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All the Way to the Tigers: A Memoir
One of NPR's Best Books of 2020
From the author of Nothing to Declare , a new travel narrative examining healing, redemption, and what it means to be a solo woman on the road.
Mary Morris has long been a master memoirist...and has even more to teach us about the lengths to which we must go to reach our deepest selves. I loved this book.
-Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance
In the tradition of Wild by Cheryl Strayed and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, Mary Morris turns a personal catastrophe into a rich, multilayered memoir full of personal growth, family history, and thrilling travel.
In February 2008 a casual afternoon of ice skating derailed the trip of a lifetime. Mary Morris was on the verge of a well-earned sabbatical, but instead she endured three months in a wheelchair, two surgeries, and extensive rehabilitation. On Easter Sunday, when she was supposed to be in Morocco, Morris was instead lying on the sofa reading Death in Venice, casting her eyes over these words again and again: He would go on a journey. Not far. Not all the way to the tigers. Disaster shifted to possibility and Morris made a decision. When she was well enough to walk again (and her doctor wasn't sure she ever would), she would go all the way to the tigers.
So begins a three-year odyssey that takes Morris to India in search of the world's most elusive apex predator. Her first lesson: don't look for a tiger because you won't find it--you look for signs of a tiger. And all unseen tigers, hiding in the bush, are referred to as she. Morris connects deeply with these magnificent and highly endangered animals, and her weeks on tiger safari also afford a new understanding of herself.
Written in over a hundred short chapters, All the Way to the Tigers offers an elegiac, wry, and wise look at a woman on the road and the glorious, elusive creature she seeks.
From the author of Nothing to Declare , a new travel narrative examining healing, redemption, and what it means to be a solo woman on the road.
Mary Morris has long been a master memoirist...and has even more to teach us about the lengths to which we must go to reach our deepest selves. I loved this book.
-Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance
In the tradition of Wild by Cheryl Strayed and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, Mary Morris turns a personal catastrophe into a rich, multilayered memoir full of personal growth, family history, and thrilling travel.
In February 2008 a casual afternoon of ice skating derailed the trip of a lifetime. Mary Morris was on the verge of a well-earned sabbatical, but instead she endured three months in a wheelchair, two surgeries, and extensive rehabilitation. On Easter Sunday, when she was supposed to be in Morocco, Morris was instead lying on the sofa reading Death in Venice, casting her eyes over these words again and again: He would go on a journey. Not far. Not all the way to the tigers. Disaster shifted to possibility and Morris made a decision. When she was well enough to walk again (and her doctor wasn't sure she ever would), she would go all the way to the tigers.
So begins a three-year odyssey that takes Morris to India in search of the world's most elusive apex predator. Her first lesson: don't look for a tiger because you won't find it--you look for signs of a tiger. And all unseen tigers, hiding in the bush, are referred to as she. Morris connects deeply with these magnificent and highly endangered animals, and her weeks on tiger safari also afford a new understanding of herself.
Written in over a hundred short chapters, All the Way to the Tigers offers an elegiac, wry, and wise look at a woman on the road and the glorious, elusive creature she seeks.
240 pages, Paperback
First published June 9, 2020
77 people are currently reading
7007 people want to read
About the author
Mary Morris
103 books359 followersI was born in Chicago and, though I have lived in New York for many years, my roots are still in the Midwest and many of my stories are set there. As a writer my closest influences are Willa Cather and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I travel as much as I can and travel fuels everything I do. When I travel, I keep extensive journals which are handwritten and include watercolors, collage as well as text. All my writing begins in these journals. I tend to move between fiction and nonfiction. I spent seventeen years working on my last novel, The Jazz Palace. I think I learned a lot writing that book because the next one only took three years., Gateway to the Moon. Gateway which will be out in March 2018 is historical fiction about the secret Jews of New Mexico. I am also working on my fifth travel memoir about my travels alone. This one is about looking for tigers.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 135 reviews
August 16, 2021
Sometimes one finds a book, or a book finds them, at the perfect time. For me, this one did just that.
An incredible memoir from a author and woman, who loves life in all it's many forms. Who suffered a serious accident that kept this usually active and traveling woman, housebound for almost two years. Sounds familiar doesn't it? The housebound part of course, not the accident.
