It will never cease to amaze me that more people don’t know about the tragedy of the Donner party. In California, you learn about the state’s history in the 4th grade, and the wagon trails that brought white settlers to California and Oregon are an important part of that history. Granted, the 4th grade is a little young to be learning about survival cannibalism, but that’s a conversation for another day.

I recently listened to a podcast about the Donner party and decided to read one of the books that podcast used as a source. Given my lifelong fascination with the gruesome tale, I thought it was time to learn more than just the sanitised version I was taught in that 4th grade history class. The Indifferent Stars Above is a really fantastic book that lays out all the circumstances and choices - both large and small - that led to the party being stranded in the mountains. We mostly follow Sarah Graves, a young bride from Illinois who ultimately survives the ordeal. Through her, Brown details life on the trail for the pioneers - what they ate, what they wore, what they packed, and how they socialised. Combining the mundane with the gruesome, Brown does a great job building a narrative that is both compelling and informative.

The only downside is that the audiobook narrator is a little lackluster, but that’s more forgivable for non-fiction than it is for fiction.