Jonathan Raban
Paperback | Pages: 304 pages Rating: 3.94 | 413 Users | 36 Reviews
Mention Books In Pursuance Of Coasting: A Private Voyage
| Original Title: | Coasting: A Private Voyage |
| ISBN: | 0375725938 (ISBN13: 9780375725937) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Interpretation To Books Coasting: A Private Voyage
Put Jonathan Raban on a boat and the results will be fascinating, and never more so than when he’s sailing around the serpentine, 2,000-mile coast of his native England. In this acutely perceived and beautifully written book, the bestselling author of Bad Land turns that voyage–which coincided with the Falklands war of 1982-into an occasion for meditations on his country, his childhood, and the elusive notion of home.Whether he’s chatting with bored tax exiles on the Isle of Man, wrestling down a mainsail during a titanic gale, or crashing a Scottish house party where the kilted guests turn out to be Americans, Raban is alert to the slightest nuance of meaning. One can read Coasting for his precise naturalistic descriptions or his mordant comments on the new England, where the principal industry seems to be the marketing of Englishness. But one always reads it with pleasure.
Point Regarding Books Coasting: A Private Voyage
| Title | : | Coasting: A Private Voyage |
| Author | : | Jonathan Raban |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 304 pages |
| Published | : | February 4th 2003 by Vintage (first published February 15th 1987) |
| Categories | : | Travel. Nonfiction. Autobiography. Memoir. Environment. Nature |
Rating Regarding Books Coasting: A Private Voyage
Ratings: 3.94 From 413 Users | 36 ReviewsWeigh Up Regarding Books Coasting: A Private Voyage
I came away from this feeling like I hadn't read anything at all. That is to say, it felt like there was nothing to this book. Perhaps this was too personal, full of details and musings only the author could enjoy. His book Passage to Juneau is much better.This is a wonderful book, less about sailing, and more about life in England in the early 1980s. Raban hugged the British coast during his 3000-mile journey, frequently stopping in ports to interact with the locals and learn about their history. His perspectives on the state of England's fishing and coal industries were depressing when written in 1982, and would be even more disappointing if written today. Raban is particularly nettled by the faux history re-created by towns and villages
Good book by an author that is great at writing about the sea.
This was a lovely travel account of Rabans 1982 journey around the coast of England in a boat, coasting from unknown town to remembered city. Raban meets up with friends and strangers and writerly mentors and competitors. For me it was an escape from Trumpism into Thatcherism, because Raban was a keen observer of England at the tipping point from Industrial Revolution to tourism and a global economy. The coal mines were closing, fishing grounds were being taken over by other North Sea countries,
Raban is not your average escapist writing about the bliss of being footloose in a boat. Where you might expect this simply to be a salty tale, it turns out being a wonderful insight into the state of Britain in the early 1980's, as glimpsed from the cockpit of his boat and his venturing into port as he makes his way around an island in a state of turbid change. He is an outsider in many ways but this is a very useful filter for his musings on the nature of a population surrounded by water, at a
Reading this book at the moment and finding it very satisfying and up there with Passage to Juneau - by the same author and in a similar vein. I do worry about his relationships with women though. At the start he decribes being galvanised by earlier sailing books written by authors with "philistine certainties .... and chauvinistic attitudes towards women". Not referring to himself of course, but most of the characters he connects with in the book are men, and he talks about his relationship
You need to read this book, while on a sailing boat, at least I did. And I could relate and I loved it.Moreover, his observations about people, and himself, and places are not to be missed!
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