She had a quest in mind, once she coukd walk again, to see tigers. Up close and personal. Which is what she does, traveling to India, and staying at a few places where one could hire a guide to take one into the jungle. Her descriptions of India are excellent and her experiences, while not for me, are related in full expression. While India is not a place I yearn to go, she did compel me to once again hope for a time when I can once again freely travel.
Her memoir goes back and forth, some experiences from her youth, her accident and recovery and her travel. Her husband sounds amazing supportive in all ways. So, did she ever get to see a tiger? You'll have to read the book yourself to find out, which believe me is not a hardship. The pages flew by.
An incredible memoir from a author and woman, who loves life in all it's many forms. Who suffered a serious accident that kept this usually active and traveling woman, housebound for almost two years. Sounds familiar doesn't it? The housebound part of course, not the accident.
She had a quest in mind, once she coukd walk again, to see tigers. Up close and personal. Which is what she does, traveling to India, and staying at a few places where one could hire a guide to take one into the jungle. Her descriptions of India are excellent and her experiences, while not for me, are related in full expression. While India is not a place I yearn to go, she did compel me to once again hope for a time when I can once again freely travel.
Her memoir goes back and forth, some experiences from her youth, her accident and recovery and her travel. Her husband sounds amazing supportive in all ways. So, did she ever get to see a tiger? You'll have to read the book yourself to find out, which believe me is not a hardship. The pages flew by.
January 2, 2021
FABULOUS....
Travel/memoir.....by Marry Morris...
AUDIOBOOK....read by Susan Bennett
Marry Morris connects deeply with tigers.... with dazzling eye opening-thought provoking descriptions.
She traveled to India alone. I did too.
There were days she was so shivering freezing with no insulation in her tent whatsoever—
days she wondered... what the hell was she doing traveling alone -a white woman —single—among men that eyed her with scary curiosity.
One hell of a broken foot/leg
.... YIKES....
The foot break, surgery, healing.....was a little triggering to read —
I don’t have a bionic foot myself because of a minor break.
However....
Morris’s bravery and style are compulsive and profound.
It’s harrowing, but thrilling to see nature revealed with such unflinching precision!!!
Mary gives us incandescent life experience-whirling
fraught momentous stories— a woman who refuses to back down from the mundane & easy—
Stubborn, wry, and self-knowing, Mary Morris is drawn inexorably into a crucible that is personal, unpredictable, provocative, precise, elegant, and devastating in its awareness of the human heart.
“To see the tiger in your dreams, represents power in your ability to exert it in various situations”.
This story is ‘enhanced’ as an audiobook.
It’s soooooo GOOD!!!
I can’t imagine any person who loves a great audiobook-memoir....not being totally enraptured—
written in short meditative chapters — back-and-forth between America and India.
Adventurous and courageous!!!
Travel/memoir.....by Marry Morris...
AUDIOBOOK....read by Susan Bennett
Marry Morris connects deeply with tigers.... with dazzling eye opening-thought provoking descriptions.
She traveled to India alone. I did too.
There were days she was so shivering freezing with no insulation in her tent whatsoever—
days she wondered... what the hell was she doing traveling alone -a white woman —single—among men that eyed her with scary curiosity.
One hell of a broken foot/leg
.... YIKES....
The foot break, surgery, healing.....was a little triggering to read —
I don’t have a bionic foot myself because of a minor break.
However....
Morris’s bravery and style are compulsive and profound.
It’s harrowing, but thrilling to see nature revealed with such unflinching precision!!!
Mary gives us incandescent life experience-whirling
fraught momentous stories— a woman who refuses to back down from the mundane & easy—
Stubborn, wry, and self-knowing, Mary Morris is drawn inexorably into a crucible that is personal, unpredictable, provocative, precise, elegant, and devastating in its awareness of the human heart.
“To see the tiger in your dreams, represents power in your ability to exert it in various situations”.
This story is ‘enhanced’ as an audiobook.
It’s soooooo GOOD!!!
I can’t imagine any person who loves a great audiobook-memoir....not being totally enraptured—
written in short meditative chapters — back-and-forth between America and India.
Adventurous and courageous!!!
