Leila sent me a link to a brief piece in Mental Floss about famous suicides that included one of my all time favorite historical figures, Antarctic explorer Lawrence "Titus" Oates. Everyone with only a passing knowledge of polar exploration will likely have heard of Oates, the noble member of Robert Scott's doomed expedition who killed himself in a vain attempt to save his companions. While I've read about Oates a great deal since college, it was only when I reviewed Geraldine McCaughrean's fabulous The White Darkness that I finally wrote about him. He's a very compelling character and someone that generates a lot of opinions, fictional and otherwise. I could talk about Oates for hours, and after reading the bit in Mental Floss today, I got to thinking about other people whose lives and work also make me want to read more about them.

I credit Pamela Dean and Juniper, Gentian and Rosemary for making me curious about astronomer Maria Mitchell. How come I never learned about her in school? It always blows my mind when I read in a novel about someone who accomplished really impressive things - I wonder why I'm discovering this person in fiction and didn't come across them in an American history textbook in the 8th grade. Mitchell was so brilliantly unorthodox that is she is darn near irresistible for any girl who considers herself to be different from everyone else. We should all know about Maria Mitchell - she should be celebrated all over the place.

I am also intrigued by Elisha Kent Kane, the polar explorer who fell in love with the spiritualist Margaret Fox and either did or did not marry her. (I reviewed a great book on Fox a couple of years ago and find her to be a very sympathetic figure. For what it's worth, I think Kane did love her but she didn't fit the demands of his place in society so their love was doomed.)

Then there is TE Lawrence, who managed to be a great military leader while slowly falling apart on every other level. (His story has to be one of the most romantically tragic ever and so significant to current world politics that it really should be required reading on the Middle East.) I've written about Joan of Arc before and never tire of wanting to learn more about her. Her faith completely mystifies me, as does the irrefutable strength of her convictions which literally did change the world.

I also can't stop wondering about Katherine Routledge and all she accomplished on Easter Island. I get so angry on behalf of Routledge and how history has largely ignored her (except for the fabulous book, Among Stone Giants - highly recommended). And I adore Gerald Durrell too. His books are excellent gloomy day reading; they lift you up in a matter of only a few pages and carry you along on sheer joy until the very end. Really - everyone should love Durrell.

Beyond these figures from history (some of whom were also quite literary) there are authors like Ray Bradbury (of course), Connie Willis, Andrea Barrett and Barbara Hodgson who I love not only for their writing ability but for how they fold history into their stories. Reading their work tends to send me off in other directions, hunting newly discovered curiosities. They make me want to know more about so many other things and I read their works as a near obsession; their words are dear to me in a way that few other material things are.

So I was thinking about all this in a bit of a flash today after reading that bit on Oates and I caught myself thinking that someday I should write about the people that I am intrigued by; someday I should really consider what it is about their lives or work that interests me and explore all those thoughts in some essays.

Did you catch that crucial word there? It would be the convenient use of "Someday".

Just in time I caught myself because really, what is the point of having this blog if I can't write about all of these people here? What am I saving this space for if it isn't Routledge and Oates and Durrell? Do I want to hold out for a potential book deal twenty years from now on an essay collection of Colleen's favorite people? That's not how a writer writes - that's how a writer convinces herself NOT to write.

I so do not want to be that kind of writer.

I'm not back home yet, but now I have a new direction on some future posts. They may be nothing more significant to the larger world then a speck of sand, but to me they will be a pure pleasure to write about. This could be a lot of fun, and plus I just might make some of you want to learn more too. Wouldn't that be truly grand?

[Post pics of Lawrence Oates, Katherine Routledge and Barbara Hodgson's book, The Sensualist.]