest land. After having learned so much about those Penan traditions, the epilogue was really depressing. Having lived in Brazil for half of my adult life, where another rainforest and its people are in jeopardy, it was sad to see that those problems are global.

Thank you so much for sharing this!

RELEASE NOTES:

This book completed its ring successfully and is now going back home to deenbat.

and safely home again!! thanks to all who participated, especially goygirrl for her original efforts.
and to the kindly reader who donated the mylar protective cover, thank you!! your effort is much appreciated.