January 2, 2021
All the Way to the Tigers
by Mary Morris
Absolutely one of the most enjoyable books I have read this year (2020)! My mind was sent off in many directions. . . pulling up maps of India, adding Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice to my reading list, googling tigers of all stripes. And acquainting myself with this author – new to me.
I couldn’t put the book down until the end – through the afterword and acknowledgments! There is humor, wry and witty, and a whimsical aspect to this author’s writing that beckons me to each new section. The short observations that weave the travel tale forward with the backward glances at relevant memories her current travel experiences unearth are charming and universal. Nothing goes to plan, as ever, and of all the things we have in common it is that – life’s a mess. Popping the gems out of the mess and compellingly communicating them to others – that is the talent, the gift. She’s got it.
A Sincere Thanks to Mary Morris, Doubleday Books, Nan A. Talese and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review.
by Mary Morris
Absolutely one of the most enjoyable books I have read this year (2020)! My mind was sent off in many directions. . . pulling up maps of India, adding Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice to my reading list, googling tigers of all stripes. And acquainting myself with this author – new to me.
I couldn’t put the book down until the end – through the afterword and acknowledgments! There is humor, wry and witty, and a whimsical aspect to this author’s writing that beckons me to each new section. The short observations that weave the travel tale forward with the backward glances at relevant memories her current travel experiences unearth are charming and universal. Nothing goes to plan, as ever, and of all the things we have in common it is that – life’s a mess. Popping the gems out of the mess and compellingly communicating them to others – that is the talent, the gift. She’s got it.
A Sincere Thanks to Mary Morris, Doubleday Books, Nan A. Talese and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review.
January 5, 2021
4.5 stars
I'm not going to do a proper review of this book. Just wanted to share a coupla tidbits from it that I want to remember.
"The Romans used to crucify tigers to discourage others of their species from preying on humankind."
"If you shave a tiger bald, its stripes will still appear on its skin."
"A study shows that if an American schizophrenic hears voices, they tell him to commit violence. And if a schizophrenic in India hears voices, they tell him to clean the house."
(I have to assume this study was done only on male schizophrenics, eh?)
July 6, 2020
I wanted to like this book but the author whines on about everything so much (the weather, her mother, her broken ankle). She is such a high minded intellectual that she can't see that she is just like her mother. She reminds of a moody teenager who thinks she is better than those around her because she has read a couple of philosophy books.
July 8, 2020
In this gripping, beautifully written memoir, Mary Morris combines her travel writer’s eye for detail with her novelist’s ear for language and nuance to create a story about one woman’s journey to India find an elusive tiger — and, in the process, understand more about what motivates and obsesses her, and why. Fascinating and immersive - I was hooked from the first page!
April 28, 2021
This memoirist is INSUFFERABLE. I was boggled by how un-self aware she is for the entire book. At one point the writer literally compares her trauma at having broken her ankle, which ruined her sabbatical, to surviving the Holocaust. (A friend tried to help her get some perspective, saying that in 5 years she will see this as a growth moment and she wonders if anyone said the same to those in concentration camps. Completely without irony.) She observes the sad state of an orphan servant in one line then in the next complains endlessly about the lack of hot water in her hotel in India. She is bitter that her mother wasn’t more sympathetic to HER after her 103 year old father died, saying her mother was too obsessed with her own grief over her husband’s death. At one point, the author mentions a neighbor who works as a mime getting back from Poland and telling her a “rambling monologue” about falling in love at first sight with a fellow busker who doesn’t speak English, and how she’s moving to Poland to be with him, and I wished I could reach into the book and instead read THAT story, which the author dismissed so quickly (another theme: for a memoirist, our author is often very uninterested in others’ stories). I hardly ever write negative reviews—if I don’t like a book, i figure it just means that book wasn’t the read for me. But this book made me so astonished by its privilege and inanity that by the end I was reading only to be sure I could accurately review it snd warn others off. Although I would honestly love to know what someone could possibly enjoy from this book, it’s not worth even a hate read.
December 28, 2020
I’ve recommended Mary Morris’s Nothing To Declare: Memoirs of A Woman Traveling Alone over the years, was very happy to read that her latest book, All The Way To The Tigers, was another travelogue/family history/personal growth saga. Thanks to Doubleday Books/Nan Talese and NetGalley, I received an advance copy in return for this honest review.
