The Sun is a Compass and Rough Magic: Two Recent Memoirs for an Armchair Adventure

Rough Magic: Riding the World's Loneliest Horse Race
Lara Prior-Palmer’s debut memoir of competing in the Mongol Derby, the “world’s longest, toughest horse race”, emerging as its youngest and first-ever female winner.

At 19, Lara Prior-Palmer was in between. Bright and restless, she reads about the Mongol Derby, the “world’s longest, toughest horse race” and decides to enter, hopeful but not convinced she will be able to even finish. It takes some work to raise the money to go and to get a spot, but she does. An equestrian of many years, Lara still isn’t prepared for the physical and mental challenges of this race. Many of her competitors have tried several times and are much older and more seasoned. Lara doesn’t strike me as someone who accepts her limits or is dissuaded from a challenge. Her memoir shares her take on the race.

If you aren’t into horse racing or endurance events, you can still love this book. Prior-Palmer may be impulsive with her choices and her language, but she is vital and magnetic and determined. I couldn’t look up from the pages of this intensely woven and fascinating adventure replete with larger than life competitors and characters.

The Sun Is a Compass: A 4,000-Mile Journey into the Alaskan Wilds
Caroline Van Hemert writes about the 4,000 mile human powered trek she and her husband took from the Pacific rain forest to the Alaskan Arctic.

Caroline Van Hemert, an ornithologist in grad school, writes about her 4,000 mile trek from the Pacific Rain Forest to the Alaskan Arctic, completed with her husband, and completed without an engine. She hikes, skis, kayaks, canoes, rafts, rows and snow shoes, chasing her love of scientific discovery, nature, and adventure. She experiences nature as the birds she studies experience it, fully immersed and detached from the world she grew up in. In these experiences, Van Hemert comes to terms with loss, sickness, family, her future. Beautifully written, informative, personal, and gripping, The Sun is a Compass is for any of us–people who love nature, hiking, survival stories, and those of us just looking at what is next and what we want to love again.

And so, in these unique times of quarantine when a solo walk is my current adventure, join me and Caroline and Lara for an escape. Let the Alaskan snow clump on your eyelashes, let the Mongolian sandy wind sting your cheeks, and imagine that adventure you will take when we all can return to the world.