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Astoria
Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival | Peter Stark
In the tradition of The Lost City of Z and Skeleton in the Zahara, Astoria is the thrilling, true-adventure tale of the 1810 Astor Expedition, an epic, now forgotten, three-year journey to forge an American empire on the Pacific Coast. Peter Stark offers a harrowing saga in which a band of explorers battled nature, starvation, and madness to establish the first American settlement in the Pacific Northwest and opened up what would become the Oregon trail, permanently altering the nation's landscape and its global standing. Six years after Lewis and Clark's began their journey to the Pacific Northwest, two of the Eastern establishment's leading figures, John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson, turned their sights to founding a colony akin to Jamestown on the West Coast and transforming the nation into a Pacific trading power. Author and correspondent for Outside magazine Peter Stark recreates this pivotal moment in American history for the first time for modern readers, drawing on original source material to tell the amazing true story of the Astor Expedition. Unfolding over the course of three years, from 1810 to 1813, Astoria is a tale of high adventure and incredible hardship in the wilderness and at sea. Of the more than one hundred-forty members of the two advance parties that reached the West Coastone crossing the Rockies, the other rounding Cape Hornnearly half perished by violence. Others went mad. Within one year, the expedition successfully established Fort Astoria, a trading post on the Columbia River. Though the colony would be short-lived, it opened provincial American eyes to the potential of the Western coast and its founders helped blaze the Oregon Trail.
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MarkoPDX
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Pickpick

Read in 2020. What an adventure. A disastrous adventure.

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PurpleTulipGirl
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I don't quite live in Astoria, but I live nearby. The last couple weeks notwithstanding, the Oregon Coast is a lovely place to live.

I have had brief encounters with a couple of famous people, but nothing beyond a photo op or walking past and getting whiplash from turning to see if I saw who I thought I saw.

Tonight is family pizza night. That's as far into the future as I can look right now!

Thanks @Sace ! @Cosmos_Moon #thankfulthursday

Cosmos_Moon_River Have a fun pizza night 🥰 happy Thursday! 5y
14 likes1 comment
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Sweettartlaura
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Pickpick

Just shy of 4 ⭐️, this book is a really good look at the first American settlement on the West Coast - Astoria (in what is now Oregon).
It‘s a saga, taking place over land & sea, amidst the War of 1812, across the globe, with interactions with Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, & even a Russian Count, thwarting Astor‘s plans to establish a global fur trade.
Essential reading of a forgotten piece of American history.

20 likes1 stack add
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Sweettartlaura
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And just like today... Canada sounds wayyy better than the States 🙄😕

charl08 That sounds like a society I'd want to join, but be slightly intimidated by... 6y
Sace 😂 6y
27 likes2 comments
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Sweettartlaura
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I bailed on the first pick for my Bingo/MakeMeReadIt list ... which doesn‘t make me happy, but gets me closer to my #MountTBR goal 🤷🏻‍♀️.
On to the pick by @Samplergal - hoping this one holds my attention better 🙂

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tricours
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Mehso-so

I had some difficulty focusing on this book and keeping track of people. Perhaps not the best audiobook material, but in print I suspect I would never have gotten through it at all...

BarbaraBB Hi Rebecka just checking in. Missing your posts. Hope all is well! 6y
tricours @BarbaraBB thank you, all is well! 😊 I have just REALLY fallen off the reviewing wagon! 6y
BarbaraBB Ah too bad but I‘m happy to hear you‘re okay 😘. Hope you‘ll get back on that wagon 😉 6y
tricours @BarbaraBB I hope so too! Sewing kind of took over my life (so I‘m very active on Instagram at least 😅) but I am getting through a fair amount of audiobooks so I should try to crawl back in here sometime soon! 6y
BarbaraBB I hope so and I love your sewing and that you do it with such passion 😂 6y
28 likes5 comments
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EmilieGR
Mehso-so

Dry and hard to get through but interesting

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JGadz11
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Was supposed to be grading papers. Did this instead.

MicheleinPhilly I wholeheartedly approve! 🤤 7y
3 likes1 comment
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JGadz11
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Livin‘ my best life. ✌🏼

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JGadz11
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I lived in Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA for 8 years and did not know any of this! And the writing is absolutely brilliant - highly recommend, even if you‘re not a fan of nonfiction. Can‘t put it down. 👍🏼

Sweettartlaura I‘ve been in the PNW for 14 years and almost all of this was new to me, too! 6y
7 likes1 comment
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Tomigirl44
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Pickpick

I couldn‘t put this book down. (So much for my library ebooks due soon.) It was part of US history I knew nothing about, and it was especially meaningful since I bought it while in Oregon for the first time, which included traveling through Astoria. It‘s an adventure/wilderness/survival story, both heartbreaking and heartwarming.

Pogue I love the history of Oregon. There is an amazing podcast called Off Beat Oregon History that is just full of goodies. 7y
Tomigirl44 @Pogue thanks for the recommendation - I‘ll look for it 😊 7y
18 likes1 stack add2 comments
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Tomigirl44
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I‘m loving this book.

shaynarae My husband loved this book too and immediately threw it on my TBR stack! 7y
Tomigirl44 @shaynarae 🙌 It‘s been hard to put down to get other things done. 7y
16 likes4 stack adds2 comments
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8little_paws
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Pickpick

This is nonfiction about how John Astor funded an expedition to the Pacific Northwest to establish a fur trading outpost. Men traveled by sea and over land and faced all kinds of drama on their journey. You would think a tale like this might give men pause in their relentless pursuit of capitalism, but nah. Apparently not. I feel like there wasn't much about Jefferson at all in this, which I found unfortunate.

Why I read it: #litsyatoz A

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Bookended
Pickpick

This book tells the harrowing story of hardship and loss the Astor Expedition experienced as they attempted to reach and establish a new settlement in what is today Astoria, Oregon. This story captures the wild spirit of the Pacific Northwest and the explorers who risked their lives to settle it.

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Smrloomis
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This looks interesting...

51 likes2 stack adds
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Lea
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"Nearly two centuries ago, the story that follows was well-known to Americans."