In 2008, on the eve of her long-awaited sabbatical, an ice skating accident shattered her leg so seriously her doctor admitted later to her he wondered if she would ever walk again. The next three years were filled with surgeries and extensive rehabilitation, as she worked toward a dream trip to India in search of a F2F encounter with a tiger. Morris has had a lifetime attraction to tigers, perhaps because she has been such a successful woman alone: “Unlike lions, there is no word for tigers together. That’s because they never are.”
Throughout the book, she offers wonderful tidbits about tigers as they are in nature, and also as they have become familiar in popular culture. As someone who always felt that Roy (of Siegfried and Roy fame) earned what happened to him, I appreciated reading that Mantacore attacked Roy because “…months before the attack Roy had stopped feeding the tigers and stopped whispering to them…broke the bond and the tiger felt no loyalty to comply.”
Bouncing between 2008 when she was injured to 2011, when she took her long-awaited trip to India, she shares thoughts about her terrible, sad childhood. At least, she generally presents it as sad, with her mother appearing be an extremely unhappily married woman and her father being loud and overbearing. But she admits that “Harvard University study shows that creative people tend to remember their childhoods as unhappy even if they were not.” There are some nice memories in there, for example “It is my father who tucks me in. He sits at the side of my bed, making up stories about a homesick snowflake…a brook…sings me the Whiffenpoof song about the poor little lambs…until I drift to sleep. Not my mother.”
Her unhappiness growing up and an eye-opening trip to Europe with her mother led her to begin her life of extensive travel, and although she is desperate to have an encounter with a ferocious animal in the wild, she admits “I’ve never courted danger…for me, it was always about escape.”
Once she makes it to India, she explores the plight of tigers in the wild, sharing that it is the”…expansion of roads that impinges the most on the tiger’s habitat.” As always, her descriptive abilities are incredible: “A long chaotic industrial strip, filled with tire outlets, packs of wild dogs, sacred cows, feral pigs devouring trash. Women in bright-colored saris balance water jugs on their heads. Girls on mopeds, their heads and faces completely covered, dark glasses on, zip by. Women crouch, weaving garlands of flowers.“
There are some thought-provoking lines that really stood out to me, for example:
• “…about travel. The point isn’t to stay in one place. It is to move on…seizing the moment, the hour, the day, with the understanding that it isn’t forever.”
• “…why Buddhism took root in India. Because Buddhism teaches you how to sit quietly and be present.”
• “…I realized that silent is an anagram for listen. It is the voice that comes from the silence that the writer or artist must listen to.”
• “we are only seven meals away from anarchy.”
Her exploration of both the physical environment during her tiger trip and her own lessons along the way bring her to the big epiphany that may affect her future travel and whether she is now less inclined to go solo: what she “…learned along the way that I could do this on my own. I know that I can. I also know that it is all right to have someone.”
I found the self-exploration and the descriptive passages to be as wonderful as I expected, but I wasn’t as enthralled with the extensive bouncing back and forth between 2008, when the life-altering accident happened, and 2011, when she finally took her trip “all the way to the tigers.” Four stars rather than five, mostly because Nothing To Declare is clearly a five, and this one was a shade less awesome for me. Still, highly recommended.
In 2008, on the eve of her long-awaited sabbatical, an ice skating accident shattered her leg so seriously her doctor admitted later to her he wondered if she would ever walk again. The next three years were filled with surgeries and extensive rehabilitation, as she worked toward a dream trip to India in search of a F2F encounter with a tiger. Morris has had a lifetime attraction to tigers, perhaps because she has been such a successful woman alone: “Unlike lions, there is no word for tigers together. That’s because they never are.”
Throughout the book, she offers wonderful tidbits about tigers as they are in nature, and also as they have become familiar in popular culture. As someone who always felt that Roy (of Siegfried and Roy fame) earned what happened to him, I appreciated reading that Mantacore attacked Roy because “…months before the attack Roy had stopped feeding the tigers and stopped whispering to them…broke the bond and the tiger felt no loyalty to comply.”
