Entries by Philip Turner

To the Summit of Mt Everest or Bust, Fueled by Xenon Gas

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In the present era of international mountaineering in the Himalayas, which began in the early decades of the twentieth century, seasonal weather patterns mean that May has long been climbing season on the great peaks, including Mt Everest. The devastating events in Jon Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air, when eight climbers died on Everest, occurred in May 1996. Here’s a fascinating article on a summit attempt that is taking place right now, in May 2025. Four British soldiers-turned-mountaineers are attempting to summit Everest, and raising money for charity through their effort. That part’s okay, or normal enough, if you discount the reality that far too many people now try to climb Everest every year, with veritable traffic jams happening on the most popular routes and chokepoints, like the South Col, and lots of refuse is left on the mountains that then must get carted down at some point. The article started to become strange for me when I read that the quartet is going to try to do it in only seven days, while most teams take a month or even more. Most expeditions have their team members acclimatize to the oxygen-depleted atmosphere, because altitude sickness above 6000 meters (or around 19,700 feet) is common, and what can be a death zone is above 7900 meters (around 26,200 feet). It is hoped that the more time climbers spend adjusting to this altitude, they will be better able to handle all the rigors, keeping in mind that the summit of Everest itself is higher still, at 8,849 meters (29,356 feet). This often means that for the climactic stretch of the ascent, climbers can be very ill and struggling with multiple debilities, including mental confusion and bad decision-making, which can lead to fatal mis-steps and mistakes.

However, to achieve their lightning-quick ascent the four British climbers are experimenting with unproven medical stratagems to acclimatize their bodies in advance of ever even traveling to the Himalayas last Friday. Back home they’ve been sleeping in oxygen-deprived tents (dubbed “hypoxic tents,” as they tried to create conditions that mimicked those they’ll encounter this week on the mountain. They report nights of terrible sleep the past several months, and express some uncertainty as to whether the tents have helped, though they’ve stuck with using them for months. Even more bizarre, though, are inhalations of xenon gas they’ve been administering to themselves the past few months, in hopes of boosting their red blood cells; they’ll also use xenon gas again once they’re in situ.

Unsurprisingly, the expedition has attracted criticism in the mountaineering and the medical world from people who believe what they’re doing is not only unproven, it’s and potentially dangerous. The team members claim they’ll have a lighter environmental footprint, and it’s no more dangerous than any other summit attempt. In addition, though mountaineering—unlike competitive sports such as cycling and tennis, which have governing bodies that monitor athletes’ blood and urine, and try to hold them to account if they use banned substances—has no official body to sanction the British climbers, or even to rule on whether what they’re doing is ethical or justified. To them, apparently, it’s an acceptable risk, and they won’t be stopped from making this attempt though it may prove foolhardy.

wapo.st/4358woo

Remembering Solly Ganor, and “Light One Candle”

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In 1995, when I was editor-in-chief for Kodansha America, the US division of the then largest Japanese publisher, Kodansha Ltd., I edited a powerful Holocaust memoir whose author is mentioned in a moving Washington Post article out this weekend headlined, “How a little-known Japanese American battalion freed Jews from a Nazi death march,” linked to here. The book was titled, Light One Candle: A Survivor’s Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem, by Solly Ganor (1928-2020). It recounts how in early May 1945, a little more than eighty years go, the author’s life was saved at Dachau by Clarence Matsumara, also mentioned herein—a US service member who was part of  the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, made up mostly of Japanese Americans, many who had relatives then interned by the American government.

Earlier in Solly’s life, at age eleven in Kaunas, Lithuania, he happened to meet and befriend the Japanese consul, Chiune Sugihara, who boldly, and without permission from his own government, was signing hundreds of transit visas for Jews and other Lithuanians desperate to flee Nazi-occupied countries. Solly and his family could have tried to leave, but did not. Later, the local Jewish population was corralled into a ghetto, which Solly frequently dared to escape from, entering the larger part of the city for food, and other necessities of life, among them books. Later, he was impressed into forced labor by the Nazis, harsh servitude he somehow had survived until the day he was found by Clarence and his unit, emaciated but alive. When Clarence appeared over him, as he gazed on the face and features of a person of Japanese heritage, he thought of Sugihara, and knew he was looking at someone who would help him.

