The second book that I’ve finished for the list is actually one that I read for school, The Falcon by John Tanner. The book is both an autobiography and a captivity narrative. The story moves quickly from his early years to his abduction by Indians, his journey north, and his subsequent adult life. The book moves the way that one can expect from a first person narrative of the nineteenth century. I enjoyed the book and while it takes a while to get through spelling and grammar of the period one has the most trouble with the many Indian names that are spelled phonetically with hyphens. In order to get through some of these the reader must stop and work out what it is that the author is telling us. The journey that John Tanner took is incredible, taken from the midwest he spend most of his life north of Lake Superior in Canada. Becoming skilled as a hunter and trapper he married into the Indian culture and had a family. Only later in life did he seek out his white family, and even then had trouble coming to fit into the culture. He later returned to the north to live in the culture that he had grown up in.