Bouncing between 2008 when she was injured to 2011, when she took her long-awaited trip to India, she shares thoughts about her terrible, sad childhood. At least, she generally presents it as sad, with her mother appearing be an extremely unhappily married woman and her father being loud and overbearing. But she admits that “Harvard University study shows that creative people tend to remember their childhoods as unhappy even if they were not.” There are some nice memories in there, for example “It is my father who tucks me in. He sits at the side of my bed, making up stories about a homesick snowflake…a brook…sings me the Whiffenpoof song about the poor little lambs…until I drift to sleep. Not my mother.”
Her unhappiness growing up and an eye-opening trip to Europe with her mother led her to begin her life of extensive travel, and although she is desperate to have an encounter with a ferocious animal in the wild, she admits “I’ve never courted danger…for me, it was always about escape.”
Once she makes it to India, she explores the plight of tigers in the wild, sharing that it is the”…expansion of roads that impinges the most on the tiger’s habitat.” As always, her descriptive abilities are incredible: “A long chaotic industrial strip, filled with tire outlets, packs of wild dogs, sacred cows, feral pigs devouring trash. Women in bright-colored saris balance water jugs on their heads. Girls on mopeds, their heads and faces completely covered, dark glasses on, zip by. Women crouch, weaving garlands of flowers.“
There are some thought-provoking lines that really stood out to me, for example:
• “…about travel. The point isn’t to stay in one place. It is to move on…seizing the moment, the hour, the day, with the understanding that it isn’t forever.”
• “…why Buddhism took root in India. Because Buddhism teaches you how to sit quietly and be present.”
• “…I realized that silent is an anagram for listen. It is the voice that comes from the silence that the writer or artist must listen to.”
• “we are only seven meals away from anarchy.”
Her exploration of both the physical environment during her tiger trip and her own lessons along the way bring her to the big epiphany that may affect her future travel and whether she is now less inclined to go solo: what she “…learned along the way that I could do this on my own. I know that I can. I also know that it is all right to have someone.”
I found the self-exploration and the descriptive passages to be as wonderful as I expected, but I wasn’t as enthralled with the extensive bouncing back and forth between 2008, when the life-altering accident happened, and 2011, when she finally took her trip “all the way to the tigers.” Four stars rather than five, mostly because Nothing To Declare is clearly a five, and this one was a shade less awesome for me. Still, highly recommended.
December 6, 2020
This memoir is much ado about nothing as the author juxtaposes two decisions with serious consequences years apart against one another, and seeks answers from her past to explain her actions. One was a decision to continue ice skating despite the need to leave to tend to other matters resulting in an accident that caused her to break her ankle. The second was a trip almost 6 years later to India to see tigers in the wild despite being sick, and to forgo treatment for her illness until she was seriously ill at the end of the journey. The author offers complaints, and glimpses of events from her childhood and adulthood as explanations and reasons for her decisions. They function as attempts at pop psychological rationales, and philosophical rationalizing, but fail to convince the reader of their veracity amidst the author’s whining, discussion of unrelated life experiences, and inability to draw parallels, or links between the various events and incidents that she describes.
When all is said and done this is an unsatisfying read.
When all is said and done this is an unsatisfying read.
August 18, 2020
This book read like one long complaint. Hoping it’s not too hypocritical to say the negativity turned me off. The author came off as whiny privileged and ungrateful.
May 12, 2020
Weak 3 stars. I've never read anything by this author before so I'm not familiar with her other travel books. Maybe they are different from this one? Personally, I didn't "get" her way of travel.
Why did she choose to go to India off-season? Bad weather, empty hotel, lack of hotel amenities etc. Sure, Morris mentions that India was having unseasonably cold weather, that it's not usually this cold but still. It's still winter. She even had a friend who lived there tell her to pack warm clothes and she chose not to. Why? So she could then complain repeatedly about how cold she was? Why didn't she buy a coat on her first day there if it was so cold? Why didn't she give a hotel employee cash to go buy her a space heater? Why didn't she ask for more blankets?
Then there is her constant complaining about being sick but doing nothing about it. I lean towards the hypochondria side of things, so maybe it's just a different reaction to illness than I have, but it was still baffling. She felt bad before leaving. She could have 1) gone to the doctor and gotten a for antibiotics & codeine cough syrup 2) gone to the drugstore and loaded up on cold meds to pack 3) seen a doctor once she arrived 4) even rescheduled her trip which would have been, granted, a huge hassle. She did....nothing. Her driver finally stopped and bought her some cough drops & whiskey. Thank God for that.
