A review by mollyringle
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz

5.0

This took me a long time to read, as nonfiction tends to for me, but I'm glad I did. Horwitz is an engaging writer, and I learned quite a bit about the Pacific lands Cook visited (many South Pacific islands, New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii, and the Aleutian Islands, to name several of them), as well as about Cook himself and the astonishing journeys he made. I appreciated Horwitz's unflinching honesty in discussing the ambiguity of how to view Cook these days--unwelcome disease-bringing invader or underappreciated explorer, or possibly both?--as well as the current state of these various lands, which Horwitz visits and explores in whimsical low-key fashion (low-key compared to Cook's expedition, that is), and he reports truthfully upon what he finds, good, bad, ugly, or lovely. And incidentally, I hope that in future travel-related writing, he always gets to bring his friend Roger along, because Roger makes for some great comic relief.