Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Give and Take March 17, 2005
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Tim Cahill's adventure travelogue, "A Wolverine is Eating my Leg", is a book of give and take as applies to the numerous subject matters he experienced and collects into this work.
For me, overall, I enjoyed they book but I will probably not read the book in its entirety again. I will read sections of it just not all of it. Keep in mind, these are works that were written for various magazines over a period of 15 years. There is no smooth flow from one adventure to the next but rather sudden large leaps. It is almost better to rate this book by its sections rather than the book on the whole. Some parts were just more interesting than the others. Here's my run down:
1. Treasure seeking in South America... lackluster - 2 stars
2. Gorilla Country... interest is rising - 3 stars
3. Tony & Susan Alamo Cult infiltration - even better, showing some interesting events that Cahill actually looked into, showing this "cult religion" to be much more voluntary and more of being duped than brainwashing - 4 stars
4. Jonestown, Guyana - this is the peak of the book, very interesting and after seeing the pictures of the mass 'suicide' it has an even bigger impact. This is the best piece in this book - 5 stars
5. The 'Terror of the Heart' section - Cahill covers things from public nudity, eclipse addicition, getting stuck on Marquesas islands, scuba diving around sharks, snakes, and sea lions. Nothing great here, meandering thoughts, kind of uninspiring - 1 star
6. 'Monsters' - Cahill talks about bigfoot and ice fishing for giant pike. I liked the bigfoot section but the ice pike fishing did nothing and is slow moving - 3 stars
7. 'Raggedy Edge' - Cahill covers surviving a walk in Death Valley, cave exploring, cliff skiing, and white water rafting in India. This was mildly interesting but was nothing spectacular - 3 stars.
Cahill relates the stories in varying degrees of interest and enthusiasm, possibly changing of his writing styles over the 15 years and the various magazines formats may influence this also. Overall, mediocre, there's better travelogues. Maybe if Cahill did all this in 1-2 years continuously it would have had a better reception from me. The Jonestown coverage is well worth the read though.
 wolverine is eating my leg October 30, 2003
1 out of 15 found this review helpful
Terrible writting,This was the first time i bought a book written by mr Cahill.I recommend renting his book if you want to sample his writting but he is very hard to follow with stories that never seem to go anywhere.The book is compose of many short stories and I would have to say that less then 40% of the stories are worth reading.
 A great collection of near travel disasters October 31, 2002
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is an excellent collection of thoughts and comments on the sheer edge of adventure. Cahill knows exactly how to describe the amazing stupidity of some of these adventure sports in a way that still leaves you interested in participating. Like his previous collection, Jaquars Ripped My Flesh, this book covers the gamut in place and sport, from extreme skiing in Montana to whitewater rafting in India. And while Cahill is a master at adventure writing, when he turns his pen to describing the cultures of some of the more exotic places that he has visited and the difference between their culture and our's, he's both hilarious and profound. This book is a selection of the Vintage Departures series, a group of books that I have found to be uniformly excellent.
Early Cahill Charm February 19, 2001
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
"A Wolverine---" is the second book of articles mostly taken from "Rolling Stone" and "Outside" magazine. The articles were written as far back as 1971 when Tim was a young man indeed. And it shows. Youthful high spirits prevail, and there is much cheery bravado interspersed with excellent journalistic essays that display a remarkable maturity.Ever wonder why people chase all over the earth to view a solar eclipse? Find out on a rollicking trip to find the absolute best place to get an unclouded view. Discover what all the shouting is about. I am used to Tim somehow bringing me back alive, laughing all the way from the wildest, strangest parts of the world. I have always credited him with fine introspection and lyrical prose that sneaked into whatever he wrote. The guy is just incapable of bad writing. The essays include a fine thought piece on the late Dian Fossey, the "Gorillas in the Mist" author who was murdered apparently by poachers. The essay on "reprogramming" of children who were enmeshed in cults is harrowing. Cahill has no use for the cults, but the rationale and methods of reprogramming are chilling. He infiltrated a California cult and lived there while developing his story. The living conditions (except for the leader who lived in a mansion on the hill) were unbelievably bad, yet the morale was high among the young converts. Tim presents a balanced, sometimes humorous, article that shows empathy for all except the leader. The premier essay, which should be required reading, was his on-the-spot reporting of the Jamestown Massacre that took place in Guyana twenty years ago. The immediacy and power of his word pictures, the horror of 900 dead supposedly suicides, the incredible remoteness of the site crush with a pervasive sadness and dismay.
 unique stories, different from his other books March 14, 2000
22 out of 24 found this review helpful
While Cahill is always very entertaining, his later books have focused more on the caving, scuba, climbing and flying aspects of adventure travel. In _Wolverine_ the stories include a broader variety of journalistic endeavour, taking him from Jonestown to a bizarre religious cult to encounters with mountain gorillas. This was the book that hooked me on Tim's writing.What makes it so good is, for one thing, that he's never so detached as to reek of smug pseudo-sophistication, but never so involved as to let his emotions and opinions interfere with the story. The balance between the two extremes is perfect. For another, Tim simply does and sees things hardly anyone else ever sees and does, let alone writes about. For yet another, he is often very funny in a dry, Montana sort of way. If you are new to Tim Cahill, you're in for quite a few hours of great reading.
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