I also did not get her rationale for buying a second class ticket on a train in India. I have never been there but I have seen photos of Indian trains. They are pretty hardcore. She must, as a travel writer, know what they are like. Did she book it so she'd have something to complain about? I recently read a memoir by Gloria Steinem and she mentions a train ride she took in India in the 1960s. It was a totally different vibe, very positive but sounded like a similar situation to the train Morris took. It goes to show how two people can experience the same thing in such dramatically different ways based on their attitude.
I did love her style of writing. It was very evocative and flowed nicely. Her descriptions of places made me feel like I was there. Perhaps I should try another one of her travel books to see if her complaining mood in this book was a one-off.
#popsugar challenge a book published in 2020
Why did she choose to go to India off-season? Bad weather, empty hotel, lack of hotel amenities etc. Sure, Morris mentions that India was having unseasonably cold weather, that it's not usually this cold but still. It's still winter. She even had a friend who lived there tell her to pack warm clothes and she chose not to. Why? So she could then complain repeatedly about how cold she was? Why didn't she buy a coat on her first day there if it was so cold? Why didn't she give a hotel employee cash to go buy her a space heater? Why didn't she ask for more blankets?
Then there is her constant complaining about being sick but doing nothing about it. I lean towards the hypochondria side of things, so maybe it's just a different reaction to illness than I have, but it was still baffling. She felt bad before leaving. She could have 1) gone to the doctor and gotten a for antibiotics & codeine cough syrup 2) gone to the drugstore and loaded up on cold meds to pack 3) seen a doctor once she arrived 4) even rescheduled her trip which would have been, granted, a huge hassle. She did....nothing. Her driver finally stopped and bought her some cough drops & whiskey. Thank God for that.
I also did not get her rationale for buying a second class ticket on a train in India. I have never been there but I have seen photos of Indian trains. They are pretty hardcore. She must, as a travel writer, know what they are like. Did she book it so she'd have something to complain about? I recently read a memoir by Gloria Steinem and she mentions a train ride she took in India in the 1960s. It was a totally different vibe, very positive but sounded like a similar situation to the train Morris took. It goes to show how two people can experience the same thing in such dramatically different ways based on their attitude.
I did love her style of writing. It was very evocative and flowed nicely. Her descriptions of places made me feel like I was there. Perhaps I should try another one of her travel books to see if her complaining mood in this book was a one-off.
#popsugar challenge a book published in 2020
April 20, 2020
In the tradition of Wild by Cheryl Strayed and Eat, Love, Pray by Elizabeth Gilbert, Mary Morris turns a personal catastrophe into a memoir full of personal growth and travel.
In 2008 literally before her long awaited sabbatical Mary Morris shatters her leg so badly the doctor admitted later that he didn’t think she would ever walk again.
Rehab, extensive surgery and with plenty of time Mary focuses on a dream trip to India in search of the elusive tigers.
Going back and forth between 2008 when the accident happened and 2011 when the trip took place Mary shares some of her childhood memories and how she began her extensive traveling habits with her mother as a child, all be it a very sad relationship she shared with her.
The memoir captures the authors life and what it means to her to see a tiger in the wild.
Her first lesson, don’t look for a tiger because you won’t find it. You simply look for signs of the tiger, and you may pick up the trail. We followed the trails everyday..
A nice escapism read and tiger trails are now firmly on my list of travels.
Thank you Edelweiss books for the advanced copy.
In 2008 literally before her long awaited sabbatical Mary Morris shatters her leg so badly the doctor admitted later that he didn’t think she would ever walk again.
Rehab, extensive surgery and with plenty of time Mary focuses on a dream trip to India in search of the elusive tigers.
Going back and forth between 2008 when the accident happened and 2011 when the trip took place Mary shares some of her childhood memories and how she began her extensive traveling habits with her mother as a child, all be it a very sad relationship she shared with her.
The memoir captures the authors life and what it means to her to see a tiger in the wild.
Her first lesson, don’t look for a tiger because you won’t find it. You simply look for signs of the tiger, and you may pick up the trail. We followed the trails everyday..
