Michael Flynn

The prehistory of the Americas is a concept I find fascinating.

The idea that North and South America were bristling with cities and towns and people isn't the way it was taught in school when I was a kid and I get a kick out of un-learning that the facts I was taught.

It's tough subject matter to present in a gripping way. There are lots of ancient New England Indian names and my South American geography isn't what it used to be so there was defintiely a “reading a text book” vibe that was hard to shake.

Still, the broad strokes were compelling and since it was a subject I really wanted to read more about I enjoyed 1491 a lot.

Fits the dictionary definition of “cracking read”. Once the ball started rolling I couldn't put it down.

As much as I enjoyed it I struggled with a couple of things: 1) I don't know how to pronounce non-Arabic letters in Swedish so I was constantly distracted when I was trying to figure out what words sounded like. I got better towards the end of the book, but it bugged me early on.

2) “Kalle Blomquist”. I didn't look it up until after I finished. A solid American parallel is “Encyclopedia Brown”. This bugged me every time I saw it and I'm a dummy for not looking it up sooner.