The Post article links to an oral history that Solly provided to the Holocaust Museum in 1997, and I’m also linking to it here. With the 80th anniversary of V-E Day celebrated in the Allied countries just last week, and even marked with proper solemnity in Germany, I was inspired to read the Post article about the Japanese unit that fought the Axis in Europe, and remember working with Solly on his moving memoir, which covers the same period.

Stellar Reviews of “Dreams of the Romantics,” a Story Cycle by M. G. Turner

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September 9, 2025, latest update re: Dreams of the Romantics—

Dreams of the Romantics by M. G. Turner is available through online booksellers, such as Amazon.com, BN.com, and Bookshop.org, whose sales support independent bookstores.

A very keen reader, the horror writer Joseph Citro, author of such novels as The Gore—who is described on Wikipedia as a “Vermont author and folklorist who has extensively researched and documented the folklore, hauntings, ghost stories, paranormal activity and occult happenings of New England”—loved Dreams of the Romantics and posted a very favorable review of it on the book’s Amazon page and on his own Facebook page. His full comment is below, and he concludes with this:

“The prose is poetic, the themes philosophical, and the tales range from contemplative to supernatural. (See especially Dr. Polidori’s installment!) Just when you’re feeling comfortably immersed in early 19th-century prose, the author inserts an anachronistic word or turn of phrase that reminds you the issues explored are as relevant today as they were during that unforgettable Year Without a Summer. Overall, this is an original, thought-provoking, and fascinating read, something [Lord] Byron might have called a “ripping yarn!”
Two thumbs up; three if I had an extra!👍👍+👍”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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May 15, 2025, an update regarding Dreams of the Romantics:

The prominent editor of weird fiction, and critic, S. T. Joshi (known for American Supernatural Tales, Penguin Classics, and The Theory of the Weird Tale, Sarnath Press) reviewed the book and recommended it to his audience, writing:

“The occasion for this story cycle is the most famous literary contest in the history of weird fiction….Turner engages in the fantasy of being himself a member of the literary circle at the Villa Diodati, recounting his own Gothic tale….The final story in the book, “The Last Voyage,” is a gripping modern recreation of the fateful boat trip that led to Shelley’s drowning in the Bay of Spezia in 1822….Dreams of the Romantics is a vivid and engrossing little book….well worth reading by those many devotees of the weird who find themselves drawn back to that day, more than two centuries ago, when several towering literary figures sought to enshrine the weird into the corpus of English literature.”—S. T. Joshi, Spectral Realms No. 23 (Summer 2025)
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Post originally published April 8, 2025

Among the fortunate discoveries I made during COVID was that of a book reviewer in New Brunswick, Canada, James Fisher, who edits a book review journal called The Seaboard Review of Books, which can be found on Substack. Having long been interested in Canadian literature, and the curator of a blog I call Honourary Canadian, I appreciated that he and his team of critics focus on Canadian authors and small presses, and noticed that they also cover “international” titles. With that in mind, I contacted James and asked if he’d be interested in receiving a copy of Dreams of the Romantics, the chapbook inspired by the Romantic poets that Ewan Turner, my adult son and business partner, recently published under his pen name M. G. Turner. James was intrigued, so we shipped him a copy.

Yesterday, he published a lovely, thoughtful review of the book which I’m pleased to share here. Below are the closing paragraphs:

“Dreams of the Romantics  was a beautiful read. Turner’s use of language reflects the period, and I read through the book several times, picking up on different metaphors from the lives of all those in attendance at Lord Byron’s dinner party. I also found it educational, as I had only a passing knowledge of the Shelleys, little of Byron and none of Doctor John Polidori. Invariably, I was sent scrambling to the Internet for answers to my questions, as well as the biographies of the participants.

I certainly anticipate hearing more from the pen of M. G. Turner, as Dreams of the Romantics certainly demonstrated his potential as a writer.”

I invite you to read it in full by clicking on this link, or by opening the screenshots below.

Dreams of the Romantics is now available on Bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.