A nice escapism read and tiger trails are now firmly on my list of travels.
Thank you Edelweiss books for the advanced copy.
January 23, 2020
A wonderful memoir by Morris. Chapters interspersed with a travelogue of a trip to India to see a tiger, a chronicle of conavelesing from a broken ankle and surgery, factoids about Tigers, and memories of childhood. It all comes together under Morris' creative hand.
Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley
Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley
November 1, 2024
Mary Morris suffered multiple fractures of her ankle and ended up housebound for two years. During that time, she read a passage about tigers that stuck with her. She decides that once her ankle heals enough, she will go to India to (hopefully) see a tiger in the wild. The memoir blends together personal memories of family and relationships, an account of her accident and its aftermath, and a vivid description of the time she spent in India looking for tigers. It also includes many snippets of random information. It does not follow a chronological timeline but contains many short chapters that jump back and forth in time and topic. I would have preferred longer chapters and less jumping around, but it is a pleasant, well-written, and quick read.
July 13, 2020
Thank you to the publisher for my copy - all opinons are my own.
I completely enjoyed this memoir from Mary Morris - BEAUTIFULLY written, it was like a poetic journey through this incredible period of her life, and this adventure she embarked on.
I loved her movement between past and present, and I was waiting with bated breath to see if her search for a tiger would be successful.
This was so easy to read and a perfect summer reading pick.
I completely enjoyed this memoir from Mary Morris - BEAUTIFULLY written, it was like a poetic journey through this incredible period of her life, and this adventure she embarked on.
I loved her movement between past and present, and I was waiting with bated breath to see if her search for a tiger would be successful.
This was so easy to read and a perfect summer reading pick.
July 23, 2021
The most entitled author seeks adventure and enlightenment, all while literally talking crap about everyone in her life. Doesn’t listen to her parents, various Dr’s and doesn’t give two shits about spreading her sickness all over India as long as she gets to see a tiger. A solid one star read.
October 4, 2020
I very much enjoyed listening to All the Way To the Tigers as I read the the Kindle edition of this wonderful memoir. Perhaps because of this, I didn’t mind the fact that events were not written chronologically. It was written, instead, in a modular fashion - the childhood and young adult years were intertwined with the year she shattered her ankle (2008) and the year she was able to escape into travel (2011). The memoir switched back and forth between the years of 2008 and 2011 as well.
I have not got a wanderlust personality, yet I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the adventures and life lessons of Mary Morris. This is a very capable and intelligent author I discovered. I especially loved learning about the valuable life lessons she accumulated and her adventures as she quested for her tiger sighting in India. I did not have much knowledge with regard to tigers or the places she visited in India. That all changed for me thanks to Mary Morris' skilled pen. I highly recommend this book to those who have that wanderlust and those, who like me, don’t. Anyone who enjoys learning from a first rate writer/teacher/traveler who is able to see things through a fresh lens as if for the first time will be in awe of this book.
I have not got a wanderlust personality, yet I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the adventures and life lessons of Mary Morris. This is a very capable and intelligent author I discovered. I especially loved learning about the valuable life lessons she accumulated and her adventures as she quested for her tiger sighting in India. I did not have much knowledge with regard to tigers or the places she visited in India. That all changed for me thanks to Mary Morris' skilled pen. I highly recommend this book to those who have that wanderlust and those, who like me, don’t. Anyone who enjoys learning from a first rate writer/teacher/traveler who is able to see things through a fresh lens as if for the first time will be in awe of this book.
February 27, 2020
A wonderful, insightful memoir that beautifully captures the author's life, the whys of her being, her inveterate traveling, what she is seeking on this trip, a journey to India, to see a tiger in the wild. What does it mean to be a woman traveling solo, a seeker and searcher? How does our family affect the person we become? This memoir is delicate, reflective, illuminating and deep, and often very very funny. I began reading it and could not stop until I reached the end! A definite wholehearted recommend!
November 1, 2020
Interesting and entertaining. This is the second book I’ve read by a woman who has traveled extensively alone, and both women weren’t acting out of wanderlust or curiosity but to run from childhoods, marriages or themselves. Half of this book is about Mary’s childhood, the surgery that kept her from the trip she wanted to take and her recovery. So if you just want a travelogue you’ll be disappointed. If you enjoy an honest exploration of who she is and why she does what she does this is the book for you.
