Nice little travel story about going over the North part of Alaska from N.Y. to get to Siberia and Japan and China in 1931. I like the way she writes. ( )

I was interested in reading this since I have lived close to Little Falls, MN in the past. I was wondering how much you could write about flying over frozen snowy ground for such a long ways, however I found it informative in lovely entertaining way. I also could never imagine truly how scary and dangerous the Lindbergh's trip was.

North to the Orient is a 1935 book by the American writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh. It is the account of the 1931 flight by her and her husband, Charles Lindbergh, from the United States to Japan and China, by the northern route over Canada, Alaska, and Siberia. It also documented their volunteering flights as relief efforts for the infamous Central China flood of 1931. Tingmissartoq was the name given to a Lockheed Model 8 Sirius the Lindbergh's flew on the trip

NORTH TO THE ORIENT, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

I found this book at the local second-hand shop, the only 'bookstore' in town. It's the original 1935 hardback edition, albeit the 9th printing, and in surprisingly good condition, from a time when book makers took pride in their work - thick paper, tight binding. The story itself is pretty straightforward, presenting Anne's memories and impressions from a long over-the-top-of-the-world flight she made with her famous husband, from late July through September of 1931. They took off from our East Coast, flying from Long Island to D.C., then up to the family home in Maine. From there across the frozen wastes of northern Canada and Alaska to the Kamchatka (in Siberia) and down to Japan and over to China. Anne documents her early anxiety about being the flight 'radio-man,' struggling with her still-new knowledge of radios, radio procedure, and Morse code, and trying to stay in touch with far-flung remote stations in places like Point Barrow, Nome, and fog-bound, mountainous northern Japan. She admits being terrified more than once during the flight. But the bulk of her narrative is about the people she meets - the Anglican Parson and the Catholic Priest in Baker Lake (Canada) who don't speak to each other in the tiny community of barely a few dozen souls. The Russians in tiny Karaginski village, exclaiming over the photos of Anne's baby. Anne's story is an intimately human story. She is always more interested in the people she meets and interacts with than she is in the technical parts of the flight or even its perhaps history-making significance. She is a gifted writer, and brings these people in isolated primitive places vividly to life.

The trip Lindbergh describes here happened barely six months before their baby was kidnapped and murdered, a case which made headlines around the world. The book was not published until 1935, yet there is no mention anywhere of their personal tragedy. The book was a bestseller however, going through multiple printings, partially, I suspect, because of that notorious case and a public hunger for more information about the Lindberghs. Anne Morrow Lindbergh was obviously not interested in feeding that hunger, only in recording her memories - good ones - of that perilous yet obviously rewarding air voyage she made with her husband in a happier time. Eighty years later, this is still a lovely and entertaining read. ( )

Loved this book:

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/recent-reads-north-to-th... ( )