Compulsively Aimless

12/ A Crayon by Any Other Name. When is a Crayon? in the late 1800s and into the early 1900s when crayon companies were experimenting with chalk and wax there was some confusion as to what was a “crayon.” sometimes colored chalk, was called a crayon, and sometimes colored wax sticks were called crayons. The packaging on the boxes reflected the confusion, specifying either wax crayons or chalk crayons. In time, wax crayons were simply crayons and chalk crayons were simply chalk. Read about this and other stories in my book, Color Capital of the World: Growing Up with the a legacy of Color Crayons. Available from the University of Akron Press , independent book stores or the big book sellers.

My fascination with Central Asia led me to discover the first of several women adventurers. Not only did these women persevere under the harshest of conditions they had to do so in male dominated environments hostile to women.  I have three books by Ella Maillart, born in 1903 in Geneva, Switzerland who was a star athlete competing in the 1924 Olympics as the only female sailor and an international skier. Her occupation is listed in Who's Who as explorer . Turkestan Solo – One Woman's Expedition from the Tien Shan to the Kizil Kum. Maillart details her 1932 trip through the Soviet Union from Moscow to the Central Asian regions of Kyrghizstan and Uzbekistan , shortly before Stalin's Great Terror . The trip required six months of determination during which she encountered food shortages and secret police but she manages to find the world's most delicious melons in Charjew. She completes her adventure with the feeling the life of the nomad is the best life. First publis...

One of my earliest book interests were stories of adventure and exploration. I started pulling books from my shelves to include in this post and after a couple dozen I became overwhelmed about how may I would have to write about so I'm letting the covers do the talking. The only one without a title in the picture has a silhouette of a sailing ship, Darwin and the Beagle , Alan Moorehead. They are roughly grouped around maps, adventures, islands, exploration, a few things in between. I did a small post on adventure in 2013 here . Hope you enjoy the covers.