June 28, 2020
In this extraordinary memoir, Mary Morris explores the wild - and her life - with passion, lyricism, wisdom, and wit. I could not stop reading till I got to the last page. Dazzling.
November 18, 2020
Nothing groundbreaking but beautifully written. Short. Definitely want to read her other travel memoirs.
August 9, 2021
All the Way to the Tigers is a beautifully written and richly insightful memoir. Mary Morris was a new to me author. However, I was struck immediately and impacted deeply by her story, her language, and her brilliant use of metaphor. I highly recommend this book to anyone faced with a challenge or fear they feel they cannot surmount. Morris will skillfully show you the way to continue forward and achieve your goals.
August 20, 2023
This book is great: thoughtful exploration about why we travel and create + fun facts about tigers + intriguing structure (short chapters with interesting juxtapositions) + multiple layers of good storytelling.
June 11, 2021
Tigers, meditations on writing, recovering from injury, Richmond, and connections between tangents. I am there for all of it! I need to delve into some Borges now.
July 2, 2020
Mary Morris’s newest memoir is lush, compelling, and meditatively humble. In short, lyrical chapters she writes about a skating accident that left her with a shattered ankle; her long recovery; and her quest to see a tiger in the wild. She takes you from her house in Brooklyn to the jungles of India, where she is accompanied by the best tiger-guide there is – and yet the tiger eludes her as she battles a nasty chest virus. I love the way the chapters skip around in time, some as short as a quote, others as long as it takes to bring the reader into her freezing accommodations in India and feel her misery as she tries to stay warm and stop coughing. This memoir follows her novel Gateway to the Moon, another gem, and my advice is to buy All the Way to the Tigers in hardcover rather than ebook, only so you can go back and flip through the passages and reread snippets of her magnificent writing. I can’t wait to read Something To Declare now, her classic memoir about traveling alone in Latin America.
March 30, 2024
I have been invited by a friend to go on an Indian safari’s 2x’s a day in various places in the country of India. I have been on safari’s in Africa in Kenya. It really was wonderful. We will see the Taj Mahal, but other than that It is 3 weeks of going on safari in different National Parks of India. Namely to see the elusive tiger. I am anticipating this trip. I happen to find this book that the author had actually travelled to India and went on Tiger Safari’s in 2011. The tiger population now is over 3,000 in various parks of India so I hope to take pictures of a tiger or more. It gave me more reverence of the elusive tiger. Here’s hoping I spot on Feb. 2024! Addendum: I did go and saw several tigers in different parks. They live in forests and it is only when they come out of the woods close to the dirt road or in a clearing can you see them. They are magnificent animals in the wild!
February 13, 2021
Much to recommend. I have not read this author since Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone but I enjoyed her tale of a tiger safari in India as much as that long-ago book. The hundred short chapters made for an accommodating reading experience as she wove together repercussions from a life-altering ice skating accident, her Chicago youth and meeting her husband, and this recent trip to India along with literary allusions, quotes and wonderful tidbits on tigers.
November 2, 2020
I loved her book 'Nothing to Declare' and was hoping to like this one just as much. But somehow, I didn't. Her memoir has interesting insights into her childhood, but I found a huge section of the book was so repetitive regarding her time spent in India, constantly writing about how cold and sick she was, and not seeing any tigers. I loved how she used the symbolism of the tiger. However, all the repetition ruined my expectations of a 5 star novel.
July 12, 2021
I really enjoyed this quick read. It was a window into Mary's life, which I always find interesting. The adventure of looking for tigers weaved through her personal memoir kept things interesting. However; I'm not going to lie, even with a degree in philosophy I wasn't really following the "I am the tiger and the tiger is me," thread. Was there a great lesson learned at the end? Not really, but entertaining none the less.
June 15, 2020
I enjoyed this memoir by Morris about her 2011 solo trip to India to see tigers on safari after recovering from shattering her ankle a few years prior. On her trip she is sick, and constantly trying to get warmer during a record cold snap in India. I felt cozy reading this all snug and warm inside. This was a quick read. I'd like to read more of Morris' memoirs.
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