Chuffed to Hear “Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure” Praised Four Decades Later

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This hour-long youtube video offers a brilliant book conversation between Chicago writers Alex Kotlowitz, author of the 1992 classic social welfare book There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America, and Donna Seaman, longtime editor of Booklist magazine, and author of the recent memoir River of Books: A Life in Reading, published by Ode Books, a cool imprint of Seminary Co-Op Bookshop and 57th Street Books devoted to books about books, bookselling, publishing, etc. Now that’s my kind of imprint!

At about the 25th minute of the video I was surprised and chuffed to hear Kotlowitz extol the nonfiction wilderness narrative Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure by James West Davidson and John Rugge, an engrossing wilderness narrative about an epic canoeing expedition in the Canadian north that the late esteemed editor Dan Frank acquired and published for Viking in 1986, which I then was honored to republish in 1997 as a Kodansha Globe title with a new Introduction by the late great Vermont novelist Howard Frank Mosher.

Alex Kotlowitz is right—Great Heart is a great book, and it was gratifying to learn it’s still being read and enjoyed nearly four decades years after it was first published, and nearly three decades after I brought it out again. #Canoeing #SurvivalStories

Here is the video of their conversation.

On Sale Now: “Dreams of the Romantics,” a Story Cycle about the British Romantic Poets, by M. G. Turner

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As mentioned in the annual letter for Philip Turner Book Productions that we sent out a few weeks ago, Ewan will soon be publishing his first book, under his pen name M. G. Turner.  Titled Dreams of the Romantics , it’s a gothic story cycle about Lord Byron, Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Dr. John William Polidori, who served as Byron’s physician.

The poetic circle gathered at Villa Diodati on the shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland; it was June-July 1816, during the fateful Year Without a Summer, following the eruption of Mt Tambora near Bali which cast a pall over the earth. Mary Shelley, eighteen that year, later described “incessant rain” and “wet, ungenial” weather. Over one three-day stretch stuck indoors during inclement weather, Byron—who that same month would write his lacerating, apocalyptic poem “Darkness”—dared each of his friends to devise a gothic tale. His challenge resulted in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or Prometheus Reborn, and John Polidori’s The Vampyre, the first popular vampire story. Dreams of the Romantics will appeal to readers who have a yen for spooky stories, and an interest in or curiosity about the lives of these immortal writers.

The publisher, Riverside Press, is bringing out belles lettres titles. If you’d like to have a copy of Dreams of the Romantics, details are below.

  • The 96-page trade paperback, with seven stories imagining the lives of the British Romantic poets, sells for $15 + $5 shipping (maybe more for international destinations). If you want to buy a copy, please contact us at ptbookproductions[@]gmail[.]com and we will give you electronic payment information or our address
  • The painting on the front cover is “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog,” Caspar David Friedrich, 1818
  • The painting on the back cover is “The Funeral of Shelley,” Louis Edouard Fournier, 1889
  • The Jenman symbol, seen on the back cover, traditionally symbolizes good fortune and wards off evil, as adopted by W. Somerset Maugham on his books.
  • In descending order the figures in the frontispiece shown here—opposite the titles of the stories—are Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, George Gordon Lord Byron, Dr. John William Polidori, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Remembering that Time Garth Hudson Sat in with The Sadies

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Back around 2010 I went to hear the fantastic Canadian rock band The Sadies at Bowery Ballroom on the lower east side of Manhattan. They were playing a great raucous live show—in their singular vein of old-timey mind-blown electric country folk featuring two colliding electric guitars in the hands of brothers Dallas and Travis Good plus a hard-driving rhythm section including a stand-up bass—when they suddenly introduced Garth Hudson and his wife Maud to the audience and invited the couple to join them on stage. I recall Garth was in a wheelchair, but he got wheeled in front of a keyboard, and played a few songs with them while Maude struck a tambourine. What a thrill it was! I had seen Garth play with The Band at Watkins Glen in July 1973, in a famous weekend-long extravaganza which also featured The Allman Bros. and the Grateful Dead.

I had a very primitive cell phone in those days, but got this pic, which I was able to put my hand on today when I heard dear old Garth had died, age 87. #RIPGarth #TheBand #TheSadies #CanRock