My knowledge of the Amazon Basin is limited to what I know of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, also known as Fitzcarraldo, an opera-loving fortune hunter who dreamt of building an opera house in the Peruvian rainforest, after I watched the movie Fitzcarraldo.
All this changed when I discovered "Komm zurück weisser Bruder" in the Salvos op-shop. I simply had to give it a new home since it was the original German edition which had been meticulously preserved since its publication in 1962, clearly by someone as fond of books as I am.
I had never heard of Theodor Koch-Grünberg whose sudden death in Brazil in 1924 was fictionalised in the 2015 film "El abrazo de la serpiente" (Embrace of the Serpent). It's the kind of book I will take to "Melbourne" to read by the light of a flickering kerosene lantern, far away from all the depressing news of earthquakes, wars, pestilence, and the seemingly never-ending fall of the value of my BHP shares.
I was so pleased having found this book that I bought someone a meal to square the books, so to speak. You can do the same by clicking here.
P.S. If you, too, feel troubled by the constant bombardment with it, you may wish to read Alain de Botton's excellent user's manual "The News".
